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DisasterMan
club, we served California wine, which all of the Americans
attending the graduation had brought over in their suitcases
as California wines were unheard of in Europe at that time.
The 1980s
My family were members of the Friends Meeting of
Washington. The meeting sponsored an International Student
House, still in operation at 1825 R Street, N.W., which went
back to the time people of color had a hard time fi nding a place
to live in Washington. I served on the board of directors for
several years. One Christmas day Ellen received a call saying
twelve students had just arrived from the Middle East. The
House kitchen was closed because of the holiday and they had
managed to place all their residents, but these students were
not expected until later in the week. No provision had been
made for them; could we perhaps take two? Ellen asked how
many they had left: "eight." She said, "We'll take them." There
followed an argument that we should only take two when
Ellen said, "do you want to spend your Christmas Day trying
to persuade reluctant people to take the other six, or do you
want to get on with your celebrations?" They gave up the fi ght
in the face of Ellen's irrefutable logic. "Fine," Ellen said. "We
eat at 2:30. Russell will be right there to get them." Pregnant
pause on the other end. "Well, it is Ramadan and they can't
eat until sundown." Ellen is nothing if not resourceful. Having
said we would take them, we would. I called the National
Weather Bureau to fi nd out the offi cial time of sundown. Then
I called the time signal so we could synchronize our watches.
Then I went to collect the students and told them not to worry,
they wouldn't be given anything to eat until sundown. Ellen
had appetizers ready to put on the coffee table so they (and us)
could eat as soon as the offi cial time came. We then had a real
Christmas dinner, a bit later, but were happy knowing we had
made visitors to our country feel welcome.
After Andrew went off to college, Ellen asked me if it was "her
turn." We had spent our free time in Europe accommodating the
wants and needs of the boys. She wanted to know if we could do
something she had long wanted to do: Scottish country dancing.