My First Dose of Marxism was not in the Bucket

I had  not heard of Marxism while in high school.
 In Pawtucket we didn't talk about Marxism--we lived it. I guess I was living the class-struggle in our tenement with my mother who was acting as shop steward  for her Union

BUT I did not know  what Marxism was. 

 Believe it or not  college did not immediately change                 that  great lack.  Yes, we had a course in philosophy where they presented a critique  of Marx and a critique of Freud and of Bertrand Russell,etc.  But we never read  a word that either Marx or Freud or Russell  wrote; only what Thomas Acquinas wrote in the SUMMA. 

That is one definition of a non-education. More like indoctrination.
I guess the nuns of Emmanuel were protecting us from the evils of Marxism and  Psychology.

Some of that incredible ignorance came to a sudden halt in my Freshman  year.

Why am I suddenly thinking of my college years?  Maybe the  fact that I had to drive up to Boston a few days ago to see a new doctor   at Brigham on Francis St.  That area is very well known to me.  I  wandered all over it on foot when I was a student at Emmanuel College which is on  the Fenway.  The best thing about that school was its location. It could not be  beat.

Also being an all-girl college at that time had some hidden perks.

We were invited to Mixers to meet and mix with the male students at MIT.  A bus was sent to our dorms to pick us up and as we got on the  bus each of us was offered a small corsage of fresh roses.  I remember my delight and surprise.

When we got to the MIT campus we had other surprises waiting us.
 The dance hall was filled with young men and a  woman  was talking to them about dancing.  She  welcomed us as we paraded in and removed our coats and sat in chairs along the wall.  I wondered if most of us would be sitting there all night.

She explained that  this was actually a dance class, and she, the wife of a faculty member, would teach us in the next few weeks several dances from the fox trot to the tango to the waltz and the meringue and  rumba. She had a lovely French accent  and was very charming and seemed to realize that we all needed help .

  I was so thrilled by her announcement --all the onus for us girls of  waiting to be asked to dance or for the boys of asking us to dance was suddenly and magically removed.  We were all lined up in two lines and the  person across from us was the boy that we would dance with  during the first part of  class. We would switch partners as directed, and we were instructed to talk to our partners. 
This lady  knew the crowd she was dealing with--we needed lessons in socializing.

WHAT A RELIEF! 

Perhaps you are wondering what all this has to do with Marxism--well that will take at least one more blog entry. STAY TUNED.