Issue link: http://ihouse.uberflip.com/i/703833
17 of my long dress. I have never forgotten the very soft, but very distinct, "ooohhh" which rose from the audience as everyone simultaneously took a very deep breath. I regained my balance, and the only result of the misstep was the fact that for weeks thereafter I kept combing candle wax out of my hair! It seems, though, that the evening made a lasting impression on the I-House audience, as friends even today recount their memories of me as Santa Lucia. Another memorable event was the annual Spring Festival of songs and dances from around the globe, organized by Miss Carneiro. Most of the students had brought something with them from their own country, so they were able to dance in costume. I remember that Victor Shick – he was originally from Russia, but he had spent most of the war in Shanghai because he was Jewish – had brought a Russian costume with him, and I will never forget him at one of the Spring Festivals in his beautiful Russian outfit, dancing the traditional kazachok with his long legs flung out in front of him! Another cultural event that I remember fondly was the annual Tea Dance that was put on by one of the many language tables. There were quite a few Scandinavians at Cal: two Danes, three Swedes, one Finn, one girl from Iceland and no less than thirty Norwegians – most of whom were male engineering and architecture students. We Scandinavians were a pretty close-knit group which regularly ate together at the language tables (even though most of those students were non-resident members). And so, the Scandinavians were asked one year to sponsor the entertainment for the Tea Dance. Well, Scandinavians have a hard time agreeing on things, and poor Miss Carneiro was tearing her hair out when she realized, one week before the event, that we had not yet been able to agree on a solid theme, let alone on how we were going to present the theme to the audience. Somehow, though, it all came together in the end, and I happily remember bringing down the house when we "sailed" a huge (cardboard) Viking ship onto the stage. In the bow stood Leif Erikson, dressed in glorious Viking apparel, proudly presenting a proclamation to the three Scandinavian kings – all adorned in colorful robes and large golden crowns – of his discovery of the New World! The "Danish Christmas Party," at which Jean Sullivan [Dobrezensky] brought a lot of us I-Housers together for more than thirty years, became for me a very meaningful tradition that grew out of the Golden Age years. Jean had spent a year as a graduate student in Denmark, and she liked to prepare and share Danish Christmas food and customs with us. Her invitation every year would remind us to come "to the same address, at the same time, for the same food and drinks, to be with the same people – but to engage in much different conversation." That annual party kept me connected in a very special way with friends from the I-House years.