After earning an MA in TESL, and then teaching and administering in Afghanistan and St. Louis, I enrolled in graduate school in Linguistics at UW-Madison in 1969. Three of the most enjoyable years of my life were 1969-72, when I was housed on the 11th floor of Van Hise. I had no idea that school could be so much fun.
My wife and I made some lifelong friends; I thank my lucky stars that I decided on UW instead of some other program.
After a short tour in Libya in 1972-3, I landed a job at the Dictionary of American Regional English, in Helen C. White Hall. That was yet another period of extreme happiness in our lives, and we wept on the day in 1975 when we turned over the keys to our beautiful stone house to its new owner, starting our journey to Kansas, where last I landed a tenure-track job.
We returned to Madison as often as possible while our friends still lived there, and it is still our spiritual home, although we’re both from the East Coast.