from Marcie Hershman

1. Alan sitting at his desk in East Hall, office door open, window fully bright behind him. I walk past, slowing: "Hey, Alan!" He looks up, as if he always has a minute to spare, though clearly busy.

2. This would have been sometime in the mid-1980s, Alan comes to a meeting of part-time lecturers, some of us teaching English 5 and 6, the fiction and poetry workshops. Everyone knows that Alan was the professor on the full-time faculty instrumental in getting all of us "non-academics"--novelists, poets, fiction writers--on board at Tufts. He tells us that Harvard has begun paying its lecturers in the English Department a lordly $12K (or was it $14K?) a year. Impressed, I state that if Tufts were to increase its four-course pay to $12,000 a year, "I'd teach here for life." Alan shakes his head. "Don't say that. That's a deal you don't want to make."

3. Not long after that meeting, I accept a new post, a special "Preceptor" position at another college paying more than does Tufts, maybe even more than the Harvard lecturers get. Only one thing, the students in my classes are so obedient, bland, and by the book (and I'm not talking literary, here) that before Thanksgiving vacation, I phone Alan, asking if there at all might be any way that I could.... He cuts me right off. "Marcie, if you don't like it there," he says, "you just come home."

How could I ever forget that phrase, "you just come home." That Alan made it happen, that he found a way to get me back to Tufts, where I have in fact found a kind of home, has meant a great deal to me, year after year.

Even this past semester, when I know he's beeen on leave, I still slow down as I approach Alan's office in East Hall. Often, the door is open, but as I pass, the greeting is quieter now, and I don't say it aloud.

Alan, hi! Enjoy all that's in front of you. And my deep thanks for all you've done to make me--and many other writers and teachers--be "at home."

(Oh, one more thing: yes, we both came to Boston from Cleveland!)

Enjoy--!

with warmest wishes--

Marcie

from Joe Litvak

Among the many pleasures of knowing Alan has been that of sharing in his love of good food, and particularly in his love of Parisian good food. It was Alan who pointed me in the direction of the wonderful old Left Bank bistro, Allard; his exquisite descriptions of meals there made me my own, once I finally managed to get over there, all the more delicious. It was also Alan who opened my eyes (and nose and taste buds) to the joys of A. J. Liebling, one of the great bon vivant (and therefore Parisophile) food writers of all time.

Alan is retiring, of course, and I’ll miss our vaguely conspiratorial remembrances, in the corridors of East Hall, of meals past. But I know that his bec fin will remain as entertainingly sharp as always, and I look forward to many more meals, and many more reminiscences of meals, with a friend whom I consider my comrade in gourmandise.

Alan, bon appetit!
Joe