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Interview #759: Theoryland: An Hour with Harriet McDougal Rigney, Entry #8
Matt Hatch
How about your days at school? Were you involved in clubs, organizations…?
Harriet McDougal
Yes. In high school I was just determined. My parents were talking about sending me off to boarding school, and I thought, well, if you sent me to Putney , I would love that; Putney was the hippie school of the time—and you could go on an experiment of international living, and they had a greased pig race—but they were talking about sending me to St. Timothy’s in Virginia, where I knew they would make me wear white gloves, and I wasn’t going to go, and I thought, “Well,”—communication was not really a big thing—”I will be so successful at Ashley Hall that they won’t send me away,” so I did; I joined everything, and was president of everything I could get my hands on, all because I’d figured out home was better. And so I did; I was really a nasty little overachiever in high school, president of the student body—it was a girls’ school—French Club, Latin Club. I didn’t take part in synchronized swimming, which a friend of mine did; sports were not my thing. I wore the glasses, mostly—besides, you can’t play basketball and read at the same time. (laughter) Anything that involved reading was my cup of tea. I think there was a drama club…I don’t know.
Matt Hatch
You were everywhere.
Harriet McDougal
Yeah. Anything. See, “Well you can’t; I really can’t go away; I’m so busy!” It worked!
Matt Hatch
Was it your mother or father that really wanted you to go away? Was it both of them?
Harriet McDougal
Yeah, kind of. I think they thought they were doing a nice thing. And in those days, girls’ boarding schools still existed, and I think they must have grown up because they were thought to be better than anything that could be gotten locally, wherever you were locally.
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