Mary Just Skinner
Long ago and far away, I was a lonely Junior at Columbia. I was in an incredibly great fraternity called Alpha Delta Phi in a magnificent townhouse at 526 West 114th Street. I had the best fraternity brothers on earth, starting with Larry Lissitzyn, the President of AD. A kind and brilliant classmate named Stuart Reynolds had gotten me in — possibly because they thought they needed me to elevate the average grades in AD.
We were happy. I vividly recall Mary and me asking God how we deserved to be the happiest people on Earth.
And I had girls I could take to our fabulous parties but no girlfriend who truly loved me.
Then, a MIRACLE — the girlfriend of Larry Lissitzyn, a great student at Barnard named Susan Sgarlat, introduced me to a beautiful, tall willowy school mate of hers named Mary Margaret Just — daughter of a world-famous botanist named Theodor Just — head of the botany department at the University of Chicago.
She was tall, with watery blue eyes, flaxen hair, worn down her neck and her back in the style of the day.
I fell in love with her immediately. Summer was about to start. I had a summer job in DC at State. She had an internship at the Pentagon. We were dating and sensing how much we had in common. This would have been in 1964.
I really cannot adequately describe how perfectly we fit together. She was half-Irish, half-Austrian. Her father had died when she was not yet in college. She had a magnificent sense of humor. She especially liked to make fun of my roommate in Apartment 8D, 380 Riverside Drive. He was a brilliant Brooklyn boy named Arthur Best.
Arthur could open his mouth very wide. Once, when Arthur, Mary, and I were in Dulles Airport, Mary turned to Arthur and said, “Okay, Arthur, Joke time. Put your fist in your mouth.”
That was in 1964 and I still cannot catch my breath laughing about it.
Mary and I would meet after morning classes at the Sundial at 116th Street. Then we would walk to Chock Full of Nuts and have a super rare cheeseburger. Then we would stroll down Broadway to 110th Street. There was my apartment called 380 Riverside Drive. For a large two-bedroom, one bath with a Hudson River View we paid $150 a month.
We knew it was a bargain then and now.
Mary and I spent the afternoon cuddling while our super clever roommate, David Paglin, also from Silver Spring, sang along to songs by the Four Seasons.
We were happy. I vividly recall Mary and me asking God how we deserved to be the happiest people on Earth. Mary said it was because she had suffered so terribly when her father died in 1960 when she was in Junior High. We went downtown to shop at Brooks Brothers and J. Press and Paul Stuart for clothes for me.
I wanted to look “tweedy.” We would go to Bergdorf Goodman or Lord & Taylor to shop for clothes for Mary. Mary wanted to look great and she did. I still have a few color photos of Mary and she looks like a queen.
My favorite is of Mary with ashes on her forehead when she was coming out of a Catholic Church on Amsterdam Avenue just east of Columbia on Ash Wednesday 1966.
I just melt when I see those photos. I have far too few of them now and then.
Mary and I would go to every single AD party. I would dance up a storm and so would Mary. And then we would go downtown to the Saint Regis Hotel’s King Cole Bar or to other night spots. Mary was always the prettiest girl there and the most well-dressed. My memories of the Stork Club were especially vivid.
I can’t write much more right now because I just learned that Mary died in her sleep about ten days ago.
Mary has not been my gf for a good sixty years. These things happen. I don’t even clearly recall how or why we broke up. I tried to contact her by mail a good 60 times and she never replied, so she obviously believed, probably rightly, that it was my fault.
What I do recall is that I never felt lonely again in school. Mary cared for me so thoroughly that I had a billionaire’s bank account of love to last me till now, and gave us a launch pad of love that lifted me into outer space of affection for all time.
I will write more soon.
Just one more thing. In November of 1964, she and Susan Sgarlat gave me a surprise Birthday party. It was a helluva great night.
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