History 344

During the fall semester in 1999 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the courses I took is History 344, entitled The Era of the American Revolution. It was taught by Professor Jean B. Lee, a spectacled and knowledgeable lady wearing her silver hair(I almost unconsciously typed out "silverware") in a bob in her 50s, possibly 60s. Standing at the centre on the podium of a quiet, stuffy lecture hall, numbered 1121 within a gigantic, oddly-looking piece of concrete named Humanities Building, from 9:30 to 10:45 every Tuesday and Thursday morning, she spoke softly and tenderly to a sleepy crowd of undergraduates. For more than a few moments, she was one of those old grannies retelling her great great great grandsons and granddaughters about those epoch-making moments she had been through--"the moments when the spirits of the American people soared."