First time I taught a class, it was shortly after mid-century, at the corner of James Street and Taunton Avenue, high up a steep stairway. And it was a French class. I had studied, at Harvard, under the famous mime Marcel Marceau, how to learn a language with no dreary vocabulary lists, just by creating contexts. The way children pick it up, through their eyes, ears, and with their hands, plus a few songs for rhythm and tone.

What had I gained during my one-year sojourn at the Sorbonne, along the banks of the Seine? How to eat snails, smoke a single Gauloise or Gitane cigarette (yes, you could purchase one only, at any student cafe).

My landlady at the room I rented gave me advice, that I recall and value, and use, to this day. It was, in French, "Tout coute trop cher,” which with a sigh and a frown translates into "Everything costs TOO MUCH."

That was my Paris. Toilet tissue was scarce, so my mom stuffed her occasional letter with that comfortable treat. My wardrobe consisted of the tossed away sweaters and scarves of cousins, packed into the single trunk in my small, but neat, chamber. If you bought stationary, there were no included envelopes. You could get cheaper ones with yellow cruder paper.

Paris had not yet recuperated from the wartime conditions of the Occupation. The sandblasting of the buildings to restore their pearl color had not yet begun and what I learned were lessons in thrift and in gestures of courtesy. You had to shake hands all day long. They counted the number of cuts of " baguettes" bread and you had to pay for each slice separately (Yes, truly).

Well, two of my mother's sisters, who were Canadian and spoke a bit of Quebec "patois" slang paid me brief visits across the Atlantic. One drove a Vespa motor scooter. The other treated me to something of a shocking show at the Moulin Rouge! Totally naked dancers performed, oh well.  How does all this connect with East Providence? Via the name Bergeron.  Bernice had worked as an upholsterer for my grandfather. She had a brother who taught me how to drive a stick shift safely. Bernice also had a daughter who posed for a portrait that was displayed at the Art Club. This daughter also studied French in my RISD class.

To come to the point, Paris, as Hemingway coined it, was a moveable feast indeed. I spent some semesters in search of what I could properly profess, and I switched and twitched a bit.

Since my first language was American English, I did not feel quite up to searching for a career as a French scholar. Except via my movie classes, or with the aid and support of translation.

But just as my independent course took place in East Providence, so, honest and true, most of the transitions of my life launched themselves on the East Providence side of the Seekonk River.

Now that my RISD career is a fact of my past, the new, latest, chapter on the career calendar is my class at the Providence Art Club, where that painting of Bernice's daughter had been featured, perhaps somewhat like my inspirational Mona Lisa.

East Providence has been my muse, and its avenues have been my destiny. P.S. a footnote: “Repas sans vin, jour sans soleil" which spells, "meal without wine, day without sunshine.” So the major big bargain was the gift of the vintner lobby.

— Fink was a professor of film studies at the Rhode Island School of Design for over 60 years. His commentaries, which often link to his life-long association with the East Bay area and East Providence in particular, appear regularly in The Post and at eastbayri.com.