About Paul E. LeSage

The French Townie

                                                     By Paul LeSage

Although I’ve lived in Pittsfield for many years, I grew up in North Adams, so that makes me an official townie, something that I’m very proud of. The youngest child of first generation U.S. born French Canadian parents, I attended Notre Dame Catholic School and church on East Main Street. (The former rectory there now houses the college’s Foundation/Alumni offices.) I lived in an ethnic neighborhood and didn’t really know it. At six years old, I thought everyone in the world was French. My father was a Depression-era truck driver who, per my older brother, always took good care of his family. He was also a first tenor in the church choir and sang at both my brother’s and my sister’s weddings. He also got us involved with minstrels and other shows. My mother played the piano and also sang. One time my father had me stand up in front of about 100 somewhat rowdy holiday revelers at the former French Club on Main Street and sing White Christmas for everyone. I can’t remember how I did, but I now sing the song each Christmas season while visiting NA’s Southview Cemetery.

In the 50s and 60s we were all mill rats, minus my smarter sister who was a telephone operator. I worked summers at Sprague Electric, which is now MassMoCA, while attending Norwich University, a private military college, where I graduated with a degree in English in 1969 and an Army Infantry reserve commission. Overall, my childhood was great, filled with family, music and sports, and it helped me develop the attitude that I try to bring towards everything I do today.

In the 1970s, I punched another clock for almost five years, this time. At General Electric in Pittsfield where I helped produce enormous transformers for a large dam project in what was then Zaire, Africa. Shortly after the project, all 10,000 of us were laid off, and GE left the area. In 1981, after my one-year grant doing PR for the Becket Arts Center had run out, and with bills to pay, I applied for three jobs for which I was not fully qualified: Pittsfield dog office, principal of Taconic High School (where, eventually, all four of my kids would attend), and a teaching position at North Adams State College where I would serve as the newspaper’s adviser. I really lucked out. I was offered a one year terminal appointment at the college at $13,500 take it or leave it; and 38 years later, after getting a Ph.D. in Communications in 1990 from UMass at Amherst, I’m still here. My life philosophy has been pretty much the same thing right along: respect and listen to people because everyone knows something you don’t. Overall, I try to so some good and little harm with whatever I approach. My teaching philosophy is to be well prepared and make it interesting.

With regard to hobbies, I write poetry and songs and muddle my way through any number of similar three-chord progressions on my acoustic guitar. I also follow the Celtics, Patriots, Ruins, and Red Sox. Although I’ve been to Montreal, Bermuda, and St Marten, I’ve traveled mostly in the U.S.  Bouncing along in my ’58 Ford half ton pickup that I bought for $500 in Cedar City, Utah where I taught for a year at Southern Utah State, I had a chance to visit Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, Craters of the Moon National Monument, and Death Valley. I’ve also camped at the Northern rim of the Grand Canyon and once stood on a glacier in the Grand Tetons on the 4th of July. These were all wonderful experiences minus driving in a snow cloud and subsequent whiteout in the Rocky Mountains.

 My B.A and M.A. are in literature, so I really like my summer Literature classes in John Steinbeck and Literature and Society. Though I wrote my Master thesis at Idaho State University on James Joyce, Steinbeck is my favorite, overall because he said he told it like it was, and he did. A favorite movie of mine, one that I show in Lit and Society after we’ve read the book, is One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Business Writing and Presentation is a very rewarding course. It’s the most visual kind of writing. What the document, letter, memo, report, etc. looks like is equally as important as what it says. It’s nice to see students improve their writing skills, design, and other strategies over the session or semester. Although retirement is still a number of years off, I’m working towards the end of my career in the same city where I started my education. I’m coming full circle.