It was the year 1969. I had graduated from Vanderbilt in June, married Hinky in August. He started his first year at the University of Mississippi School of Law that September . My brother Mike and his friend John Evans, undergraduates, lived in a dark apartment that sunk toward the middle of the room and pans caked with the beans cooked a month ago sat on blackened burners.
After 4 years of constant intellectual stimulation and fireside chats at professor’s homes in Nashville, I felt adrift and alone, up in or down in (depending on one’s geographical perspective) Oxford, working as an assistant to the assistant to the Dean of the Graduate School at Ole Miss, “putting hubby through.” Just a few weeks into this existential isolation, I met Hinky’s professors one by one, either in the Grove or going by the law school after work to get Hinky from the law library with the one car we shared until he decided the one car was a tool to get to school and left me with my bicycle to get to and fro.
The first prof I met was Robert Khayat, outside the law school (sitting in my car while I still had one to use). He came over and introduced himself and I told him I was waiting for a student. He asked, “Which one?” I said Hinky, a name you don’t easily forget. He said, “Good choice. (in husbands?) He’s got a lot of promise. Very good student. And how are you?” I was charmed that this handsome, older (by 9 years) man who emitted downhome hospitality, gentility, charisma and smarts would take the time to chat with me. Ole Miss started to feel like a friendlier place that day.
I knew nothing about Mr. Khayat’s years at Yale, as an Ole Miss Hall of Fame student or his NFL football seasons as a kicker with the Washington Redskins. I started to hear from Hinky’s fellow students that this was the guy whose classes were on the prime list of most desirable courses. I learned that his students regarded him as a man of integrity and a mentor. To me, he was a most welcome ambassador to those of us who were making Oxford and Ole Miss our home for the next few years.
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-Pat
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