Back in the Sixties, I met a young French exchange student who was attending the University of Washington. She wanted to take guitar lessons from me, but she was short of money. My three years of high school French was all but moribund, so we swapped lessons. I'd give her a guitar lesson, then she'd have me read a simple book in French, correct my pronunciation, and work me on grammar and vocabulary. As I recall, she started me on Le Petit Prince and we went on from there.

In addition to her being a very pretty girl (I would say, "beautiful"), her accent in both French and English was pure music. She did well on the guitar, but, alas, at the end of the year, she returned to France….

And her name was—what else? Michelle.

(*Sigh*).

Don Firth