“That was me. I was an anthropology major at Vassar and I wanted to study India then I heard about the Williams-in-India program from somebody. So spring semester of my sophomore year I would hitchhike or borrow a car to go to Williamstown to go to these preparation seminars. And that’s when I met Bob. I knew Parker Croft and Andy Hurst and some of the people in the first Williams-in-India program. So junior year I went to India with [Art Prof.] Milo Beach, went in August and we came back the end of December. Then in the summer Parker Croft and I were going to go to India again in the fall but we needed to make some money. So we pitched a tent in the woods and he was good friends with Bob Gaudino and Bob hired me to paint his house, inside and outside, though I’d never painted before, but he was just sure that I could. And I would host dinner parties for him, cooking dinner for 75, though I’d never done that before, but he was sure that I could. And we watched the Watergate hearings all summer. I think I probably spent about three months with him in his house. Because Parker and I lived in a tent, the only house we had was his, to take a shower or anything. Parker was very devoted to him and they would have great laughing discussions about H.R. Haldeman, you know, watching those hearings.

Bob was really funny and I was really surprised by his age because he looked about 20 years older. He didn’t like people to deal with him as though he was sick. And so when we would go out we had this agreement: If he fell down when we were shopping– because he loved to go shopping–I was supposed to stand over him and scold him because he was going to get his clothes dirty and he’d better get off the ground or he was going to get it. And so that would happen at the supermarket and people would be scandalized and Bob would be rolling on the floor, laughing. He also was friends with [a professor’s] wife who was diagnosed schizophrenic. She was kind of like a Carol Channing personality and she would come over, “Oh Bob, it’s so good we can be friends ‘cause we’re both crippled!” and they would have a big laugh. We used to call him, “Guru-Ji,” and then just “Ji” for short. He liked that.

He paid me like an hourly fee. It wasn’t a ton of money but it was great for me. I prepped the whole outside of the house. It was a ranch house, so it wasn’t so tall, thank god. Got all the ladders, got all the paint. “Oh, she’ll figure it out.” And I did. I actually did a very neat job. Probably took me longer than a regular painter but I wasn’t all that expensive. It was 1973. Most of the summer jobs I’d had had been waitressing jobs. Maybe it was 10 bucks an hour. I felt very, very happy to be making it. And he did pay me by the hour so I was kind of slow.

–Katie Guthorn '73