When James Hardy went to college more than 50 years ago, the penalty for failing wasn’t losing TOPS or moving back in with his parents. If Hardy failed, he would be sent to Korea to fight in the war that drafted thousands of people every month.
Hardy, now a history professor at LSU, described his time at Cornell University from 1951 to 1955 as “grinding, hard, tough, scary years, where the penalties for failure were absolutely gigantic, and it had to be done. I had to get through school.”
Despite the grueling work, Hardy was captivated by one of his professors — Vladimir Nabokov, the famed novelist who wrote “Lolita.”
“He was magisterial, awe-inspiring, aristocratic, and his English was magnificent,” Hardy said. “I was totally taken in. It was just wonderful and