At my advanced age, Shakespeare would have me a “Lean and Slippered Pantaloon”, his stage 6 of 7. Stage 6 is better than the final one: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
But, I digress.
A week ago, my wife and I hosted a small “development” gathering of alums living in Oregon, 3000 miles away from the “Valley”, my undergraduate school – Lebanon Valley College – located in Annville, Pennsylvania.
How I got there in 1960 from Braintree, Massachusetts is best insinuated by the song, “I’m Going Someplace I Hope I Find”.
Like Shakespeare’s stage 2, “The (recalcitrant) Schoolboy”, I was young and undisciplined – raw – so my landing at the Valley was probably one of life’s better serendipitous moments.
I recall few of my student peers, but I can name and visualize several of my professors.
Back then (and now, some would say), I was reluctant to ask for help, mistakenly thinking that I could figure it out by myself.
Those teachers not only put up with me but saw something in me and helped guide me towards making the most of any emergent talents.
I majored in English with a minor in Spanish literature – (Fortunately for me, Deconstructionism – which has left many English departments decimated, dispirited and purposeless – had yet to rear its Marxist head. I did encounter in a history survey class something called New Criticism, but like my dunderheadedness about John Ruskin’s theories on beauty, I absorbed little.)
l obviously draw on what I did learn, the classic books I read – and re-read – and the theories I struggled to comprehend.
More important was my professors kind and generous willingness to talk with me and to listen.
Never an A student, I still got the idea they thought I might have something to go with, something to say, something to offer.
They guided me toward what would become an advanced degree at the University of Michigan and from there to a career in research libraries.
And, unlike many of my research library peers, I was interested in writing, in writing up my research and going public with my opinions and ideas.
My first professional publication in the 70s was brief, if controversial; I struggled to say what I did say, but I did say it. Since then, I have written and edited numerous works.
So, in life’s grand cycle, the alumni gathering last week was a tiny reciprocation for those professors and their generous support and kindness. It was my metaphorically and warmly shaking their extended helping hands.