Flowers Bloom (5)—Meeting Bloom

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Flowers Bloom."

[a] Storied hall  RF

During the summer, I will be posting segments of a memoir project I have begun that discusses teaching, learning, scholarship, reading...and the venerable, odd University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom, whose bestseller The Closing of the American Mind rocked American education almost twenty-five years ago. I have already written a little bit about Bloom on this blog, and had promised to start posting more pieces starting in June. Read the introduction to the series if you want the full context, but the individual posts are meant to be read on their own (with hints throughout of the larger context).

This is one post in a six-part series. Click below for the other posts:

Floral 1         Floral 2          Floral 3          Floral 4          Floral 5          Floral 6

Flowers Bloom—A Teaching Memoir

Meeting Bloom

I read The Closing of the American Mind three times in just over a week. I could not stop myself. I did not like very much of it. Allan Bloom puts the words “history,” “anthropology,” or “culture” together no fewer than a dozen times in just the preface to Closing. Encomia they are not, and that can be said even without adding the term “relativism” to the argumentative mix. He also has faint praise for those who have chosen to devote their lives to the study of other peoples, and courses meant to introduce students to them.
 

            One of the techniques of opening young people up is to require a college 

            course in a non-Western culture. Although many of the persons teaching 

            such courses are real scholars and lovers of the areas they study, in every 

            case I have seen this requirement—when there are so many other things 

            that can and should be learned that are not required, when philosophy and 

            religion are no longer required—has a demagogic intention. The point is to 

            force students to recognize that there are other ways of thinking and that 

            Western ways are not better.[1]

It had been one of the first passages that gave me pause when I first read the book that spring. Barely had the joy sunk in that I had been asked to join a venerable group of scholars in Chicago when I read—from pages written by a faculty member at “the Committee”—that I was to be, in his eyes, little more than a cog in the grand indoctrination into moral and cultural relativism.

[b] Noodles  RF

I wanted to argue with him right there, while sitting at a corner table at my favorite noodle shop on Tianmu North Road in Taipei. To me, it was perfectly easy to see why I could have it both ways—embrace the core texts of my own tradition and study deeply the ways and writings of other societies. Of course, that was not exactly what Bloom was saying, but the “problem” of studying the world beyond the West was not one that had eluded me in my preparations. 

I had consulted several venerable graduates of the Committee on Social Thought, all of whom had focused their studies on the world beyond the West. They returned my letters (this was an age before e-mail) with long, thoughtful replies. All had spoken of the rich experience of the Fundamentals Examination—the dozen or more books with which I would live for the next three years—as well as the body of free-flowing discussion that the Committee on Social Thought provided them during their educations studying Islamic historiography, Russian literature, Indonesian anthropology, and Japanese novels. 

These formidable scholars spoke of the Committee on Social Thought in ways that inspired me—that made me know that Bloom was stating the case too narrowly. I still treasure my letter from Muhsin Mahdi (Ph.D., 1954), then the Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard, who included in his letter a paragraph that has inspired me as much as any I have ever read.  It remains my ideal of teaching and scholarship.
 
            ….The Committee made it possible for me to pursue my philosophic 
            and historical interests with as much freedom as graduate students 
            can expect to have, while the University at large provided all the training 
            in the various disciplines necessary to deal with [the Islamic historian Ibn 
            Khaldun], a thinker who could not be easily pigeonholed according to 
            current departmental divisions.  Preparation for the fundamentals 
            examination helped keep attention focused on significant questions and 
            initiated a dialogue which continues to be alive.  And having non-specialist 
            readers meant that one wrote to a wider audience than one is apt to write 
            for within [disciplinary] circles.  Above all, however, it allowed me to be 
            free of the constraints and ideology of [my field] at a particular stage of its
            development, and to remain child-like and inquisitive about things scholars 
            in the field thought either settled or no longer interesting.  Frankly, I have 
            not felt as part of the profession, regardless of how often I have been honored 
            by it; yet I feel the best service I can render it is to keep my distance and act 
            as a friendly critic.  You can see how corrupting an influence the Committee 
            on Social Thought can be![2] 

Reading this—and I still get chills of excitement when I reach the passage about being an outsider—I was sure that the Committee was the place for me, and that I would have rich, wonderful discussions with its faculty members. I especially thought that I would connect with Allan Bloom, who surely understood the concept of childlike curiosity—it was evident from the parts of his book that I admired, as well as the translations of classics that he had undertaken. I was sure he would agree with his classmate (Mahdi and Bloom graduated from the Committee in 1954 and 1955, respectively), and that I was misinterpreting Bloom’s somewhat angry message on the pages of Closing.

I packed my bags, and preserved the carefully underlined books that had made me into a student with at least a little bit of potential to succeed at the still-mysterious Committee on Social Thought. I left Taiwan on July 15, 1987. As my United Airlines carrier reached international airspace, I later learned, the Republic of China authorities lifted martial law. It was legal to dance and gamble again on the little sub-tropical island off the China coast. No matter. I was off to a different kind of island called “The Committee.” 

***  *** 

[c] Chicago autumn  RF

So there I was, on a warm Friday afternoon in early October of 1987, at the first of what would be many Committee on Social Thought “sherry hours,” being introduced to Allan Bloom. “Now which one are you?”, he asked, his whole long face—from the rear of his bald head to his very nose, regarding me in a way that told me my answer mattered. It seemed to matter more than it should. He must have better things to do, colleagues at whom to stare, than to stand, gazing at me and seemingly caring about my answer. Every year since the 1940s, the Committee on Social Thought admitted a handful of students. I was told that admission depended upon a combination of factors, beginning with the commitment to see all admitted students through to the Ph.D. From there, the final decisions on admission depended upon the quality of the application and, this was as serious at the Committee as any other graduate program I have since seen (and probably more so), the interest of faculty members in working with you. 

Bloom, I already knew, took students seriously. It was in the book.
     

            This essay—a meditation on the state of our souls, particularly those of 

            the young, and their education—is written from the perspective of a teacher. 

            Such a perspective, although it has grave limitations and is accompanied 

            by dangerous temptations, is a privileged one. The teacher, particularly 

            the teacher dedicated to liberal education, must constantly try to look toward 

            the goal of human completeness and back at the natures of his students here 

            and now, ever seeking to understand the former and to assess the capacities 

            of the latter to approach it. Attention to the young, knowing what their hungers 

            are and what they can digest, is the essence of the craft. One must spy out 

            and elicit those hungers. For there is no real education that does not respond 

            to felt need; anything else is trifling display.[3]

Trifling was the last thing that came to mind when I first spoke with Bloom. Display, however, was another matter. He was every bit the showman, and he reveled in his booming question and the line that followed. “We take these things very seriously here, you see.” 

I paused. This was the moment I had longed for. “I am the one who spent the last two years in Taiwan studying classical Chinese. I am interested in Chinese historiography and political theory.”  I had especially thought that the last phrase would have an impact. I imagined an immediate segue into a discussion of the parallels between Plato’s Statesman and Confucius’s Analects. Or Rousseau’s and Mencius’s views on the original nature of human beings and the consequences of social degeneration. This was the very moment, I thought, when it all begins—when my years of longing and study come together; when East meets West and I take my place at the Committee on Social Thought. I had arrived.

“Oh…you.”  Before I could respond, Bloom was swept away by another faculty member needing to talk about another matter. It was over in an instant, but the scene cast a peculiar—and useful—shadow over the first years of my education at the Committee on Social Thought. For Bloom, I was not exactly the enemy (I could figure this much even in the otherwise deflating context), but I surely was peripheral.

If I had begun with any particular desire to “please” the now famous author—or to join the small group of Committee students who seemed to play the roles of acolytes—it was extinguished in those moments. This was the best thing that ever could have happened to me. I was free to begin the long process of figuring out exactly how and where I did “fit” into the Western classics and the liberal arts. Clearly, I would not be starting from the center. I finished my sherry and returned home to begin crafting the list that would determine my path at the Committee.

---

[1] Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 35-36.

[2] Muhsin Mahdi/Robert LaFleur. Personal correspondence 1987.

[3] Bloom, Closing, 19.

Bibliography
Allan Bloom. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
LaFleur, Robert. Personal Correspondence.

This is one post in a six-part series. Click below for the other posts:

Floral 1         Floral 2          Floral 3          Floral 4          Floral 5          Floral 6

NEXT
Settling In
A year later (1988), join me at my second year-opening Committee on Social Thought sherry hour. A great deal has changed, and several other University of Chicago icons join the picture in a stunning story of one-upmanship worthy of a Northwest Coast potlatch.

Hurtin', Leavin' and Longin' (10)—Kentucky Rain

Click here to read the introduction to the Round and Square series "Hurtin', Leavin', and Longin'..."

[1] With the rain in my shoes...  RF

Quest is in the air. The song (by two storied writers) combines Odysseus, Sir Galahad, and Frodo Baggins into a 1950s trek through a cold November day in Kentucky (as I imagine it). On the surface (the way the song plays out), he wants her back. He doesn't understand what went wrong, and he wants to bring her back home. It is an inversion of the Penelope story. I would not be honest if I failed to say that it is difficult to read the lines today without a vague and sacri-Elvis feeling of stalking. 

One hopes not.

Kentucky Rain is a beautiful song, and I am assuming the very best of motives (this is fiction after all) on the part of writers, singer, and seeker. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, we will begin to explore more "quest" images in literature and music. It has been with us as long as there have been cave paintings and campfire stories. Quest tales probably predate fire itself.

Let's take a listen.

Kentucky Rain  3:20

For advice on how best to "engage" the lyrics, click here.

[b] Myth  RF

The lyrics are excellent, if a little "myth-like" in a way that borders on cliché (but is not—this is my professional opinion). Instead, I think that the writers, Eddie Rabbit and Dick Heard, are tapping into shared cultural images ("seven lonely days and a dozen towns ago;" "old gray bearded men;" "preacher man") in precisely the way that myth works. We have village elders and a high priest; the weather is stormy, and the hero endures hardships.

We'll explore this theme in future posts, too. You see, Claude Lévi-Strauss would know exactly what do do with this song. It is a myth, and a powerful one at that.

If, by chance you associate the word "myth" with "not true," we still have a lot of work to do on Round and Square. Keep reading. Short answer—myth is one of the most powerful forces of social knowledge in the history of mankind. The everyday definition is seriously lacking. For more on how myth "works," take a look at Theory Corner. In the meantime, this is one of the best songs ever performed, and Elvis's rendition brings to mind a kind of campfire myth-telling mixed with shamanistic determination.

       Kentucky Rain

Elvis Presley

          —Eddie Rabbit and Dick Heard

           Seven lonely days and a dozen towns ago 

           I reached out one night and you were gone 

           Don't know why you'd run, what you're running to or from
           All I know is I want to bring you home

           So I'm walking in the rain, thumbin' for a ride
           On this lonely Kentucky backroad
           I've loved you much too long; my love's too strong
           To let you go, never knowing what went wrong.    
  
           Chorus
           Kentucky rain keeps pouring down,
           And up ahead's another town that I'll go walking through
           With the rain in my shoes, searching for you
           In the cold Kentucky rain, in the cold Kentucky rain.

           Showed your photograph to some old gray bearded men
           Sitting on a bench outside a general store
           They said "Yes, she's been here"
           But their memory wasn't clear.
           Was it yesterday? No, wait the day before.

           Finally got a ride, with a preacher man who asked,
           "Where you bound on such a cold, dark afternoon?"
           As we drove on through the rain, as he listened, I explained
           And he left me with a prayer that I'd find you.

           Repeat Chorus
           Kentucky rain keeps pouring down,
           And up ahead's another town that I'll go walking through
           With the rain in my shoes, searching for you
           In the cold Kentucky rain, in the cold Kentucky rain.

[c] Contemplation  RF

It is not difficult to find quest images in other parts of the world—not at all. The "problem" is choosing just one that will contrast enough with Kentucky Rain to make comparative literary study such as this worthy of the name. As I say every week, we seek not to "echo" the country songs with similar East Asian lyrics (this is possible, but not something that will help us see the deep nuances coursing through both sets of lyrics).

This week, we are going to signal a striking contrast with the song...or not (you decide if they're similar or different). It is a Ming dynasty poem about one person's heartthrob who is going into the realm of the Buddha. Enjoy the contrast, and think about what "myth" and "quest" might mean in starkly different contexts. Enjoy the fine translation from Jonathan Chaves.


      Saying Good-bye to a Singing Girl 
                      Who Has Decided to Become a Nun
          Mo Shilong (Ming; 1539-1587)

          You have called at the gate of the True Vehicle
                                        your worldly self is no more.
          You have said farewell forever

                                         to the golden chambers,
                                                         the wind and the dust.
          Lightly you wield the yak-tail whisk;
                                         your singing fan lies on the floor.
          You learn to adjust to the meditation cushion,
                                         and laugh at the dancer's mat.
          No more resentment when rouge fades
                                         like red flowers;
          no longer will the feathered hairdo appear in your mirror

          Mist, light, water—quiet Zen mind:
          I know a springtime 
                                         will bloom
                                                       in the realm of emptiness.[1]

[1] Victor Mair, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 285. Translation by Jonathan Chaves.


Bibliography
Mair, Victor. The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

NEXT

Sunday, July 10th

Amarillo By Morning

Next Sunday we'll explore a country classic and its relation to the geography of life and change. He'll be lookin' for eight when they pull that gate...

Flowers Bloom (4)—Prairie Enculturation

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Flowers Bloom."

[a] "Flat"  RF

 During the summer, I will be posting segments of a memoir project I have begun that discusses teaching, learning, scholarship, reading...and the venerable, odd University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom, whose bestseller The Closing of the American Mind rocked American education almost twenty-five years ago. I have already written a little bit about Bloom on this blog, and had promised to start posting more pieces starting in June. Read the introduction to the series if you want the full context, but the individual posts are meant to be read on their own (with hints throughout of the larger context).

This is one post in a six-part series. Click below for the other posts:

Floral 1         Floral 2          Floral 3          Floral 4          Floral 5          Floral 6 

Flowers Bloom—A Teaching Memoir
Prairie Enculturation

My passion for the study of culture also began early. My father is an anthropologist, and Northwest Coast Indian art filled our home. Dad’s office was dotted with Kwakiutl fishing spears and Tsimshian raven carvings, and I can remember discussing society and culture almost as soon as I could participate in conversation. I was not much beyond the age at which I suspected Santa Claus to be far from “other”—and could locate him fairly easily within my extended kinship network as variously uncle, grandfather, or mother’s brother’s eldest son—when my dad explained our Christmas rituals according to Marcel Mauss’s theory of the gift. I loved the name that I then pronounced as Marcel Mouse, and could see his point—that presents have a way of forcing obligation. I had already noticed this at birthday parties, as well as in the half-hearted messages (“the present is from the kids”) that adults seemed determined to impart, even as we children turned our attention elsewhere. Most of all, it gave me a way of understanding how adults could ruin a perfectly happy occasion by creating overlapping layers of “gift-opening rules” that frustrated me beyond measure (Shelly goes first and we all watch, then great-grandma, and then Robby).

[b] Prairie imagination  RF

As I grew older, fieldwork and anthropological theory figured prominently in family time. While other families went to the North Dakota-Manitoba Peace Garden, Disney World, or the Wisconsin Dells, we had “fieldwork vacations,” learning about local culture wherever we went, even as my mother read to us from Edith Hamilton’s retellings of Greek and Roman myths. I distinctly remember staying at an Amish commune, as well as taking a long trip one summer to British Columbia that introduced me to Northwest Coast Indian culture and the wildly alliterative name (echoing my fascination with Marcel Mauss) of the Kwakiutl artist Mungo Martin. I already imagined myself an ethnographer, and filled notebooks with reflections on my travels. Heavy vapors of romanticism worked upon me, but still—especially “in the field” in British Columbia—I reveled in the mood as I worked my way through several Big Chief^® tablets at the picnic table outside of the family camper.

In time, I upgraded to narrow-ruled notebooks, and could not help but turn my note-taking ambitions to the cultural practices of eastern North Dakota. It was there that I learned how deeply language and culture are intertwined. Every Thanksgiving, my great aunts, grandmother, and seemingly every neighbor on the Dakota plains would start a methodical production of Norwegian pastries. No sooner were the late-night snack plates, turkey sandwiches, and pumpkin pie cleared away than—in an era before Black Friday—these formidable women would haul out the specialized instruments of culinary warfare. Lefse irons and krumkake rollers joined the pots, pans, and baking sheets dotting the kitchen. Even a child could sense the competition in the air. While I returned to my elementary studies in Wisconsin, they baked. Speaking periodically on the phone, they gave each other updates on the number of lefse, kringle, krumkake, and fattigman in process. By the third week of December, each home held a shrine to Norwegian pastry—an impossibly layered tray of baked flour and sugar organized by shape and texture, ready for consumption.

[c] Just a hint (you have no idea)  RF

And reloading. Behind the yuletide dining room scene, the kitchens held formidable reserves. People were expected to visit, and visitors were expected to eat. Every evening, they restocked the display trays. Throughout the Red River Valley, the cyclical itineraries of visiting and eating called to mind the patterns of entreaty and obligation I had learned from Marcel Mauss. It was public and it was performative. Even then, I could not help but think of Kwakiutl Indian chiefs doing ostentatious battle with massive stores of blankets and salmon—all vying in the potlatch for what we call today “cultural capital.” The prolific bakers were famous throughout the valley, and their pastries might be talked about for generations.

And it’s all history. I always associated that world with generations beyond my own. Because I came to visit—doing historical fieldwork, as it were—I spent time almost solely with my grandparents’ and even great-grandparents’ generations.

When I returned from Madison for the culmination of the holidays, we, too, would hit the road. In the winter of 1971, just months after the Minnesota Twins had completed what turned out to be a lackluster (74-86) season, we took the winding country roads from eastern North Dakota, over the Red River, and on to the “Minnesota side”—an hour’s trip through several Scandinavian subcultures. Grain elevators towered over railroad tracks—the juxtaposed linchpins of a fading economy linking towns such as Finley, Taft, and Perley with Fargo, Minneapolis, and Chicago. Even then, as my grandfather told me, Burlington Northern had abandoned thousands of miles of track, and the small town grain elevator was fading away, just as had the dray lines and icehouses of his youth.

Dray lines? Icehouses? I had no concept. Grandpa explained an entire dray line economy with horses and heavy, low carts connecting railroad tracks with stores and homes. Yet it was the icehouses that most intrigued me. Enormous chunks of ice were cut and hauled from the Red River and stored in dark warehouses in the middle of town. Even my father remembers walking into the cool of icehouses as a child, the massive hunks holding a slowly diminishing steadiness under bales of hay, even at the height of summer. I had just learned why my grandparents called that compartment on the passenger side of the car the glove box, and why much more attention was paid to hat racks in their day than in mine. Now I knew why I kept hearing that I should make sure that I don’t stand with the icebox open.

[c] Prairie icehouse  RF

I learned all of these things while sitting among great aunts, uncles, and cousins several generations removed, on holiday visiting feasts in which kringle circulated like so many armbands in the Trobriand Islands. I had already learned to pay attention, to think like an ethnographer about my own culture, and I tried to get it all down when we returned to “base camp” at my grandparents’ home. Before we left Minnesota on that day in 1971, a nonagenarian great-great aunt asked my grandmother, “Did you ever go julekagen?”  My grandma nodded that yes, she had, adding “Those were good times.”

In the car, on the return trip, I asked her about julekagen. She explained that groups of young people would sing Norwegian holiday songs in town. “So it’s Christmas caroling,” I blurted. “Well, yes…and…not exactly,” she added. “It sounds just like it,” I concluded, satisfied that I understood. Grandma wasn’t so sure that I did. She went on to explain some subtleties that today I would call the specifics of cultural practice in the Red River Valley. At the time, though, it seemed simple, and I was sure that I had it figured out. An icebox was an old-fashioned refrigerator; a glove box was an older phrase for glove compartment (even though I never saw anyone store gloves there); and julekagen was Christmas caroling. This history, language, and culture thing didn’t seem quite so difficult, after all. I wrote it all down, and closed my notebook.

***  ***

Years later, sipping coffee in the Ole Store Café in Northfield, Minnesota, I read the Minneapolis StarTribune and speculated, along with the journalists, about whether or not American cyclist Greg Lemond could make up a fifty-one second gap in the final stage of the 1989 Tour de France. The tour organizers had scheduled a time-trial into Paris that day. In most years, during a normal Tour finale, he could never make up the time, and there would be no possibility of victory. In a time trial—a race of rider against the clock (contre la montre, as the French say)—there was a chance, a shred of opportunity. It was unlikely, but it could happen. As I anticipated that day’s events, I also comforted myself by noting that, in addition to summarizing, journalists are required to guess (many call this “prediction”). They are rarely any better at this than the rest of us, and it seemed fitting revenge for the smug certainty that I was sure would follow tomorrow, no matter the results from France.

[d] News  RF

In the booth next to me, I was startled by a tiny voice speaking with a distinctly Norwegian accent. It might have been a great aunt, so close were her enunciations to the linguistic world of my childhood. The Ole Store Café may be near the center of Norwegian culture in Minnesota, but we were far from the Red River Valley of my youth. She was a “native,” and from the homeland. I was sure of it. She spoke again. “Thank you dear,” she told the waitress. “And I think I’ll have some pie.” She stressed the last word, as though it were part of an equation. “Banana cream, please.” The booth walls in the Ole Store were high; I couldn’t see her, and went back to reading my paper—pondering the cycling future.

Minutes later I heard the clink of a plate being set on a table. The tiny voice returned. “Ooohhh…it’s so coooold.” There was a pause, and then the phrase I will always cherish:

Isn’t refrigeration wonderful?

That went into my notebook, too.

This is one post in a six-part series. Click below for the other posts:

Floral 1         Floral 2          Floral 3          Floral 4          Floral 5          Floral 6

NEXT
Meeting Bloom
It's not at all what you think. I'm no disciple (for better or worse).
 I'll see you there, at the Committee on Social Thought "Sherry Hour" in early October 1987. Don't be late or you'll just get a Bubble-up (remember those?) or a wine cooler (check your history books).

Flowers Bloom (3)—Growing up History

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Flowers Bloom."

[a] History  RF

During the summer, I will be posting segments of a memoir project I have begun that discusses teaching, learning, scholarship, reading...and the venerable, odd University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom, whose bestseller The Closing of the American Mind rocked American education almost twenty-five years ago. I have already written a little bit about Bloom on this blog, and had promised to start posting more pieces starting in June. Read the introduction to the series if you want the full context, but the individual posts are meant to be read on their own.

This is one post in a six-part series. Click below for the other posts:

Floral 1         Floral 2          Floral 3          Floral 4          Floral 5          Floral 6

Flowers Bloom—A Teaching Memoir
Growing Up History

History found me early. During long summer evenings in North Dakota (my sister and I spent large amounts of our summers visiting our grandparents) I listened with grandpa and grandma to the Minnesota Twins on KFGO radio. Each game had its own rhythms, and I learned to think of time in strikes, balls, outs, and innings, rather than in minutes and seconds. The action went back and forth, and I quickly learned how different, say, a 2-0 count might appear to pitcher and batter—relativism, of a sort. Short of a blowout—grandma would always say that she wished we could save those runs for a day when we needed them more—we were never sure until, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, it was over. I could not articulate it back then, but the pain of the loss or the joy of the victory (each softened by more baseball almost every day) was nothing compared to what I felt the next morning, when the game was history.

Sitting at the card table that served as my breakfast nook those summer mornings, I drank my orange juice and studied the Fargo Forum. Although the front pages were hardly encouraging in the early 1970s, I could always count on the sports page to upset me—usually a short article with an abbreviated headline such as “Twins 4 White Sox 3.” This was followed by a paragraph that noted the “turning point,” of the game, implying that this or that moment—this or that hit, stolen base, or home run—decided the victory the night before. Today, certain writers might call that an “essentializing rhetoric.” I just thought it was shallow and deplorable.

It was not until several years later that I came to understand why my pancakes went down a little less easily all those years. The problem with those articles was that the writers knew the future. The night before, we didn’t. Grandma, grandpa, and I wondered about trends and movements, basepath decisions, and fielding errors. We guessed what they might mean in the bigger picture of the contest, and were usually wrong. The journalists who know what happened are never wrong. They get to say that Cesar Tovar had the game-winning hit in the fourth inning, and that the Twins “won” the game with three runs in the fourth. Funny thing, but the grandfolks and I had no idea it was the game-winning hit or that the Twins would win. The game wasn’t over. Five innings had yet to be played.

Those Fargo Forum writers who unknowingly decided my career knew that the Twins beat the White Sox by a run on that warm June evening in 1971, and their job was not to reproduce the lived experience of it. Their job was to summarize. The previous evening, the Twins and White Sox dealt with uncertainty, not knowing what would happen. For the writers, though, the teams’ future was their past, and they used that knowledge to write their accounts. I hated it, and for the first time felt there was something vaguely unethical about stripping the confusion and uncertainty from the story of what happened.

[b] Living it  RF 

I lived it, and felt that the account was a sham. Cheating. To say that Cesar Tovar had the game-winning hit in the fourth was to erase the lived meaning of the fielders, pitchers, relievers, and managerial decisions that kept the game close through the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. It took a small set of actions and exploded them into a false prominence, while blanketing uncertainty and stalemate (the usual situation in life and baseball) in a shroud of seeming irrelevance. I was disgusted.

And yet I was fascinated. Not long after this, I tried to put a version of my “ethical plan” into action, and strove to convey the excitement of lived experience whenever I talked about things that had already happened (I thought of this mostly in terms of “suspense,” not historiography in those days). I found it to be far more difficult than I had imagined. To begin, holding an audience was challenging. It was not long before friends and family members stopped asking life’s everyday questions (“how was the game?”) and waited for me to recover my senses. 

My mother provided the key lesson. One early summer day, she received a phone call from a student who happened to be one of the best high school milers in the country. He was my hero, and my mom was his teacher. We went to almost all of his races back in Wisconsin, but we were in North Dakota for the summer. Listening from the other room, I heard a number, and I was stunned—4:09.8. That was faster than anyone in the country had run for some time, yet my mother’s expression (“I see, I see”) worried me. When she hung up the phone, I rushed to her and asked about the race. She told me that the pack hung closely together during a fast first lap, and that the top runners held back, letting others set the pace. As she started slowly to describe the beginning of the second lap, I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Just tell me what happened!” She smiled, and I knew that I was receiving my own treatment, even as the power of summary washed over me. “Please, just tell me what happened.” 

Chastened, I sensed the complexity of life-as-lived. Still, I began to question how we really know anything at all, and that epistemological wariness persists. I have spent almost every day since then pondering statements about the past, the present, and the future. I remain suspicious of generalizations about events, especially those that telegraph the action, as it were. Journalists and historians are fortunate; they know who will win and who will lose, which trends will fizzle and which will gain traction. They already know what “we” did not in 1977—that our Chevy El Caminos with their shiny eight-track players “are” not the coolest thing since disco. Life is complicated, and I have never forgotten that writers of summaries (and teachers of introductory history classes) need to embrace that fact.

[c] Prediction  RF

This is one post in a six-part series. Click below for the other posts:

Floral 1         Floral 2          Floral 3          Floral 4          Floral 5          Floral 6 

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Prairie Enculturation
Learning about culture, language, and note-taking can happen anywhere...even in the most exotic location the world has ever known.