English Retirees Newsletter
21st Edition, September 2011
Chair’s Message
Dear Friends,
I’m used to going back every year to re-read past newsletters, not only to remind me of what you were up to then, but also what I was claiming for the department and myself as well. And now I’m struck with how often I’ve started off my notes to you on some kind of bummer note. I wish I could say that this year would be different, but unfortunately it’s not. As I now begin my 33rd year in the Department, what I thought was the worst year—last year—in the University’s fiscal prospects has, this year, only worsened. The reduction in state support for the University since 2008 that I quoted you last year of about 36% is now, after the cuts to the state’s biennial (2011-13) budget, at an all time high of 52%. That is, since its state allotment of 2008, the University now has 48 fewer cents of every dollar to spend on its overall operations. And this doesn’t account for what the governor predicts will be a continued revenue downturn, one that has prompted her to ask all state agencies to plan for an additional cut of between 5 and 10% to take effect as early, perhaps, as October, but certainly by the end of the year.
But a particular irony in the way the president and provost of the University have asked us to help them define what is being called the “new normal” is the University’s decision to increase first-year enrollments to historical highs to provide new tuition money to offset some portion of the 52% reduction in state funding. That has resulted in the admission of 4200 first-year students, a thousand additional students to last year’s entering class, and of course an extreme push to find all of these students full-time programs of study. So, in a matter of just a few months, we went from threats of losing all or most of our temporary, non-tenure track faculty to scrambling to find and then hire 10 new temporary, non-tenure track faculty, all at full- or nearly full-time employment.
We are lucky to have found highly qualified, energetic people to take on the huge increases in English 101 sections, and we look forward to working with them in a productive, and at the very least, interesting year to come.
You can understand, I’m sure, why I’ve come to call the present fiscal moves of the University the paradox of budget cutting. On the one hand, we’re told to cut our budgets to the bone, while on the other, a bunch of money is returned to us so that we can teach a vast number of new students, at increased tuition rates, to take the sting off the cuts to the bone we’re also being asked to take. And in one particular case, we are feeling that cut rather strongly. Among other recommendations to reduce the budget, the central administration has proposed to withdraw University/ state funding of our long-held affiliations to our two highly respected academic journals in American literary studies, ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance and Poe Studies. This would mean that funding for editorial salaries and course releases and
a TA line would end as of July 1, 2012. To retain publication of the journals in the Department, all expenses not paid for now by the journals’ revenues would have to be included; in other words, the journals would have to become totally self-sustaining. Time and space won’t permit a detailed explanation of what we are doing to counter this proposal, but please know, for now, that the value and esteem we hold for ESQ and Poe Studies have inspired a vigorous campaign, involving the journals’ large network of readers and contributors throughout the American literary studies scene, to save the journals for continued publication here at WSU. We are prepared to take on a larger and reasonable fair share of meeting costs through non-state revenues, but that will take some time and are looking to convince the University that some continued state support is entirely appropriate for an institution of its kind to maintain. Again, the decision time is limited, so I will be able to tell you of what success we have in the fairly near future.
A final, interesting turn of the budget-cutting screw comes also from the central administration in a proposal to merge the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science. The president and provost believe this move would save upwards of a half-million dollars, but many of us in both colleges, but especially in Liberal Arts, doubt the specific savings that would be gained and see the move as short-sighted and potentially destructive of a structure that has proven to work well. Over the past 20 years, when the College of Liberal Arts gained its separate status from the then only nominally combined College of Science and Arts, the CLA has gained stature in many ways, ranging from increased external funding of research and creative activity to increased private donations in development funding. The critics of the merger proposal see the momentum the CLA has gained in providing sound curricula, taught by a vigorous, hard-working teaching and research faculty as being potentially at risk should such a merger of the colleges go forward. Discussions on both sides of the issue are now taking center stage, with some decision expected as early as the beginning of October. Again, need I repeat that this will be at the very least an interesting year?
With all of this talk about budget woes, I’ve neglected the best parts of what keeps us going. But please don’t mistake the brevity I need to use here for any lack of enthusiasm we have for our students. We are still teaching a sound and versatile curriculum to over 400 eager, energetic English and Digital Technology and Culture majors, and have just welcomed 18 new graduate students, who, once again, are unrestrainedly excited about the ideas that are opening up to them. Absolutely, without a doubt, our new students, both newly certified to English and DTC undergraduate majors, and newly admitted to our graduate programs in literature and rhetoric and composition are thrilled to be here, embarking on their new adventures. So—coming from two ends of the department student spectrum, this youthful enthusiasm, energy, and excitement once again simply wrap me up and make me even more determined to face the wolves at our door.
But it’s here, my friends, I have to say that I will be doing that for the last time in my capacity as Chair of the English Department. I assumed this job as Acting Chair in 2003, have since stood and served for two 4-year terms, and after nine years coming next June 15, 2012, I will turn the mantle over to someone else. I haven’t yet decided to join you on the other side of this letter and retire completely. It will have been 33 years and maybe high time I do so, but I haven’t quite thought out the possibilities and may, after all, settle for some kind of phased retirement plan. But what I am quite sure of is this job needs some fresh blood.
In my 33 years, but particularly in the past nine, I have seen many changes and good things happen. The Department has grown and evolved in its pedagogical and scholarly visions and missions into a wonderfully dynamic, productive community of like-minded people: students, faculty, and staff all truly dedicated to the admirable—and absolutely necessary—task of educating ourselves and others to be promoters of the best that can be read, thought, written, and said in a responsible, civil society. Thanks to them and thanks to you for allowing me to be a small part of a great endeavor.
All the best to you, always. See you on the other side.
George E. Kennedy
Professor and Chair
Leota and Dutch Day (WSU l970-1988)
Hello, Everyone,
In our momentary freedom for childcare last fall, Dutch and I toured Ireland, staying mostly in B&B’s and managing not to scrape up the left side of the rental car. We circumnavigated the island anti-clockwise, starting and ending in Dublin. There was a bomb in Derry the day before we arrived there, but everyone we met assured us that no one wanted the Troubles again. They also were very concerned about their recession, which so far is much worse than ours. I was amazed at how rugged the country is and how many circle forts and standing stones can be found. After a while, we quit stopping for all of them. Here we are at the Cliffs of Moher.
Speaking of recessions, our son Chad is employed again, after two years of searching. He’s working in a small firm for an insurance adjuster and as a paralegal for an attorney sharing the same office. Our daughter Kecia, in the midst of a career change, is taking community college classes to become a medical office billing coder and/or transcriptionist. After almost 15 years of retail, she wants to get off her feet and, ideally, find a job she can do from home.
Our new granddaughter, Evelyn, was born in February and is quickly asserting her own personality. She’s very reserved and particular on whom she bestows her approval. We take care of her twice a week, but she’s still skeptical (well, I can understand being skeptical of Dutch, but me?). What a little minx. Isaac, on the other hand, still thinks our house is his and we continue to be his bigger-than-average playmates. I hope that lasts a long time.
Except for what’s become our annual trip to Ixtapa, Mexico, we have no trips planned.
Leota and Dutch
5653 11th Ave. NE
Seattle, WA 98105
Email: carvil@comcast.net
Paul Brians(WSU 1968–2008)
We continue to enjoy our home on beautiful Bainbridge Island. This spring and summer were unusually cold and damp, but even so, we’re glad to be here.
We had a lot of house guests this year, including some from Pullman (notably Alice Spitzer and Mike Owens). The Kiesslings have become regular visitors to the island, and will be house-sitting for us as we travel this fall to Kiev, St. Petersburg, New York, and Maine. Nick and I have explored most of the major hiking trails on the island together.
Daughter Megan visited twice since the last newsletter came out, and we’ll be spending Paula’s 65th birthday with her in New York at the end of September. I
gave a couple of talks at the local senior center. After the 2011 Common Errors in English calendar was canceled, my publisher started an e-mailed version which has become quite popular. It’s free, but provides good publicity for the book. I also began an occasional language usage blog.
We occasionally have groups of people over for potluck dinner with an opera viewing in our home theater. The latest opera we watched on DVD was an amazing production of the Moliere/Lully comedie- ballet Le bourgeois gentilhomme, complete with Baroque-style acting and gestures, lit with candles.
We’ve both been volunteering for the Bainbridge Island Land Trust, working on the newsletter and other projects. I’m now one of their main photographers, documenting lands to be acquired and various fund- raising events. I continue to be active in the local photography club.
I bought my first SLR: a Canon EOS 60D. It’s taking a lot of study and practice to learn all its functions, but it can do wonderful work.
In the spring Paula had a meeting of the regional Music Librarians Association in Vancouver, and I went along and enjoyed snapping pictures in Stanley Park while she was in meetings.
We went on “field trips” with a group of friends to various locations, including the tulip fields near Mt. Vernon.
We also made a couple of trips to beautiful Lake Crescent, at last making it there one day when the sun was shining. Here’s that day’s sunset.
I filled up my free Flickr account and opened a new one on Picasa where you can find lots of photos of places we’ve been this year.
Paula had a lot of fun this past year participating in a local school program in which second-graders read aloud to her. She continues to sing in three different groups, including Ave, a women’s chorus which specializes in Renaissance polyphony. She participated in the Tallis Scholars Summer School for the fourth time. Her cousins from New England participated
as well. The focus of the workshop this year was the music of Tallis, including the famous 40-part Spem in alium. She also enjoys her monthly book group meetings.
We’ve participated in a play-reading group, hosting a reading of Shaw’s Major Barbara last spring.
The main street of Winslow was torn up for most of the summer, and tourist traffic was way down. One result was slowed sales of my photo book, Four Seasons on Bainbridge Island; but I’ve made back about a quarter of my initial costs, which isn’t bad for one year.
I meant to mention in the last newsletter two recent historical novels which made a deep impression on me, both of them beautifully written. One is Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, which takes as its leading character Thomas Cromwell, during the reign of Henry VIII. The subject sounds unpromising, but it’s vivid, thoughtful, and gripping.
The other is David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, whose subject is the connection of the Dutch East India Company with Japan. Again, the subject sounds odd; but the result is a beautiful work. Both stick in my mind more than any other fiction I’ve read since retiring. And the Mitchell novel was on President Obama’s summer reading list.
We recently greatly enjoyed the PBS documentary on Americans in Paris 1905–1930: Paris: The Luminous Years. One of the featured experts was Noel Riley Fitch, who earned her Ph.D. in literature at WSU in 1969.
Links to my various online projects are on my site at http://public.wsu.edu/~brians. Click on “Photo Tours” if you want to see my pictures.
Diane Gillespie(WSU 1957-2001)
Reading through my 2010 commentary, I see that 2011 so far follows a similar pattern. Again in June I attended and presented an illustrated paper at the Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, this 21st one in Glasgow, Scotland. The theme was “Contradictory Woolf,” and I wrote about the apparent oddity of the Hogarth Press publishing a celebrity self-help book by actress Viola Tree. My paper on Woolf and W. H. Hudson, “The Bird is the Word,” from last year’s conference (2010) is now out in the selected papers volume, Woolf and the Natural World. A chapter on the Hogarth Press and its publications on religion (“Woolfs in Sheeps’ Clothing”) is also out in Leonard and Virginia Woolf: The Hogarth Press and the Networks of Modernism. I continue to enjoy finding cultural contexts for Virginia Woolf’s work among her personal books in WSU’s Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections.
Again, we’ve been traveling, last fall to Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands. We especially enjoyed northern Portugal. With a small Road Scholar group, we stayed in manor houses and tasted port in the Duoro Valley. This year, we combined our Minnesota trip with my 50th Cloquet High School class reunion. Seventy-five out of a class of 180 attended, with a sobering 33 on the deceased list. The old cliques and hierarchies were pretty much dissolved. Still, I was glad to leave memory lane and get back to my “real” life. After the reunion we spent several days at the family cabin with my sister and brother-in-law. She is still on daily oral chemo for lung cancer and, while this new drug keeps it from spreading further than it already has, it and all the previous treatments are taking their toll. Dick and I are reasonably healthy—so far. Before long, we’re leaving for a tour of the fjords of Norway (8/30 through 9/15). In spite of the weak dollar, we’ve wanted to take this trip for years. It’s sad that now Norway, along with the rest of us, has to deal with home-grown extremism and terrorism.
We’re still involved in most of the same activities. Dick and I continue to be avid play and concert goers and still belong to a ballroom dancing group. Dick just designed and built the set for Pullman Civic Theatre’s Rumpelstiltskin, and I did a fair amount of the detail painting on huge book covers that opened to reveal a castle. I’m still a member of an investment club and the League of Women Voters, although now I am busiest on the Board of the Washington Idaho Symphony since I head its fund raising committee. Dick continues on the Board of the Gladish Community and Cultural Center and the facilities planning committee. He still manages and maintains our rental properties, good investments in this uncertain economic climate, but sometimes burdensome.
Thanks to Paul for editing this newsletter, and greetings to the rest of you survivors. Most of us must be dismayed by what the current economic situation means not only for our retirement funds but for our country as a whole. At least we are happily away from the cuts and reconfigurations of what used to be considered a “university.” Our pre-retirement colleagues, still arguing for the humanities and for the value of our kinds of research and publication, however, need our sympathy and support. Academic institutions, instead of assuming leadership roles
in society, seem to have adopted the business and consumerist models that increasingly pervade and jeopardize our culture as a whole. I’ll sign off with a rhetorical question: Will next year provide more hope than this year for future generations?
Diane
945 SE Glen Echo Rd.
Pullman, WA 99163
Email: gillespie@pullman.com
Alex Hammond (WSU 1975-2009)
Dear Fellow Retirees,
In our second year of retirement, Barbara and I continue to live on College Hill (undergraduates are lively again this fall), I’m still doing a bit of Poe scholarship and reading the odd submission for Poe Studies, and Barbara is maintaining her small private practice as a psychologist. We have been able to see children and grandchildren and other family in multiple trips to California since our last letter, but somehow we find ourselves far busier in Pullman than expected in retirement, even when we recognize that the status means open season for requesting donations of our time.
A brief list for us includes my publication of a longish article on Poe and Scott; Barb’s consulting stint with the PLU last fall; labor for the LWV, the Whitman County Democrats, and the College Hill Association; escapes to our cabin on Chatcolet Lake (Heyburn State Park) in Idaho, where we now sail a 1978 Catalina 22; rather too many funerals, including that of Rich Tinder (some may have known him from his years in Engineering at WSU); a visit from Fred Newberry (others may recall he did his Ph.D. in American Studies at WSU in the 1970s); and efforts to have friends for dinner, even if less often than we would wish. I worry about the threats to destroy ESQ and Poe Studies in the latest rounds of budget cuts at WSU and hope the battle to preserve them succeeds. And we look forward to a trip to Germany and the Danube this September.
Until next year,
Alex (and Barbara)
1110 N.E. Indiana St.
Pullman, WA 99163
Email: BarbAlexH@gmail.com
Bill Hirschfeld (WSU 1978-1988)
Greetings from Seattle!
Once again my sincere appreciation to Paul for keeping the English Retirees Newsletter going. I admire his willingness, tenacity and patience. Reading the notes from and about so many I came to know in my 10 years at Avery Hall brings back fond memories. And now that I’m residing in the big city, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a few former students who are leading productive lives.
This First Hill retirement community continues to grow with an increasingly rich mix of interesting, talented people with diverse backgrounds in the professions (primarily medical and higher education, some clergy and military, and a couple who admit to having been lawyers) and business (Boeing of course but also others including the unpretentious founder of Oh Boy Oberto). We’ve a fair number of Cougar grads and affiliates to hold our own with a larger contingent of Huskies, but we keep that a friendly friendly. And we keep politics on a low burner at meals and other gatherings.
I continue to be very involved with the continuing development of this almost two-year-old community and have been able to contribute in developing consensus on many issues. One involved “word- smithing” a dining policy statement to the satisfaction of the granola group and the meat and potato crowd. Ah the heights! (Or depths?) But I am finding particular pleasure in working with others to establish a library and to share ideas with a group of movie buffs for our movie program with showings four days a week featuring film classics, newer releases and documentaries. And, I’m learning a lot about and enjoying opera in a program led by a retired UW professor of anatomy! All this and being among many others who also have lost spouses keeps me going, but I do wish Marilyn had had some good days to live in this dream which we shared.
Our daughter, Mary (WSU ’83), completed her second PhD (in moral theology) at Notre Dame and has just started teaching in the Humanities Department at Villanova University. She joins a diverse group with doctorates in architecture, classics, ethics, history, literature, philosophy, political science and theology; and she is teaching courses which will look at economics (her first PhD) through the prism of evolving Catholic social thought. She has published in this area and attended a symposium at the Vatican last October on Caritas in Veritate. I think I’ve picked up on the general drift. She is very happy with this new chapter in her life and with her colleagues, but she’s being tested by the heat and humidity (and recent hurricane) in eastern Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile our son, Stuart, continues as an attorney with the FTC here in Seattle which means that I can see our three grandchildren (all precocious, of course) more regularly than when we lived on Bainbridge Island.
725 Ninth Avenue, Apt. 1305
Seattle, WA 98104-2064
Douglas Hughes (WSU 1968–2004)
Editor’s note: This year all I received from Doug Hughes was the photo with caption below, but in July he sent me such an interesting and nicely written e-mail that I’ve taken the liberty of editing it down to share with all of you. I couldn’t reach him to get his OK, but I hope he won’t mind.
You obviously have a lovely location for your house on the island. You appear to have the best of both worlds: the almost rural feel of the island and ready access to the advantages of the city. Here on Moscow Mountain we have also have a lovely place with ample wildlife and a peaceful setting. (However, the bears have become something of an annoyance.) But we’re a long way from attractions of any city. That’s one reason we fly frequently to such cities as Boston, Chicago, LA, and SF where we both, especially Marcia, spend an inordinate amount of time in art museums.
Can’t report in any detail on what’s been happening recently at WSU, the department, or Pullman because I almost never visit those places to the west of Moscow.
Am not averse to them but I just don’t have any reason to go there. My orientation is wholly to Moscow and if I need a library, I simply visit the facilities at the U of Idaho. Of course, virtually everyone knows how dire the financial situation is at WSU owing to the budget problems of the state. Ran into George Kennedy a couple of weeks ago at Bookpeople and he offered that the overall situation in the department is worse than one could imagine.
I do see Al von Frank regularly for lunch once a month at various restaurants in Moscow and Pullman. Within the last month Harvard Press published his book of Emerson’s poems with an extensive introduction and detailed commentary of individual poems. Most impressive effort. Don’t see Nick much now because he’s out of town almost constantly, living in someone else’s house in various parts of the country. Have dinners occasionally with the Lindens. Alex Hammond has resuscitated with limited success the poker set but many of the original group from the department have passed away and we’ve had to throw in players from other departments to schedule games. In fact, we’re playing tomorrow night and Bruce Anawalt and his son have agreed to play.
Bob Green, the owner of Bookpeople, is retiring and has already bought a house in Portland. He’s seeking a buyer for the store but so far hasn’t found any courageous soul to take on an independent bookstore in this economy. Whether Bookpeople will ultimately survive is uncertain, though there’s no danger that its doors will close in the coming months. That’s where I pick up the daily NY Times.
I’m typing this on a mid-July morning with a Seattle- like mist coming down and a temperature of 56 degrees. Incredibly cool spring and early summer.
It hasn’t been 90 degrees yet on the Palouse and the hills, which normally would be slightly tawny as the grain ripened by the middle of July, are an uncharacteristic deep green.
Virginia Hyde (WSU 1970–2004)
Dear friends,
I’m sending a recent photo of Dave and me in our back yard here in Pullman. Since we’re right across from the Recreation Center and about a block from the Coliseum, we see a lot of the students coming and going, but we also have this fairly enclosed patio at the back of the house.
We both continue to work in our fields in a relaxed way. Now that I have finished my Lawrence edition (Cambridge)—and am still receiving the reviews—I have had time to be an editor of several collections of essays, including two for a large literary society that is based in Asia (specializing in English literature). I am now guest-editing a special issue of its international journal. I think I’ve mentioned that I am also preparing a website for my mother’s poetry and essays. They were published some years ago, but I want to add to that earlier collection and introduce some photographs that illustrate some of the poems. One of these, for instance, would show her friend and literary mentor, the Kansas writer William Allen White—a graphic aid to accompany her essays about him.
Though we have taken only a few short trips this year, we have had quite a bit of company and have shown several family groups and friends around the “Inland Empire.” Dave and I both do some walking whenever we can, but I can no longer keep up with him at all but have my own slower routes just in the neighborhood. Just now, the wheat harvest is at its peak, so I don’t go outdoors much because of that fall hazard. I am still part of clinical trials concerning my PAH disorder (heart/lungs), with regular evaluations in Spokane, and am adjudged to be doing well in spite of this serious condition.
I enjoy your letters and think of all of you with admiration and fondness, remembering all the good times at Avery Hall (and the old College Hall)!
Nick Kiessling (WSU 1967–2000)
Thanks to you, Paul, for gathering the letters and distributing the 2011 Newsletter.
We’ve heard about or corresponded with a number of former colleagues and students over the last year. John Ehrstine is beginning his seventh year of teaching Shakespeare and other courses at the public library in Wilsonville, Oregon (search in Google: Ehrstine Wilsonville Library); Camille Roman, as productive in her scholarly work as ever, is planning a move from Portland, Or to Providence, Rhode Island; Michael Kramp (Ph.D. 2000), now an Assoc. Prof. of English at Lehigh University, returned recently from a research trip to London; Jeffrey Cain (Ph.D. 2001, now living in Poulsbo, WA) is editing an on-line journal, Philanthropy Daily (search in Google for details); Hongbo Tan (Ph.D. 1989) returned from an AIG job in China to a position as VP at Chartis International in New York City; Vivian Ellis continues his teaching at St. Cross College, Oxford; James Stokes has retired from UW-Stevens Point; and Lori Talcott (B.A. 1981) designs and fashions jewelry in Seattle and on the side teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. Shellie Spear (Ph.D. 1990), Santa Barbara, died in 2010. Tom Rand (Ph.D., 1986, now at Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR) recently published an article in Notes & Queries on the stage direction in the Winter’s Tale, “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
That prompted an email to him and his reply, which contains info on his family and on former WSU graduate student friends of his: “We are all doing well. My oldest, David, just got married in Portland to a girl he met in Burns, OR playing his violin for the wedding of his now wife’s best friend. He had done a violin performance major at the U of O and then went to OSU for a degree in soil science. He’s the first scientist in a family of humanities people. He works for the NRCS in Ontario Oregon doing soil mapping in south Malheur Co. He loves it. Our middle son, Michael, graduated with a geography degree from the U of O last year and is working for a business in Eugene building Private Airplane kits–RV 7’s and RV 8’s if that means anything. James (Jamie) is going on 13 and keeping Karen and me hopping. Tim Carlisle [Ph.D. 1991] came up for the wedding from Redding– he’s teaching at Simpson College. . . . Tim says he has three years to go before he retires. Don Hanley [Ph.D. 1990] now has a tech writing job in Pittsburgh—he had been working in Las Vegas as a tech writer on the Yucca Mountain Project until it was shut down. . . .”
Karen and I have had a very busy year with much work, travel, and play. A year ago, from September 9 to October 1, we flew to the east coast to join Canadian friends on a trip from Kingston to Ottawa through the Rideau Canal. We’d never heard of the canal, but after some 50 locks we became very familiar the wilds of Ontario and with the history of the canal—constructed in the 1820s for defensive purposes against an aggressive U.S. Then we went by train to New York to stay at our usual 85th and Madison condo for a week. We took quick trip to Boston to spend a day with Marian (Ph.D., 1990) and Dave Novak, before journeying to Swarthmore to try, yet again, to complete an extensive analytical bibliography of a late friend which I mentioned last year. The bibliography will be done next year.
Our next months were spent getting ready for winter in the south. Karen’s cataract surgery, with the prayers and the skill of the Seventh Day Adventist specialists in Lewiston, went well. My bulging spinal disk in the neck, with associated pains down my back and through the left arm, was also, miraculously though not with the aid of prayer, brought into line by the daily use of a stretching contraption. I now play more intelligent games of tennis and racketball.
We left for warmer climates just before Christmas in our marvelous rear-wheel drive Jaguar XJ8, trusting to luck and to weather forecasts, and made it without a sign of snow or ice on the roadway. Our terminus was the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, where I had a fellowship to examine their recusant collection (books printed surreptitiously by English Catholics from about 1558–1800) which the Center had acquired in the late sixties and which was, in their words, ‘unexplored.’ While obtaining the grant was not a problem, trying to do something in the 4400- book collection was. Fortunately I soon learned that the provenance records were excellent and that led me to work on how the collections were originally formed in continental and English libraries, where they finally ended up in the British Isles, how they were gathered together in the 1960s from a score of Catholic houses, abbeys, colleges, and libraries, and how they were sold to the Harry Ransom Center in 1968 and 1970.
In March we flew directly from Texas to a friend’s empty home on the Thames River in Oxford both for a lovely vacation and for more research on the recusant books formerly in London, Hertfordshire, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Devon, and County Galway, Ireland. During my last week I luckily was given access to letters which incriminated an ex- priest of taking, on loan to establish a “major Catholic recusant research centre” in England, hundreds of books which he sold to buyers on another continent. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of simple theft and fraud—there were no murders. At the end of our stay we took a quick trip to Bretagne to spend a couple of days with Bob and Mimi Beaudrier. Some of you may remember their year-long stay in Pullman in 1993–4. Both are thriving in La Chapelle Thouaraut in their country home where John and Jean Elwood, Paul Brians and Paula Elliot, Michael and Ines Hanly (and Fiona and Olivia), and Albert Wald (WSU, philosophy) visited us while we lived there on the exchange in 1993–4.
We spent the month of May in Seattle where I could write up all the recusant material and Karen could have some intense meetings as a member of the state board of the League of Women Voters. Both of us enjoyed walks along the Shilshole coast and the food at the score of Ballard restaurants within walking distance of our house. Now back in Pullman, we are settling in to enjoy the best time of the year here, July, August and September. 2011-2012 looks to be as busy as 2011, with a month on the east coast, six weeks in England, and a yet to be determined destination in December/January—we really don’t want to stay in the snow and cold during those two months.
Some of our sideline jobs continue from last year though Karen has resigned from the Pullman
Police Commission and from the Grand Avenue Beautification project which she had chaired for ten years. She has done what she could, and the progress along Grand Ave., both north and south, has been significant. Her work with the League of Women Voters continues and she is serving on the state board in 2011–12, which means monthly trips to Seattle. I drive for COAST, but when the funding agency required a “bodily fluid clean-up kit” I resigned. However, they still need drivers for non-Medicare and non-Medicaid people, so I continue to drive occasionally.
All the best,
Nick
Stanton Linden (WSU 1967-2002)
Writing these annual letters makes me aware of how patterned and (seemingly) predictable our lives have become. We continue to enjoy generally good health, and although Lucy is bothered by arthritic pains in her legs and hips, she continues with daily exercise and a busy schedule with the League of Women Voters, her investment club, and editing a newsletter for her fellow retirees. Except for several very agreeable constants—e.g., reading, “light” academic involvement, food bank volunteer work, much listening to music, and regular weight-room workouts and running—my main activities continue to be more season-specific: struggles to keep sidewalks and driveways free of snow and occasional cross-country skiing in winter, followed by lawn and garden work, and “harvests” (raspberries and tomatoes) in the fall. This is also our usual season for extended trips, and at the moment we are in final preparation stages for a three-week trip to Norway, Sweden, and London starting on Labor Day.
Local travel during the past year included several trips to Seattle and around the Northwest, primarily for performances of the Seattle Opera and to visit son Steve, or to venture forth on our sailboat moored at Lake Coeur d’Alene. While I will not speak for Lucy, my enthusiasm for sailing has not diminished during the six years that we’ve had the Carpe diem. Together with sailing partners, Walt and Jan Miller, we enjoy the harmonious collaboration of wind, water and canvas and the adventures it brings on this beautiful lake.
However, our finest travel experience was a two-week stay in Florence (followed by a “default” week in London) last October and November. Since this was something of a reprise of a shorter visit Lucy and I had thirty years ago, we were determined
to go when tourist numbers were low and the galleries uncrowded; we were not disappointed. Our apartment was ideally located on the Piazza Santa Maria Novella with its windows offering views of that beautiful church’s façade and easy access (on foot) to the city’s major sites: the Uffizi with its Botticelli’s, San Marco with its Fra Angelico’s, the Bargello and Medici Chapel with their Donatello’s and Michelangelo’s, the Pitti Palace with nearly everything!
Many interesting surprises also waited in galleries, museums, and churches previously unvisited: two related Caravaggio/Caravagesque shows, a huge Bronzino exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi, the collection of Renaissance scientific devices and instruments at the Galileo History of Science Museum, and the Masaccio frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine. Add to such attractions, excellent restaurants and delicious Tuscan wines, lovely city walks and surrounding landscapes, and above all, the warmth and good heartedness of the Florentine people and our conclusion was unanimous: this was one of our best trips ever.
But the world has changed enormously this year, and here in Pullman few retirees would consider changing places––were that possible––with those now occupying their former positions, particularly in the arts and humanities. WSU’s Theater Arts Department has disappeared; several foreign language offerings have been scuttled; and the Philosophy Department has very recently been merged with Political Science! (Might this decision have been prompted by the administration’s perverse misreading of Plato’s Republic, V, 473d?)
One hardly needs to be reminded that on the national scene––with the T[roglodyte]-Party’s ignorance, deviousness, intransigence and ever lengthening Parade of Dunces as presidential candidates––the situation is far worse. It is no wonder then that one’s mind is filled with those brilliant, chillingly haunting images of W.B. Yeats who, for me at least, speaks to our age more invcisively than any other poet. For starters, reread “The Second Coming,” nearly every line of which holds up a mirror for our times: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at least,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Best wishes,
Stan
500 S.E. Crestview St.
Pullman, WA 99163
linden@wsu.edu
Howard McCord (WSU 1960-1971)
This has been a pretty quiet year. But with some good things happening. Our daughter Susannah gave birth to her second daughter, Alexandria, on October 1, 2010, just 13 days after defending her Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard. She and her family have now moved to Shaker Heights, OH, and she is on the professional staff at The Cleveland Clinic.
Her field is Medical Ethics. Our youngest daughter, Eva, is a usability researcher at Microsoft, and worked most of this past year in secrecy on the forthcoming new Windows system.
Eldest son Colman is finishing his degree in waste water management. Robert is teaching English at McHenry College, Asher is working in Seattle, and Julia has moved back from Columbus to Bowling Green.
Jenny has two more years to have 35 years as a teacher. Retirement is looking pretty good to her.
I had a Pacemaker installed last November, and it works fine. But it insists on limiting sustained activity, so hiking with a pack up hills is no longer an option. However, I still get to the gym each MWF for a workout and a 2 mile leisurely walk. Pressed Wafer Press in Boston published 34 of my Thistlebone Poems in an interesting broadside format this spring, and the mass-market paperback edition of my novel in French came out in June. An interview with me done by the French novelist Pierre Cendors, will be published this fall in Transfuge, a journal devoted to foreign literature.
Our eleven dogs are all fine, if properly noisy now and then, but nice creatures anyway. I hope to travel to the southwest and do a few readings in late October. It’s time to see the home-country again.
Howard McCord
Susan McLeod (WSU 1986-2001)
I so enjoyed reading the last newsletter—many thanks to Paul Brians for keeping us all in touch.
Doug and I have had another busy year. After two international trips last year, we decided
to travel closer to home for a while (we don’t recover from trans-Atlantic trips as quickly as we used to). We went to L.A. several times to hear the L.A. Philharmonic under the direction of the phenomenal Gustavo Dudamel, to Lake Elsinore to take in some minor league baseball, and just last month completed the Grand Circle of the Colorado Plateau to visit or revisit various national parks. Mesa Verde was the highlight of the latter trip: I climbed 100 feet down a sandstone cliff to see Cliff Palace (Doug decided it wasn’t a good idea in 100 degree heat––he was right, but I’m still glad I did it).
I also spent some time in L.A. helping one of my nieces when her second child was born. My job was to help with her precocious five-year-old, who looks like Harry Potter and is indeed a magical child. (He wants to be a scientist when he grows up but is not sure what he wants to study––maybe plants. Or dirt.) I’ll include a picture.
Our last trip of the year will be to D.C. in September for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. We’ll see people we served with in Ethiopia, some of whom we have not seen in 40+ years. I think we will all be relying on nametags to figure out who’s who.
We continue to enjoy the varied theatrical and musical events San Diego has to offer, and are still singing in two choirs, hoping our voices hold out a little longer. Both of us are still very much involved in volunteer work. I especially enjoy tutoring international students, since they ask such interesting questions not just about the English language but also about Western culture in general.
Not long ago I had a fascinating discussion with a Chinese student about the concept of the messiah in Christianity (she was trying to figure out the plot of a play entitled “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot,” much of which she found incomprehensible).
I’ve recently taken on a new volunteer gig with a group called Reality Changers. My job is to help these first-generation college students with their personal statements for college applications and for various scholarships. These are amazing young people. I am as of this year on the Board of Directors for a small arts organization, so I’m learning about the world of non-profits from a somewhat different angle.
I also find myself (by virtue of being the closest geographically) helping to look after my feisty 90-year-old aunt, who is in good health but is having short-term memory problems and therefore can’t take care of her finances. She could have been the model for Auntie Mame; my main job is to keep her in cigarettes and gin.
In terms of things professional, in March I was honored by my UCSB colleagues with a new title, Distinguished Scholar so went to Santa Barbara to give a talk and accept the award. I am still editing two different book series and especially enjoying the developmental editing. It’s wonderful to see the work of young scholars in progress.
Some time ago I was interviewed by the University of Wisconsin Oral History Project about m y time as a TA in Madison, which was also when first-year composition was done away with at the university. The results of that particular history project have. Just been published in a book entitled From Form to Meaning: Freshman Composition and the Long Sixties, 1957-1974, by David Fleming. It was interesting to try to remember all that went on during the late 1960s in Madison, and when I read the book, to get the larger view (which as a graduate student I certainly did not have) of departmental politics. Coincidentally I had been working with the soon-to-be-published memoirs of Ednah Shepherd Thomas, one of the TA supervisors during that time, so I was also able to see the events through her eyes. Those were interesting times.
I’ll include a recent picture of Doug and me that was taken here in San Diego (Coronado, to be exact); our daughter decided that since we skipped a gondola ride when we were in Venice some years ago, we really needed the experience. I’m not so sure we did, but it was fun nevertheless.
I hope this finds all and sundry doing well. I look forward to reading your news.
Best wishes,
Sue McLeod
Email: mcleod@writing.uscb.edu
Ron Meldrum (WSU 1965–1996)
Barb and I made a few trips this past year in western states: a Christmas trip to Phoenix where we saw granddaughter Genevieve perform in many dances of The Nutcracker and again in early June when she distinguished herself in a modern dance recital—she has won many prizes and a couple of scholarships for her dancing. She is petite, very strong, and a very sweet nearly twelve-year-old straight A student. Her 16-year-old brother Tad (Thaddeus) is in swim team and keeps up his violin studies. We capitalized on our proximity to Mexican dental care while in Arizona, traveling to Algodones to complete some major dental work at a fraction of U.S. prices (and very satisfactory results).
In May we took daughter Cindy with us to Kauai for a very pleasant week; it was great to share with Cindy, give her a break from her work routine, and have her chauffeur our rental car. Barb won a two-for-one catamaran trip up the Na Pali coast, which she and Cindy enjoyed.
We also traveled to Victoria and, in West Vancouver, visited an old school friend I’ve known since 1933. She died suddenly a couple of weeks later so it was good we looked in and had an overnight visit. We also visited a fellow UBC student in Vancouver; we’ve kept in touch since 1944 and worked together on the CPR Steamships many years ago. All the ships we sailed on are no longer in service. My first ship, the Princess Adelaide, was sold to a Greek company and was featured in the film Zorba the Greek.
Our most recent trip was to Coos Bay where we attended an excellent performance by the Oregon Coast Orchestra, a summer program by professional musicians. En route we visited Don and Diana Roberts, former students of mine many years ago. Don was editor of Flyfishing magazine and is now a freelance photojournalist. We also visited Dorys Grover in Pendleton. She received her doctorate in American Studies from WSU and taught many years at East Texas State University. She’ll be ninety this fall and is still active, writing columns for the Pendleton newspaper, giving public programs, serving the Friends of the Library in Pendleton, and continuing work on a book on western cattle barons. Barb first knew her as her journalism teacher when Dorys had recently graduated from Oregon State and was teaching high school in Albany. When we came to this area in 1965 Barb recognized her at a welcoming reception we attended; she is one of these rare people with a nearly ageless face. We’ve enjoyed her friendship over the years.
Our health is, in general, pretty good. Barb had knee replacement surgery and is still recuperating. I’m having increasing difficulties with arthritis, but still get around and still enjoy working on clocks. We keep busy with household maintenance, both in Moscow and at the lake house, and host family and friends at the lake. We read a lot and do crossword puzzles.
I look forward to this newsletter update as a means of keeping up with all of you. Wishing you good health and good days,
Ron Meldrum
Shirley Price (WSU 1963-1989)
This would make for a more interesting read if I could write that we won the lottery and enjoyed a lovely cruise. Back to reality. We’re fine, still vertical, and roaring along at a slower pace. We always have projects, but they now take longer to complete. Sound familiar? And I’ve just recovered from a bout of shingles, of all things. That was fun.
With another year of unusual weather, the Puget Sound had the coolect April and June on our weather records. Last December’s two severe cold snaps within ten days caused plant losses as well as odd performance for some of the survivors. We have lush foliage on our hydrangeas and no blooms. And the cool, wet spring produced leaping growth on our back yard’s salal and native huckleberry which I trimmed back before they overtook the back yard.
July gave us good news when daughter Kimberly became self- supporting. She was hired on as a contractor at Boeing’s commercial area. So we’re doing financial catch-up. We’ve also dropped our golf club membership, deleted the May week in Cannon Beach.
Grandson Ross, now a air force staff sergeant, is stationed at Masawa AFB in northern Japan which is located 150 miles north of the tsunami disaster this last March. His base was not affected. We were concerned about his safety for a couple of days and were relieved when he was finally able to call his parents to say his base was unscathed.
There are so many worrisome problems in our nation, aka The United States of Corporations. Congress is dysfunctional and unresponsive; and Obama is a disappointing leader. And the assault on unions is troublesome. The powers that be are determined to destroy the middle class.
True confession time: I am a compulsive yarder––surprise! My most recent project was the approx. l68 ft. of ugly bank that I tackled two years ago. Bud dug the holes in the rocky hard pan which I planted with various ferns, ornamental grasses, hardy geraniums, and heavenly bamboo. To fill in the bare spots, I planted drifts of ajuga. The result: a naturalized planting that blends in with the background of red cedars and firs.
Many thanks to Paul’s work on this newsletter. We’re looking forward to this year’s issue.
Our best wishes to all the readers.
Shirley and Bud Price
11003 37th Ave.
NW Gig Harbor, WA 99163
Email: Bns2price@centurytel.net
Barbara Sitko (WSU 1989–2005)
Greetings, This has been a quiet year, with no exceptional travels except for one lovely April trip
to Atlanta to enjoy the dogwood festivals, visit friends from high school teaching days, and attend a Flannery O’Connor conference at her Alma Mater in Milledgeville, now Georgia College and State University. It was heartening to see how many young scholars are interested in her work, as well as the continuing connections they are making with other Southern writers. The trip also brought back some vivid memories.
I first visited Andalusia, her home, when I taught a “mini-course” in her work attended to my surprise by her two great-nephews who inquired whether the class would like to take a field trip to her home, where Aunt Regina, her mother, maintained the premises. At Andalusia, the family farm, a busfull of high school seniors sat awkwardly in the sitting room with glasses of sweet tea, cookies, and instructions by Aunt Regina to her two nephews to not let so much time pass before another visit. Nary a word about her daughter or any recognition that we had come because of Flannery—indeed, how many friends her nephews had brought! Later, I heard that she had taken umbrage with some prior researchers who had painted her in an unpleasant light. In any case, now the farm, largely unchanged since her death, is a national heritage and likely to be preserved in authentic form, homes (white and black), outbuildings, pastures, gardens. Atlanta, on the other hand, has undergone tremendous urban sprawl, although I could still find my way around the “old neighborhoods,” including the garden districts in full flower.
On the home front, western Pennsylvania has experienced one of the wettest to drought spring/ summer conditions in recent memory. My little home garden produced enough tomatoes to be satisfactory, and I hope for a healthy fall crop of lettuces and greens. And at our community center, in addition to ever present committees, I am taking over more of the liturgical music, a satisfying development. As congregational meetings increase, we hear more talk of merging smaller groups in light of decreasing numbers and a median age of 75. The next few decades will be interesting.
Barbara Sitko
144 Church St.
New Wilmington PA 16142
Email: sitko@wsu.edu
Albert von Frank (WSU 1984–2006)
Last December I (and a large part of all the people I know) lost a good friend in Barbara L. Packer of the UCLA English Department. I first met her in 1977 at the summer encampment of the Emerson scholars at the Episcopal compound in Cambridge, where time was divided between manuscript work at the Houghton during the day and Indian food, beer, and conversation—all of the highest quality—in the evenings. For more than thirty years after that she and I read and critiqued each other’s work, and I know for my own part how much I was encouraged by this indication that I could sustain for so long the helpful interest of so sharp a critical mind.
In January I launched an effort to establish a research fellowship in her name whereby Ph.D. students and untenured faculty could pursue work on the Transcendentalists at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. During the Boston conference of the American Literature Association in May, I got the formal support of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society (and a crucial grant) and solicited donations from individuals there as well. By August I had raised $47,000 toward the $50,000 needed to fund the new Barbara L. Packer Fellowship, and as of this writing I continue my work on this project. The first fellowship recipient will most likely be named in the spring of 2012. If anyone reading this feels inclined to contribute (noting that we are not quite across the goal- line yet), I would be delighted to hear from you.
One of the last things of mine that Barbara read was the lengthy Historical Introduction to my edition of Emerson’s Poems (volume IX of The Collected Works), published by Harvard University Press in June 2011. This was the culmination of three-and-a-half years of work spent establishing the text, identifying and listing all the variant readings, and composing headnotes for each of the poems. At 852 pages, it is clearly the most ambitious project of my career.
Smaller projects continue apace. In July I published an edited exchange of emails in which Larry J. Reynolds (Texas A & M) and I debated the significance of Emerson’s response to John Brown (“Emerson, John Brown, and Transcendental Idealism: A Colloquy,” South Central Review 28.2 [Summer 2011]: 31-56). The journal’s editor heard of this private electronic conversation and wanted to publish it. It seems like an entirely new academic genre. I have also in press right now an article on Margaret Fuller and Antislavery.
The subject of scholarly journals came up in a rather painful way for me this past summer when I learned that the WSU administration meant to save a little money by eliminating ESQ and Poe Studies. So I am even now doing what I can to help Jana Argersinger (co-editor of both journals) in organizing a protest. The President, Provost, and Dean have as much of an idea as you might expect about what the journals mean to the department or to American literary scholarship nationally, so the effort has to be one of education. A national letter-writing campaign has been launched, though by the time you read this it will be known whether scholarly distinction or the cash nexus has won out.
It has not quite been all work and no play (though I have to acknowledge that the Emerson poems project was as much fun as any work I have ever done). Jane and I continue to explore the world of timeshares, and can report that we greatly enjoyed trips during the last year to the Texas hill country (San Antonio and Austin), Sedona (again, this time with friends), New York City (a midtown Hilton Hotel timeshare owned by other friends), Boston (the ALA conference), the Olympic Peninsula (the wonderful Quinault Lodge), and Seattle (where we saw Dustin Ackley’s first game in the majors). We are now just days away from our first cruise (up the Alaska coast, from Vancouver to Denali).
Retirement is everything it’s cracked up to be. (I wonder what the origin of that phrase is. I’ll bet Google knows.)
Albert J. von Frank
Email: ajvonfrank@roadrunner.com
Nelly C. Zamora (WSU 1976–2003)
In my 2010 contribution to the English Retirees Newsletter, I ended my letter by saying that we were scheduled to go to Peru in October, the Philippines in November, and spend Christmas in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The highlight of our trip to Peru was viewing and exploring the world heritage site of “Machu Picchu.” Everything connected to this wondrous place was so unbelievable and breathtaking. The history of the Inca people is so mysterious and I marvel at their accomplishments. Cesar and I also got the chance to tour other parts of Peru like Lima, Cuzco, the “Floating Islands” of Lake Titicaca, and the incredible “Nazca Lines.”
Last June, we, together with my brother-in-law and his wife, flew to Anchorage to tour parts of Alaska. Our trip included a tour of Denali National Park, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. We had good weather, saw a variety of wildlife, and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. We tasted, for the first time, “moose burger” and “caribou sausage,” and, of course, enjoyed salmon and other seafood. A highlight of the trip was joining a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park and seeing humpback whales breaching the water, orca whales swimming alongside the boat, and calving glaciers. We only had a sampler of Alaska and plan to see more of this big state in the future.
This past July, we made trips to visit our daughters in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle area. During our visit to Seattle, we met with Barbara Radziemski, a dear friend from Arizona and former WSU American Studies program coordinator, and made a short trip to Bainbridge Island. On the return ferry trip to Seattle, I was so elated to see Paul Brians and Paula Elliot a few seats from where we were seated. Another trip to western Washington in August took us to the San Juan Islands to attend the wedding of Christina Wygant (WSU, MA English 2003).
We are scheduled to go to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands in late September and again to the Philippines in November. I hope to keep you posted on our tour of the Galapagos Islands in the next newsletter. A recent news article indicates that the Ecuadorian government will begin limiting the number of tourist ships that visit the Galapagos Islands in February, 2012.
We are now in Los Angeles visiting my brother-in-law and his family as I write this. I will end this note by wishing all of you the best for the rest of 2011, and hope to hear from each and every one of you again in 2012!
Nelly
1710 NW Deane Street
Pullman, WA 99613-3508