Trimming the Load

 I still have papers I wrote for school, one at hand from 45 years ago, a paper from a class in the experimental novel when I was an undergraduate at Black Hills State College in Spearfish, SD.  I loved it there.  I enjoyed my classes.  This one, taught by Tom Herbeck, who I came to know as a brilliant scholar and writer, has stayed with me since that time.  

The paper I wrote, dated May 8, 1981, for Tom's class was about The Stranger, by Albert Camus. It's nothing special, but here it is, near at hand, with Tom's comments pencilled in and a half-sheet of paper attached with a typewritten commentary on my attempt, xxxxed out mistakes and all.  

I'm going to throw it away today.  I valued those exercises, reading carefully for insights and big ideas.  But nothing now will come of these papers.  Once I had an idea that I would publish some of the later ones, not this undergraduate one, but others, later.  I even sent one out, got positive comments back with suggestions for revision, but that's where it stopped.  

From my attic these papers come as the wife and I try to clear that out.  The other at hand is a paper from a seminar on the literature of the African diaspora, a course taught at the University of Kansas by Arthur Drayton, dated October 29, 1992.  That was the fall I spent in Lawrence to qualify as two consecutive terms at KU necessary for completion of my PhD, which never happened.  I couldn't finish.  But the courses were good, and I was hopeful after my job ended when my school, St. Mary of the Plains College in Dodge City, closed that spring.  February 17, 1992, I think, when the announcement came.  

I got other jobs.  I finished a PhD elsewhere, with other good professors.  

Drayton too was positive in his comments.  Maybe that could have been a publishable paper.  It was printed on a dot matrix printer, so by that time I was using a computer.  Maybe a digital version remains somewhere.  

In that paper, I took on a topic that continues to intrigue me when I read, when I write.  It's the pull between the community and the individual, adhering to the group or striking out on your own.  I write here about three books we read that semester:  Arrow of God, by Chinua Achebe, Bridge of Beyond, by Simone Schwartz-Bart, and Praisesong for the Widow, by Paule Marshall.  I have no memory of the second book, and little of the third, but Achebe's work stays with me.  

It was hard work, writing those papers, especially the later one, when I was living in a motel room in Lawrence with my family across the state.  My children were small.  I was away all week, some weekends.  It was hard.  

But I enjoyed that life of study, of books, of sharing ideas, learning, reading.  Tom Herbeck died years ago.  Drayton is probably gone, too, along with many of my other great teachers.  

It's all good.  I can let these papers go, and with that, maybe I can put more in motion, toward the past, toward trash, saved in memory.  

Suddenly, September

Writng the title above caused me to flash back to seeing my older brother for the first time in a college play in Aberdeen, SD.  I don't think I'd ever been to a live play on stage apart from some high school silliness.  It was the Fantasticks, with the song "Try to Remember."  

I'm reminded too because I've been purging stuff that I've hung on to for long enough--time to let it go.  Among that stuff is a small batch of letters from my grandfather, old friends, and other family members, including from brother Joe, who wrote from Wisconsin and Ohio when he was in the theater.  

I also found a copy of a play that I didn't remember I had, one I helped write with him and the members of Dakota Theater Caravan.  I read it last night, maybe for the first time.  I'm not sure it was finished yet when this copy was printed on a dot-matrix printer (remember those?).  Set in the Black Hills, the play centers on controversial plans for mining in this beautiful area.  

Anyway, looking through that material last night made me look back over a long life, professional and otherwise, and people and projects long gone.  I never saw that play performed, though it was, but I could see my mark on it, and that's something.  

Reminders

Sometimes I need to remind myself that writing is a kind of comfort for me, to put down in words some of what is whirling in my head. So here goes. This morning I made a list of some of the things I'd like to do. It doesn't yet include exercise or a meal out with friends, both of which are on the agenda. But it does include nine other things, one of which is "blog." 

 It's been a year since I made an entry here. And a lot has happened since then, though one of the things I keep hoping the wife and I can put together--some travel--continues to be elusive. I did go to San Francisco and hang out with my two brothers out there for a week. That was pretty great, even without going to the many civic offerings of that great city. So that was one trip. And we did have a good year for Poetry on the Road, our poetry project from the South Dakota State Poetry Society (SDSPS), visiting 21 towns across South Dakota to read and host open mic events.  And we're doing it again.  We did spend a couple of days this spring at Oakwood Lakes State Park.  

One constant is the vast array of projects that continue to occupy my time.  I just rented a 62 foot crane and cleaned the wood stove chimney and installed a new cap, earlier renting another crane and replacing the shingles that have blown off in our wicked wind storms.  I bought and sold a pickup.  Almost bought another house.  Bought an old Beetle convertible, perhaps a mistake.  I'm working on a mosaic piece.  I remodeled the upstairs bathroom and leveled the floor.  We stripped the wallpaper off the upstairs hallway, and that remains an unfinished project.  Last summer I completed the restoration of the front porch.  We planted a nice garden again and have enjoyed its harvest of cucumbers, peppers, and especially tomatoes.  

After I finish here with the old blog, I'm going to pay bills, take out the garbage, mow, pay for repairs on the van, and maybe exercise.   But I also need to deal with an accident on Saturday, when a woman driving an SUV backed into the side of my lovely BMW convertible.  I've got to go to the police station, get the report, contact a body shop, and maybe drive the car there to have an estimate done.  I'm hoping they will repair it, not total it out.  We'll see what happens, so stay tuned.