thewritingprofessor55

Hello from the One Acre to Many Acres,

As our lives inch their way back toward some sense of interactive process, I find myself questioning so many things I took for granted: teaching in a classroom, walking down the street and greeting entire faces, being next to someone at a distance of less than six feet in any space, seeing a cashier without plexiglass in front of them. What will our daily routines consist of as we move toward some sort of post-isolation existence. While there are places I have grown to feel more benefits than detriments during COVID-19, I also realize there are some places I was initially content in my isolation, I evolved in those opinions over the last 16 months. Isolation when desired is one thing, when it is required, it is something quite different. It seems I fluctuated in my degree of tolerance based on things that were most often outside of my control, which, of course, is not the best way to manage anything. However, I imagine I was not unique in that difficulty. This morning, I was out and ran into a former student and it was really quite wonderful to catch up and chat with them. I think the last few weeks have reminded me of some of the difficulties all of us have faced in this time. From family and friends to students and colleagues, the consequence of isolation and the requirement of managing our lives within our protective bubbles (the necessity of social distancing) has been arduous.

In a couple of weeks, I am going to take a bit of a trip, traveling on my own, but doing a bit of a take-two of a trip two years ago. However, this time I am connecting with family that I have not seen in almost 4 decades. That is a really difficult admission, particularly when they were so important to my childhood. There are another group of cousins I will catch up with later in that trip also. I was the youngest among the one family and a bit older than the other, but so much of life has gone by in the meanwhile. In my conversations, not surprisingly, we have all changed and life has thrown things our way that we could not have anticipated. What I find myself trying to discover is how the person I remember is still in there. The most endearing qualities are often their personality, their kindness, their foundational goodness as a person, and without exception it is there. Those traits are what binds us together. It is the thing that keeps some sense of identity, that continuous thread connecting us to our past.

Life as well as all the clichés that we attach to it is more profound, indeterminate, and yet simultaneously predictable, if we will take the time to examine it. And even when we do, it is difficult at best to understand the path it seems to take. If you seem confused that I seem to be arguing both sides at the same time, you are not confused at all. However, it is not life’s episodic nature that makes it so laborious or burdensome, so strenuous or incalculable. I believe it is our inability or unwillingness to examine ourselves and our choices in that journey. We are too often willing to play victim to our own decisions. We willingly blame the other for what happens. Our incredible propensity for pointing our fingers has seemed to multiply over the past two decades. My somewhat arbitrary date is an entirely different post, but suffice it to say I do believe our blaming actions have become more common and more problematic. This morning, in conversation with a local business owner, we lamented some issues, and then the conversation moved into the reality that businesses cannot even hire people right now. There is a new eating establishment ready to open and they cannot because they cannot hire enough people. What’s up with that?

This gets us back to the move from isolation to normalcy. While I do believe people need help, I am not okay with people sitting home and not looking for a job merely because they want to do nothing. If we are to get back to some degree of normalcy, we are all dependent on each other to create that new status quo together. What is the new normal? I have no idea, but a simple willingness to be less selfish might be a good beginning. If the past 16 months has revealed anything, at least to me, it is we have an impossibly inequitable world, and that is in every element of it. I struggle more and more with the concept of free market. During the past week, as I am now on the road and visiting relative, I was on Lake Geneva for the first time. I went on the mailboat run with a dear childhood friend. As I listened to the narrative of our hosts on the boat, the opulence, the wealth, and the ostentatious display of money that was around that lake boggles my head. I do not begrudge what those innovators, business people, and others have accomplished because many of those things were part of my everyday life. I can appreciate ingenuity and I am sure there was an incredible amount of hard work that went into their lives, but I struggle when I think about how many people worked for them at minimum wage and eked out a living as they grew wealthier and wealthier. I am reminded of my father working as a journeyman electrician, and for years working 7 days a week and 12 hours a day. Indeed, he made overtime, high-time (for working up in the air), and double-time, but he was never wealthy. And yet I think he believed himself to be successful, much as his son does at this point in his life, but my chances to have multi-millions or a lake house worth millions, where I might spend 3 months a year is not even a pipe dream. When is enough a enough is perhaps what I am asking? When does it become more display than something someone uses or even enjoys? Certainly their understanding of normalcy is a bit different than mine.

And yet, I am well aware of how fortunate I am. I have an incredible job, amazing colleagues and friends, and I am presently reminded of how beautiful my family is yet again. As I watched my cousins and listened to three of them last night, the love and care they have for each other is so apparent, but also so natural, so effortless. Kim, now the matriarch of the family is focused, dedicated, and has a beauty that radiates in all she does. As we walked around their beautiful property with the corn field in the distance, the Icelandic sheep in two pastures, and an bountiful garden (of which I was profoundly jealous, in a loving way), she noted other things in the yard (e.g. trees, native grass and flower garden) each planted in memory of a family member. She is so introspective, appreciative, and insightful. Then the twins asked us to join them to kayak and paddle-board a stretch of the Upper Iowa River. In the spirit of transparency, I had never been in a kayak, and I managed to roll it. Fortunately, it was not a deep spot and besides a scrap on my knee and getting a bit wet, no issues. However we transferred to a paddle board, which was a bit more stable and the rest of the paddle went without incident. What a wonderful evening! One of the most relaxing even though I was exercising for over two hours. Later today, Mary, the second youngest of the amazing sisters will be joining us. I am excited to meet her again. We are missing one for the visit. Martha, with appropriate caution, has decided to not travel, which is a reminder we are not quite back to normal. She is missed that is for sure. As I drove across the Wisconsin/Iowa border, there was a sense of serenity I have not felt in some time. I was going back to one of the things that offered normalcy. I was leaving the isolation from family that I am probably most responsible for creating. I am not sure that creation was a conscious thing, but it happened. That is something to ponder. As I look out of my Air BnB, quaintly dubbed as Acorn Cabin, I look out at a small pasture that is filling now with sheep. They are out for their morning graze and there are three little ones that are quite adorable. There is a cleanness to all of this. There is a reminder of my childhood and the state in which I grew up and began to form the person I am today. There is only a minuscule possibility that I could have expected where I am today from when I was that young boy in Iowa. Perhaps I should have my mathematics friend/colleague help me try to figure out that possibility. It is ironic that he actually interviewed here at Luther before he took the job at Bloomsburg. It is also ironic that Don, the father of these amazing cousins, was the head of that department at one point.

During the past month, like so many, we have poked out headed out of our Tortuga shells, trying to imagine like post pandemic. This trip is a move from isolation to normalcy on numerous levels. I have come home to the state I lived in from 2-18. And while I have been back at other times, this times seems different. It feels like I have realized the need to reconnect with what I knew so long ago. I have isolated myself from that past perhaps more than necessary. I have resuscitated a part of my life that seemed lifeless . . . I am not sure how I will feel at the end of the trip, but I know, perhaps, this rehabilitation of my childhood is essential for me to put all the pieces of who I am into some connective line.

My mind is filled with thoughts and conjecture and my heart is filled with gratitude for the ability to get back to an early sense of normalcy . . . spending time with a set of cousins, whose memories are all about happiness and joy. Last night was a wonderful reminder of the love and care they exude in all they do. I think I will remain for a few more days and soak it up with every pore of my being. I hope for all of you who read this, you are also finding an ability to move out from your isolation. May we all find some normalcy that brings us peace and comfort.

The past two days (even though it took me a month to get this posted) have been an incredible memory-provoking time. I am missing those who are not among us any longer. I hope they are watching us and realize how much we still love them too. I hope when they saw us yesterday reminiscing about our earlier lives they saw how much they are still here for us. There is so much that makes us who we are. Perhaps there is no isolation if we look beyond it. Perhaps it is just life and that is normal.

Thanks as always for reading.

Michael (the cousin, the brother, the son, the nephew)

Hello from Manassas, Virginia,

It has been an incredibly taxing year on all involved in higher education. From students to faculty, from staff to administrators, the consequence of the pandemic has been felt by all. While that is perhaps an obvious statement, what is not as obvious is the degree to which it has affected the world of academe. This is in no way meant to underestimate the difficulties of the rest of society, but rather to focus on the world where I spend the majority of my time. I know too well that some of my former classmates believe being a professor is an easy, part-time, no-accountability, proselytizing venture where I am paid to do as little work as possible. I can assure those in that camp that this past year, more than any in the time I have taught, has been more demanding and laborious. It has been more overwhelming and frustrating, and more of a learning experience than any of my previous years spent in the classroom (and ironically, I was not in a classroom the entire year). The best way to describe asynchronous, remote learning is as a time I was never scheduled to be in class and simultaneously, unless I was sleeping, never out of class. It was like having 75 independent studies or more each semester.

Am I glad I experienced it? Yes, I learned an incredible amount about myself as well as about my students. Do I want to do it ever again? That is an emphatic “hell no!” While I might have worked harder than I ever have, I can tell you I felt more ineffective, more like a failure than anytime I have taught. I can also tell you I got more trashed (taken to task) by students than ever before . . . and some of their complaints and concerns were valid (but they had little willingness, it seemed, to see the other side of what happened.) I should note that it was not every student. Most certainly, there were students profoundly understanding. Bottom line seems to be I certainly failed to do the best job ever done in classes, and that is in spite of the extraordinary time spent trying to manage this asynchronous world. Am I frustrated by that? Without a doubt. Why? Simply – I take a lot of pride in what I do, and I do believe I owe students the best I can give them. On the other hand, pedagogically, it was evident that asynchronous remote learning is not the best delivery method for some classes, and that is for a variety of reasons. However, the world of education (and this goes back to our public school systems for starters) seems content to treat students as customers. This is not something to which I willingly subscribe. I cannot be convinced such a plan is helpful. Can I do the checks and balances of tuition and fees as well as state or federal support that make a university education financially solvent? Yes, I probably can. Yet, if we only see our students as dollar signs or retention objects as the be-all, end-all of what we do, what does it mean to profess, to learn, to reflect, to become a scholar? When students become the consumer (e.g. the boss) of their classes, I become a substitute, the purveyor of information. I become a person whose worth or value is determined by someone who brain is not fully developed. I am evaluated by the whims and preferences of someone’s attitudes versus what they have actually done or learned.

I was told recently (and by someone for whom I have incredible respect) that I am too metacognitive and that my students do not want to be pushed in that manner. There are two struggles with that statement. First, I believe the person who told me this is undoubtedly correct (I always want to know the why about the why). And second, and perhaps more importantly, to believe that education is a recipe card or a rubric, which is what this implies. Such an understanding is foundationally wrong. As one of my undergrad colleagues (who is now a professor as I am) reminded me, our advisor, the late Dr. John W. Nielsen once quoted the three word phrase from the Upanishads, “”Tat tvam asi.” Or to put it another way, “the essence are (and this grammatical difficulty is intentional) you.” It is about reflection and understanding who we are as well as the what we are; it is about understanding the manifestation of ourselves and how we (or it) is part of something so much larger (and I would add also important). If we can only see our students as some dollar sign, as having their value determined by the tuition they generate, we lose sight of our role as educators. As noted, I am as well aware of the business aspect of our system as anyone, but I would like to believe that my argument is about more than some idealistic belief in being the professor.

Allow me to put it in a different context, view it from a different perspective. As noted more than once, I am that first generation college student. My parents did not pay for my education, nor did they plan to do so, and the reason for that was simple. They could not afford to do so. When I first went to Iowa State University, I flunked out. When I eventually ended up at Dana College, I was petrified I was not smart enough to be there, Fortunately, with hard work, some wonderful classmates, and an incredible faculty, I learned that I could do the necessary work. Yet, during my first year, I did not know how to learn. I knew well how to jump through hoops. The Marine Corps had taught me this if nothing else. I remember an Introduction to Business Management course. We had multiple choice, take-home, open-book exams. Those exams were written so intricately, that it would take three of us, each working diligently through the book together more than an hour to manage the 25 multiple choice questions. However, we did it (and after notating our exams with where we found our answers) we generally received an A on the exam. However, that was not, nor is it education. I can say with no reservation that I remember nothing from that class. It was actually through my Humanities sequence, I learned the concept of integration and synthesis. Those three semesters and my interim in Europe reflecting on the works of Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Mann, my being in a cultural classroom 24/7 for a month with Dr. Nielsen compelled me to rethink everything. I finally understood what it meant to study or learn (theoretically, conceptually, and practically). It was soaking every drop up. It was looking beyond the obvious, and it was not by following a rubric or recipe card. The integration required to become a professional is not a dichotomous process, one separating classroom and experience. For too much of my schooling, especially back in own public school upbringing, we had two kinds of teachers. First, rote memorization was what we did. There was little difference from English to history, biology to geography. The difference was whether the teacher figured out how to keep me interested or made the process enjoyable. What that admission means is telling. We have been stymied by the process of learning most of our lives. We had (and perhaps still believe we need) to be mollified. I struggle when my students say, “I only want to read what I am interested in.” I balk at the idea that somehow I need to give them every element as if they are trained responders.

So what is the answer? I am not quite sure, but whatever it is, I am quite sure it is neither simple nor will some conceptual response manage it. Why? Because in the words of the feminist poet, Adrienne Rich, it is the students’ response-ability that matters. It is the agency we take as humans to be accountable, and through which we claim an education versus receive one. However, we are selfish. We want things on our own terms. As I write and ponder, I am intrigued by what it was our professors at Dana seemed to do so effortlessly, so seamlessly. If you speak with Dana alumni from education to science, from humanities to the arts, it seems there were outstanding faculty, those who inspired student to take charge of their education. That small college on the bluffs of the Missouri had already created the scholarly community Rich speaks of in her commencement address to Rutgers University (some 25 years later). This does not mean there were never shenanigans. What? No one ever drank on our dry campus, certainly not! Ha! I remember two characters on my floor when I was an RA, somehow believing that having half the campus on our floor and two 16 gallon kegs in their room would not be noticed. They were quite sad when I made them open the taps and pour the rest of the beer down the drain. I remember when one floor on campus decided to make a swimming pool out of the shower. When a faculty person’s daughter knocked the barrier down a flood ensued down the hallway, and, of course, they were not on the first floor. Oh, the memories. And yet we survived . . . all the time afforded an incredible education at that Danish Lutheran College. In spite of being known as the “Holy Dane” campus, there were certainly times when we put Luther’s quote of “if you are going to sin, sin boldly.” into action.

What does it mean to be educated? Yet again another difficult question, but at this point I believe it is about thinking, analyzing, and integrating. It is not memorization; it is not a recipe; it is, however, something different for each person. It is being honest with one’s self and knowing in their heart if they really did the best work possible. It is the wisdom of self reflection. I can still see Dr. Nielsen’s lecture on the “allegory of the cave.” As my floor-mate, and incredibly brilliant professor, Dr. Langholz noted, it is remembering the times we were pushed to ponder the complexities of our humanity by the likes of Drs. Nielsen and Jorgensen, be it philosophically or in light of our national history. Dana taught me to go beyond what was average. Dana taught be to listen and reflect, to ponder and imagine, to never be satisfied to merely complete an assignment. I miss that in some of my students. That is not to say all. I have some really good students; I have some who want to go beyond, but it is difficult for me when they merely want to know what to do without pondering the why they are doing it. For me, it is seldom enough to merely get something done. It is that very nature that is also sometimes to my own detriment. I realize I am seldom satisfied, even with my own work. I want it to be better. I want it to be more thorough; and I want it to be meaningful above all else. Perhaps that is why I am where I am.

In my last blog, I noted the passing of an incredible influence in my personal and academic development. Since that time, it has come to light that another classmate, and ironically a mutual traveler on that Interim trip also passed from our grasp. Lisa (Hansen) Madsen, who was a year ahead of me in terms of our time at Dana, passed, even more ironically, the same day as Dr. Nielsen. I note that because she was an incredibly kind and thoughtful person and an important part of our traveling group that winter term. I note it because her husband was my head resident and also a profoundly important part of my Dana experience. It is always stunning when we lose people we have known most of our lives. She had the most radiant smile and she brightened any room she entered. I am saddened beyond words to learn of her passing. Perhaps, in my own piety, she and Dr. Nielsen met at the gates and began yet another journey, this time as two humans beyond the grasp of our understanding.

Our lives are complex and more unpredictable than we often realize. Perhaps it my age; perhaps I am becoming the curmudgeonly Norman Thayer from the movie On Golden Pond. Perhaps I am realizing I have much less time left than what I have lived and I want to somehow make a difference. Sometimes I feel there is so much left to do. Sometimes I wish I knew what I knew now, except I had realized it half my life ago. As Markus Zusak wrote in his novel, The Book Thief, “I am haunted by humans.” I wonder about the reflection in the cave more often than not. As I post this, I cannot help but remember it was 48 years ago today I graduated as the first graduating class of West High School in Sioux City, Iowa. Amazing what I understood life to be then and now.

The glory days were well beyond then. Thanks for reading.

Dr. Martin

Hello from my study on a Sunday night,

It has been a busy, hectic, productive, with too much yet to do, weekend. While I have met with a covey of students through Zoom, there is more to do. While I have gotten more things packed and staged, there is still more to do. While I have gotten most of a chapter revised for publication, there is still more to do. While I have gotten some of the paperwork for selling the house completed, there is still more to do. While I have both fertilized the yard and managed some other yard things, there is probably more to do. Do you see a pattern? When I feel overwhelmed or need to allow my brain a chance to regroup, as you who read here know, I write. It actually lowers my stress level, and it provides me an opportunity to consider things that need to be pondered.

As I changed the calendar this morning, I realized it is the birthday of my adopted father’s eldest brother-in-law, a man known to the entire neighborhood and beyond as Uncle Clare. If you ever met him, you would remember. He was colorful, opinionated, knowledgeable of all things our natural world, owned an arsenal, swore beyond what any service person should be able, and was the kindest curmudgeon you might ever met. Experiencing him as a child growing up, which occurred regularly because he both lived only about 8 houses down the street and he was our perpetual Sunday dinner guest, he taught me things, many which would cause my mother to cringe. Possibly the best example that is appropriate to share in this venue was the last time I saw him alive. To make a long story short, he had gotten into some fisticuffs with his roommate in the nursing home and he had injured his wrist and hand. As a 90 year old (yes, 90), his skin as frail and his wrist watch had caused some cuts because of his shenanigans. My father was his POA, and as such he was called. I happened to be visiting, so my father asked if I might go check on him.

As I arrived at the facility, I heard his voice before I had ever approached the door. His normal four-letter vocabulary was on 78 rpm speed. As I stood in the door watching for a moment, he turned to see me, asking “What the F&$* are you doing here?” To which I responded, “That is a good question.” Then I said, “You got in a fight with your roommate?” He nodded, while still swearing at the poor CNA there trying to help him, and retorted, “I knocked the c*&^!#!@er out!” Not good . . . I asked him to behave so the woman attending him could finish her work. He told me, “The bitch is trying to kill me.” And so it went until I convinced him to settle down. This was typical Uncle Clare. He had quit school in first grade and yet taught himself to read. He was a bugler in WWI, and in spite of being supposedly legally blind, there were regularly dead starlings around his Martin birdhouse, which he picked off with the pellet gun. Almost every family has that colorful character who has more stories than you can find in the Bible, well Clare was ours. Any yet, in spite of all his bluster, when you did something for him, he was genuinely grateful. He had a bottle of Ol’ Grandad on the top of his refrigerator and a 38 snub-nose pistol under his pillow, which was used one night when people tried to rob him in his late 80s. Indeed, he was like no other person. He had worked on an armored car in the 1920s, when Sioux City was known as little Chicago, and that Thompson sub-machine gun was still in his basement. I remember him one time telling me that Chester Gould, the cartoonist who created Dick Tracy, must have drank squirrel whiskey. I did not really know what that meant, but I never asked either.

What a remember most about him was his insatiable interest in plants, animals, flowers, and yes, guns. He could identify tracks, feathers, as well as name off almost any flora you would find in our state park. He had the most incredible asparagus and rhubarb garden in the world. He spent his days puttering in his yard, driving up to the grocery store, or listening to the television, which sat at the front end of his living room. It was on so loudly, you could hear it outside. There were elements of his house he never changed from 1960 until he moved out of that house in the late 1980s. His wife, Gladys, my father’s eldest sister had passed away tragically in the hospital in 1960. I do not remember her, though I was told I met her as a small child. She was quite eloquent from what I know, but as many in those days, she smoked, and that habit would lead to her death. Uncle Clare often said she was the best thing that ever happened to him. As someone who taught himself to read, he read voraciously, and he listened to the news. He was generally up on all things important and he had an opinion about most of it.

In his latter years, my cousins and my father, as well as myself, did what he needed to have done to make him as comfortable as possible. He loved to sit by the kitchen window and look at this flower garden and the asparagus and rhubarb patch, which he always gave away. It is also the same window from where he would assassinate unsuspecting starlings or any other varmint that got into his yard. He loved to read Field and Stream and National Geographic and when we came to visit he would tell us about his newest facts from whatever he had recently read. He was as pleased as anything as he relayed his handy facts. He was a rather short, stocky person, around 5’6″, and probably 180 pounds. He was bald, clean shaven, with small eyes covered by his horn-rimmed glasses and a noticeably large nose. He looked the same the thirty years I knew him and he never seemed to age. He remained by in large the same. He ate his breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same table. He played solitaire daily, and he drank his coffee out of the same cup. He was a creature of habit to be sure.

As he aged he worried less about appearance or cleanliness and both my cousin, Joanne and I would go to his house and clean and throw away food that would have killed him or washed linens and clothes so he would not seem homeless. This was not done with ease because he did not want people fussing over him, so we would sneak things out. At one point we had to buy a new coffee cup, but one that looked the same because the old one was simply too nasty. He had something to say about anything and everything, and on this day of his 125th birthday, it seems appropriate to imagine what he would say about our present day world. Much like I have noted about Lydia, I cannot even begin to imagine getting him to mask-up. Doubtful at best, and with much kicking, swearing, and gnashing of teeth. I think he was a Democrat, but I am not sure. However, I am pretty sure going through the Great Depression made many middle class people Democrats. I wonder what he thought of Germany in WWII as he was a German himself. Things we never spoke of, but I have no doubt he would have little patience for the gridlock and the bickering that characterizes Washington today. I think he would have more than strong words for our national politicians.

I have tried to think how I would describe his philosophy, but he was a someone self-made person. I think he worked the railroad for a number of years. He asked for nothing and he expected nothing from others. He did have a philanthropic bent to him because he was 32nd Degree Mason and a Shriner. The more I think about him, the more amazing he is to me. He was always willing to give and he was generous and appreciative at Christmas times. There have been moments when I have noted I might be more like him than I ever realized. He understood so much more than I believe most gave him credit for knowing. He was loyal and loved his family, but he stayed to himself. I remember a couple of times when I was struggling as I grew and he would offer encouragement to me. He always accepted me, regardless what I did. He was a conduit for me at times when I was distant because of my struggles with my mother. What I know as I write this about him this evening is I admired him more than I was ever conscious of. I know when my Grandmother struggled, I think he was there to help her. When we struggled with issues of simply growing up, he was always there to be supportive in whatever way possible. I once compared him to a penny that when one took the time to shine it would see his luster. I think he might be more valuable. He might be worth a bitcoin into today’s world. I would love to hear what he might say about today’s world on his 125th birthday.

Love you Uncle Clare. Thank you for all the things you taught me in a sort of osmotic manner. If you have that story-telling curmudgeon win your family. Let them know how much they mean.

Thank you to the rest of you for reading.

Dr. Martin