There are three family birthdays coming within weeks and this may give some idea of what my parents were usually doing in February or March.
This is the first time one of our number will not make it to the party and I'm the eldest so I wasn't prepared for that empty chair. I wasn't supposed to endure this. This is not a prelude to a whine, it's simply the fact of it.
There were six but I doubt that makes a difference as it doesn't matter that the other chairs are not empty when there is no-one coming to that one.
The Ulithi Islanders set a place at table for people who are gone so they can take what they need to get where they are going. Some regard them as savages. Perhaps.
My ol' Dad wrote a book called "Dimensions of Death" and don't go running off for the silver bullets as it wasn't like that. He also taught a class with a supernatural resemblance to the book and which, uncannily, was named Dimensions of Death.
Note: this is the book which I would most preferred to have seen published but he never submitted the manuscript. That is one class A tragedy because all copies of the existing book were created using a duplicating machine. There are no known copies extant. Of course professors often use their own books in some of their classes as the books, if well-written, show some area of professorial expertise as well as the author can express it. That isn't some hustle of the students to sell books as textbooks usually make jack (i.e. not much). The copies weren't sold, they gave them away.
This is NOT going into a depressing freakshow.
The class was one of the most successful he ever taught and students came to it from every discipline. He invited that kind of discourse and it was fascinating. The theme to it was all things die, whether atomic particles or suns, eventually the time comes.
One of the students, Jim Cohn, came from Hebrew Union University where he was studying to become a rabbi. He is one of the flaming brightest people I have ever met and he would engage in long discussions on the dimensions of death. My ol' Dad appreciated his mind as he only invited the best back to talk at home, afternoon tea.
It stunned my ol' Dad to be told many times by students this was the first time they had ever been in a professor's home. He not only had them into the home for the really deep discussions, he also hosted The Death Parties. Many classes at university can be satisfying intellectually but the mark of a really great class is the party. Dimensions of Death was a truly great class as the parties were an annual outrage.
My ol' Dad wasn't trying to be buddies with the students but he did enjoy a rare opportunity to get absolutely shit-faced and The Death Parties were one of those times. It was a difficult course as he doesn't accept amateurish papers and the party was a release for the whole crew. It was also with costumes, a great deal of alcohol consumption, and university students behaving with abandon only exceeded by the Animal House.
There was a lesson in all of it. There was a lesson in everything he did. Your task is to discern it. There are two general paths as you can watch each chair go empty or take the existentialist view they never will be empty. I'll go with the latter.
This is the first time one of our number will not make it to the party and I'm the eldest so I wasn't prepared for that empty chair. I wasn't supposed to endure this. This is not a prelude to a whine, it's simply the fact of it.
There were six but I doubt that makes a difference as it doesn't matter that the other chairs are not empty when there is no-one coming to that one.
The Ulithi Islanders set a place at table for people who are gone so they can take what they need to get where they are going. Some regard them as savages. Perhaps.
My ol' Dad wrote a book called "Dimensions of Death" and don't go running off for the silver bullets as it wasn't like that. He also taught a class with a supernatural resemblance to the book and which, uncannily, was named Dimensions of Death.
Note: this is the book which I would most preferred to have seen published but he never submitted the manuscript. That is one class A tragedy because all copies of the existing book were created using a duplicating machine. There are no known copies extant. Of course professors often use their own books in some of their classes as the books, if well-written, show some area of professorial expertise as well as the author can express it. That isn't some hustle of the students to sell books as textbooks usually make jack (i.e. not much). The copies weren't sold, they gave them away.
This is NOT going into a depressing freakshow.
The class was one of the most successful he ever taught and students came to it from every discipline. He invited that kind of discourse and it was fascinating. The theme to it was all things die, whether atomic particles or suns, eventually the time comes.
One of the students, Jim Cohn, came from Hebrew Union University where he was studying to become a rabbi. He is one of the flaming brightest people I have ever met and he would engage in long discussions on the dimensions of death. My ol' Dad appreciated his mind as he only invited the best back to talk at home, afternoon tea.
It stunned my ol' Dad to be told many times by students this was the first time they had ever been in a professor's home. He not only had them into the home for the really deep discussions, he also hosted The Death Parties. Many classes at university can be satisfying intellectually but the mark of a really great class is the party. Dimensions of Death was a truly great class as the parties were an annual outrage.
My ol' Dad wasn't trying to be buddies with the students but he did enjoy a rare opportunity to get absolutely shit-faced and The Death Parties were one of those times. It was a difficult course as he doesn't accept amateurish papers and the party was a release for the whole crew. It was also with costumes, a great deal of alcohol consumption, and university students behaving with abandon only exceeded by the Animal House.
There was a lesson in all of it. There was a lesson in everything he did. Your task is to discern it. There are two general paths as you can watch each chair go empty or take the existentialist view they never will be empty. I'll go with the latter.
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