THE
SNOOPY GANG GOT IT RIGHT
Professor
Bill Woerhlin
CVEC
Spring Meeting May 2006
In this brief talk, I must
explain my enigmatic title and I want to engage in some shameless flattery of
my audience, for reasons that will become clear as we go on.
It is a well-known and
widely-celebrated fact that CVEC has offered courses to suit the tastes and
challenge the intellects of almost every serious person:
* science courses have
ranged from the smallest cell to the cosmos
* literature courses have
ranged from Mark Twain to James Joyce
* historical
interest has been touched by courses on the archaeology of the Bible and
study of the background of the modern
* courses have
treated the supreme themes of art and song ... and the list could go on
But one thing we have surely NOT had in our
organization is anything like a "True Confessions of the Instructor"
course, and no doubt that is fortunate. However, in wild moments of fantasy, I
have long toyed with the idea of submitting to the Curriculum Committee a
proposal for a course with a title like "I Was A Teenage Hit Man,"
just to see what would happen. Would they approve? would
it sell?
I am
going to ask your indulgence in trying something that will sound like a
confession to make a few important points and because Teresa, in her kind
invitation for me to speak, made it quite clear "no remarks, no
recognition." So, let me try.
To make this confession, I
must take you back to my early retirement years, after a long and very happy
career teaching history at Carleton College. I had enjoyed every aspect of my
work there, but at age 65 I had reached a point where I could not stand to look
at another student bluebook and I yearned for the freedom to choose my own
reading, rather than dutifully fulfill my professional responsibilities. So retire I did, and for the better part of a
year reveled in the freedom to read wherever my fancy took me. But then
something happened. When I looked back over what I had been doing-a little of
this and a little of that-I sensed both the lack of focus and the lack of
achievement. Nothing had been examined in enough depth to make me feel I had
grown in any way. There were no new insights or directions to my thinking. I
had the feeling of marking time.
Another discomfort added to my
gray mood. For as long as I
was employed in education, I had the feeling of doing something useful, of
making some kind of worthwhile contribution. Without my job, I missed that
comforting certainty. Was retirement to be simply years of self-indulgence?
About this time, quite by
chance, I came upon a book of cartoons by Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the
Peanuts comic strip, with those delightful
characters I have called the Snoopy gang. The book's title, When
You're Over The Hill, You Start To Gather Steam, suggested its theme of the
problems of aging. The first cartoon I looked at had two of the characters (I can't remember which
ones) in conversation. The first one boasts "My grandfather knows 155
hymns" "Oh," replies the second "does he sing in the
choir?" "No" says the first "he can't remember where the
Church is."
I had always appreciated Schulz's
work. With gentle humor, he seemed to make profound comments on the human
condition: how we often wound each other; how we live with fantasies and false
expectations (think of Lucy always pulling away the football just before
Charlie Brown tries to kick it, and he seems to never learn); but Schulz also
affirmed the human decency that meets apparent disasters with no more than an
occasional "good grief."
I raced
through the other cartoons and felt that this collection of jokes about seniors
was right on the mark. They helped me define my situation and accept with good
humor those things I could not change. Indeed, I was so excited by the book I
wanted to lend it out and spread the word to others. As luck would have it, I
lent it to a friend who (being a senior) forgot to return it, while I (being a
senior) forgot to whom I lent it.
So, the Snoopy gang had helped
me recognize the problems of my early years of my retirement: the fading of a
sense of purpose in my life; the reality of my changing ability level, alas
with some undeniable loss of power; and the absence of focus and feeling of
achievement in my intellectual world. These were the problems, but where could
I find the solution? The solution, in part, was provided by the founders of
CVEC (Ron and Bettye Ronning, Keith and Bev Anderson) whom I sometimes think of
as galloping down St. Olaf
Avenue to bring salvation to the East side of town and more personally to me.
Obviously CVEC has not encompassed all aspects of my life, but it has been a
very important part of it, in three ways: in the courses I have taught: in the
courses I have taken; and in the classmates and friends I have met.
COURSES I HAVE TAUGHT: Initially it was important to rethink and rework
material from courses I had taught at Carleton, material which might otherwise
simply have faded from my memory. After several years of doing that, I hit upon
the plan of designing new courses in areas where I was not fully prepared, but
did want to learn more. With a full year to prepare a course, more time than I
ever had when teaching at the college, I found no difficulty giving focus to my
reading and in fact read with a greater sense of achievement.
Moreover, in all these classes I
have had the delight of meeting mature students whose only reason for being in
class was their own intellectual curiosity, and who brought to discussions not
only decades of reading, but invaluable life experience. After a career of
trying to make younger students aware of some of the tragedies of human
history, like the Holocaust, when their own lives had known no more serious
crisis than finding the right date for the senior prom, mature students were a
very welcome relief.
COURSES
I HAVE TAKEN: These have served me in several ways. Some helped me to go where
I had never been before. Ruth Hansen's course on the archaeology of the Bible opened
up an entirely new form of inquiry to me, one that, as a historian, I should
have known more about. So too, Stan Frear awakened my interest and appreciation
of Irish literature.
Two courses on mathematics
helped me make amends for past sins. Having attended high school and college
with the old math, I had managed to get my A in calculus without the foggiest
idea of what it was all about. I put new numbers into other people's formulas,
and very little else.
In the
courses of Sy Schuster and Paul Fjelstad, I learned something about the
mathematics of symmetry and came to see mathematics more broadly as a variety
of systems of symbolic logic. One
course helped me develop a new sensibility, that of hearing and responding
emotionally to German Lieder, a sensibility that has given me great
pleasure. It was achieved simply by watching Dick Cantwell's own reaction to
the songs as they were being played. In the very best sense of the word his reactions were infectious, and I
profited by them.
Another course gave me the
opportunity to reach beyond my reach. There are no entry requirements in CVEC
courses, and this allowed me to enter a course offered by Ron Ronning and Bill
Child on score reading for a Mahler symphony. Failures of the American educational
system and my own early choices in life made my entry into the class a little
like an elephant signing up for tap dancing lessons. One simple musical line I
might have managed, but an orchestral score? I was overwhelmed and survived
only by keeping one eye on the person in the class who seemed the most able.
When she turned the page, I turned the page. All was not lost, of course, a
sheet of music is not quite the total mystery it once was, but proficiency is
still a work in progress.
The value of concentrated study was
brought home to me in Ross Shoger's course on stem cell research. I had read newspaper accounts, but nothing in
enough depth to give me the basis for an opinion on the possibilities and
dangers of what was going on in this part of the scientific
world. Now I have a basis of knowledge which draws me to
any new reports of activity in the field, and I can read them with reasonable
understanding.
CLASSMATES
(AND FRIENDS) I HAVE MET: In classes I have given and in others I have taken,
discussions have given me access to insights and interpretations that would
never have occurred to me if I had approached the novel, the play, the poem or
piece of music on my own. My understanding has thereby been enhanced and made
richer, and I must admit I have also experienced some envy and a certain sense
of shame. This reminds me of Thomas Huxley's comment when he first read
Darwin's On the Origin of Species, "How stupid not to have thought
of that." Once my ego has recovered from the bruise, however, I find I
have a spur to try to be more attentive and thoughtful the next time. For a
senior at risk of seeing powers weakening, this spur is not at all bad.
I said at the outset that I
would engage is some shameless flattery in this talk and I hope my reasons are
now clear. When I retired a dozen years ago, I found that there were indeed
problems and losses that came with retirement and aging. A chance encounter
with a book of cartoons featuring the Snoopy gang helped me to understand this,
and to accept with good humor what I could not change. But it was CVEC that
gave me the opportunity to teach, to learn, and to interact with alert and
interesting people-that is with all of you-my teachers, my challenging
students, and from classmates and friends from whom I have learned much.
A man can't ask for much
more than that. Thank you.
Bill
Woehrlin, CVEC annual meeting, May 16, 2006