Day of the Dead

Passed an exhibit in the IU Northwest Library/Conference Center lobby containing photographs of deceased faculty. For the past several years Professor Ana Osan had assembled a display based on Latin American culture for the Tamarack Gallery, now defunct due to last September’s flood. I assume that it will run through the Day of the Dead or All Souls’ Day, which is November 2. Among those represented was historian Rhiman Rotz, who passed away of cancer shortly after 9/11/01. He kept teaching until shortly before he had to be hospitalized, and his last thought were with Muslim students (he was their group’s adviser) who might be subjected to prejudice in the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy. Photos of good friends Larry Kaufman and Bill May also caught my eye. Larry died on a New York country road, while Bill was murdered at his condo in Miller by a car thief, who was subsequently arrested by one of my former students, Todd Cliborne.

Finished Anne Tyler’s “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,” which was very moving even though it was hard to identify with any of the characters. Tyler is a marvelous novelist. In the first of her books that I read, Breathing Lessons, a middle-aged woman leaves her family to start a new life. In “Dinner” a man deserts his wife and three children.

Have been reading with fascination a book William M. “Bill” Neil sent me about his World War II experiences as a bombardier. It is called “Three Crawford Brothers,” but it also contains a memoir that Bill contributed upon the invitation of his friend and comrade George Crawford. Bill’s wife Mary died two years ago, and in addition to documenting some of the dangerous missions he flew, his remembrances are truly a love story. Bill writes of joining a music club while attending Gary College and being immediately drawn to “this pretty blond girl.” He got up the nerve to ask her out for a movie and coke afterwards, and, in his words, “it was, for me, love at first date.” They started going steady and he talked his parents into letting Mary join them at a summer cottage in Michigan for two weeks. He writes: “By this time I had told Mary that I was in love with her. To my delight she replied that she was in love with me. That summer of 1940 was a truly enchanted one for both of us.” They were married two years later by an army chaplain in Montgomery, Alabama, and Mary subsequently was one of countless war brides “moving around the country by rail.” In Midland, Texas, they enjoyed three weeks of “marital bliss.” Later they had an “ecstatic reunion” in New York City. When they parted “the tears flowed” as Bill said, “Adios, mi Corazón (beloved).” When finally arrived home from Europe, Mary greeted him with “screams of delight, ecstatic embraces, [and] long, delicious kisses” – then took him upstairs to the bedroom to see his son for the first time. What a wonderful, romantic tribute to his late wife of 65 years.