|
|
I was born and
raised in a small town in the southeast corner of Kansas, called
Coffeyville after a Civil War colonel who renamed an Indian trading
post. Boasting over 10,000 citizens, it was primarily an agricultural
center amid vast fields of wheat and alfalfa, with grain silos that
loomed on the horizon like cereal cathedrals. It enjoys modest
fame as "the town that stopped the Dalton
Gang."
There was
a lot of dust, heat, and aridity, of every sort. It’s not called
the Plains for nothing. I learned to hunt and fish, and hung out
with the guys, but the prevailing mindset was all-American anti-intellectual.
Local schools
were small and rudimentary, but I quickly took to the academic
environment. Good performances at P.S. 64 led to New England prep
school and liberal arts college. At Amherst
College I learned to value the arts and sciences, and to develop
an enthusiastic yet skeptical curiosity.
I attended
graduate school at UC Berkeley
during the late 1960s and early 70s, where I learned as much
in the streets as I did in seminars. The images on the left are
photos of a confrontation between students and the National Guard
during a Vietnam War protest in 1968, and a helicopter spreading
tear gas over the Berkeley campus during the 1969 "People's
Park" protest (as ordered by California Governor Ronald
Reagan).
My first and
only academic job, aside from brief visits to Rice and UMass,
was at SUNY Buffalo. The Buffalo
English department in the early 1970s was a legendary place,
offering a full range, intensity, and freedom of inquiry to faculty
and students alike. While we shall not pass that way again, the
legend remains a durable repository of archive and anecdote that
still informs how the department thinks and acts.
During the 1970s and 80s my personal life endured the winds of
change that blew through much of American society. As Dickens
wrote, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."
Now I’m happily married to a wise and wonderful woman, father
to a talented and resourceful daughter, and grandfather to a bright
and lively eighteen year-old girl.
I sometimes think about dual senses of the word "career": one,
a planned series of steps toward a goal, and two, a sudden shift
in another direction. The nimble runner has to be ready for both.
 
Margo
& David Willbern, Placitas, New Mexico
rev. Feb12
|
|
