We Are All Wanderers

Not all those that wander are lost. J.R.R. Tolkien

Greetings One and All

“Who in Hades is that,” I question as I gaze at the cover of the fall 2008 edition of the Champlain View. And who is the “wanderer?” Good lord … it’s me!

I never thought of myself as a wanderer, a meanderer, a restless soul. To me, a wanderer is a tad pathetic, about half lost and about half nuts as my late father would have it put it. I have never felt either … or have I?

As I read the thoughtful, articulate piece by Jenica Norrish, I experience a “self-paradigm shift.” I think of myself as an increasingly sedentary teenage geezer, teaching cultural sociology through storytelling. I thought I do it that way because for 40-years it has worked quite well. In my yet to be completed Circle of Life, I have taught between 16,000 and 18,000 students at three institutions. My Adult Circle began in 1968 at Northern Michigan University, a school of 10,000 student “penguins” just south of the North Pole in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula. After three years of scraping the windshield from October to May, I did a 180 and moved to “tepid” Tucson, Arizona (where the “dry” heat of 110° is still 110°), to work on my doctorate in cultural sociology and to teach. I taught Western Civilization, mostly by using personal stories of “old dead white men” rather than requiring students to simply memorize names and dates in case they ever faced the always-condescending Alex Trebek on Jeopardy.

A phone call from a friend in Burlington, Vermont in the spring of 1973 sent me to the Tucson phone book to rent a monster U-Haul trailer and move 3,000 miles on a whim and a “why not.” Ignoring that a dissertation was the only hurdle remaining before completing a Ph.D. in Cultural Sociology, I let personal relations dictate the next arc in my Circle. I had finished all my coursework and taken two days of feared and exhaustive exams for my doctorate. I had two faculty advisors to choose from to guide my dissertation, I couldn’t stand one of them and the other was getting divorced and in the midst of your classic, run of the mill mental crack-up. Thus moving to New England, where I had never been, seemed like a reasonable choice. Besides, I was curious about their different way of living. In addition to their strange accents, they didn’t even wear Bolo ties!

By August, I decided to stay in funky Burlington, no pedestrian Church Street, just bars, locally owned retail stores and a head shop on every block. Even though I had no job, I never thought of myself as a wanderer; I was more of a cultural explorer.

“Do you need anyone to teach a few courses?” I asked former Champlain President Bob Skiff on a humid, hot August afternoon.

“What do you teach?” asked then Vice-President Skiff, as he stood directly in front of a huge floor fan in Bader Hall (Champlain’s Administration building at the time).

“Whatever you need,” I replied as sweat saturated my rayon disco shirt, flared synthetic pants and brown 9” high Frye square-toed cowboy boots.

“I like your attitude,” Skiff said. Two guys, two different cultures toasting together on a Friday afternoon. I thought I might stay a year. My Circle inched forward.

I think another element of my Circle passage needs explanation, for our life experiences are definitely not a matter of happen stance. Consciously or sub- consciously we play a big role in what the Circle looks like and where it goes. The fact is that most of us are not conscious (in the Buddhists sense). I am certainly as prone to this reality as the next person, and it was not until I read Jenica Norrish’s article that I realized the truth. As an adolescent and young adult, mass media had a profound impact on my sub-conscious of who I was and what I wanted.
My story began being written by my boyhood best buddy Buzzy. His bi-ethnic family fascinated me. With a Mexican/Pima Native American mom and a “very” Irish dad, I frequently witnessed a variety of distinct cultural expressions and huge differences. I wanted desperately to go to Mexico and Ireland; I had to know more. Why was my family so astonishingly boring by comparison?

In the early 60’s, a television program, I Spy, put a crack in the blatant mass racism in the U.S. by starring a popular African-American comedian, Bill Cosby, in a major mainstream evening program. As Scotty and Kelly travelled the world from Istanbul to Tokyo to the French Riviera as secret agents thwarting the “Commies” at every turn, I was totally entranced by the exotic locations around the globe. I dressed like Scotty and used quips from the show whenever possible. Every single moment of the show pumped adrenaline into my Illinois-imprisoned body.
The early 60’s also blessed us with Sean Connery as James Bond in the movie “Dr. No.” Again, different cultures and sexy locations made the film an immediate depiction of the way life could be lived. Any hetero male in my age grouping and beyond will never, ever forget the spectacular image of actress Ursula Andress walking out the aqua blue Bahamian waters in her white bikini. The image on the screen wasn’t a fantasy; it was a spiritual experience. The image, the locales of I Spy and the inter-cultural experiences at Buzzy’s house were all wedged into my sub-conscious, guiding my continuing Circle of Life, and I did not have a clue, at least not until Ms. Norrish’s article was published.

As stated earlier, I have not left Champlain, but Vermont winters are too frigid, so I began taking every opportunity to head south. Like Christopher Columbus, I stumbled into a lifetime of exploring the islands of the Caribbean. Little did I suspect that these explorations on nearly 50 islands, countless interviews with local folks, two books of anecdotes used to teach, an endowment for students, and a bevy of the dearest friends in the world was the product of my own self that had been largely shaped by the contents of my own sub-conscious. I had become my own Scotty, my own Bond, James Bond (sorry), and I found my own Ursula (see page 15 of article).

As in my life, your life is your story to write, and you can bet that your script will become a circle and your circle will be connected to all the elements of your life. You never have to be stuck. Be conscious.

P.S. Just as our lives intersected in the past, I cordially invite you to use my blog to reconnect. Let’s continue our stories. “As they say in the Caribbean, “Ahl de bes’.”