The Joys of Hunisak
Like Jeffrey Lott ’73 (“In Plain Sight,” winter 2009), I too learned to make carbonara, as well as beef Wellington, turkey stuffing, and straciatella in John Hunisak’s tiny apartment kitchen next door to the old science building. Although John taught me the joys of Bernini, I use the lessons he taught in the kitchen more frequently. I often have students in my kitchen these days and pass on the knowledge, but somehow the gatherings don’t seem to measure up to my memories. Perhaps it’s because, unlike John, I can’t sing along with Verdi as I stir the roux.
Greg Moore ’76
Lexington, Kentucky
Statement of Standards
I groaned painfully when I got to the sentence “So she set up meetings with whomever would listen” in the story “Dish Network” in the winter issue.
Fowler would call this error a misguided attempt to appear erudite when one is unsure of his English grammar. When in doubt as to the choice between who and whom, we may be inclined to choose the more awkward sounding word. We learned in the third grade that “correct” English often was not our normal speech. (Don’t say, “It’s me,” say “It is I.”) However, sometimes our normal speech really is “correct.” I think anyone talking at home would say “with whoever would listen,” if he wasn’t trying too hard to sound learned.
While we are on the subject of grammar, I would question the final sentence in the same article: “But we can affect change.” I think, perhaps, the word intended is “effect.” “Affect” means to have an effect upon, whereas “effect” as a verb means to bring to pass, or accomplish.
Middlebury is famous for its foreign language schools; let’s keep English up to that same standard.
Daniel Daniels, M.A. French ’94
Beaufort, South Carolina
Editors’ Note: The author of the piece in question chuckled at the notion that he was “trying too hard to sound erudite.” No one had ever said that of him before. He explains that he chose “whomever” because he saw it as the object of the sentence (“she” being the subject), which would clearly call for the use of “whomever.” Of course, the additional “would listen” at the end of the sentence is tricky. That would make the word the subject of “would listen” and would thus necessitate the use of “whoever.” So, we’ll admit to the error, but will maintain that the mistake wasn’t due to an attempt to sound learned! As for, “affect”—yep, you’re right. It was a mistake. Now we should add that there was a mistake in the letter itself—one of those pesky its/it’s usages, but we’ll chalk it up to being a typo and will let it slide. :)
The Case of the Missing Dishes
Reading Matt Jennings’s piece on the student effort to track down missing dining hall dishes (“Dish Network,” winter 2009) jogged loose a story from my college days. This happened more than 35 years ago, so I believe that the statute of limitations is up, and it is now safe to tell this story.
There was a terrible shortage of coffee mugs and, to a lesser extent, plates, serving trays, and bowls that year, 1974. The College was at the point of rationing the mugs. Stories of this increasingly desperate situation ran in the Campus.
After a dinner date in one of the fraternities, a female member of the Student Council apparently decided the the houses had been “stealing” many mugs and other chinaware. She secretly organized a dark-of-the-night raid by well-intentioned Student Council members and other sympathizers to recover them. Nothing was locked up, so in the morning, no mugs or College-owned plates were left in the fraternity houses. And we had all slept through the raid.
I recall that a great victory was announced by the Council in the Campus, followed by the usual proclamations, letters, etc, that called for the abolishment of “these obsolete houses of sin and depravity.”
I was president of Sig Ep at the time, and a house meeting was called. The same event happened in the other houses. “What to do?” we asked.
The following discussions took place.
First, we reasoned, “the College was requiring that off-campus residents—including fraternity members—pay a partial subsidy to the dining halls.” They rebated some, but not all, of the “comprehensive fee” when a student lived off campus.
Our first conclusion, logically, was, “They can’t steal back our mugs. We paid for them!” (Or at least our parents did.)
Next, we asked ourselves, “How did we originally get them?” We had not actually “stolen” any of the mugs as the Campus suggested. We picked them up where other students left them—on the patio in front of Proctor or on the lawn by the Chapel. And, we contended, we had repurposed them from apparent litter.
So, we concluded that we had performed a useful service for the College by continually cleaning up the ongoing mess other students left behind. Therefore, our reward for this and for our dining hall subsidy money should be our own meager supply to make up for those broken in food fights or whatever.
If anyone had stolen anything and acted poorly, we felt it was the Student Council. Had they asked us first, we would have likely given them back. They were the villains!
“How can we rectify this injustice and trump the Council?” we asked.
Each of us had lived in the dorms for at least one year before moving into the fraternity. And we all had walked back to our rooms on cold days with a mug of coffee or hot chocolate. Many of us had used these unreturned mugs for pencil or toothbrush holders, while others had used them to grow plants, perform science experiments, or whatever. We had also seen many of them piled outside dorm rooms at the start of summer break.
To us, the Student Council appeared lazy and had let its prejudices outweigh logic by using the fraternity houses as scapegoats. The solution for us was simple. The dorms had far more missing mugs and plates lying around than all of the fraternities put together!
So we immediately formed the “Student Mug Return Committee” to capitalize on the mug hysteria. Then we headed out with pillowcases. We marched down the halls of the freshmen dorms and announced, “Mug Return Committee, Mug Return Committee,” and the residents dutifully began placing mugs, trays, bowls, outside their rooms for us to pickup.
I can safely say today that Sig Ep obtained enough of these supplies to last for several years. We also kept them locked up from the roving Council squads who continued to declare victory in the mug wars after it finally dawned on them that there were also mugs in the dorms a week or so after our raids were finished. They never knew we had preceded them or that we had fully restocked our supplies to a far greater level than before.
I managed to safely graduate at the end of January.
Randy Houser ’74
Charleston, South Carolina
The Greatest Generation
I find the “War Stories” (Class Notes, fall 2008) so interesting. (My nephew graduated in 1998, which explains why I was reading his copy of Middlebury Magazine.)
I worked with a man who was a Japanese prisoner of war for two years in the South Pacific. Lt. Col. José Holguin relived his prison life daily until his death in 1992. Many of his conversations were sprinkled with details of himself as a 23-year-old U.S. Army Air Corps tail gunner, the survivor of a B-17 Flying Fortress crew shot down during a bombing run over Papua New Guinea on June 26, 1943. Because the Japanese could interpret the drum signals of a nearby village, José was eventually caught and put in prison in Rabaul, East New Britain. As a prisoner, he experienced many atrocities such as malaria experiments and other trials. After the war and after many years, he returned to the island and located the downed plane in the jungle. Somehow the remains of some of the crew were eventually identified and relatives were notified. Most were happy to receive the news and brought home their airmen. José flew all over the country attending the funerals held. To top it off, many years after the war, José visited the prison commander at his home in Japan and the commander visited José in Los Angeles one summer. Can you believe it? As a civilian, José worked as a secondary school administrator with the L.A. City Schools. He wrote a 100-page book about his experiences—it was optioned for a film that never materialized.
I’m glad you are printing these stories. There are so many stories that will not be written because no one took the time to put them together.
Jean Wahlstrom
Chatsworth, California
The Value of Discomfort
I find it incredible that anyone would leave out Marx’s Manifesto or treat it in a summary way in any course on the history of economic thought (Letters, winter 2009). Marx’s ideas loom too high over the intellectual and political life of the 19th and 20th centuries. His influence was enormous, and he deserves to be more than a footnote.
The Manifesto is not a long document. Why not have the students read it and come to their own conclusions, rather than simply telling them about it—i.e., indoctrinating them?
Some of Marx’s thought is dated, but is all of it? The disparity in income and wealth between the richest among us and the rest is the greatest among the industrialized nations. The same can be said of the ratio between the remuneration of many CEOs and that of their average worker. Is the concept of “class warfare” dated, or is it something we don’t want to talk about?
Edward Rossmann, M.A. French ’64
Aurora, New York
And The Value of Critical Thought
Why read Marx? (Letters, winter 2009)
Many authors have contributed writings that have affected the course of human civilization. Some have had lasting beneficial effects. Others have had profound but not lasting and perhaps not beneficial effects. Reading the original writings of the author and weighing the value of his thesis can only benefit the student. Such exposure develops his ability to analyze and evaluate what has been written and, because of the passage of time, realize why or why not the author’s thesis is worthy.
To say that a student reading the works of Marx or the theories of the
Creationists and understanding their propositions is valueless or a waste of time misses the point and purpose of education and critical thinking.
An open but critical mind exposed to works of various authors can only result in a greater ability to avoid the errors of the past. Indeed, it is essential for understanding the world as it is today.
Charles Johnson
Indianapolis, Indiana
The Value of Critical Thought, Part Two
I know that my life was changed for the better by my Middlebury education. Among other things it opened my mind to the value of thinking for myself rather than simply accepting what others told me. Perhaps the best example of how my Midd education changed me took place in Professor Pardon Tillinghast’s course in European history. At some point during the class we were discussing the Reformation and Professor Tillinghast announced that there would be a debate in class focusing on Martin Luther’s criticisms of the Catholic Church. To my surprise Professor Tillinghast announced that I would argue Luther’s side of the debate. I am not sure how he knew that I was, and am, a Catholic, but I suspect that with middle names of Gerard, Francis, and Patrick he had a pretty good idea. Coming from a parochial school background where I was taught that no one had the right “to teach error,” I was, to say the least, nervous about defending Luther. I did it, however, and I guess I didn’t do too poorly because I passed the course. Much more importantly, I began to see that there might be something to be said for Luther’s concerns.
This lengthy remembrance is offered because I was astonished by letters in the last two issues of this magazine from George H. Schirtzinger and Evan Hoobchaak lamenting that Professor Tim Spears had recommended that students read the Communist Manifesto. Both letter writers objected to such an assignment because Marx was wrong and his thoughts had inflicted great harm on the world. I, like Mr. Schirtzinger, have “been a few places, done a few things and read a little history” and so I am fairly certain that I recognize calls for censorship when I read them. I also have come to the conclusion that Professor Tillinghast’s approach to a liberal arts education is far better than that of those who would forbid the “teaching of error.” Finally, it does seem ironic that both writers concluded their letters with a reference to the possibility of withholding money from Midd. How Marxist.
Wayne G. Reilly ’57
Roanoke, Virginia
In Praise of Marxism
In reading Evan Hoobchaak’s letter to the editor in Middlebury Magazine (Letters, winter 2009), I was struck by the fact that his assumptions about being able to learn anything from a reading of Karl Marx rests on impressions he received as a student at Middlebury. He might be surprised to learn that old Karl is taught in most universities around the world including our most prestigious universities here in the United States.
I left Middlebury in the year 1958 with a degree in philosophy. I went on to study law and graduated from New York University Law School with a Juris Doctor. Like young Mr. Hoobchaak, Middlebury passed over Marx with a rush when I passed through its portals. I believe it relates to his last sentence in his letter (the sentence about alienating alumni and their contributions more than it relates to the quality of a Middlebury education).
I went on to administer large aid programs in Latin America in both Central and South America. This led me to reassess much that I had learned while at Middlebury. I taught school in Costa Rica. I ran aid programs in the inner city of New York. I discovered it was very difficult to interpret what our media said about the governance of the world systems and the reality I experienced. Finally I returned to the profession I trained for and started defending the poor within our own society.
My boss in my first job with Pine Tree Legal was a Marxist. He had a very large library, and he shared it willingly. Since I was defending the poor, the reading of Marx proved both exciting and new. It led me to pick up the works of old Karl and try and get a handle on what he had to say. What he had to say, of course, was explaining the puzzle on how capitalism works. That is why institutions that defend capitalism never allow the reading of his works. They hire professors who will tell you it is not worthwhile to read him. After reading Paul Sweezy’s essay “Monopoly Capitalism,” I called Paul and asked if I could meet him. He was the young economist at Harvard that Joseph A. Schumpeter defended when Paul’s tenure at that institution was up for grabs. Harvard did not grant Sweezy tenure, so Sweezy went out and created one of the enduring Marxist journals of that time and today. Sweezy invited me to drop in to the offices of Monthly Review when I passed through New York City. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the giants on American Marxism as a result of that invitation.
Young man, I can only say this: If you want to understand what anyone has to say, read it for yourself. After my tenure at Pine Tree Legal, I went on to head up Student Legal Services at the University of Maine at Orono. There, I was instrumental in helping create Marxist study groups that consisted of both graduate students and university professors. Right now at that university there is a Marxist group that makes presentations periodically throughout the academic year.
Actually, I believe Middlebury is incompetent in providing any student a decent education unless they have at least four Marxist professors on the campus who can devise and present a well-rounded alternative to capitalist economic development. I have been raising this concern with Middlebury for the past 19 years. Marxism says that capitalism is inherently destabilizing. Do the times suggest this?
Russ Christensen ’58
West Farmington, Maine
Vision Statement
In choosing background colors and font sizes and font colors, could you please be more cognizant of your older readers who may not have the visual acuity of your younger audience?
Norman Abend, P ’77, ’78, ’80, GP ’06
Wayland, Massachusetts
Editors’ Note: Mr. Abend’s letter was written on orange construction paper—with what appears to have been an orange artist’s pencil. Points for creativity, Mr. Abend.
An Admirable Review—and Moment
Noted Midd alum Felix Rohatyn’s latest book is reviewed in the March 21, 2009 issue of The Economist. The review ends with the following vignette: “ . . . in 1946, he [i.e., Rohatyn] was nearly forced to leave his college fraternity for being Jewish. Two army veterans kicked out the fraternity representatives with the admonition that they had not fought the Nazis to see racial laws enacted at home.” The college was Middlebury, the fraternity Alpha Sigma Phi. The root problem was that Alpha Sigma Phi, a national fraternity, had a “white Christian” clause. The veterans felt that if Jews and African-Americans were good enough to wear the uniform and defend the country, they were good enough to join the fraternity. So they resigned from the national, the Phi was changed to Psi, and Alpha Sigma Psi (aka “SLUG”) was reborn as a local fraternity without the offensive membership restrictions.
I was told this story in 1957, as a freshman pledge of Alpha Sigma Psi, and found it moving and impressive. I still do, and was delighted to have my memory refreshed in such an unexpected way. I was initially, and remain, a wholehearted supporter of Midd’s 1990 decision to ban fraternities. But this story seems to me a thoroughly admirable piece of the history of my fraternity—and of Middlebury College.
David J. Klock ’60
Wallingford, Vermont
Editors’ Note: The magazine will be covering Mr. Rohatyn’s book in a future issue.
Location, Location
In writing of his previous work at Sidwell Friends (“Of Loss—and Hope,” winter 2009), the editor described the school as “the Washington, D.C., Quaker school where the Obama girls are enrolled.” A correction, possibly closer to a modification, is in order. Sasha Obama is in second grade, attending Sidwell’s elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland. Malia Obama is in the fifth grade, attending SFS’s middle school in D.C.
Sidwell Friends, a nonprofit governed by a board of trustees, has two sites. By distinguishing the facts of these two schools, you can assist readers in tracing First Family news.
Closing with a digression: thanks for reviewing David Wolman’s linguistic discoveries (“Spell Check,” winter 2009) in the 12 years since his Middlebury graduation.
Katherine Teetor
Middlebury, Vermont
Author, Author?
I’m puzzled at the books listed in the “Faculty Shelf” item in the winter 2009 issue. The titles on the book spines in the illustration—Anthracite Country, Dutch Boys, House of Days—don’t match the titles of the books that Jay Parini claims have changed America. What are these books? Who are the authors?
Mike Devlin ’64
Lake Placid, New York
Editors’ Note: The 13 book titles in the illustration are the titles of books and poetry collections written by Parini, himself. We wish that we were being clever in subtly suggesting that Parini’s own work should be included in the discussion, but what really occurred was a miscommunication between the illustrator and the editorial staff. However, we like the idea of that subtle suggestion, so, yes, that’s what we were doing. We were being clever ...
There Were Others, Too
Professor Michael Kraus’s opinion (Letters, winter 2009) that the Soviet Union’s collapse was “inconceivable at the time” (1984) is belied by Ronald Reagan’s assertions in 1982 and 1983:
“What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term—the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history . . . ” (1982)
“I believe that communism is another sad bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written.” (1983)
Of course, this should in no way detract from General Odom’s remarkable achievements; I just wanted to note that President Reagan and General Odom were preceded by George Kennan, Zbigniew Brzesinski, Charles De Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Whitaker Chambers, Robert Conquest, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others, who predicted, to varying degrees, the Soviet collapse.
Edmund P. Hurley ’86
Boston, Massachusetts
From the Editor
In early March, we heard from the vice president of public affairs at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, who was writing to compliment us on our coverage of the economy in the winter 2009 issue. A few weeks later, he wrote to all members of NAICU, alerting communications officials to our coverage. “Maybe this is to become the new international symbol for how we all feel these days:
A stark $? takes up the full cover of Middlebury College’s winter 2009 magazine, pulling the reader into a special report, ‘The Economy: What Does It All Mean?’ We recommend it to you as a model of how to tell the story of your college’s finances in these uncertain times—comprehensively, with candor and clarity.”
He went on to describe our coverage in great detail, before concluding, “There may be a better model than Middlebury in dealing with the difficult issues we all must now address, but if so, we haven’t seen it.”
Now, it’s rare that we engage in such self-congratulatory measures as this note, but we wanted to acknowledge what we believe to be an admirable level of transparency and candor exhibited by College leadership during this tumultuous economic time.
A Belated Correction
n the fall issue, we listed the occupants of the Axinn Center at Starr Library as the Departments of History, Film and Media Culture, and English and American Literatures. However, we mistakenly omitted the Program in American Studies. We apologize for the omission.
Letters Policy
Letters addressing topics discussed in the magazine are given priority, though they may be edited for brevity or clarity. On any given subject we will print letters that address that subject, and then in the next issue, letters that respond to the first letters. After that, we will move on to new subjects. Send letters to:
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