In Memory of Friends Long Gone

Twice in the week I've had reason to think a former student and long time friend Bradford Clay Jones who died twenty years ago this spring. First when the Supreme Court announced their decision on same sex marriage last Friday and  then again on Monday when I learned that the community college system that I serve (KCTCS) had nominated me for a state-wide teaching award (my academic dean says I've "won" it, but officially I've only been nominated, and I like to hold off celebration until things are official).  Both times when I heard the news I thought of Clay and wished that he had lived to see it. 

Clay was a student in my SOC 101 Introductory Sociology course at the University of Kentucky in the spring term of 1981. Clay had come to UK from Russellville, Kentucky a small farming community in the western part of the state. He came with his best friend, a red headed freckled young farmer, whose name I sadly can no longer remember although I can see his face as clear as it was yesterday. They joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity together, took their general education classes together including sociology, but had different majors and different career/life paths. Clay was brilliant, articulate, wild, crazy, daring, fun, charming. He was clearly a leader among his fraternity brothers.   Clay got his degree in education from the University of Kentucky's department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion.

After graduation Clay entered the Air Force  as a 1st Lieutenant and began corresponding regularly with me. He wrote long chatty letters about work and life. He loved serving his country and was posted on first at Dover, Delaware and then near Kansas City. His job involved providing healthy exercise and activity programs for people stationed at the AF Bases. 

Clay also had an active personal life outside work. He participated with local community theater groups in the communities near the AF bases where he was stationed. I remember how much fun he had with a production of Oklahoma! Although Clay had explored and experimented with his sexual identity in college, it was not until more than a year after graduation that Clay finally "came out" to himself and to friends and family, but not of course to the USAF. This was well before "Don't ask, Don't tell."

While stationed near Kansas City, Clay met the love of his life Gene and entered into a committed relationship. A local minister officiated at Clay and Gene's vows which they considered just as binding as if they had been legal. Rather than face being separated from Gene by the Air Force posting him outside the U.S. Clay allowed the Air Force to learn of his sexual orientation and discharge him in 1984. 

Clay entered the Master of Public Administration in Nonprofit Management at the University Missouri, Kansas City and received his MPA in 1986.  In 1989 he became the Executive director Kansas division American Cancer Society.

Diagnosed as HIV positive in the late 1980's Clay maintained his health for a number of years.  He advocated for AIDS research as a board member of the Kansas City AIDS Research Consortium. In the early 1990's his HIV infection became full-blown AIDS. He suffered among other things from a histoplasmosis infection that spread from his lungs throughout his body. In June of 1995 I received the sad news from Clay's spouse Gene that AIDS had taken its toll and Clay died May 1, 1995. 

I wish that Clay had lived to see same sex marriage legalized across the nation; for him and Gene to have had the full legal rights of married couples. They were married for a decade before Clay's death and yet Gene received none of the benefits a married person should have on the death of his spouse. 

I also wish that Clay could have lived to see me receive this state-wide teaching award for "inspiring" Kentucky students to become contributing members of society. Clay was one of the earliest and most enthusiastic supporters of my teaching career.  I met him while I was still an "apprentice" graduate student instructor, and his friendship over the next 14 years was very influential in my development as a teacher.  By no means the last student to become a life-long friend, Clay was the first. 

Thanks for the memories, Clay. 

The Dog Ate Your Homework

For my two decades of teaching I thought that the apocryphal tale of "the dog ate my homework" was pure mythology. Then eight years ago, I found myself having to apologize to my students' for my dog eating THEIR homework!

I was forty-five years old before I had my first dog. In childhood I was for many years frightened of dogs. My great-uncle Tom took care of that by immersing me in the care of his lovable, boisterous kennel of hunting beagles, although I continued to be somewhat leery of large dogs for many more years. In college I had the opportunity to take care of a friend's dog for a month (his parents went to New Zealand and left the dog with him at college, but he was too busy with labs and research so I got to take care of most of Pokey's needs) and loved that experience.  

I wanted a dog for many years, but in my single academic existence of evening classes, trips to conferences, and long office hours I didn't feel like I was settled enough to care for a dog.  Instead I had a couple of much beloved cats. It wasn't until I married John in my forties that I had the privilege of having a dog as a companion. John's dog Missy was middle-aged when I met her, sweet, submissive, obedient, well trained,  and well-behaved dog in every way. She had been an adult and already trained when John rescued her some years before we met.  She lived to the ripe age of 19 years, quite ancient in doggie terms, and in her last years had cognitive difficulties that were endearing and heartbreaking at the same time. 

John didn't want to have another dog. He thought that there was only one dog for him and she was gone. But I knew we needed another dog. A year and a half after Missy's death, a young, large, female Shepard/Lab mix who was dumped in the neighborhood began to hang around our house and porch. Rosie the dog knew we needed a new dog and was persistent in her pursuit of the position. After a week we knew we had to take her in (or face the consequences of  a litter of pups a month or so down the road). 


We quickly learned that life with Missy had not  prepared us for life with a young, boisterous, dominant, untrained dog like Rosie. Rosie was a dog that was all heart, but she needed very strong "alpha" humans to take charge and give her not only love, but also discipline. Rosie chewed and ate things: sticks, socks, shoes, clothing, books, our students' homework (not ours), pillows, blankets, and one entire couch. Yes, Rosie ate an entire couch!

With the help of a wonderful trainer at PetSmart, we learned to gently help Rosie become a good companion and pack member.  But in the process we learned more than Rosie did, about the nature of dogs and the wonder of the bond between humans and dogs. Rosie remained a dominant personality, and we had to continual establish our leadership with Rosie. We had to learn how to be assertive, calm, in control pack leaders at all times. A lesson that was as beneficial to us as it was to Rosie. 

For six years we had the wonder of Rosie's company. Then tragically, all too soon we lost her to a devastating congenital illness two years ago. 

We still have dogs, Molly who joined us during the last year of Rosie's life, and blind Bob who was added to the family 18 months ago, and the lessons we learned from Rosie have made us better able to related to Molly and Bob who each have their own unique problems and issues. 

pivotal people

I love Facebook. I know that not everyone does, but I do. I love that I have been able to build new ties and bonds with people I've met strictly through the Internet (initially by blogging). I also love that I have a richer connection with the people that I work with and the students that I teach, learning more about their families, their interests, their hopes and fears. But I especially love that I am able to reconnect with people from my past, all the way back to grade school.

Today, I received a friend request from a former student, from my years in Johnstown, Pennsylvania - my first full-time teaching position. We had not lost all touch, corresponding at irregularly for the past 24 years. But now I will finally get to see photos of her husband, her children, her cats, and share more frequently everyday thoughts. Eve mentioned telling her son - now almost college age himself - about me as a pivotal person at a pivotal time in her life. People often speak of teachers and advisers as pivotal, or influential. But as I think about Eve, I realized that she was a pivotal influence in my life at a pivotal time for me.

I was trying to figure out what kind of professor I was, what kind of teacher, what kind of advisor. Eve let me into her life in a way that influenced my ideas about myself as a person and as a professor. She made me feel like I was doing something valuable, because she let me know that I was helping her in her life and career path.

Eve is not the only student to have touched me and influenced me, but there has always been something special about her. Maybe it's because we shared a love of cats (she used to come to my house to visit with my Maine Coon cat Melvin), or because of how courageously she dealt with the internship from hell, or just because she's a wonderful, smart, caring, fun person. I'm so glad that Facebook is allowing us to reconnect on a more regular basis.