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I Never Did Get That Drink(The following message is excerpted from a post on Dean Carrico's blog.)
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[It] started with my journalism classes. After over a decade of
staying outside of the educational system, I enrolled at De Anza
Junior College. I wasn’t expecting much, and when I went to my
first classes I got exactly what I was expecting. The only thing
that kept me from walking out was a desire to see if I could
survive in the academic world, since I had been told so many times
that I couldn’t.
Years and years of saying I wanted to go into journalism finally
gave way to me actually trying it, and I signed up for a beginner
course in news writing. The class was a distance learning course,
meaning I did all the work on my own at home. That may sound
ideal, but what I was looking for was direction and guidance,
something I never had while in school.
My instructor for the course was John Lovas. The first thing I
noticed was that he looked exactly like the bass player for
NoMeansNo. We has our first meeting, whereupon he explained what
textbooks we would need and said that this was a new course, so we
would all be working out the kinks.
There were eight of us in the class. If we were to be the test
subjects, the course seemed doomed to failure.
Lovas gave us our first assignments, telling us to find a
government meeting of any kind and then report on what happened.
He seemed distracted, like his mind was somewhere else. The next
week I returned with a lame play-by-play of what happened with the
city council meeting.
Our group of eight had dwindled to three students. Since it was a
distance learning course, it didn’t get dropped from lack of
attendance, although the administration apparently suggested it.
Fact was, the entire journalism department was in trouble. There
were almost no courses in the field. The campus paper was entirely
volunteer run, and it showed. The administrative student body was
ready to cut all funding and ties for publishing costs. Lovas was
trying to bring the paper back from the brink of oblivion.
In the meantime, I was lamely trying to be a student for the first
time since I was a sophomore in high school. I didn’t have a
computer and had to write all my papers by hand. I didn’t have
glasses or contacts, and even sitting in the front row I couldn’t
see what was written on the board and had to ask instructors to
not erase anything so I could stand up at the front after class
ended and take any notes I had missed during the lecture.
But during this rocky start, me wondering what the hell I was doing
here John Lovas took me under his wing. He looked at my report of
a standard city council meeting and helped me find where a story
might be fleshed out. That was his strong point — he didn’t tell
you what to do, he simply talked about what you had written until
you realized what angle you could use to make an interesting
story. He did that with my piece until I found the actual story
buried beneath the lines, a story hat meant the entire graduate
requirements were changing, affecting the entire first year
students with no notification.
After my revisions, he suggested I let the piece be printed in the
campus paper. I agreed and after it ran, the administration
contacted us and asked for permission to put it in a required
textbook for new students.
We lost another student in the class, and the sole other student
made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t interested in reporter
work. Lovas put pressure on me to join the newspaper staff.
I was hesitant, unsure of my writing or reporting skills. I knew I
wanted to do it, but wasn’t sure I was ready or capable. Working
for the paper meant an increased workload with no payoff — you
didn’t even get course credit. I was working full-time and taking
classes at night, giving me a 16-to-18 hour workday. But I agreed
to go to a staff meeting, and from there I had a tentative
handshake agreement to work on stories that I found, rather than
having set assignments.
Lovas seemed a little disappointed in that, as he was obviously
trying to build a staff. But he worked closely with me, encouraging
me when I did well and patiently offering roundabout suggestions
when I was stuck. I kept my eyes open for stories, determined to
put some actual news in what was supposed to be a newspaper,
rather than the jokey, hokey, insider gossip rag it had become.
Going back into an educational environment could have easily been a
failed exercise. After all, I still had the same
anti-authoritative stance. I still distrusted people in power.
John Lovas saw that and rather than trying to break my belief
system, he helped nurture the distrust into reporter skills. When
I returned to the newsroom after being thrown out of the security
office, he looked prouder than a father whose kid just made the
game-winning Grand Slam.
Throughout my educational career until this point, I could count
less than three people who I felt truly cared about their
students, both as pupils and as people. John Lovas did both, and
he became more than a mentor — he became my friend.
And being my friend isn’t always easy. After chastising the staff
for making a too-easy Nazi comparison in an editorial, he told me
about the theory that any heated debate will eventually lead to a
Nazi reference. “It’s a cop out,” he told us in his quiet voice as
he studied our faces. “It’s supposed to end all debate, but it’s
nothing more than cheap name-calling.”
After that speech, every story I turned in for review had a fake
paragraph inserted making a comparison with the Holocaust. I’d sit
and the other end of the table, watching as he read silently, red
pen in hand. Then he’d come across the paragraph I planted.
“Oh, Goddamn it, what the hell is this with the Nazis?” he say,
throwing the paper down. I’d start giggling wildly.
I joined the staff on the newspaper, first as a reporter, then as
news editor, and finally as Editor in Chief. When I applied for the
position, we both knew I was going to get the position, but he
made me go through the motions of the application process. I
outlined my plans and goals for the paper, making my number three
directive to obtain a monkey in a tuxedo who would serve us
drinks. When he called me in for my meeting he sat me down in his
office, looking serious and scholarly.
“So,” he said, as he looked over my resume, “tell me how you plan
to obtain this monkey.”
“Well,” I answered, “I know you’re planning on retiring from the
paper, so I was wondering what size tux you wear.”
John Lovas died on June 21, 2005 at his home after a short bout
with melanoma. He was 65 years-old.
All too often, when a friend or loved one dies, people talk
wistfully about how they wish they had the chance to thank them
for what the deceased had meant to them. I don’t have to do that.
When I graduated with honors from De Anza and moved onto a “real”
university, I wrote him a long e-mail telling him how much I
appreciated his tutelage and guidance. I told him I owed him for
all the scholarships, writing awards, and drive in school. I
thanked him for believing in me.
The friendship continued long after both he and I left the paper.
He went to my fake wedding and brought me a bottle of Grand
Marnier. When my book was released he came to the reading and
bought himself a copy and another one to donate to the campus
library. He had this site listed on his official scholastic Web
page as a link for pages of interest, listed above Noam Chomsky.
I wrote Lovas exactly one month before he died, telling him that
since I was fleeing the continent he needed to get his act together
if he wanted to buy me drinks before I left. He wrote back
telling me about the melanoma diagnosis, but said he was perfectly
willing to watch me drink, and that he’d buy.
I never did get that drink.
Nazi.
- Dean Carrico
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