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Remarks by Paul Bodmer at a Memorial for John LovasI am here in an official capacity to represent the National Council of Teachers of English, both staff and members, and to honor a man who, in my estimation, represents the best of our profession. When I told Kent Williamson, the Executive Director of NCTE, about the arrangements for the Memorial Service, he asked if I would go to represent the Council, and to bring official condolences to Brenda and the family, and his friends and colleagues.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson defined the American public intellectual in his “American Scholar” address, he articulated a vision that I saw in John Lovas. Emerson described this person as an intellect engaged in public action. Informed by, but not lost in, books and theory. Engaged in action for the wholeness of the society. This was the John I knew.
I arrived home at the end of May, opened my email, and saw the note John had sent to Kent and me, informing us of the diagnoses he had received. I immediately called him. When I asked about the diagnoses, he told me what he knew in about five minutes. And then we spent at least an hour in a classic John Lovas conversation. We talked theory, practice, students, administration, family. He wanted to know how my granddaughter was doing. Was she walking, talking? And were they in the right order. But overall, the conversation was, as always with him, all over the map but all connected. One theory informs another relates to an action that spins off another one.
This ability of being able to see small parts and the larger whole at the same time was an invaluable asset for his work with NCTE. I met John through Don McQuade. Don was setting up the 1990 CCCC convention in Chicago, and he wanted to have a 25th anniversary celebration of the two-year college regionals within NCTE. We decided on the breakfast, which would be a one-time event. At that time, California two-year colleges were not in the NCTE regionals, but Don saw this as an opportunity to bring them in. He gave me John’s name. I contacted John, John put me in touch with the right people, and the California two-year college English teachers were invited and came to the breakfast celebration. That breakfast was, in a symbolic sense, the beginning of TYCA. I was aware of some of the history and political maneuverings that had led to California two-year colleges being outside of the regional networks. John was, as well. When we began trying to find a way of including ECCTYC in the TYCA network, John kept insisting that we move beyond the political stuff from the past and build something for the future. “Let’s figure out a way to make this work,” was his comment. So we did.
This quality of his, to recognize and see the immediate, the everyday workaday world at the same time he could see the larger picture, the wholeness of what we could be, and to act for the future, was an invaluable asset when he served on the NCTE Executive Committee. While he was there because he represented a particular constituency, whether TYCA or CCCC, when he appeared to be arguing for that constituency, it became apparent that he was really arguing for the whole of NCTE. When writing became an issue in the academic public mind through the new SAT requirement, we knew we had to say something about writing. John told me he would start a sacrificial draft. I expected it to reflect our conversations about writing from a two-year college perspective. But he immediately put together a very comprehensive draft that included all levels of the council. While many of the individual constituencies might argue more or less inclusion than was in his draft, his vision encompassed all. While not fully articulated from all levels, it contained a working understanding of writing from pre-school through collegiate work. A few years after he penned his draft, NCTE adopted a statement of the values of writing, and if one compares the two statements, John’s draft was the framework.
And he was knowledgeable. He made it a point to know the academic background of all the NCTE EC members. It was smart politics. But it was also because he was, indeed, interested in all the different intellectual areas represented on the Council. And then there was that boisterous sense of humor, the hearty laugh in the midst of a serious negotiation that helped us all to recognize that we were good colleagues, working together to find a common answer.
And ultimately, he represented that center of all NCTE’s work, the nexus between teacher and student. The complicated, exciting area where learning occurs because both student and teacher realize they are moving into a new area of thinking. Teaching isn’t delivery, and learning isn’t reception. It is that complicated area where the ground shifts and teachers are learning while students are teaching—a strange combination of the personal with the abstract.
Which is what I always felt was a part of a conversation with John. What made John special is that he made all of us feel that we had a special relationship with him. I always had the feeling when he was talking to me, that he was talking specifically to me. For the moment when we were individually in his presence, he gave us his full attention. He would look over his glasses and focus right on you and you knew he was talking to you and he could see your particular point. And then he would, “But, but, . . . “ and he would show how what you were looking at was very valid, and in the huge scheme of things, it meant this. You were honored in your view, and your view was worked into the larger view.
In my job at NCTE headquarters, I relied on John for west coast help. If a professional meeting was being held out here, and I had to attend for a particular session, I would tell John what it was about. I never had to ask, I just tried to act as if I was informing him of my work. He would say, “Well, that sounds interesting. Have you thought about this angle? By the way, when is that meeting, I think I can get away.” And there he would be, his large frame with his white hair standing above all the others in the room as he would come forward. And during the discussion, the point I wanted to make, but couldn’t for whatever political reasons of my position, would be made by John, as I knew it would.
And afterward we would go for dinner. Always a good place because if the food wasn’t, the conversation was. Last January, after a meeting out here, we went for dinner. He told me that he was losing some weight, or should, and that he had figured out that the secret is not a fad diet, but portion control. I agreed—it had worked for me. So, we split the appetizer and the dessert. Portion control. I gained.
Another dinner story. I came out to San Diego to attend the ECCTYC convention two years ago. John arrived in time for a reception, I think on Friday night. He suggested we get some real food, and I was game, so we headed out. In his new Audi. He said he wanted Asian and he knew of a little place someplace over there, and he pointed off to the left. Okay, let’s go. An hour later we still hadn’t found the place, but in driving around, both getting hungrier and hungrier, he found a hole-in-the-wall place. Chrome tables, oilcloth coverings, plastic menu. We sat down to eat, and the waiter came over. John asked to see the wine list. I said, “John, the wine list is two boxes, one labeled red and one labeled white—that’s as good as it gets!” John held up a finger to shush me, and while the waiter mumbled something to that effect, John, eyes twinkling and with an elfin grin, said, “I saw a bar just down the street, could you bring us a bottle of,” and he gave some name to the waiter. We had a decent, but not great, bottle of wine with our decent, but not great dinner, and, of course, a far-reaching and eclectic conversation.
In Robert Frost’s poem, “Birches,” Frost describes the image of a boy climbing a birch tree to the heavens and then swinging down to earth. One needs to see the wholeness of the forest one gets from the height, but one needs to stay rooted to the earth, the particular, that tree. Frost concludes the poem, “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” John showed us how.
Paul Bodmer
Senior Program Officer for Higher Education
National Council of Teachers of English
1410 King Street
Alexandria, VA
202.316.6827
800-369-6283, ext 3615 (messages)
mailto:pbodmer@ncte.org
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