Tales of Bullying and Meanness: The Marathon Man

My tormentor was the faculty chairman of an academic department at the university. He disliked me, but when I asked if he wanted me to find another job he said no. He wanted to bring me down, teach me my place, perhaps destroy me. He would come into my office, shut the door, and harangue me for hours. Not every day, but certainly every week. He was afraid of the other faculty, which included his wife. Berating me was his only avenue for achieving authority. 

Because I was the manager, he was my supervisor for the 3 year term he filled. There was always a new chair, every 3 years. I could hold on. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of chasing me away. Perhaps I should have left, but I didn't. Call me foolish, but I like to win.

He had to give me a final performance evaluation about a month before his term ended. It lasted, on and off, for a day and a half. I'm not kidding. Hours and hours of him asking me questions he could then use my answers against me. It was quite odd.

I reminded him a performance evaluation is a time for a supervisor to review the employee's work performance, and give constructive feedback to help the employee improve. Instead, we danced around his hatred for me. Just him and me. On and off for 2 days he asked me questions, and I tried to answer them very carefully.

Finally, he asked what I thought about working for him. I replied "Working for you is like running a marathon in 90 degree heat, with the flu." He was a runner, so I knew he'd understand. That ended the "review." A month later his term was up, and I had a new department chair who was quite wonderful.  I won, sort of.

Alligator's Delight

9:22 am
The powers that be re-opened the wildlife drive near me, where there are scads of alligators and birds to view safely from one's car. It had been closed because of the pandemic. Apparently the alligators are more plentiful than ever, and lie in the road now. IN the road, not alongside it like the pictures below. After a couple of months with no cars, they think they own the place.

We usually go for a bike ride (or a walk) every morning.  Today my knee is "hinky" and I'm going to take a day off to rest it.  My husband took this as the opportunity to bike on the aforesaid drive, which I am usually reluctant to do. He's there now. I KNOW he's going to ride his bike around the lounging gators. 

I told him to be safe.  That's code for "don't underestimate the alligators." He laughed and said he would.  Sheesh.

11:53 am  He's back, He was careful.  Yay.

I remember turning 2

I distinctly remember turning two. My oldest sister had been preparing me for the event. She was a very earnest 7 year old, the kind of sister who took being older quite seriously. 

It was 1953. My father was sitting in his underwear at the kitchen table, as he was wont to do in the mornings. White t-shirt, white boxers, he sat enthroned wearing the working man's at-home uniform. 

Both my older sisters were in on the fun.  They guided me to his chair and pushed me forward.  My father asked me "How old are you today?" and I held up two fingers in front of my face.  I held them up like a premonition, for they were displayed like a peace sign, like bunny ears.  It wasn't the last time I made that sign for either meaning. However, it was the last time I told my father I was two years old. He laughed and told me I was a good girl.

I knew I was loved.  

This flowering bromeliad reminds me of belonging to a family

A sign at a Chicago protest

Poetry in Motion

The horror of racism

This morning I read 37 Paddington's blog post entitled "I can't breathe" wherein she describes George Floyd's pointless death.

The horror!  

This murder diminishes us as a country. If justice is not served, then there is no justice. Don't look away. George Floyd was our brother. Racism is the great evil that divides our country. If all we do is "care," then we are allowing this evil continue. 

What do we do?  I'm trying to figure that out. Feel free to share ideas, but we white folks need to do this for ourselves, because if goodness is an achievable goal, then this is the right thing to do. 

I googled "How can I combat racism" and it said there were 29 million results.  

The anger of Cúchulainn

Now THIS is angry:

When Cuchulain went into battle, he would go into a frenzy. His cry alone would kill a hundred warriors from fright. His physical appearance—namely, that of a handsome man—changed completely. Cuchulain's hair stood on end, one of his eyes bulged out while the other disappeared in his head, his legs and feet turned to face backward, his muscles swelled, and a column of blood spurted up from his head. His body became so hot that it could melt snow.
http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Cr-Dr/Cuchulain.html

The Táin. Cúchulainn in warp-spasm is a 1969 work by Louis le Brocquy. It is not currently on display in IMMA. It is part of the IMMA Permanent Collection.

An unpleasant encounter

Sunday was Mother's Day. We rode our bikes to a park to see how many alligators we could count. We rarely see mature alligators in this spot, but there are usually some baby alligators sunning themselves at the foot of water plants at the end of the lake. 

At one point I walked around a young father and his little boy. I realized with horror the father was teaching his young son to throw rocks at the baby alligators. 

I said "Please don't throw rocks at the alligators." Honest to God, I said it calmly. He told me to mind my own business. I replied "This IS my business, you are hurting animals." He instructed me to keep walking. By then my husband was at my side, trying to explain to the man that this was not lawful, and there is a fine for this action. The man again told us both to keep walking and mind our own business. 

I'm sorry, but when I become angry, I lose my mind. I am emotionally unable to walk away from a fight. I've always been this way. I can't help it. Grown ass morons brutalizing children or animals is a huge trigger for me. I'm not bragging, folks. Sometimes my reactions scare me.

So this unpleasant encounter escalated into a war of words, screaming even, as we walked away. I feel guilty about the little boy.

Right and wrong.  So easy to say, so hard to figure out.

Academic Freedom?

Academics don't write for the masses. They don't even write for students. They write for each other. Academic writing is densely dry for the rest of us, kind of sucking the joy out of learning. 

I asked a Classics professor why he didn't share his knowledge and write books accessible for everyone. He replied that if he did, his colleagues would no longer take him seriously. 

I understand the pressure to conform. Hired as assistant professors they have virtually no independent voice, because after 6 years they must submit themselves to a grueling and soul destroying review of their work. If they pass, they become Associate Professors, with full tenure. If they don't pass, they are fired. Then the successful ones have the choice to come up for another peer review in their career if they want to become full professors. 

Don't kid yourself.  If any of these tortured souls tried to do something radical before achieving full professor, their peers would become jealous and or judgmental and the younger academic would not be promoted. Silence is a game they must play for many years. But once these scholars have achieved "tenure" they cannot be fired. They have a job for life.  When they become full professors, there are no further peer reviews. 

Surely some could continue their serious academic writings and still find time to write a popular summary for those of us who don't want to inhale the moldering dust of academic tomes. Well, that was mean of me, wasn't it? Sorry. But books that go unread often make me sneeze.

And knowledge not shared is what my mother would have called a sin and a shame.

I live in a country where intellectuals are considered elitists, distrusted and reviled. In turn, intellectuals look down on the uneducated rabble. Gee, how did that happen?  More to the point, how can we change that?

I am so tired of living among people so poorly educated that their only pastime is to drink themselves into oblivion while watching bad TV.

I'm going to have to think more about this

Is there something wrong with me? I'm enjoying this time of social distancing and staying at home with my husband. I am virtually anxiety free and feel like this is the most important vacation I've ever been on.  What if the world was slower, quieter, and simpler?

This feeling of contentment is new for me.  I'm not sure if it is good or bad. I wonder if it will last once the quarantine ends? I'm going to have to think about this before I write more. 

And P.S., I'm sure I'd feel differently if I was alone.