Ironies and Epiphanies

A Note of Some Importance to a Father

Ernie Stetch

In my years of teaching undergraduates, I was fortunate to have classes of 25-30 students, and we spent much class time in discussion and interaction. Thus, I was able to learn about the learners as individuals. I made it a regular practice, at the end of each semester, to identify several as good human beings. To me, that meant they were open and honest and displayed maturity. If I had been their age, I would have wanted them as friends.

In private, I asked each student for his or her parents’ address and said I would be sending them a note of appreciation of their offspring. I believed that their goodness arose out of parental values and modeling. Of course, the students were pleased and thanked me.

This went on for six or seven years, and I never received a reply from the parents. Neither did I expect one. It was a case of giving without expecting return.

Some years after leaving the full-time academic world, I did get an e-mail from a former colleague. He had met one of our graduates at an art exhibit. She said that her father had died in the previous year, and she told him about my practice of sending notes to parents. When the family opened the man’s wallet, tucked in between cards, was a folded note. A note from me. Something he clearly prized.

Working with Buddy Ebsen

JoAnn

Yeoman Tongret

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of working with Buddy Ebsen, well known for his starring roles in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies, Barnaby Jones, and Davy Crockett. I was choreographing a production of Carousel and Buddy was hired in the cameo role of the angel who offers Billy Bigelow a second chance. The musical was produced at Gammage Auditorium by the Musical Theatre of Arizona.

Then in his 80’s, Buddy was as bright and energetic and charming as anyone could imagine. Before film and TV, Buddy had starred in Vaudeville as half of a dancing duo with his sister, Vilma. Vaudeville, for those not familiar with that incredibly popular form of theatre, was a blue-collar, family-friendly, variety revue that appealed to everyone on some level. It was, as is most of the theatre profession, a tight knit and outgoing community; a large family of entertainers ranging from mega stars to performing seals.

Buddy and I became pals during the rehearsal period and, since I knew Phoenix, I was asked to accompany him to the local TV station, where he filmed some commercials for the production. While the crew was setting up the lights he had time to regale the producer, the interviewer, and me with some stories—including when he had to relinquish his role of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz because he was poisoned by the earliest version of the silver emulsion paint in his makeup.

But the best story was yet to come. As vaudevillians toured the country, those who used the local pit orchestra for their number had few, if any, musical rehearsals. They just handed the sheet music to the conductor, sang a phrase for tempo and hoped for the best. As Buddy tells it, the dancers came up with something better. They developed the tradition of the “time step.” As tap dancers pulled into town they added variations of sound and complexity to this combination of percussive information. Then with all the flash of a top-billing act, Buddy got up, shed fifty years and did a single, a double, and a triple time step to illustrate his story. By that time every available employee of the station had slipped into the studio from the booth, the cafeteria, or the editing room to enjoy and applaud.

It was a lesson in time travel, passion, pride, and in the melding of generations, gender, and hierarchy. I’ll bet that everyone who was there still remembers Buddy Ebsen’s visit. I certainly won’t forget it.

A Memorable Student Evaluation of My Teaching Expertise

Shannon E. Perry

As a nursing professor, I taught in the classroom and the clinical area in my specialty of maternity nursing. I was the co-author of the textbook we used. Evaluations in the classroom consisted of multiple-choice tests and sometimes papers. In the clinical area, students were evaluated by observations of the care they provided and by written nursing care plans. Students were required to submit one or more written nursing care plans for evaluation. The textbook contained examples of care plans which students could use as a model.

I had one male student, about 35 years of age, who had emigrated from Russia. He had some difficulty understanding the requirements for the care plans and toward the end of the semester had not submitted a satisfactory one which was required to pass the course. I informed him that I would give him one last chance to submit a satisfactory care plan. If the plan were not acceptable, he would fail the course. Within a day or two, he submitted a carefully written out care plan. As I read it, I recognized it. He had copied the care plan from the textbook, and it was a care plan that I had written! Needless to say, it was not satisfactory, and I informed him of that fact and that he would not pass the course.

He drew himself up to his full height and with barely concealed fury told me that “I have worked for the KGB; you are WORSE than the KGB!” Needless to say, I did not receive his vote for “Teacher of the Year.”

I learned later that he enrolled in another nursing program and was successful, graduating and obtaining a license to practice nursing so he was able to meet his goal of becoming a nurse.

Faced with the sacredness of life and of the human person, and before the marvels of the universe, wonder is the only appropriate attitude.

Pope John Paul II