The Miami Student Magazine | Spring 2018

Volume II | Spring 2018 PROSE

Megan Zahneis 2 Chloe Murdock 3 Emily Williams 6 Julia Arwine 12 Kate Rigazio 16 Devon Shuman 22

Letter from the Editor Tortillas and Motorcycles The Legend of Dirk DeJong Tending the Fire Group Mind Behind Closed Doors

Alison Perelman 32 Real-Life Magic and Inspiration Jillian Cofskey 34 Explanations Megan Zahneis 40 Before Dawn 44 For Your Amusement POETRY

Emily Dattilo 11 Free Spirit Ben Finfrock 31 Las Vegas Piper Augspurger 43 Is this how it goes TMS Magazine Staff Editor-in-Chief Head of Student Media Art Director Photo Editor Photographer Web Director Editorial Staff Design Staff

Business Manager Faculty Advisor Business Advisor Distributor

Megan Zahneis Jack Evans Arthur Newberry Heather McCowan Jugal Jain Jillian Cofskey Riley Steiner Maya Fenter Cassidy Sattler Kat Holleran Abbie Klinker Sabrina Tinoco Nina Willis Connor Wells Beatrice Newberry James Tobin Fred Reeder WDJ Inc. - Bill Dedden

From

the

Editor Dear reader, They say the second baby is easier than the first.

I’m referring, of course, to age-old parenting wisdom whose validity I can neither confirm nor deny (don’t worry, Mom, I’m not having kids for at least 10 more years).

And of course, by “baby,” I mean “fledgling student magazine I’ve been entrusted to head up.”

Well, they’re wrong. The second baby has not been easier than the first.

That’s because, while I’m slightly more familiar with the process of creating a magazine than I was nine months ago, the stories we’re telling in this issue are just as important and interesting as the ones we brought to you in the fall. So there’s just as much anxiety bringing this issue into the world as there was the first time.

Myaamia tribe’s legacy; a custodial supervisor who makes sure our campus is clean before most of us even think about rolling out of bed; and the extended Mexican-American family of one of our writers.

In short, you’ll find stories here. Lots of them. That’s what we believe in here at The Miami Student Magazine — true stories, and the power they hold when told well.

None of these stories would exist, of course, without the writers who put them to paper — er, Google Doc — or the subjects who’ve allowed their tales to be told. Nor would this endeavor be possible without the Department of Media, Journalism and Film, particularly faculty advisor James Tobin and business manager Fred Reeder. Thanks go out to Miami Student Media editors Emily Williams and Jack Evans, and to Arthur Newberry, whose vision as art director has shaped the edition you hold in your hands. Our editorial staff have been instrumental in polishing each piece, and our design and photo staff have done a terrific job bringing those words to life. I’m grateful to all of the folks mentioned above, and many more who have had a hand in producing this issue.

So, here’s baby No. 2. We hope you enjoy it.

In our center spread, you’ll find the poignant story of a student struggling to help his friend through the depths of depression. Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll get to know Tim Kemp, an extraordinarily talented Miami cartoonist who died of AIDS before he could make it big, and a first-year writer who’s working to find her place in Oxford.

You’ll be transported to Hogwarts and to Pearson 128, home of Miami’s favorite improv group, Sketched Out. You’ll meet Miami seniors working to maintain the

2

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

Megan Zahneis Editor-in-Chief

TORTILLAS AND MOTORCYCLES: My family, its memories and the opinions in between

BY CHLOE MURDOCK

Before he became “El Conservador,” her great-grand-uncle George worked for George W. Bush on immigration and police-community relations.

Students packed the auditorium for a diversity panel at the Ohio University High School Journalism Workshop. It wasn’t crowded just because the panel was mandatory, but because diversity was a controversial topic even in a world where Donald Trump wasn’t yet president. It was 2016, the summer before my senior year of high school.

The conversation quickly became heated, and the adults lost control of it. Everyone was angry and divisive, especially while talking about Trump. Most people seemed to be anti-Trump, except for one kid in the front who stuck out like a red “Make America Great Again” thumb.

A student in the middle of the stadium-like seating raised her hand and said she didn’t understand how this kid in her school, who was half Mexican, could support Trump. She absolutely could not wrap her mind around it. How could he turn on his own people?

I raised my hand, though my public speaking skills were not exactly reliable.

The thing is, it’s really hard to explain my family in two seconds unless I want to sound like an idiot. That’s exactly what I sounded like when I said, “I’m a fourth-gen-

eration Mexican,” into the microphone and immediately wanted to sew my mouth shut and never speak again.

The crowd roared with laughter at me, a white girl who couldn’t explain herself, and I immediately tried to course-correct.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That was really insanely dumb of me to say. I was just trying to explain my family really quickly, and it came out wrong.”

I started over. I explained that my family is very proud of their legal status in the United States, their conservative beliefs and their support for Donald Trump. I also made sure to make it clear that I didn’t share those beliefs.

“What I am trying to say is that you can’t always put people in a box because of their demographic,” I said.

Loud murmurs. The rest of the auditorium did not agree. I sank into my chair, wishing I could become two-dimensional and slide to the floor. I remember ringing in my ears.

The conversation escalated from there.

The adults failed to calm us down until a Latina counselor at the top of the auditorium, who described herself as “a Venezuelan queen overlooking you all,” took the micro-

phone.

As someone who is very clearly white and has not undergone the discrimination that non-white people experience, I realized that during a diversity panel, I really should just shut up and listen. But at the same time, other than my really bad intro, what I said was relevant to the point of the conversation.

If only I hadn’t been such a devil’s advocate.

If only I could have articulated it better.

It could have been constructive.

The panel ended eventually, and we all filed out of the auditorium. I was outside the doors waiting for my friend to catch up, contemplating where I could buy a needle and thread to sew my mouth shut forever, when two Latina students came outside and glared at me as they passed. And probably rightly so. “‘A fourth-generation Mexican,’” one of them said. “This gringa.” *** It took me a lot of time — and a lot of mistakes — before I figured out where I fit in my family.

When I was little, I looked like a German Dora. My mom gave me Dora’s bowl-

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

3

ish bang cut, but with thin blonde hair. My hair has since darkened to brown, but it has always been clear that I am a white person.

English is my first and only fluent language. My family pressured me to take Spanish in high school, but I only took three years of it so I could make room for journalism classes. When I turned 15, my birthday passed without a quinceañera.

If my entire childhood had passed in San Antonio, I would still look the same.

But I would be fluent in Spanish and would have worn a big, poofy dress on my fifteenth birthday.

I was born in Ohio, and I grew up in Ohio. I almost always lost in games of cornhole and wished I lived somewhere more interesting. I scuffed my knees while riding my bike, I stayed up late to wait for imaginary fairies to pop out from behind tree leaves, I fought to be the boss of my little brother and I reached my tongue out to catch thick snowflakes from a packed winter sky. *** Regardless of the religious differences among my relatives, they are mostly united on the front of immigration — and their thoughts don’t fit into the tidy statistics on Latinx public opinion.

Before I delve into this, I should make it clear that I do not oppose or accept these beliefs. I simply respect them.

This story is just about my family, and with my family comes strong opinions, which are sometimes very unpopular. *** The first time I can remember visiting my relatives in San Antonio, Texas, I was a little towhead Ohioan who liked to listen to my relatives talk. And gossip. And chastise.

I soaked it all in: The age-old sibling rivalry between my great-grandma Hilda and my great-grand aunt Olga. The switches from Spanish to English to a harsher, rapid-fire Spanish when conversation turned to Stephen Colbert or the President or how a family drama went down.

I remember thinking of the house as “the place where too many people lived.”

At the time, the little house hosted Walter “Bud” Hersey; his ex-wife, Hilda Rodríguez; their daughter, Lynda Rodríguez, a teacher; and their son, Eddie Rodríguez, a kind man who is good with kids but is currently serving time in prison.

We spent most of our San Antonio trips visiting this little house. I loved my family and its bustle, but I grew tired of the Febreze-soaked furniture, the three dogs that could smell fear and the constant yelling.

Through a high school physics unit on sound, I found out my hearing level is 100 4

decibels lower than average. I attribute this slight hearing loss to occasionally blaring my earphones and attending concerts, but especially to my time in this little house, where Fox News blared in two separate rooms and my relatives yakked in Spanish or English — but never Spanglish — in the cramped kitchen.

Back then, my great-grandparents’ hearing was really bad, and it’s even worse now. Yelling to one another was how all conversations were conducted; when people in the house yelled at each other, somehow it became even louder.

Today, my great-grandma Hilda is 86, and my great-grandpa, Walter “Bud” Hersey, turns 88 in May. While they do not live in this house anymore, yelling is still the acceptable volume for conversation.

My great-grand-uncle George’s house was a quiet break from this funny little house with too many big personalities.

When I was older and my family visited his home on our trips to Texas, George pulled framed pictures from the walls to show us the faces of long-gone relatives and younger, goofier versions of the living.

The one face I can clearly remember from those sepia-toned pictures is that of my great-great grandma Armandina, a motorcycle-riding flapper. Armandina’s face and her badassery cut through all the noise of the trips to San Antonio.

Years later, I asked Great-Grand-Uncle George about her. I found out Armandina Flores-Peña stole moments on her friend’s motorcycle until she was 61. But she didn’t ride motorcycles as much after she got married and traded in her last name for “Rodríguez.”

When Armandina had kids and grandkids, her role became “Mamá.” This is what her daughter, my great-grandma Hilda, called her. *** Through the cracks in her dementia, Hilda can almost always recall the teachers who scorned her for her Mexican-ness: her accent, her skin and her hair.

These memories can wring out bitter laughter, but more often they bring tears to her eyes. Every time I visit her, she tells anyone who will listen about those devil teachers.

“They told me I would drop out of school to marry a Mexican bum,” Great-Grandma will say, then point to my white great-grandpa. “I tell my kids they only got it half right.

I married their father.” *** My great-grandparents both have dementia, but Hilda is typically a bit more aware than Bud. When I say hello or goodbye to him with

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

a hug and a kiss on the cheek, most of the time a tear leaks out of one eye. Maybe it’s because he understands I love him, but doesn’t always remember who I am.

Bud was born and raised in Maine.

He grew up poor. Once he told me a story about how going to a movie cost 10 cents when he grew up, but his family couldn’t afford even that. Then he laughed his loud, gasping laugh that’s strangely infectious.

Whenever Bud speaks Spanish, it’s meant to be ironic. He’ll sip his coffee, say “muy bueno,” then crack up.

Typically, this comes after Hilda does something like toasting to “Salud, dinero y amor!” — health, money and love — at a restaurant, and everyone clinks glasses.

Bud used to be fluent in Spanish, but he didn’t learn from his wife or her family. He learned Spanish from a guy in a bar.

“He wanted to learn English, and I wanted to learn Spanish,” Bud said.

So they met at the bar every day for an hour, trading languages and downing drinks. *** Armandina had spoiled her kids, refusing to let Hilda and her four siblings cook.

So when Hilda married Bud — who served as a Morse code operator in the Korean War — and had the baby who would become my grandma, Hilda could cook only with a pressure cooker.

But Armandina, or Mamá, taught her granddaughter — my grandmother — how to cook classic Mexican dishes.

My grandma, Barbara, was 11 years old when she cooked flour tortillas for the first time. By the time she turned 16, she was cooking almost every single meal for her five siblings.

My grandma’s recipes are never the same, because my grandma doesn’t measure out her ingredients. Neither did her grandmother.

My own grandma’s cooking is amazing, but her resume is all over the place in the best way: She started her own Mexican restaurant, got a degree in religion and now works in computer security. She was also the officiant at my parents’ wedding.

I can’t forget the cobalt blue Harley-Davidson motorcycle she used to ride with my papaw. On that Harley, they visited Frank Lloyd Wright mansions and Myrtle Beach and one really dangerous road down south with their motorcycling friends.

My grandma clearly inherited Armandina’s badassery, but the rest of the family history was news to me.

George has traced Armandina’s side of the family as far back as 1691, which is when our ancestor Nicolas Saenz was born in Monterrey, Mexico. Armandina’s par-

Great-grandma Hilda Rodríguez goofs around in 2017. She never took back her husband’s last name “Hersey” after divorcing him. Photo by Leslie Murdock/courtesy of author

ents, Abran Flores-Peña and Antonia (with the maiden name de los Santos), entered the United States legally in 1900.

By custom, the Spanish put the husband’s last name in front of the wife’s maiden name. Abran and Antonia’s official U.S. documents dropped the “Peña,” and they became the Flores family.

We can trace the line of Armandina’s husband, Eduardo Rodríguez, back to 1856, when my great-great-great-great grandfather, Jesus Rodríguez, was born. George hasn’t been able to find much before that, since many family records were burned during the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

My great-great-great grandfather on Eduardo’s side, Rodríguez de Carvajal, was a servant to Marques de Aguayo, a Spanish military leader who oversaw the Spanish mission that is now San Antonio. At the age of nine, Rodríguez helped build this settlement, the Alamo and four other missions later in his life before settling in Monterrey, Mexico.

At 11, my great-great-grandfather Eduardo Rodríguez, along with two skinny 12-year-olds, reinstalled historic church bells in the San Augustine Catholic church in Laredo, Texas, in 1912. At the time, the church bells were 127 years old.

Catholicism ran deep in the family, in-

cluding the Peña family on Armandina’s side.

“They had their own private pew at Catholic church, and they had a special room in their home for Wednesday church worship,” George said. “Being wealthy and being Catholic went hand in hand.”

This was when the Mexican Revolution forced a mass exodus of people from Mexico — including clergy of the Latter-Day Saints, known colloquially as “Mormons.”

Some of these missionaries met Armandina’s mother, Antonia, in 1918, after they moved to Laredo, Texas.

This meeting, and one later held at Antonia’s house that featured lemonade, set off one of the biggest family dramas I had never heard of.

The missionaries taught their beliefs to Antonia, who also went by Tonya, and her three oldest children, including Armandina. Scandal ensued.

“The Catholic priests excommunicated them publicly, while Tonya cleaned out her private church room in her home,” George said. “The family never fully recovered socially, and it even affected them financially because many people stopped doing business with the family.”

It didn’t stop Tonya, or her daughter Armandina. In 1940, Armandina’s daughter

Hilda would be baptized as a Mormon in the Rio Grande.

George grew up as a Mormon and remains a Mormon, along with many of my other relatives in this part of the family.

Mormons place a lot of emphasis on family genealogy, which is partly why George has gone to such great lengths to remember our family history.

Some relatives have since left the faith.

My grandma Barbara was once a licensed teacher in the Unity Church, and I have at least one great-aunt who reverted to Catholicism. I am not Mormon, either. *** “My life was very normal, but in Spanish and English,” George said. “We spoke English at school and with friends, but always spoke in Spanish with my parents.”

He is Armandina’s youngest child.

He fondly recalls his Mamá’s food, “and, of course, all the hugs and kisses because Latins are very expressive and touchyfeely.”

This is a generalization, but it reminds me of how great-grandma Hilda always has a “Papasito!” and a kiss on the cheek whenever my uncle or brother enter the room. *** So, put simply: my relatives don’t support illegal immigrants in the United States, and they have a history of not doing so.

“Papá organized a printers’ union in Laredo in the 1940s because cheap Mexican labor competed with Mexican-American [laborers],” George said. “Mamá’s brothers helped establish the Border Patrol in Laredo because so many Mexican criminals caused problems in their community.”

George’s Papá, Eduardo, also helped organize the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which at the time worked to integrate Mexican immigrants.

“Their community leaders wanted to be seen as ‘American,’ not ‘Mexican,’” George said. “Bottom line was, be proud of your family roots in Mexico, but be American for your future and children. It’s typical of all immigrant groups who have come to the USA.” Now, LULAC supports open borders and blanket amnesty. George does not support LULAC. I know George as my great-grand-uncle.

Google knows him as “El Conservador,” a conservative, Spanish-speaking blogger and radio host.

Before he became “El Conservador,” he worked for the government.

George was a member of the Reagan administration’s transition team, then worked his way up to preparing speeches and travel CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

5

The Legend of Dirk DeJong: a portrait of an artist

BY EMILY WILLIAMS

Tim Kemp had beautiful hands — an artist’s hands — all long graceful fingers and smooth planes. They were beautiful to see and beautiful to watch.

His hands were rarely at rest, always doodling little characters or writing funny sayings.

Tim once said he got his start drawing in the second grade, scrawling on the bathroom walls of his elementary school in Mt. Washington, a neighborhood on the east side of Cincinnati.

Then his doodles moved from bathroom tiles to sketchbooks and from sketchbooks to newsprint. His friends now mention him in the same breath as some of the day’s bestknown editorial cartoonists like Mike Peters of The Dayton Daily News, John Oliphant of The Washington Post and Jim Borgman at The Cincinnati Enquirer.

“If you look at Tim’s work and compare it to other cartoonists at the time, they had nothing on Tim,” said Ken Peterson, who collaborated with Tim on editorial cartoons in the late 1970s. “Tim was every bit as good as the best cartoonist in the country.”

But the name “Tim Kemp” can only be found in a handful of publications.

That’s how it was with Tim, Ken said — “relative anonymity but an unbelievable talent.”

It was his pseudonym, Dirk DeJong, that was much better known.

It’s that pseudonym which Tim signed on the pages of artwork that sat tucked away in Doug Imbrogno’s Cincinnati home for over 25 years.

An old friend of Tim’s, Doug was cleaning out a closet in early 2017 when he came across a large bag,

6

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

Tim Kemp was first unmasked as the secret illustrator of The Miami Student in 1978.

“ selative

anonymity, but an unbelievable talent.” bulging with stacks of papers, smudged with pencil and crinkled with dried ink.

“It just kind of confronted me,” Doug said.

In that bag were hundreds of Tim’s cartoons and illustrations, pieces of Tim in the work of his hands — those beautiful hands — preserved in pages that, though hidden away for decades, were bound to see the sun.

“He sat looking down at his hands — his fine strong unscarred hands.”

- Edna Ferber, “So Big” Ken Peterson met Tim when they were both attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. As a recent conservative-turned-self-proclaimed-hippie, Ken had joined the university newspaper, hoping to write political columns, but, like all cub reporters, he had to start out by writing hard news.

In those days, he would stay up late, and, several nights a week, he noticed that one of his neighbors in the Arrowhead Apartment complex would come in past midnight dressed in a Miami University Police Department uniform.

Wanting to play the reporter, Peterson introduced himself to the stranger across the hall, hoping the young man would be a source for story tips (“Imagine the leads this guy could give me!”). Though Tim never fed Peterson any leads, they quickly became friends.

So when Peterson learned that Tim was an artist, he had an idea: He could formulate his critiques of the conservative campus culture into editorial cartoons. He’d provide the ideas and Tim the hands, which would kick into gear — sketching, drawing, circling, writing — anytime they landed on a great new concept. The brainstorming sessions would

usually happen late at night at the student center, as Tim and Ken drank coffee and ate toasted rolls.

But Tim was hesitant to print the cartoons in the student newspaper, The Miami Student. Openly criticizing the university in print could jeopardize his job with Campus Security. Rather than risk his job, Tim decided to assume a pseudonym — Dirk DeJong.

“He just had a real wacky sense of humor. It could have been a porn star name,” said Sue MacDonald, editor-in-chief of The Student at the time, of the moniker’s origin. “I wouldn’t rule that out.”

His chosen name did not, in fact, have pornographic roots. The character of Dirk DeJong appears in “So Big,” a 1925 novel

by American author Edna Ferber.

The novel, which earned Ferber a Pulitzer, follows the life of Selina Peake DeJong, a school teacher in a Dutch district southwest of Chicago known as High Prairie. Though never an artist herself, Selina vehemently encourages others to pursue their artistic passions. She marries a farmer and they have a child, Dirk.

They nickname the boy “So Big,” (as in, “How big is baby?” “Sooo big!”).

“Until he was almost ten the name stuck to him,” the novel begins. “He had literally to fight his way free of it.”

The book also inspired two cinematic versions — one in 1932 and another in 1953 — but it’s unclear which iteration of “So Big” prompted Tim to take Dirk as his nom de plume.

The name “Dirk” appeared on the ed-

itorial pages of The Miami Student for the first time on January 9, 1976. From the composition of the drawing to the handwriting in the caption, it’s clear the cartoon is Tim’s handiwork, but two other names are credited on the piece. “Dirk, Ken & Abe” are all signed in Tim’s cartoonish cursive.

Over the next few months of 1976, most of the cartoons are signed “Ken Peterson/Dirk DeJong.” Tim and Ken had similar views on the university’s overwhelming population of “yuppie” students. After the spring semester of ‘76, Ken disliked Miami’s conservative culture so much that he decided to leave and finish his degree at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. On the side of his cartoon in the May 21 issue, Tim wrote a farewell message to his cartooning colleague: “Goodbye Ken...

Miami’s loss is Northwestern’s gain!!!”

When the paper’s staff returned in the fall, Tim signed his cartoons with “Dirk DeJong for The Miami Student.”

Every week, the night before the paper would go to print, then-editor-in-chief Sue would stop by the Security Office where Tim worked late-night shifts and tell him what stories would be in the next day’s paper. He would doodle as she described the latest in student government, Oxford crime or dorm policies.

The next night, as the staff laid out the print edition at the Oxford Press, Tim would arrive to place his cartoon, a pen still in hand to make any final adjustments.

Kemp’s witty sense of humor and subtle political activism can be seen in his artwork.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

7

One of his first cartoons for the ‘76‘77 academic year shows two starry-eyed freshman girls carrying stacks of books and sporting trendy painter’s pants and wedge sandals. Bubbles and stars emanate from their blissful smiles, and a pennant that reads “Uptown is neat!” flutters behind them.

Sitting against a tree, watching the young women walk by, is a broad-shouldered upperclassman with a jaunty mustache and sunglasses, his arms confidently resting behind his head to increase the visibility of his biceps.

“It’s satisfying to know there are still some things in this world that never change. One of them is freshmen,” says the young man.

Next to him is another young man, hunched slightly over a book and wearing a button-down shirt that hangs on his thin frame. He has narrow shoulders, a downward-turning mustache and a wry expression.

“The other is Miami,” he says in response.

That shy young man, with a mustache and slim build, looks like Tim. Tim didn’t usually get political, but his cartoons were often critical of the university. Many of Tim’s jokes at the time centered around “Mother Miami,” the nickname students gave the school and its in loco parentis role with students.

“Tim could be snarky as heck,” said Doug Imbrogno, who was Features Editor at The Student during the ‘78-‘79 school year. “But it was a snark that painted a portrait and stood back and let it speak for itself.”

One cartoon, from ‘78, shows a perfectly coiffed Miami couple. The girl sports hair with Farah Fawcett volume, a preppy cowl neck sweater and — the finishing detail — a sorority pin. The guy is clad in a blazer and a Miami t-shirt, tucked into cuffed jeans. They both wear boat shoes and smug smiles. The mustachioed young man holds a cup in one hand and wraps his other arm around the girl’s shoulder.

His hand is about the size of her face. The caption above the couple reads, “Barbie and Ken.” Some of Tim’s commentary on Miami’s homogeny depicted a Miami mold.

And Tim didn’t fit that mold. He never had.

“There’s something about a man who has fought for it — I don’t know what it is — a look in his eye — the feel of his hand. He needn’t have been successful — though he probably would be.”

-Edna Ferber, “So Big” 8

Tim didn’t fit

that mold.

He never had.

Tim’s life before Miami — his aspirations and obstacles, his false starts and changes of direction — can be pieced together from things he told his friends, especially Doug Imbrogno, who wrote a long, revealing story about Tim for the Student in 1978.

Though he spent his early childhood years in southwest Ohio, Tim spent much of his young life in Kansas. At Shawnee Mission North High School, near Kansas City, Tim took a few journalism classes and worked for the school paper, The Shawnee Mission. He wrote features and satire pieces. The paper didn’t print cartoons, but he dabbled with a few illustrations.

In early August 1964, Tim enrolled at the University of Kansas. He decided to major in education, solely because he hoped to get a job right out of college. He also hoped finding a job in the classroom could be his free pass out of combat. After all, the same month that Tim started college, North Vietnamese forces opened fire on two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin. Less than a week later, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. That document gave the president the power to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to retaliate.

It became a joke, Tim once said, that if he or any of his male classmates flunked

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

out, their next stop was a rice paddy in Vietnam.

Tim stayed out of the spotlight in college, almost as if his fear of being drafted made him hesitant to call any attention to himself. He didn’t write for the newspaper. He didn’t draw cartoons. He shied away from protests and marches.

After graduation, he found a job as an art teacher in his old school district, Shawnee Mission. The school where Tim was assigned — Trailridge Junior High — was widely known as the school for “problem” students, the place where ninth-grade flunkies with files thick with detention slips and demerits were sent for a fresh start. The building itself, only a year old, was even built like a correctional facility. Half of it was underground, and most classrooms were windowless.

On Tim’s second day of teaching, a student broke the axles of a school bus by putting a rock between its wheels. One of his more troublesome students ended up spending a stint at the state prison. But no matter how much his students misbehaved, Tim knew teaching was better than the alternative.

At the end of his first year of teaching, Tim’s number was up — he was ordered to report for a physical with the United States Army. He wasn’t too worried, though. Tim was deaf in one ear. It was a surefire way out, he thought. And though two of his friends were turned away — one for a bad knee and the other for a nervous stomach — Tim passed the physical without question.

He immediately penned a strongly worded letter to the Pentagon appealing his call to duty, and his request was promptly rejected.

But Tim was unwilling to accept a ticket to the Mekong Delta as his fate so, surreptitiously, he scheduled an ear operation in October — the same month he was supposed to report for active duty.

Because of the procedure, Tim got a medical deferment for a year. The Army never contacted him again.

It was during Tim’s second year of teaching art at Trailridge that he started cartooning. Back then, he told himself it was just a hobby.

After seven years of teaching ninth grade art, Tim had grown bored, and he decided to pursue something that felt like the exact opposite of what he was already doing. Tim turned to the sciences and enrolled in a couple microbiology courses at the local community college.

Tim kept teaching at Trailridge, toting his microbiology textbooks with him to the teachers’ lounge. The other teachers would give him funny looks, but he was the art teacher, after all. He had license to

be extra quirky.

Tim enjoyed microbiology so much that he signed up for organic chemistry.

Ten credit hours later, Tim quit his job at Trail Ridge and set his sights on a microbiology degree.

At the time, Tim had a cousin at Miami, so he visited and arranged a meeting with the chair of the university’s microbiology department.

With only five hours of microbiology and five hours of chemistry on his transcript, Tim was accepted into Miami’s program — as a graduate student. His folks back in Kansas hardly believed him, but, nevertheless, that fall of ‘75, Tim moved to Oxford and started his first graduate seminar.

On the first day of class, the students were asked to introduce themselves.

Several were pursuing doctoral degrees and had already earned their master’s from schools like Purdue or the University of Michigan. As the introductions came around to Tim, his palms started to sweat. He couldn’t possibly tell them he was an art major from Kansas. So he faked it — as best he could.

But as the weeks went on, the more Tim dove into his coursework, the more he felt in over his head. It took him three days to read just the first chapter of his pathogenic microbiology textbook. For the course’s lab, Tim was supposed to infect a mouse with tuberculosis. Not only was he unsuccessful, but a bite from the rodent sent him to the Health Center for a tetanus shot.

He had to come clean, he decided. Tim finally confided in a professor that he did not, in fact, have a background in microbiology and then withdrew from the program.

Spooked from his brief stint in the sciences, Tim returned to art education and, around the same time, was recruited to draw cartoons for the Student.

“You can’t hide splendor, Dirk.”

-Dallas O’Mara, “So Big” (film, 1953) When Tim finally felt confident he wouldn’t be fired from his job at the Security Office, he decided to reveal his identity to the readers of The Miami Student.

Doug, the Features Editor, felt the reveal deserved top billing in the paper, in the form of a profile written by Doug himself.

“It’s time to blow his cover,” the story began.

Doug’s story unveiling the true identity of Dirk DeJong was printed in the January 28, 1978 issue of the paper. At over 2,600 words, it was given its own two-page spread and was accompanied by portrait photos of Tim that would one

day be viewed by his friends as iconic.

It was the kind of story that Doug and the rest of the TMS staff — and perhaps Tim as well — thought that, years later, people would look back on to uncover the origin story of Tim Kemp, nationally renowned artist and cartoonist.

“Tim, bearded and bespectacled, has been around,” Doug wrote, “in possibly more ways than one. He declines to give his age except in enigmatic references.”

The story hints at Tim’s age (“Tim remembers 10-inch television screens…”), but never reveals the actual number. TMS readers weren’t the only ones who had to guess at his age, either.

On former Student editor Sue MacDonald’s 21st birthday, Marilyn Shapiro, another TMS staffer and close friend of Tim’s, threw Sue a surprise party. They’d had a few beers and were sitting around talking when Tim made a comment about being much older than Sue. Tim was a graduate student, so she knew he had a few years on her, but Sue wasn’t sure of his exact age.

As they sipped their beers, Marilyn and Sue started taking guesses.

“Twenty-five,” one of them said.

Tim jammed his thumb upward.

“Twenty-seven?”

Higher, the thumb said.

“Twenty-nine?!”

Higher.

He was 31, he told them.

They gawked in disbelief.

Despite his gregarious personality, Sue said, Tim didn’t have many friends, even at the Student. She guessed his age had a lot to do with it.

“He was very boyish,” said Doug. “But at the same time he had this world-weariness about him that was quite sweet, actually.”

Tim preferred to be wholly himself — his wacky, witty, playful self — but to do that, he kept his social circle tight. Most of the people Tim did become close to were members of the newspaper’s staff.

“Back then, we were kind of the oddball students,” Sue remembered. “Other people would be dressed up for class and we would be walking around in jeans and flannel shirts and fringe tops.”

It was affirming and energizing for Tim to be surrounded by creative people who appreciated his artistic ability, his creativity and his singular brand of humor. Tim was quick-witted, sometimes dark, and told jokes with the kind of timing that confounded his friends. How did he think of them so quickly? And how did he think of making a joke out of that?

“He had a great laugh,” Sue remembered. “It was this great, giggly laugh that came from the bottom of his soul. It was

1. The infamous Barbie and Ken piece that parodies Miami students. 2. Kemp dreamt of having his work featured on the cover of The New Yorker and often drew mockup covers. 3. Kemp’s contemporary style embodied his affection for his hometown of Cincinnati.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

9

a real spontaneous kind of sense of humor.”

Though Tim was closest to his friends at the newspaper, even with them he didn’t always feel at ease. During that first semester when Tim started to draw cartoons — the spring of ‘76 — he realized that his friend Ken Peterson, the Ken who collaborated with Tim on his cartoons, was more than just a friend to him.

Sue remembers when Tim finally came out to her. They were sitting in the living room of her apartment on South Main Street. Sue was good friends with Ken, too, so she knew that Ken wasn’t gay.

But Tim couldn’t help how he felt.

When Ken left for Northwestern, it made it easier, in some ways, for Tim to cope.

“It was hard for him to admit he was gay,” Sue said. “Back then, coming out was not sometimes the accepted thing to do, and because he was older, I think he felt more out of place.”

As Tim started to come out to more people at Miami, he made other friends through the university’s gay community. Miami’s gay population was still very “underground,” Sue said, but it had its customs.

On weekends, instead of heading to Uptown Oxford to hit the bars, most gay students would go to Cincinnati. Tim would even see professors there sometimes.

“You won’t believe who’s gay!” Tim would say to Sue before spilling to her which closeted student or faculty member he had run into at the bar that weekend.

As Tim came to accept his sexuality, he also started getting honest with himself about his art. This whole cartooning thing? Turns out it wasn’t just a hobby, he realized.

“This is what I want to do,” Tim is quoted saying in Doug’s TMS feature. “I want to be an illustrator or cartoonist.”

“Any piece of furniture, I don’t care how beautiful it is, has got to be lived with, and kicked about, and rubbed down, and mistreated, and repolished, and knocked around and dusted and sat on or slept in or eaten off of before it develops its real character.”

- Edna Ferber, “So Big” In the tenth chapter of “So Big,” in a night haunted by flashes of heat lightning and shuddering breaths, Selina loses her husband to pneumonia. Tasked with maintaining the family farm and raising their son alone, she clings to a dream for Dirk. She wants him to be an artist.

For a time, he complies. Dirk goes to 10

“He had a great laugh. It was this great, giggly laugh that came from the bottom of his soul.

It was a real spontaneous kind of sense of humor.” college and starts working as an architect, but soon he succumbs to the allure of wealth. He decides to work as a stockbroker instead.

Unlike his pseudonymic counterpart, Tim had his heart set on the artist’s life.

He was ambitious, regularly sending his best crop of cartoons to The New Yorker, but he didn’t anticipate much, if any, financial success.

“I mean, you know, years of just kind of turning it out and being rejected has convinced me that from now on I’m heading for the top, my star will be up there,” Tim had quipped in his ‘78 profile. “I’ll never go hungry again!”

While Tim’s resolve to draw professionally was the antithesis of Dirk’s decision to turn away from art, Tim shared something notable with the fictional character — deeply disappointing his family.

On one of Dirk’s visits home, his mother, who was growing feeble with age and exhaustion, confronts him about his decision to abandon architecture. Is he ever going to return to it?

No, he responds tersely, a rejection Ferber brutally describes as a “clean amputation.”

“She gave an actual gasp, as though icy water had been thrown full in her face,” Ferber writes of Selina’s reaction. “She looked suddenly old, tired. Her shoulders sagged.”

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

If he wasn’t to return to architecture, then she had failed as a mother. How could Dirk desert her? How could her son desert beauty? How could he cast off self-expression? “‘You wait! She’ll turn on you someday,’” Selina scolds him. “‘Someday you’ll want her, and she won’t be there.’”

Tim’s parents, straightlaced Kansas evangelicals from Wichita, wished their son hadn’t engaged in so much self expression.

“His family didn’t accept him,” said Sue. “I think after he came out to his family, they didn’t really talk to him ever again.”

Tim had two brothers and one sister, but he rarely talked about his family. It hurt too much, Sue said.

Even after Sue graduated from Miami, she and Tim remained close. She remembers getting calls from him at her desk when she started working as a reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer.

“Hello,” Tim would say in a vaguely European accent. “I would like to report a murder.”

“A couple times I was sucked into it until he started laughing,” Sue said. “And I’d say, ‘Omigod, Tim, it’s you again.’”

Tim never finished his graduate degree at Miami and eventually left his job at the Security Office. In 1984, he moved to an apartment in Cincinnati and started looking for freelance work. Just like his place in Oxford, Tim filled his city apartment with stacks and stacks of New Yorker issues.

“You know how some people say they only buy Playboy for the articles?” Sue said. “Tim really did subscribe to The New Yorker only for the cartoons.”

The most memorable feature of Tim’s apartment, though, was a colorful painting that hung on his living room wall. The painting showed four older women with white-blue hair and dreary housedresses.

They all had bulbous breasts forming one bulging, cushioned shelf on each of their chests. The bottom of the painting said, “Guess who’s hiding the cantaloupe?”

It made Sue laugh every time she visited.

Though Tim kept working at his cartoons, he didn’t achieve anything more than sporadic success. Hoping to help Tim get his start, Sue arranged a meeting between him and her colleague at the Enquirer, Jim Borgman, who would win a Pulitzer for his editorial cartooning in 1991.

Jim had a lot of great things to say about Tim’s work, Sue remembers. Tim showed more than promise. He already CONTINUED ON PAGE 45

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

11

Tending the Fire

Native American students keep their culture alive.

BY JULIA ARWINE PORTRAITS BY HEATHER McCOWAN

aya!

This is the friendly greeting of the myaamiaki, or the Miami people — the members of the Native American tribe who, before the advancement of European settlers, occupied a large portion of the Great Lakes region and often roamed the land where Miami University now stands. It may be a single small word, but aya represents a language and a culture that has undergone tremendous revival and renewal in the past few decades, thanks in part to Myaamia students at Miami who have embraced their heritage.

In 1846, the Myaamia people were forcibly removed from their homeland after 16 years of resisting the United States government’s efforts to displace them through the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Now, the tribe’s lands are located in Miami, Okla., and are federally recognized as the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Although Miami University, founded in 1809, took its name from the tribe, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the tribe and university began to form a relationship.

Today, 31 students of Myaamia descent are enrolled at Miami. For their first three years, they all take a class together on one of three topics: language, ecological perspectives or history and contemporary issues of the tribe. In the fourth year, seniors complete a final project that connects to what they’ve learned and contributes to the tribe.

Among the tight-knit cohort of Myaamia students are seniors Megan Mooney, Katin Angelo and Zach Roebel. All three are active in the Myaamia community on and off campus, but none of them were born in Oklahoma within the federally recognized tribe. It took coming to Miami for them to understand their heritage and what it meant to them.

Megan’s Myaamia blood comes from her father who, although he was aware of his background, never taught Megan anything about it. Megan lived in Indiana near the headquarters of the Miami Nation of Indiana, a Myaamia branch, but she knew nothing of it until a fourth-grade genealogy 12

project brought her family’s history to the surface. It was in high school, when her older sister enrolled at Miami and joined the tribe classes, that Megan began to take an interest in her Myaamia history.

“I had no idea,” she said. “I grew up in Indiana just thinking I was a white person.

I was very ignorant, to say the least.”

Katin’s grandmother was born and raised in Oklahoma near the tribe, but when local industry stalled, the family relocated to Ohio. Disconnected from his homeland, Katin’s father carried the Myaamia bloodline but never learned much about his heritage. Katin’s grandmother died when she was young and never had the chance to pass any of her knowledge on to Katin.

Zach grew up in Indiana; his grandfather had strong ties to the tribe, but died when Zach’s mother was only 16. Zach would not be born for another 14 years, so he would never know his grandfather. Zach’s only source of knowledge about his ancestry was his mother’s cousin, who was employed by the tribe and who he rarely saw.

“We just knew the title, we didn’t know anything else about it,” he said. “Didn’t know the language, didn’t know any practices, art [or] history about it.”

Many might consider Megan, Katin and Zach to be only partly Native American, and many tribes adhere to old federal blood quantum laws which require one to be at least one-fourth or one-sixteenth Native American to be allowed membership. However, the Miami Tribe follows the one-drop rule; one drop of Myaamia blood and documented proof of lineage is all it takes to be a full member of the tribe.

Miami University offers scholarships to members of the Miami Tribe, an opportunity that was too good for Megan, Katin and Zach to pass up. Not to mention that they all had family connections to Oxford: Megan was the second of her siblings to come to Miami, Katin had been preceded by a cousin, and Zach’s cousin was the one who encouraged him to apply.

Nevertheless, Megan, Katin and Zach arrived at their first Myaamia class feeling

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

everything from uncertain to terrified. It seemed like everyone already knew each other. People were speaking in a language they had never heard. They knew next to nothing about the culture they were about to join.

It wasn’t an easy transition.

Megan, who for the majority of her life had filled in the “White/Caucasian” bubble on her standardized tests, struggled with changing her view of her identity.

“When I first came here, I felt mostly like an impostor,” she said. “I felt like I was just taking advantage of a very thin connection for my own benefit.”

Throughout her first year, Katin had trouble feeling like she fit in at Miami.

“I was thinking about leaving [the university],” she said. “Without the tribe, I wouldn’t have stayed.”

Zach knew no one going in, and didn’t know if he would even feel a real connection to his heritage. Maybe the Myaamia classes would become just another thing on the todo list.

“I didn’t know if I was just gonna be sitting in the corner for three years, just minding my own business, just showing up and doing my own work and leaving,” he said.

But with time, his fears proved unfounded.

They learned about their history and culture in their classes, and corrected their misconceptions. They went to Winter Gatherings, celebrations each January that bring tribe members from across the country together in Oklahoma. Zach even went his first year, one of only four people to make the trip and the only first-year student to boot.

They met the chief, the elders and many other members of the tribe. People at the Myaamia Center put Katin in touch with members who had gone through the same struggle with belonging as she was.

They were counselors for eewansaapita and saakaciweeta, summer camps in Oklahoma and Indiana for young Myaamia children.

Now, they sport t-shirts and hats bearing the word “Myaamia” with pride. They

Before coming to Miami, senior Katin Angelo knew very little about her Myaamia heritage. Here, she wears a blanket decorated with traditional Myaamia ribbonwork.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

13

reach out to new Myaamia first-year students and welcome them as family. And with their final projects, they do their part for the future of their people.

Kaakisitootaawi iilinwiyankwi: Let’s preserve our language In the Myaamia language, Megan Mooney’s name is kiilhsoonsa. It means “little sun,” “little moon” or “wristwatch,” depending on how you use it.

Megan, a creative writing and Spanish double major, has always been fascinated by language and stories. After four years of learning about her heritage as a member of the Miami Tribe — a heritage her family had all but forgotten about — she is combining her love of words and Myaamia in her final project: a children’s book written entirely in myaamiaataweenki, the Myaamia language. Very few of these exist.

“I think [more Myaamia books] are something we should have,” Megan said.

“Stories are very big in our culture.”

The plot of Megan’s story is simple: A little girl feels isolated and thinks that no one understands her. She wants to prove herself, and to do so, she flies up to the moon in a canoe. The tale is not tied to any Myaamia legend or tradition, since Megan feels she is too new to the culture to risk meddling with the tribe’s cherished stories. “[The story] is kind of something weird and stupid, but fun,” Megan said.

Although the story is in its early stages, Megan has her process planned out: Draft it in English, then translate it into Myaamia with phonetic pronunciations and a glossary in the back.

Megan did some art and drawing in high school, and so she plans to do all the illustrations herself in order to fit her vision.

“I have a very exact image of what I want it to be,” she said.

The translations will be the most time-consuming part because of the nature of the Myaamia language; like many 14

indigenous languages, it is agglutinating, meaning that prepositions are attached to their modifiers and stems are put together.

This results in a verb-based language with many long words, such as peehshkikamiiki, which translates to “it is foamy water” and, ultimately, to “beer.”

Three decades ago, myaamiaataweenki was dormant. No one had spoken it since about 1960, when the last native speaker died. But in the 1990s, Daryl Baldwin, director of Miami University’s Myaamia Center, and linguist David Costa began the long journey of reviving the language.

They pored over old manuscripts written

“They began lifting the language from yellowed pages and placing it back in the mouths of its people.”

by European missionaries and linguists.

In reconstructing myaamiaataweenki words, they began lifting the language from yellowed pages and placing it back in the mouths of its people.

As part of this effort, Baldwin and the Myaamia Center organized a trip to Washington, D.C. in 2015 for the Smithsonian’s Breath of Life Institute on Indigenous Languages. Megan attended and was able to get involved firsthand with reviving the language by spending time in the Smithsonian’s archives.

Since that trip, Megan has felt a strong connection to her tribe, her culture, and her language. She lights up when asked about

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

how the language works, and she regularly attends “language mornings” where Myaamia students get together to practice speaking myaamiaataweenki.

Megan hopes that her book will be distributed to Myaamia families and may even become a part of a “baby kit” given to parents of newborn Myaamia children.

“I just want to write something that little kids and their parents can read together, and hopefully build the language,” she said.

Mahkisina ayootaawi miihkintiitaawi: Let’s play the moccasin game Katin Angelo describes the Myaamia creative culture as a web in which every aspect is connected — language, games, food, songs, storytelling, dances. Losing one part of that heritage puts everything else at risk, too. So, as Megan works on preserving the language, Katin focuses on a traditional tribal game.

Members of the Miami Tribe play many games together. Some are of their own invention, and some are commonplace games given a Myaamia twist, such as euchre played in myaamiaataweenki.

One example of a traditional game is seenseewinki, the plum stone game, which involves tossing colored pieces, traditionally made from plum or peach pits, in a bowl; the combination of colors that land face-up determine how many points the player wins. Another game is played with 101 sticks or straws –– the dealer sorts the sticks into ten piles, and players must guess which pile has more sticks than the others.

Katin’s project is about mahkisina meehkintiinki, or the moccasin game.

The moccasin game is a game of chance, played by two teams. Players sit around a mat with four potholder-sized covers — mahkisinaakna — decorated with traditional Myaamia ribbonwork. A member of one team hides four marbles — three white and one black — one under each of the covers. A member of the other team then flips

over the covers with a long stick; if they find the black marble on the second or fourth flip, their team gets points; if they find it on the first or fourth, the other team does.

While playing, everyone speaks myaamiaataweenki.

The game dates back to before the tribe’s removal from their ancestral homelands in the Midwest; traditionally, it was played with stones or round lead bullets hidden beneath moccasins, hence its name. It was a gambling game; people would sometimes stake everything they had on the results — food, clothes, jewelry and more.

“Some people would go home naked,” Katin said.

These days, if players gamble, they usually just bet with candy.

Drawing on her life science and chemistry education major, which has helped her learn teaching strategies, Katin will write a lesson plan and create a video to help parents and instructors teach Myaamia children the game and the language that goes along with it. The lesson will also include a brief history of the game and instructions on how to make the ribbonwork mat.

Her project is all about accessibility; Myaamia members live all across the country, but only those in Oklahoma and Indiana or at Miami are close to the happenings of the tribe.

“We have this amazing opportunity here to understand and learn the culture,” Katin said, “but how do we get that out to the broader Myaamia community to help them learn and grow, to keep our culture alive?”

Katin’s project is her answer to that question. Using modern technology, she’s helping keep an age-old native tradition alive.

Pakitahantaawi: Let’s play lacrosse Zach Roebel is focused on a different sort of game, a Native American invention that relies less on chance and more on

physical ability: lacrosse.

In high school, Zach played football, ran track and was a male cheerleader, but after pulling a hamstring during track, he decided to give up competitive sports in college.

He knew he was better suited sticking to his studies, and double-majored in kinesiology and public health. But Zach’s senior project has given him a chance to combine what he’s learned with his love of being active by teaching people how to use a Myaamia lacrosse stick.

A traditional stick — called pakitahaakani — is completely different from the modern ones typically used to play lacrosse. Made of wood taken from specific parts of the tree, the Myaamia stick features a hoop smaller than a modern stick’s, placed off-center to the handle, with a slightly tighter net and a lip on the hoop’s edge.

Zach plans to create instructional videos on how to properly handle the traditional stick. Due to the stick’s design, players used to using modern sticks would have to relearn how to scoop, throw and even cradle the lacrosse ball.

The rules of Myaamia lacrosse are mostly the same as those of a modern lacrosse game, although traditionally, it was not nearly as tame.

Lacrosse used to be called “the little brother of war,” in part because it was played so ferociously, and in part because it was often used to settle conflicts between tribes, rather than declaring a full war.

Sometimes, games would be played in a certain person’s honor. Myaamia lacrosse fields could be over a mile long, and games could go for days. Instead of a net, players would have to throw the ball at a sapling, a much smaller target. A knot from a tree trunk was used as the ball. It was thrown hard enough that it could kill a player if it hit them in the head. Despite the size of the field and the sticks, the ball would rarely

touch the ground.

In the past century or so, with the advent of modern lacrosse sticks, the Myaamia people gradually stopped making their own sticks. With the limited resources the tribe had after being removed from their land, it was easier and cheaper to buy modern sticks that were more durable. Although the sport itself remained alive and well, the people who knew how to craft traditional lacrosse sticks died and the knowledge was nearly lost.

In recent decades, this knowledge was recovered and the art of making traditional sticks was revived. However, since most tribe members do not know how to use them, they remain, in effect, relics. This is the problem Zach is seeking to rectify.

“In my opinion, there’s a difference between bringing the community together with modern-day metal sticks and bringing the community together with traditional wooden sticks that your people used a long time ago,” he said. “It just adds more meaning to the game, adds more meaning to our culture.”

These days, the playing fields are smaller, the ball is rubber, and often a PVC pipe is used in place of a sapling. But, as is evident in the way the tribe comes together to play and in the bruises Zach sports the day after, it is still very much the fierce and thriving game of his ancestors.

And as a community game, it is not reserved just for tribe members. Myaamia students often bring their non-native friends to compete in matches, and Zach and his peers welcome them.

“I would like to teach it to anyone who would be willing to learn,” he said.

A Bright Future Graduation day looms closer each day for these three seniors, but even though they may leave the Myaamia program withCONTINUED ON PAGE 42

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

15

GRO 16

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

MIND OUP Improvisers access a communal brain

BY KATE RIGAZIO

The game is Mind Meld.

“Players, your suggestion is ‘cardigan.’”

The objective is to say the same word at the same time as your partner.

Dee Dee and Sean lock eyes, stone-faced.

The rest of us begin to chant.

“3…2…1…”

Sean and Dee Dee yell their answers at the same time.

“BUTTON!” “TIE!” Sean turns to face Olivia. The previous two words are repeated. The players want to say the same word based off the previous two, “button” and “tie.” The group chants.

3…2…1…

“SUIT!” “TUX!” Damn.

The seven of us stand in a tight circle.

We’re trying to get on the same wavelength.

We’re trying to warm up the group mind.

We’re tense.

The words are repeated. It’s Olivia and Michael.

3...2…1…

“BELT!” “SUIT!” “You repeated ‘suit.’”

This isn’t our whole group. Nate has rehearsal, Paul has an exam and Brandon has a funeral.

Now, Michael and Scott.

3…2…1…

“SHIRT!” “PANTS!” The group is buzzing in anticipation.

Scott faces Noah.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

17

3...2…1…

“JACKET!” “BLAZER!” We don’t want similar, we want the same.

Now it’s me and Noah.

He turns toward me. I step almost too close to him. I hear the others chanting. I have no idea what I’m going to say.

3…

What else is on a suit that hasn’t been said?

2…

This one’s a stretch…

1…

It’s the only logical choice…

“COAT!” “CUMMERBUND!” The group is exasperated. “‘Cummerbund’? Where’d that come from?”

I roll my eyes. It made sense to me.

I brush it off. It’s me and Dee Dee. This time, my word is waiting on the tip of my tongue. It’s another stretch, but it can’t be worse than

“cummerbund.”

3…2…1…

“PROM!” “PROM!” Mind meld.

*** Sketched Out is a 10-person improvisational comedy team at Miami University. We practice for two hours twice a week, and hold two weekend shows once a month.

All improv is performed based on a one-word suggestion that improvisers are given seconds before their scene begins. There are no scripts and no time to plan. Everything happens on the spot.

Our team performs both shortform and long-form improv. In the comedy world, short-form improv is quick three- to five-minute games that focus on quick wit and gimmicky bits.

Long-form improv consists of less structured 15- to 20-minute scenes.

This looseness requires actors to double down on relationships and characters they’re playing.

Sketched Out only practiced short-form improv until Olivia Prosser took over as t h e

team’s artistic director in fall 2016.

Olivia, a junior, has been improvising for five years, and has completed all six levels of training offered by the Improv Shop in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.

The sixth and newest level of training focuses on the practice of group mind.

That experience inspired Olivia to commit Sketched Out to practicing long-form improv. Instead of throwing us into 15-minute scenes in the first rehearsal, Olivia wanted to slowly ease the team into unfamiliar territory. She decided to start by teaching the team about group mind.

Group mind is a concept in improv that was first taught by Del Close, founder of the famous iO Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Considered by many to be the father of long-form improv, Close was a cokehead, a pagan and a brilliant improv teacher.

To teach us his method, Olivia started by having us read a letter written by Liz Allen, a professional improviser who studied with Close. Allen helped to articulate Close’s concept of group mind. “[Close] said all of us are connected by an invisible string located at the base of each of our skulls. This string links our brains and also our hearts,” wrote Allen. “Del believed this invisible cord enables us to anticipate each other’s moves onstage and to say the same thing at the same time.”

At first, it seems like a far-out idea that could only come from, well, a coked-out pagan. Olivia, however, explains it in a more digestible manner.

“Group mind is kind of this unspoken language,” she said. “It’s not just in improv; it’s all over. It’s kind of serendipitous. It’s like when you and your friend say the same word at the same time. In improv, it’s making sure that everyone is on the same page without saying anything.”

When an improviser first starts to practice group mind, it can be uncomfortable. It requires a person to be vulnerable and open-minded. You feel like everything you do is wrong, even though there is no right answer.

“Whenever I was in the [group mind] class, I would think, ‘If anyone walked in right now, they will think we are batshit crazy,” said Olivia.

*** “Focus on each other, make sure to be going at the same speed, heighten what you see.

We will decide when we are done together.” Olivia’s wide eyes scan the group of nine improvisers staring back at her. We are standing in a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, with a quiet intensity about us.

“Players, are you ready?”

“Yes!” “Begin.”

No one jumps to make the first move; no one wants to break the school-of-fish mentality. There is a quiet moment, then someone yawns.

Instantly, everyone is yawning, stretching the sleep out of their limbs, careful not to take their eyes off the group.

Someone smacks their lips; the group picks up on the sound.

Almost like a choreographed song, each person is smacking their lips, yawning and stretching. No two people are doing the same thing at the same time, and yet the group is perfectly in sync.

A finger jabs in the air, lips smacking at the same time.

Together, we shift.

The circle of exhaustion dissolves as people step away, smacking their lips and jabbing fingers into the air.

The raised stage is consumed by bubbles that only we can see. We all walk at the same pace, methodically popping the bubbles around us, never taking our attention fully off each other.

Slowly, the chorus of lip-smacks become higher-pitched, and sound begins to come from the vocal cords rather than the lips.

Another shift.

We tuck our jabbing fingers into the crooks between our ribs and hips, or up inside our armpits. Necks extend rapidly, knees bend, improvisers amble around clucking loudly — a seamless transition from a room full of bubbles to a stage full of chickens.

Each of us is working as an individual; there is no direct interaction between any two people, no words spo-

ken. Without any communication, our minds and bodies work together as one cohesive unit, as if each thought is coming from an unseen shared space.

Batshit crazy.

The clucking slows; the chickens return to a loose circle and become humans again. In the same moment, each of us drops our arms, stops moving and stands upright.

Finally, we all speak. The phrase is spoken at the same time, in the same pitch, as if coming from one voice.

“We are done.” *** The group mind of a team depends on that team’s dynamic. Each individual brings their own style and ability to the team, and the other members must help that individual to grow and thrive in every scene they do.

“Group mind is exercises, but it’s also hanging out and understanding one another, and getting to a level where you know people’s strengths and weaknesses,” said Olivia.

Even though arriving at group mind is never easy, knowing your improvisational partner well can help.

So while Olivia can’t formally implement rules stating that all members of Sketched Out must spend oneon-one time together, she does encourage us to get to know each other outside of practice.

But that dynamic can be taken too far. Olivia also has a “no dating team members” policy. She doesn’t want want a romantic relationship to affect how two players perform in scenes together, and worries about what a breakup would do to the team dynamic.

Fortunately, she has never had to formally enforce that rule.

Olivia is also deliberate about selecting who is playing in a scene together. She aims for each improviser to have equal time on stage, equal opportunities to play with each other and a chance to show off their strengths.

“When I’m going about pairing people up, it’s like, ‘Oh, I know these people haven’t played together,’ or sometimes it’s more like, ‘OK, I know this person is really high-energy and does a lot of physical stuff, I know this [oth-

er] person’s really good at grounding scenes,’” Olivia said. “I h o p e

that they can match up and find a happy medium.”

No matter how perfect the pairing, group mind is not something improvisers can bring to their scenes after one practice session.

Members of the team

must become cognizant of the team’s group mind and learn how to see it in every new scene.

They must learn to pick up on subtle cues from their partner and steer the scene together.

Achieving group mind is never a guarantee. It is something that needs to be nurtured, discovered, lost and found again. *** Emma strikes a minor chord on the keyboard. The dramatic sound echoes over the rows of green seats that fill Pearson 128, the large lecture hall where we practice and perform. Noah and Dee Dee are onstage; the rest of our team is scattered in seats watching

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

19

the practice.

Noah’s expression becomes anxious to match the music. He conjures an invisible object. Dee Dee stands behind his right shoulder. By the weight and the shape of it, she knows he has produced a pencil.

Emma pounds another chord.

Noah holds his pencil higher, eyes fixed where he imagines the point to be. He begins to sings softly to his pencil.

“Heeeeeebageeeeeesignat gooraaaah.”

He turns to Dee Dee, communicating through body language and emotional subtext. Dee Dee understands his gibberish and sings back to him in a made-up language all her own.

Noah picks an object off the ground and sets it on a table visible only to him and Dee Dee. The object has a square shape and is heavier than his pencil. Noah suddenly looks sad; Emma slows the music.

The tip of his pencil is broken.

Noah looks to Dee Dee. She consoles him in a bright, melodic voice and gestures toward the object he placed on the table — a sharpener.

He takes her suggestion and sharpens his pencil. The problem is solved; there is a lull in the music.

Then I decide to intervene.

I am sitting four rows back from the raised stage and rise slowly from my seat. I start to sing, my voice coming as a shock to the two players. I begin to make my way toward the raised stage.

Noah and Dee Dee break into a tizzy, singing quick, sharp tones. They franti20

Noah rushes toward me. He is singing angrily and gesturing toward the broken sharpener on the ground and the pen in my hand. Dee Dee’s

cally prepare the room they are in for my arrival; they believe I am someone of importance.

I stick my nose in the air and hold my shoulders back, my steps becoming long strides.

When I enter the imaginary room, they flail about in dramatic bows. I move past them, toward the table with the sharpener. I hold the sharpener high above my head. Noah and Dee Dee are fixated on it. Their faces drop as I let my arm fall and release my grip.

We can almost hear the sharpener shatter.

The music swells. I stomp on the broken bits beneath me and pull an object from behind my back. Noah and Dee Dee stare at my hand, trying to determine what I am offering them.

They aren’t getting it.

I stop singing, move my thumb to the top of the object and press down, making a loud clicking noise with my mouth. Their eyes light up.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

behind him, a look of despair in her eyes.

We know how each other is feeling, we know what each other is thinking. I crush the broken sharpener further beneath my foot. The music begins to die out and by looking at Dee Dee, I can tell we have our eyes on the same ending. We are both singing softly, envisioning an ending with the three of us at odds. Simple, but it’s where we seem to be headed.

The problem with group mind is that it’s elusive.

Noah’s eyes shift around wildly and he looks panicked. He is on a different page; he isn’t seeing the ending Dee Dee and I see. In a split-second decision, he goes for a big finish.

He pulls the pen from my hand and plunges it into his stomach.

Emma picks up the music to match the resurgence of action. Noah falls to the ground. Dee Dee and I kneel by him, genuinely confused. We have veered away from a simple ending; the scene has gone off the rails.

“I thought the scene was done,” Noah whispers. “I’m sorry.”

Our characters have left the stage, leaving three improvisers looking blankly at each other, waiting for the music to end. The whistle blows, giving a time of death to a long-dead scene.

Sometimes scenes bomb. No matter how often improvisers practice, and how well they know each other, they will at some point in their career find themselves in a scene far too broken to repair. The only choice is to stick with it and hope that a teammate will show mercy by ending the scene early.

Finding group mind does not mean there will be a 15-minute marathon of improvisational genius. It’s more often found in quick bursts of togetherness that make a player pause and think, “Whoa.” *** Olivia swipes across the stage, a sign to the other team members that she is starting a new scene. She pulls two chairs out onto the stage and lies

across them, pretending to sleep. Dee Dee creeps toward Olivia from one side of the stage, and on the other, Michael stands pointing an imaginary sniper rifle at Dee Dee. The rest of Sketched Out is pushed to the sides watching the scene unfold.

It’s the final scene of our final show of the semester. Our team is clad in holiday apparel, ranging from the simple touch of Paul’s Santa hat to the eyesore that is Brandon’s royal blue snowflake-patterned suit. We have a decent-sized crowd, considering the cold and the fact that fi-

nals are around the corner.

We are wrapping up a long-form scene called “Double Barrel Shotgun.” It starts with two “cars” traveling to the same destination. We get the destination from an audience member, and each car gets five players and five minutes to determine who is in the car, what their characters are, what their relationship is to each other and why they are traveling to the suggested destination. We then do a 10-minute montage of miniscenes based on what we saw in the first two cars.

Our suggestion is the North Pole.

During our montage, Michael’s character attempts to assassinate Santa. After the attempt is foiled, Santa, played by Nate, hires Michael’s character to assassinate the Tooth Fairy, played by Dee Dee. In the final scene, the Tooth Fairy tries to retrieve a tooth from a sleeping child, played

by Olivia, while avoiding an

attempt on her life.

But as I watch, I think of an idea for a rather dark ending. It would be funny if Michael accidentally shot the sleeping child instead of the Tooth Fairy.

The only problem is that I am not in the scene and have no way of directly communicating this idea with the players onstage. The scene already has three people in it, and I don’t want to overcrowd it, so I decide to simply watch the scene play out.

Dee Dee, as the Tooth Fairy, has retrieved the tooth from underneath Olivia’s head and is beginning to walk away. We hear Nate-as-Santa encour-

Just as Michael pulls his imaginary trigger, Olivia sits up in the bed.

Michael makes a blast sound with his mouth, and both Olivia and Dee Dee dramatically fall to the ground.

Olivia’s plan was to be the only one who was shot, and with Dee Dee on the ground, it’s confusing as to how both of them ended up getting hit.

Seeing this, Scott immediately yells the justification from offstage.

“Oh my gosh, the bullet went straight through the kid and hit the Tooth Fairy!”

I feel the goosebumps rise on my arms. All of our thoughts seem to be coming from the same space.

The audience is roaring, to the point where we almost can’t hear Brandon blow the final whistle to end the scene.

Mind meld.♦

age his hitman, Michael, to take his shot before it’s too late. Michael agrees, and begins to count down.

3…

Dee Dee dawdles at the foot of Olivia’s bed, making herself an easy target for Michael’s character. She is knowingly jeopardizing the fate of her own character to follow what the group mind is telling her.

2…

Olivia begins to toss and turn in her bed. She’s waking up.

1…

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

21

BY DEVON SHUMAN “And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead.”

— Erin Morgenstern, “The Night Circus” “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself, is forgive. Forgive everybody. Just forgive it.”

— Maya Angelou The door to Kyle’s room was locked shut, so the five of us were forced to wait outside in the adjacent living room. The cushions of the couch had been ripped off and thrown across the room. The coffee table was flipped, the glasses and candles that once rested on it strewn about the floor. One lamp had been torn from the wall socket and lay broken on the floor, its lampshade knocked askew, so the only light in the room came from the neon Chicago Cubs sign glowing on the far wall. It was just after 2 o’clock in the morning.

An unnerving sound — something between wailing and screaming — came from behind Kyle’s door. It was followed by a crash.

“Somebody’s got to talk to him,” Alex said.

The rest of us stood staring at one another, the scent of stale beer hanging thick among the silence.

“This is bullshit,” Jon groaned, slamming his fist against the wall. “If he wants to kill himself so badly, I wish he would do it already. It would make it all a lot easier on us.”

I watched Jon storm out the front door and thought about saying something, but I struggled to find the right words. It didn’t matter — I would deal with that later. For now, I had to get to Kyle.

“I’ll talk to him,” I said. Will asked if he should come, too, swaying and straining to hold eye contact with me. I declined.

“It should just be me.”

I stepped forward, leaving the other three several feet behind me, and knocked lightly on the door. When there was no answer, I lifted my fist to knock again, but was cut off by a barely audible, “What?”

“It’s Devon. Can I come in?”

Another pause. Then the sluggish shuffling of feet and finally the click of the door lock.

I cracked the door open and slipped in, making sure to close the door behind me before turning on the lights. *Note: Names of several individuals mentioned in this story have been changed to protect their privacy.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

23

I

met Kyle on a breezy September night our freshman year. We both arrived at a friend-of-a-friend’s dorm for a small pregame, sipping on a few beers and listening to upbeat tunes before making the trek up to the bars for another Friday night of revelry. He was tall and lanky, dressed in a pastel button-down shirt and a gray vest. His short hair was spiked in the front, and his face broke out in a toothy grin as we fell back from the group and chatted on the way Uptown.

“Do you play any sports?” I asked.

“Hockey, mainly,” he said.

I lit up. “Me too! I actually just got asked to join an intramural team.”

“Which one?”

“ZBT, I think? I don’t know, it was a bunch of frat guys I met Uptown.”

Kyle’s smile stretched even further.

“Dude, they asked me to play, too.

We’re teammates.”

It was the first thing we had in common, but the similarities wouldn’t stop there. Over the next four years, we would grow to be close friends. We both were considering rushing a fraternity (we would end up joining the same one). We both enjoyed discussing politics, though 24

he positioned himself much further right on the ideological spectrum than I did. We both could talk for hours about dark, psychological television dramas, and we shared a somewhat starry-eyed affinity for Matthew McConaughey.

But our commonalities ran deeper.

As the years went on, I began to see a lot of myself in Kyle — the just-one-more attitude toward drugs and booze, the tendency to take harmless jokes a little too personally, the willingness to steal from and lie to close friends when caught in the throes of a weekend binge. Once, at a fraternity party our sophomore year, we stepped outside to share a drunken cigar, and Kyle remarked that he knew he could never take up cigarettes.

“I would get hooked right away. I just have too addictive of a personality. I know you’re the same way.”

He was right. I had never fully realized it until that moment, but we both exhibited addictive tendencies. Though we wouldn’t fully come to understand it until later, we both suffered from deeper mental issues, and we hid them behind an eclectic cocktail of mind-altering substances — booze, pot, cocaine, amphetamines. Once we started drinking or snorting lines, we were always chas-

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

ing the next hit, desperate to fend off the return of our toxic, self-berating inner thoughts.

During the fall of my junior year, I finally sought treatment for my emotional issues and was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety. I wouldn’t quit drinking for another eight months or so, but the diagnosis was a huge step in my awareness of my own mental state.

Being able to point to the illness and say, “This is what’s happening to you. It has a name. You’re not alone,” helped me to feel more comfortable in my own skin.

That spring, I published a column in our student newspaper detailing my personal experiences and, after reading it, Kyle texted me to open up about his own struggles. I knew about his anxiety — sophomore year, he’d eaten a bit too much of a pot brownie and suffered a panic attack that landed him in a hospital bed with a fresh Lorazepam prescription. But this was my first time learning that, like me, he had depression.

“If you ever need to talk to anyone about that shit, I’m here,” he wrote.

Once again, I found myself drawing parallels between us. We both understood the dangerous reality of a mind hardwired to self-destruct. And in a

dark, bizarre sort of way, our mutual suffering brought us closer together, strengthened our bond. We knew the depths our illnesses could drag us to, and though we didn’t say it explicitly, our friendship was a promise to each other that if it were ever needed, we’d be there to pull the other back up to the surface.

So maybe that’s why, when I walked into our house on that October night of our senior year to find our four drunk friends huddled outside his locked door, I knew it was me that had to go in.

I’d already been briefed on the story — Kyle had been caught stealing Adderall from his roommate Ben, and when confronted about it, he’d broken down.

Hence the trashed living room, and the wailing and crashing coming from behind his door. He’d actually seen me Uptown just hours before and warned me he felt a depressive episode coming on.

Hoping to enjoy a late night with the girl I was out with, I’d promised him we’d talk in the morning.

I now hoped that wasn’t a decision I would come to regret. *** Once the door was shut, isolating me inside the room with Kyle, I flipped the light on, illuminating the scene of destruction. I could say that it looked like a tornado had torn through his room, but that wouldn’t do justice to the carnage surrounding me — tornadoes, though devastating, generally follow some sort of path, cutting a distinct swath of ruin across an otherwise organized setting.

This was pure chaos.

The mattress had been flipped off its bedspring, scattering an array of blankets and sheets across the floor. Posters, torn in half, lay in tatters on the dirty carpet. What was once a four-drawer dresser had been ripped to the ground and shattered into sharp shreds and planks of wood; its contents, once neatly folded and categorized, were strewn around the room as if a grenade had detonated and sent a flurry of T-shirts and jeans flying in all directions. A pair of underwear hung, limp, from a lopsided lampshade. The desk across the room had been hurled upside down, its chair now lying on its side.

In the middle of it all stood Kyle.

He wore gray sweatpants and a plain, pale green T-shirt. His hair stood straight up, as if he had been running his

hands through it all night. His eyes were bloodshot and bugged out, and they looked up and bore into mine, staring, pleading. He stood still in the middle of his mess, his arms crossed, and looked right at me, seeming to say, Well, this is it. This is where I’m at.

What am I supposed to do now?

I said nothing, standing silently and taking it all in for 10, 15 seconds. I needed to collect myself, to choose every word methodically. Kyle was perched on a precipice. One wrong word, one judgmental look or overly critical facial expression, and he might jump.

I ignored the mess enveloping us and looked right into Kyle’s eyes.

“What’s going on, man?”

Kyle sat on the displaced mattress and threw his arms up in halfhearted frustration.

“I just want to kill myself.”

Silence consumed us for what felt like half a minute as I scrambled for a response. What’s the proper answer to an admission of that magnitude? I imagined I stood where Kyle now was, pictured my own depressive thoughts and self-hatred magnified to a lethal level, and wondered how I might react to any efforts to console me.

You have so much to live for. Well, clearly he doesn’t think so, if he wants out.

Cheer up, man. Just snap out of it.

C’mon, Devon, you know there’s nothing more frustrating than being told to snap out of it — if he could, he would. Nobody likes feeling this way.

Don’t say that. You’ll feel better in the morning. Probably true. This would most likely pass, as most depressive episodes do. But he wouldn’t believe it if I told him. In this moment, his world was crashing down around him, his spirit slowly fading into an empty hollow, and his mind would fight off any evidence to the contrary.

I shuffled uncomfortably, aware that every second that passed without a response was making the situation worse.

I needed to say something to him, something that would tell him that I got it, that I was trying to help, that I understood the root of what he was feeling, if not the intensity.

I needed him to trust me.

Finally, words found their way out of my mouth.

“You can’t talk like that, Kyle.”

He looked up at me with glassy eyes.

“I just keep thinking,” he went on.

“If I did do it — nobody would care. Everyone would be happier without me around.”

I gulped, terrified by the sincerity of his words. But I pressed on.

“Look, you just can’t start thinking like that. It’s not true. And the more you start thinking it is, the realer it’s going to seem to you. You can’t start down that road.”

The ceiling fan cut rhythmically through the thick air. When Kyle said nothing, I kept talking.

“Look, I can’t claim to know what you’re going through, but I’ve been through my own shit. You know that.

This isn’t permanent. It seems bad right now, but there are ways to address it, to heal. There are —” “What? Like Prozac? It’s not working!” Kyle was standing again, a whine of panic evident in his raised voice. “I’ve been taking it for months and it doesn’t do shit! It doesn’t work! The Lorazepam doesn’t work! The Zoloft? Nothing does.”

“So, you try something else.”

“What else?”

“There are hundreds of other medications. There’s therapy.” I tried to keep my voice calm and steady, to avoid escalation. “Just because two things haven’t worked doesn’t mean nothing will. You can’t give up.”

Kyle sat back down and put his head in his hands, choking back a sob. He looked to me pleadingly again.

“I don’t even feel comfortable in my own house! This year was supposed to be better. And now that’s ruined. Now, if anything goes missing, people are going to assume it’s me. And why wouldn’t they?”

I paused to choose my words again.

“You’re right,” I said. Kyle looked at me, hurt. “Look, you screwed up. People are mad, as they should be. But you’re wrong in thinking that’s permanent.

These are your friends. They might be a little angry right now, but they will get over it. They love you. You are loved — you can’t forget that.”

Kyle rolled his eyes and looked at me behind raised eyebrows. Don’t bullshit me.

“There’s a voice in your head right now, and it’s telling you that I’m lying , that this is all a load of crap. It’s telling you that you’ve screwed up beyond repair and that everyone hates you. I need you to listen to me: That is not true. I know it seems impossible, and I know

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

25

that voice is telling you to not listen to me, but if you can do one thing for me, as your friend, trust me on this: This sucks, but it is going to get better.

If you work at it, this will get better.”

Kyle turned his gaze downward again, but this time he nodded.

“OK.” “Are you OK to be by yourself tonight?”

He met my gaze earnestly: “Yes.” “OK. Why don’t you get some rest, and we’ll clean this all up in the morning.”

Kyle nodded, and started to lie down on the bed. I moved toward the door.

“Wait.”

I turned around, and Kyle walked up to me, his arms open. We hugged.

“Thanks.”

“Of course. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

Once he was settled, I left the room, careful to turn out the lights before opening the door. ***

W

hen I walked back to my own house next door, I found two of my roommates, Jon and Will, sitting on our front porch, the moonlight casting a dim glow across their faces.

“Well?” Jon asked expectantly.

I sighed. “He’s good for now. He’s gonna get some rest, and then we’re gonna talk some more in the morning.”

Jon ran his hands through his hair.

He’s a beefy kid with a pale, pointed face. Like me, he’s a Boston boy, though he looks and acts the part more. He’s got a personality as big and abrasive as the city he hails from, always willing to turn the dial up to 10 with every sentence, every thought. A man of superlatives, Jon holds his opinions resolutely and is not afraid to act on them. I knew it was that stubbornness that was behind his heated exclamation earlier in the night, but even still, I was having trouble letting the comment go.

“He needs to stop pulling this,” Jon said. “I love the kid, but his bullshit is not our problem. He’s gotta figure his shit out and stop counting on us to clean up the mess.”

“Look,” I said, trying to remain calm.

26

“He’s going through a lot of stuff right now, and I know people are mad, but ganging up on him isn’t gonna help anything. He’s not gonna stop doing any of this until he’s better, and he’s not gonna get better if his only close friends turn on him.”

I started to leave, but, unable to help myself, I turned back and glared at Jon. “And I don’t care how mad, how frustrated, how pissed off you get,” I said, my voice cracking as it rose. I have a lot of problems, but anger is not one of them. The furious words now coming out of my mouth felt foreign against my usually placid tongue. “I don’t care. I don’t wanna hear any of that, ‘I hope he kills himself’ shit again. OK?” Jon nodded, and I walked inside, my lower lip quivering. As mad as I was, I couldn’t completely fault the others for not understanding that kindness and empathy were the best approaches here.

They hadn’t talked to Kyle as deeply about his struggles as I had. They hadn’t lived them. As far as they were concerned, he was just being a drunk, selfish prick who was stealing prescription drugs and lying about it. Could I blame them for being pissed off?

When I had found myself at my worst point, blacking out multiple times a week, skipping class and often laying in bed until seven at night, it was the gestures of compassion from close friends that helped me recover. The others, the friends who tried the tough-love approach, who told me to snap out of it and get over myself, were well-intentioned, but they only made the situation worse.

If Kyle was going to be guided out of this hole, I was the only one who could do it.

As far as I was concerned, he was my responsibility. *** If my life was a movie, then this would be the part in the story where I put everything on hold, where I clear my calendar and make myself completely available to Kyle, ready to be there whenever he finds himself in need again. I would stay by his side, cook him hot meals, play video games and bingewatch “The Office” with him to keep his mind occupied. Eventually, he would smile again, and he’d tell me thanks, he couldn’t have done it without me. Then we would move on from this ugly chapter, toward better things.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

But real life doesn’t pause for every personal catastrophe. Classes go on.

Assignments are due. Each day moved forward, unconcerned with how much time I felt I should be devoting to the situation. In order to help Kyle, I would have to make him another part of my schedule, to pencil in free moments I could spend with him, to make sure I was sending the periodic text message to check in and see how he was feeling.

It felt wrong reducing him to just another check on my to-do list, but short of taking a leave of absence from my work and classes, it was the only solution that seemed possible.

Regardless, over the next week, Kyle seemed to be doing better. I could tell he was still struggling — I recognized the look of exhaustion and worry hidden behind his smile, noticed the increased frequency in his daytime naps. And it was not lost on me that he made several trips throughout the week to Johnny’s Deli to pick up some personal six-packs.

But on a day-to-day basis, he seemed better, stable. He got out of bed in the morning and attended his classes. He burst into our house in excitement to tell me to watch the new trailer for “The Disaster Artist,” insisting that we needed to go see it opening weekend.

For the most part, he seemed like Kyle again.

On a couple separate nights, I watched him, already glassy-eyed, grabbing for another beer or one last hit from the bong, and I wondered if I should say something. He was self-medicating — behavior I’m familiar with, behavior that I know is unsustainable. Seeing as I had taken responsibility for Kyle, this seemed like something I should address.

I ultimately decided against it. My number one priority was to let him know that, no matter what he did or said, I was here for him if he needed to reach out, that despite the nasty comments from his other roommates, things that implied he was completely untrustworthy and slightly off his rocker, he could talk to me and I wouldn’t judge.

Until the drinking or the drugs became a more immediate problem, it was not my place to intervene.

I let myself relax a little, knowing I had the situation under control.

Then, on Friday night, I got the text. ***

“Hey, if you’re not busy, I need your help.”

I’m lying in my bed, the lights in my room turned off. My phone’s display reads 9:15 p.m., and below the time sits the message notification, which I slide open. The text is from Ben Evans, one of Kyle’s roommates from next door — the one who had caught him stealing his prescribed Adderall a week ago. I consider ignoring it and going back to sleep.

My own depression’s acting up, and all I want is to go to sleep, to take a break from the world and try again tomorrow. But I figure it’ll be good for me to get moving anyway. It’s always better to move. I sit up and flip the lights on.

“What do you need?”

His response comes through seconds later.

“Kyle is stealing from me again and it’s so obvious but I’m the only one home and I’m not capable of handling a freak out worse than last time.”

Fuck.

I rub my eyes and open the bedroom door to find Ben sitting on the couch in my front room. He’s a short kid, maybe 5’5”, but what he lacks in inches, he makes up for in attitude. Incredibly intelligent, he understands that he’s gonna go far in this world, an understanding that often manifests itself in an arrogant grin spread across his face. I like the kid, but he’s right — he wouldn’t be capable of handling Kyle on his own.

I go get Kyle and bring him over to talk things through with Ben. As delicate as I’m trying to be, I can’t help but conclude that Kyle did, in fact, take the pills. Stimulants are a hell of a supplement for people with depression. They lift you up, encourage you to get excited about doing work, about cleaning the house, about everything you’ve ever done and ever will do — about life. They make everything seem OK. They make it all seem manageable.

But then they crash. And as you sense your old self creeping in, you’ll do anything for just a few more moments of bliss. You text everyone you know who might have some. You buy more. You wet your finger and gum the residue left on the table from the previous lines you shot up your nose.

Or, if it comes down to it, you take it from someone, even a close friend.

This is all running through my mind as Kyle and Ben talk it over. I’m standing in the corner of the room, arms crossed,

eyes fixed on the floor. Kyle is explaining to his accuser that it wasn’t him, that he understands why Ben thinks he took the pills, but he swears he didn’t do it.

Ben laughs.

“Seriously? That’s all you’re gonna say?”

Kyle puts his hands up. What do you want from me?

“I mean, I don’t believe you,” Ben says, continuing to laugh. “Is there anything you can tell me that will prove it wasn’t you?”

Kyle looks defeated. His voice is tired, exasperated.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he sighs. “If I were you, I wouldn’t have any reason to believe me either.”

Ben lets loose another chuckle, clearly bewildered. “Well, I don’t, so … I don’t know what you wanna do.”

Kyle mutters an apology. Then he rises slowly from the couch and walks out the door.

I feel frustrated. With Kyle for lying to us. With Ben and his arrogant little smirk. But mostly with myself. Why hadn’t I jumped in earlier, instead of standing there silently like an awkward lug? I’ve never been a proficient speaker, always feeling much more comfortable typing a paper than engaging in conversation. I need time to pick my words, even more so in a situation as precarious as this one.

But if I’m going to be responsible for Kyle, if I’m going to nominate myself to be in charge of his well-being, then I need to start being quicker on my feet.

Or else I’m really gonna fuck things up.

I run out the door and flag him down on his front stoop.

“Kyle … ” “What?” A note of irritation accompanies his harsh response.

“You have to go home. Tonight.” I didn’t know that’s what I was going to say, but it feels right on its way out. I keep going. “I’ll drive you. I’ll drop you off tonight and then come pick you up Sunday. But you have to talk to your parents about this. They need to know what is going on.”

Kyle’s shoulders slump downward.

His quiet eyes glisten with tears that he tries in vain to blink away. Looking past me, he struggles against the silence in the air, his pursed lips searching for a rebuttal.

Finally, he exhales sharply, defeated.

“OK.” “Good, let me go grab my keys and—” “No, I’m good. I can drive myself.”

“Kyle, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Really, I’m good.” His eyes lock onto mine earnestly. Trust me.

“OK. Just ... text me when you get in.”

“I will.”

I glance at my watch, flicking the light on so its face glows in the darkness. “It’s just after 10 now. If I don’t hear from you by 12:30, I’m gonna call your parents. I don’t want to do that.

But I have their number, and if I need to, I’ll use it.”

I hug him goodbye, and then watch as his tan Honda pulls away, silently hoping, once again, that this won’t be a decision I’ll eventually regret.

I

***

don’t know why I did what I did next. I can assume that I was stressed, and understandably so. I can speculate that the toxic combination of witnessing Kyle in this state and taking responsibility for him had finally weighed on me, finally pushed me to a breaking point, finally brought to the surface a cavalcade of demons I thought I had slain.

But there would be no use in digging too deep into it. Addictive behaviors rarely adhere to logic.

All I know is that there was no hesitation in my next move, that the moment I watched Kyle’s car turn right onto Main Street, heading toward I-70 and eventually on to Indianapolis, I walked briskly into my house, heading immediately to my room, where I snatched my wallet and keys off the bedside table. Then, I turned around and stomped with purpose back out to my car.

Ten minutes later, I was back in my room, the door locked, the lights turned off, and a towel stuffed against the crack at the bottom of the door. The window and adjacent screen were pushed up, the chilly night air seeping into the room and raising the hairs on my shaking forearms. I tore the plastic off the pale blue pack of American Spirits, placed one of the cigarettes between my gritted teeth, and lit it. Then I inhaled, closing my eyes and enjoying the nicotine rush

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

27

“Addiction is walking, blindfolded, toward the edge of a cliff, allowing yourself to enjoy the breeze kissing your cheeks, but knowing that every step you take could be the one that sends you tumbling below.”

28

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

as it surged through my body, cloaking me in a warm embrace of reassurance.

I continued puffing. It was silent enough that I could hear the lit end crackling away at the Spirit as I sucked it down. The relief it provided me was quick, temporary. But it was relief. If only for a moment, I could forget what was going on with Kyle. I could take that weight off my shoulders, silence the voice that was telling me that I was fucking this up, that I was a bad friend making the wrong decisions and leading him down a path he couldn’t return from.

For this brief instant, I felt OK again.

As the buzz from the cigarette faded, my mind pictured Jon’s half-empty bottle of Sailor Jerry rum sitting on the shelf in the kitchen. Having not consumed a drop of alcohol in almost four months, I was sure my tolerance had plummeted.

All it would take would be a few shots and I’d be soaring, flying freely on the wings of an obliterated mind.

No, I thought. Don’t ruin that. You know you can’t handle it. Don’t you dare throw it all away with a single sip.

Solely by a stroke of luck, I talked myself out of it. Motivated perhaps by the stubborn unwillingness to reset the sobriety counter on my phone back to zero, I fought off the urge to take a drink. On some timeline out there, maybe I didn’t.

Maybe I’m now back to my old ways, blacking out Uptown and, somehow, stumbling back to my bed late at night.

Fortunately, that’s not the timeline I ended up on.

But I didn’t make it out unscathed.

Alarmed by my near slip back down the liquor-slicked slope, I needed something to force myself to sleep. My eyes scanned the room and fell on the full bottle of NyQuil on my dresser.

Without allowing myself time to think, I tore the cap off and took a big swig, grimacing uncomfortably as I guzzled down the cloying syrup. It oozed down my throat, coating my esophagus and warming my stomach.

Then I knocked my head back and took another deep gulp. *** William S. Burroughs was right when he said, “You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict.” While I don’t think I’ve ever descended fully into a state of addiction, I’ve certainly toed the line at points in my life, tasted enough of the chase to understand some

of the psychology behind it. Never once did I say to myself, All right, I’m really gonna get myself hooked this time. No, it was always Just a quick bump or One more shot or I’ll do another if you will.

Addiction is walking, blindfolded, toward the edge of a cliff, allowing yourself to enjoy the breeze kissing your cheeks, but knowing that every step could be the one that sends you tumbling below.

I spent the next several weeks inching ever closer to that drop-off. Every night ended with a Spirit or two blown outside my bedroom window, a heavy quaff of NyQuil, and a few hits from the pipe I kept stashed inside my bedside table, packed tightly with grinded weed.

During the day, I upped my already generous caffeine intake and started bumming a mild, non-mood-elevating stimulant called Modafinil off a friend in order to keep myself awake and focused throughout the day. I even stopped by UDF and picked up an electronic cigarette to puff on whenever I was stuck working on a big assignment.

Somehow, during all of this, I felt in control. In a wild flourish of logical acrobatics, I was subsisting on the congratulations I awarded myself for not drinking. You’re really doing a great job staying away from the booze, I’d think, patting myself on the back as thick tendrils of pot smoke drifted off my nose.

Keep it up.

Maybe I thought, in a way, that I had gotten better, that my months of sobriety had taught me how to properly engage with everyday life. In his memoir “The Night of The Gun,” David Carr, a former New York Times reporter who struggled through decades of intense alcoholism and cocaine abuse and came out clean on the other side, discusses how years of reimmersion in normalcy pushed him back to the edge after 14 years of sobriety. “Part of the reason that I tried drinking after fourteen years was that I had become so comfortable in a life that was wrapped in the raiment of the normal that I thought I was normal,” he writes. “Not cured, not remade, just normal.”

I wasn’t normal. I still am not normal.

In the short time I’d been on the wagon, the impulse to use, to grab a beer at the end of a long day, had not gone away.

Some days it was quieter than others, but the voice was ever-present, telling me I deserved to kick back a little. Every day I hadn’t let it win me over was a choice.

But now, I’d given in just a little. I’d fed the urge enough to encourage it to raise its voice a little, and the impulse had only grown stronger.

In the meantime, I was still keeping tabs on Kyle, who had actually gotten a lot better. The weekend at home, the opening up to his parents — fortunately, a loving and understanding couple — about what was going on, the time spent getting away from his now-tense living situation and the stress of school — all of that had allowed him a little headspace, a little room to breathe. I continued texting him, checking in to see how he was feeling. I talked hockey with him, striking a familiar nerve by picking apart the technique of Corey Crawford, his favorite goaltender. I scheduled movie nights.

I invited him over to watch the latest Netflix doc and marked a date to drive to Hamilton and catch a showing for “The Disaster Artist.” Even as I sunk lower, I kept kicking, kept trying to push him up toward the surface.

But deep down, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t enough. Every laugh, every upbeat text, every morning he would burst through our front door to see what we were all up to — how much of it was real? Was he actually better, or was there pain he was continuing to hide from us? If I was locking myself in my room to smoke pot and sip cold medicine each night, what was he doing behind his closed door?

There was still the occasional slip, the periodic evening I’d watch him reach for yet another beer he probably didn’t need, and I’d wonder if I needed to be doing something different, something more. Fretting frequently about his mental state, I became plagued by an endless barrage of what-ifs: What if he wasn’t as OK as he seemed? What if he did need more help? What if I had said just one more thing? What if he slipped back to where he’d been, and I had to wonder if it was because of me?

It was the kind of worrying you know is toxic, the kind you know can only make things worse but that you can’t escape. The kind of worrying you try, in vain, to shove out of your mind. The kind of worrying you’d do just about anything to escape.

The kind of worrying that, when your roommate approaches you one Saturday afternoon, waving a small bag of white powder and wearing an urging grin, makes you think that a little pick-me-up could be just what you need.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

29

*** It’s 3:30 on a Tuesday morning in mid-November. I’ve just trudged home from another late night at production for our school paper and crawled into bed, hoping to get some rest before rising again in a few hours. I take out my phone to set an alarm and see that a text has come through. It’s from Sarah, a close friend and fellow editor. Not a stranger to stress and self-scolding, Sarah often stays in the newsroom for hours past the end of production, getting caught up on papers and various assignments. I figure I probably left something there, my laptop charger maybe, and she’s just texting to let me know.

“Hey you still up?”

“Yeah why?”

“I didn’t wanna ask you earlier but is everything OK?” I rack my brain nervously, wondering what I had done to make her ask that.

“What do you mean?”

Nothing for a couple minutes. Then her response pops up.

“I know the Kyle stuff is v taxing. And I saw how tired and out of it you looked today. Liz also mentioned to me a couple

weeks ago that she noticed something similar. I wanna be wrong, but I just wanted to talk to you about it and let you know if you need to talk you can talk to me.”

I gulp. My heart drops, feeling like it’s plummeting out of my chest. Not because I’ve been noticed. Not because it’s now clear that I wasn’t holding myself together as well as I thought. I know that what I was doing wasn’t sustainable anyway. It was only a matter of time before someone saw through me, through the heavy eyes that insisted, I’m OK. I’m taken aback because what Sarah says to me feels sickeningly familiar. Her gentle, empathetic outreach, her insistence that she’s there for me … it’s just how I’d made myself available for Kyle a month earlier.

Rarely does real life emulate the a-ha, moment-of-clarity turning points championed by even the greatest storytellers.

Sometimes, though, it does.

Reading Sarah’s text, the incessant glow of the phone screen illuminating my face against the darkness of the room, I vow to not bring her down with me. I promise to get better, to let drop some of the weight that had begun to feel

so at home atop my shoulders, to put my own oxygen mask on first before reaching across the aisle. *** A few weeks later, I’m sitting in my living room, the cheeky holiday horror movie “Krampus” coming to a close on the TV. As the credits roll, I look at Kyle, who’s slumped on his side on the couch, three or four empty cans of Busch Lite crumpled on the floor at his feet. He was the one who’d suggested we watch the movie, eager to redeem himself after having wussed out a year ago when we’d all gone to see it in theaters. But now he’s passed out — not plastered, just gently eased into a slumber by a few beers. I think about waking him, but instead decide to let him be, to just call it a night.

I flip the TV off and start walking to my room, but then I stop. Turning back to Kyle, I reach down and gently turn him onto his front. I grab the blue shawl off the back of the couch and drape it over him, making sure it extends past his feet.

Then I head back to my room, turn off the light, and go to sleep. ♦

HAVE YOU HAD 1 TOO MANY 1 TOO MANY TIMES?

We are committed to keep every student struggling with substance use issues safe and cared for while they receive on-campus help and support to become their best self.

• Inclusive, student-focused community meets students where they are • Intensive Outpatient Treatment Program Conveniently Scheduled around classes and covered by student health insurance • Student Led Recovery Meetings; Tuesdays (5pm) Saturdays (8pm) • Student Center, Gathering Space, Inclusive Activities, Study Lounge

The Haven at Miami University is an Independently Owned and Operated Outpatient Center

NOW OPEN, THE HAVEN AT COLLEGE OUTPATIENT CENTER AT MIAMI 16 S CAMPUS AVENUE Call or email today for more information 513.280.6046 janae@thehavenatcollege.com

thehavenatcollege.com

30

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

Interested in writing about Science?

Now hiring writers and section editor MIAMISTUDENT.NET/ JOIN-US

Real-life magic and inspiration

BY ALISON PERELMAN

I clasped my ticket in hand while waiting in line. I didn’t want it to get crumbled or lost — I like saving tickets to good things, mostly movies.

There was a school group in front of my mom and I — kids, maybe 9 years old, wearing matching maroon uniforms and chattering in British accents. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but I knew they were discussing plot points and characters.

I smiled. Normally, I would say they were too young to really appreciate this

experience, but it made me happy to see people younger than myself still invested and excited.

The quote on the wall summed it up perfectly before the tour even began.

“No story lives unless someone wants to listen.”

It had been six years since the Harry Potter story had been completed, yet here we all were at the Warner Bros. Studio in Leavesden, England, ready to keep listening.

We watched an introduction video

that began just like one of the movies, with the Warner Bros. logo and theme music playing. I smiled, feeling like a kid again.

The video showed Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint talking about growing up on set and the making of the films, interspersed with behindthe-scenes clips.

I watched in awe as the video told a story of real magic — the kind they had been a part of, the kind we were about to learn about and see firsthand, the kind I ILLUSTRATION: ARTHUR NEWBERRY

32

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

wanted to be a part of one day.

I had grown up in the Harry Potter generation. I had listened to the audiobooks and watched the movies with my family countless times. Now, I want to move to Hollywood and find my way in the film industry.

My childhood is meeting my dreams for the future, I thought.

I was going to see the sound stages and production sets and learn about how scenes were captured and created.

As the introductory video ended, the movie screen before us lifted up to reveal the entrance to Hogwarts’ Great Hall.

The rest of the audience gasped at the giant wooden doors and carved stone wall.

But having been warned by my sister, Britton, who’d already visited, my mom and I were already exchanging grins and getting ready to leap to the front of the crowd for when the doors opened.

We were charmed by the Great Hall.

We toured the Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore’s office, the Potions classroom and Hagrid’s Hut. We saw hundreds of props piled together as if they sat in the Room of Requirement. We saw the Burrow’s kitchen with its enchanted chores. And all the rooms were complete with costume-clad mannequins. We wandered into the dark Forbidden Forest, then spent a long time on Platform 9 ¾ with the Hogwarts Express.

The sets were real and right in front of me, but everything somehow looked smaller than it had in the films. I had to remind myself that they were only partial, combined with on-location filming and further movie magic.

My mom and I ate a quick lunch — the highlight of which was a creamy, delicious mug of butterbeer — surrounded by the purple Knight Bus, Number 4 Privet Drive and Godric’s Hollow.

Our tour continued with the magic of animatronics, and we happened upon Diagon Alley. I stood in awe on the fake cobblestone streets, searching for familiar details in the shop windows. Then we moved on to see paintings of magical creatures, architectural drawings and models of different sets that were used for production planning.

I was beginning to feel worn out — my neck was tense and my back in pain, my eyes tired, my phone’s battery dwindling. But when I stepped into the next room, all of that faded away.

It was overwhelming. It was like my brain had stopped working while my legs kept moving. I wanted to get as close as

possible to the replica of Hogwarts castle before me.

I spotted an opening in the crowd and wormed my way in. I stood, leaning on a railing and staring. My chest swelled and I could feel myself tearing up.

Britton had told me about this, but somehow I had forgotten. I was almost mad at myself for not remembering something so important, but I’m glad it snuck up and took me by surprise. It

I want the stories that mean so much to me to be a kind of fuel — enough to turn my slight smile of contentment into real inspiration.

made the experience all the better.

My mom came up and put her arm around my shoulder, squeezing me closer. I knew she was grinning, but I was too preoccupied to turn and look at her.

I was entranced by the magnificence of the castle, and by the lights that made its facade change from a normal yellow glow to a deep blue based on the selection from the movie scores playing in

the background. Honestly, I was trying not to cry and look like a complete idiot — which the music was also making difficult.

I slowly made my way down the sloped floor and around the entire structure — about 50 feet in diameter and well over six feet tall. I stopped to read about how the model was built and which exterior shots it was used for during filming.

I took multiple nearly-identical photos, hoping to somehow capture how seeing the castle was making me feel, or maybe so I wouldn’t forget.

I knew this was the end of the tour, and I didn’t want to leave. I wanted one last, longing look at the beautiful castle, the real-life magic.

But it actually wasn’t quite over.

The final room before the gift shop was designed to resemble Ollivander’s wand shop. Boxes upon boxes were stacked against the walls. And on each was written a name.

“Each box bears the name of one of the more than 4,000 talented, passionate, and dedicated people who worked on the Harry Potter motion pictures for over a decade of extraordinary filmmaking,” a sign titled ‘A Magical Production’ read.

I can’t say that I wish for my name to be on a wand box. I can’t say that I wish to be a part of another Harry Potter family and franchise. I don’t think there can be another Harry Potter, not for a long time.

But I do hope for my name to be somewhere — in the credits on the big screen, on a list of nominees.

I read the quote that was displayed in the middle of the wand boxes, the quote from J.K. Rowling that I already knew.

“The stories we love best do live in us forever, so whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”

I smiled, holding back tears again.

Home. That’s what Harry Potter gave me. And that’s what I want to create, in my own work, for future generations. I want to be part of a story that impacts people, that lives on after it’s finished. I want the stories that mean so much to me to be a kind of fuel — enough to turn my slight smile of contentment into real inspiration, into something I will create.

And for just a moment, looking at those wand boxes, I wanted this one incredible story about a boy wizard to live on forever.♦

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

33

BY JILL COFSKEY ILLUSTRATED BY KAT HOLLERAN

ex·pla·na·tion ˌekspləˈnāSH(ə)n noun plural noun: explanations

1. a statement or account that makes something clear.

2. a reason or justification given for an action or belief.

34

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

“Wait...you were homeschooled?” people often ask me.

“How did you socialize? Weren’t you sad that you didn’t get to hang out with friends every day? What about learning how to interact with other people? Your parents must be really strict.”

Actually, being homeschooled didn’t mean I never left my house.

“What hall are you in?”

Actually, I don’t live on campus.

“You were engaged? Isn’t that a little young?”

Actually, I haven’t figured out how to respond to this yet. Things like my education and where I live are straightforward. My canceled wedding is not so easy to explain.

“Are you ready for the best four years of your life at Miami?”

Actually, after slogging through my first semester, I thought these might be the hardest four years of my life.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

35

Eight months ago, I was still in the middle of this. I had questions. Didn’t anyone realize that this situation is even more confusing for me than it is for them? I still needed to explain this to myself.

I decided to start with my name.

I remember my mom telling me that coming to college meant that I could become anyone I wanted.

I guess I thought that by introducing myself as Jill at Miami, my prospective new friends would see me differently.

As with so many conversations I’ve had with my mom, I can’t remember when this one happened. Now that I think about it, she probably had this talk with me more than once leading up to my first semester at Miami.

My mom followed up her advice with stories of her own college experience: leaving home, moving eight hours away, throwing herself into nothing but academics. She was the model student, oblivious to the partying antics of her peers.

I decided to take my mom’s advice and recreate myself.

For me, this could mean a lot of different things, such as leaving that homeschooler stereotype at home, or pretending like I hadn’t broken my engagement just weeks before starting school.

36

Jillian is what everyone from my “old life” called me. To parents, friends and exes, I had always been, and would always be, Jillian.

Another factor in changing my name was that as Jillian, I was frequently referred to as Joanne. Almost without fail, when introducing myself, the other party somehow caught a name with no L’s, and one less syllable. It still baffles me.

*** As my mom describes homeschooling, she taught me to walk and talk and just never stopped. For twelve years, my commute to school was out my bedroom door and down the stairs.

Changing my name to the simpler version, Jill, did not have the desired effect.

From what I’ve heard of the classic school experience, it involves hours of lecture-style classes during the day and homework in the evenings. But my education usually did not come in the form of a lecture. For the hours that other kids would spend listening to a teacher, and oftentimes longer, I would be doing practice problems, writing papers or reading.

Once last fall, I stopped in King Café for a hot chocolate. Traffic had hit a lull; it was fairly quiet.

Although this approach to education seems straightforward, school was never simple.

“What’s the name?” the barista asked.

If there happened to be a good week of winter weather, my family and I might pack up our books and spend those days camped out at the ski slopes, fitting in a few math problems between runs.

“It’s Jill,” I said clearly. Very clearly.

Moments later, I had my hot chocolate. On the side of the cup was written, simply, “Jo.”

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

to me. I had to know what she would say about my work.

My mom battled a serious illness for several years and was unable to give my brother and me her full attention.

During the same period of time, my dad’s job took him from Cincinnati to Chicago every week. He was home on the weekends, but Monday through Friday often found my brother and I managing alone, carrying on our own education with limited parental guidance and taking over various household duties.

I remember tiptoeing down the hallway outside my mom’s bedroom every day for years, cracking open her door to see if she was awake.

If she was, I would take my books, sit on her bed, and show her the work I had been doing.

If she wasn’t awake, I would contemplate what kind of noises I could contrive to wake her up so we could talk.

My mom was my teacher, my friend, and the person I spent the most time with. She was, and still is, everything

Learning came easily to me, and I took advantage of that. In sixth grade, I got away with not doing my math exercises for almost four months. The day my mom found out, she insisted that I catch up as quickly as possible.

Within three weeks, I had completed the entire textbook and skipped to the next grade.

For me, school was a weird combination of radical freedom and more requirements. I remember traveling at odd times in the year, but never having a summer break.

When I was 12, I spent a week of my summer studying trigonometry. Trigonometry. I repeat: I was twelve.

Because of the combination of a flexible schedule with intense academic standards, my education never really took traditional “breaks.” My first true summer break was the summer after I graduated high school.

Running errands with my mom when I was in elementary school was always something I looked forward to.

One day — I think I was in fourth grade — my mom announced an er-

rand to the grocery store.

I took a book with me, so most of what occurred during the shopping trip is blurry and combined with the plot of Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective.

In fact, the only reason I remember this day at all is because of an encounter I had while walking out of the store. Still lost in my book, I wandered farther away from my mom than I realized.

“Are you playing hooky?” It was the voice of an older man, a stranger.

Oblivious to most of my surroundings, I barely heard what the man said. I had to ask him to repeat himself.

“Are you playing hooky? Why aren’t you in school?” he asked again.

I blushed and looked at the ground.

I had no idea what “playing hooky” meant, and having a stranger ask me a question that I couldn’t answer made me uncomfortable. I could also sense an ulterior motive, which scared me. Was I going to get in trouble? And where did my mom go?

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

37

What was I going to say?

I weighed my options carefully.

My days as a commuter begin much differently than they did when I was homeschooled. Most of them start with a 6:30 a.m. alarm, a rush to get dressed, and a drive that takes at least an hour — not including the perpetual presence of road construction.

“No,” I answered him quietly.

Not very many of my memories include my mom being upset at a random person. This is one of them. Appearing from the next aisle, she quickly explained that my brother and I were homeschooled, and we left.

I remember wondering if not being in a regular school was something I could get in trouble for.

Not spending my days in the same classroom every day, surrounded by dozens of kids my own age, forced me into adaptability. Looking back, I spent more time associating with adults than I did my peers, so I felt pressure to be a viable conversation partner for people much older than I. This adaptability has served me well in college, but it still hasn’t made up for the vast gap I feel in my ability to relate to my fellow students. Chasing down internships has been the easy part — getting along with my peers has proved far more difficult.

Sometimes I’m jealous of the oppor-

38

tunities other kids were given in high school that weren’t possible for me.

For example: Can we talk about group projects for a minute?

Group projects were just not a thing for me growing up. It’s sort of difficult to work in a group when you’re the only one in your school.

It stands to reason, then, that group projects are one of the things that terrify me the most about college. I dread them.

A few of the worst words that can come out of a professor’s mouth are “Find a partner.” How? Who? What do I do after I find them? The social anxiety is unreal. *** Being a commuter at Miami definitely makes me different. Out of 18,456 undergraduate students, only around 500 are registered as commuters.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

Rather than explaining to people that I am homeschooled, as I so often did, I now find myself explaining that, as a commuter student, I don’t live in a residence hall.

“Why did you decide to commute?”

This is the dreaded second question after the inquiry about my assumed residence hall.

I have two answers to this question: 1. It’s cheaper!

2. I was engaged over the summer.

My wedding was planned for July 2017, just before the start of my first year of college, and being married would have meant living in an apartment with my husband. By the time I called off the wedding, it was too late to change my status from commuter to dorm resident.

I am unsure how being a married woman would have compared to being an ex-fianceé in regards to my college experience.

After the breakup, knowing that I wouldn’t have to explain to anyone

that I was married was a relief, but it turns out that telling people I recently broke up with my fiancé isn’t much easier.

The question of whether I made the right decision in calling off my wedding followed me to school every day, and rode home with me on my ringless finger. *** As I navigated my first semester of college, I learned that introducing myself was no easy task. Between the called-off wedding, commuting to college and being homeschooled for my entire life, it seemed like there was always more to explain — to my peers and myself.

“Is it really possible to recreate myself?” I wondered. “Are people lying about college being the best four years of their lives?”

I didn’t have any definitive answers.

Now, I do.

Now, I can explain.

Things have changed.

I’m halfway through my second semester at Miami, and I barely remember the way I felt last semester.

Winter break was when my perspective changed completely.

I lay in bed. I spent time with family.

I traveled. It wasn’t unusual by any means — I’m not sure why it changed me so much.

I thought about where I might have been if things had gone differently, and how that compared to where I was.

Would my marriage have defined who I would have been at school?

What defined me now?

The more I thought about it, the idea that something else defined me seemed a little backwards. I needed to change my question from what defined me to “How do I define myself?”

The answer, I decided, was peace. peace pēs/ Noun 1. freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.

2. freedom from or the cessation of war or violence.

Exclamation 1. used as a greeting.

2. used as an order to remain silent.

that is — shocker — not required reading. Losing myself in a book is a refreshingly familiar feeling.

Not everyone calls me Jill these days.

Not everyone calls me Jillian. Some people don’t know my name at all, but I don’t notice or mind as much as I would have six months ago.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop hearing questions like, “Are you playing hooky?”, “You were homeschooled?” and, “You were engaged?”, but I’ve realized that it only matters that I know the answers.

In my life, peace extends beyond quietness and tranquility. It is a conscious decision.

So here I am, ordering myself to remain silent. So here I am, finished explaining. ♦

This semester, I pared my course load down to 14 credit hours. I’m focusing on my friends, my family and myself.

When I have free time, rather than spending it doing extra studying, I stop by the library to pick up a book

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

39

Before Dawn

Kathy Parrett Makes a Living and “Does What’s Best”

BY MEGAN ZAHNEIS

ILLUSTRATION: NINA WILLIS

Kathy Parrett wakes up at 3 a.m. on a rainy Friday. By 4 a.m., as usual, she clocks in at work and picks up her company car, a bright red Ford sedan adorned with white Miami University “M” decals, then begins making her rounds, checking in on each of the seven buildings she oversees as a building and grounds manager at Miami.

This campus — the eerily quiet one that exists hours before the sun rises and classes begin, the one devoid of students filling desks and faculty holding office hours — is the one Kathy knows best.

Yet Miami students know nothing of Kathy’s campus, or of the life she leads on and off it.

On this morning, Kathy beats the sun to Laws Hall, her voice echoing down a long corridor on the third floor.

“Keri?” she calls. “Keri?”

Keri is Keri Sherman, one of a pair of custodians charged with keeping Laws running and among the dozen or so em40

ployees Kathy oversees.

“Keri?”

No response.

Kathy fishes her cell phone from her pocket, punches in a number.

“Hey, where’re you at?” she asks. “I’m on third.”

She takes a seat on a bench in the hallway, waiting for Keri, who’s been working a floor below.

The two women have spent the past few days monitoring a window well in the basement that’s been flooding when it rains. When Keri comes upstairs, the water is the first thing they discuss.

“Yeah, that scares me a bit,” Keri says.

“The pump just kicked on. It should be good.”

That concern aside, Kathy lets Keri in on the news of the day.

“They had a student over in McGuffey this morning that was unresponsive in a classroom, asleep,” Kathy says. The custodian tending the building couldn’t

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

wake the student up, so they had to call Miami police.

“That’s terrifying,” Keri says. Her youngest son is nearly impossible to wake up, but still.

“Yeah, I didn’t see an ambulance over there, so they probably got him up,” Kathy says.

They chat for another minute, then part ways. Kathy, after all, still has six buildings to get to. *** Kathy isn’t a desk person. The moving around and talking to people is the part of the job she likes, which is good — she spends three-quarters of her shift on the go, only returning to her desk in the Cole Service Building to place work orders, pick up supplies, and attend to other duties.

The desk work will come later. For now, Kathy leaves Cole, wielding an umbrella, and runs through her list of buildings: Upham, Laws, MacMillan, Warfield, Boyd, Hoyt, Pearson. She visits each every day, making sure her custodians are doing their work and have the right supplies.

She also checks in at Miami police headquarters, Lewis Place, the Simpson Shade Guest House, Old Manse, Western Lodge, the Women’s Recreation Association Cabin, Kumler and Sesquicentennial Chapels and the Ecology Research Center.

She carries keys to each — 53 buildings in all — on a metal ring large enough to slide onto her wrist. Those keys are a status symbol, awarded only to managers in Physical Facilities. They’ve earned Kathy a bit of respect among her employees and fellow supervisors, one of whom suggests she ought to be called “Kathy Parrett, Savior of Building Services.”

Or, he muses, maybe just “Wonder Woman.” *** Kathy had only planned to stay at Miami for five years.

An Oxford native and Talawanda High School alumna, she held a variety of jobs after graduation — providing in-

home care for an elderly couple, working as an assistant manager at a Dairy Queen — before landing at Miami.

She figured she’d work at the university for only a few years. But three years in Miami’s kitchens were followed by another three cleaning Shideler Hall.

Then came a promotion to supervisor in Physical Facilities in 1992.

And now, Kathy laughs, “I’ve been here 31 years. My five-year stint didn’t happen.”

Call it a change in plans. *** By 1999, Kathy began to feel a sense of stability. She’d been a supervisor at Miami for five years. Her husband, Randy, worked at the university, too Kathy, then 34, and Randy had met at the AmeriStop where she worked after high school and he was a frequent customer. Now, they were raising two sons, then ages 4 and 2, and living in College Corner.

Then Randy suffered a severe back injury and was laid off. So Kathy became the family’s only breadwinner. The salary she made at Miami wasn’t enough to support the entire family. Bills piled up, and Kathy was afraid they’d lose their house.

So she started a business.

In her mind, it was simple: “He couldn’t work. I needed income.”

Parrett’s Handiworks started modestly, with Kathy cleaning houses in and around Oxford after her shift on campus to earn money for house payments.

When Randy recovered, he joined her in business and they rebranded themselves as odd-job specialists, offering moving and storage services, lawn care and deep cleaning.

Today, the Parretts employ several other part-time workers, and Kathy runs the business out of the house — which they never lost.

Each day after her shift at Miami ends, Kathy spends three hours in the afternoon cleaning for her clients. Some days, she visits the well-appointed homes of Miami professors; on others, she plunges overworked toilets at fraternity houses.

“Somebody has to do the grunt work, like it or not,” she says. “Sometimes it has to be me.”

More often than not, it does have to be her — or at least that’s how it seems as Kathy’s tenure at Miami has progressed.

Kathy remembers when her staff was assigned to clean the Farmer School of Business.

“They said that building would require 12 custodians to clean it. And they

gave us zero.”

They had to make do by pulling staff from other buildings.

The atmosphere at Miami, Kathy says, has changed.

“They now run this more like a business compared to what they used to when I started here. It’s just not as family-like asZ it used to be back in the day when I first started. ‘Do more with less’ is a thing they have promoted really highly … Always have to do more with less.” *** The pain was unbearable.

It was June 2016, and Kathy was shopping at Walmart. Her jaw hurt so badly she was crying. In her 51 years, she’d never felt pain this intense.

In the middle of Walmart, she called her mother, a nurse, for advice.

“You need to go to the hospital right now,” her mother said.

“Somebody has to do the grunt work, like it or not.

Sometimes it has to be me.”

Kathy was skeptical.

“Just go to the hospital and tell them what you told me,” said her mother.

It turns out jaw pain was a symptom of something much worse.

Overnight observation and testing showed that Kathy had two blocked arteries — one at 99 percent and the other at 80 percent — and had narrowly avoided a fatal heart attack.

The doctors installed a stent, and Kathy was back at work a week later.

“I felt getting back and moving and all would be better than laying around.”

She says it’s just the way she was raised.

While her mother worked full-time as a nurse, Kathy’s father ran a tree-trimming business, which the family still owns, and they both tended the family’s

two-acre property, with its garden and livestock. Kathy and her brothers helped grow and can the family’s food.

“They basically just instilled to us that we need to constantly work,” Kathy says.

“It’s kind of second nature to me.”

So, too, is Kathy’s desire for independence. That, she says, stems from cultural expectations in her youth that men were supposed to take care of women.

Most of the girls back when I was growing up, they always thought they’d get married and have kids and have a house, but never a career or anything like that.

“I always thought, ‘I don’t want to have to depend on a man for nothing. I want to be able to do my own thing and be able to support myself.’” *** In 1999, the same year her husband injured his back, Kathy decided to go back to school. She figured she’d take advantage of the free-tuition benefit that Miami offered employees and earn the college degree she’d never gotten.

While raising two sons of her own plus three stepdaughters, she chipped away at a diploma one class at a time, mostly at Miami’s Hamilton campus — and pulled 15-hour work days.

Eighteen years later, in spring 2017, Kathy graduated with her associate’s degree in Humanities. Now she’s working on her bachelor’s in Integrative Studies, with a concentration in organizational leadership. This semester, she goes to class on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.

Kathy tries to take five classes a year — one each in the January sprint term, fall and spring semesters, plus two more in the summer — so she expects it’ll take her another four years to finish.

Then, she says, she’ll retire from Miami and begin a third career, in custodial consulting. She hopes to help universities and school systems determine their cleaning and maintenance needs.

It’s a job that typically requires a bachelor’s degree, which is why Kathy regrets not going back to school sooner.

“Now I’m trying to catch up... I would probably be in consulting way before now. But I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I was just trying to find a job, and this just happened.”

That’s not to say Kathy doesn’t like her current work, or that she doesn’t take pride in it.

“I think a lot of people look down on the job that we do, as far as custodial work. People don’t want to be in places that aren’t clean. Somebody has to do it, and the people that do it get paid.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

41

“I look at it as, ‘Hey, it’s an income stream to me.’”

Kathy is tired of hearing people debate their positions on the social ladder. She’s tired of politics in general.

“Everybody is so crooked in there,” Kathy said. “Everybody says stuff and then somebody’s pointing a finger at them: ‘Oh, you said this,’ or ‘You said that.’ I just want to say, ‘You all need to grow up.’ That’s the stuff we did when we were in elementary school.”

Instead, Kathy keeps to what she knows — her core beliefs.

“I believe in God. I believe in ‘what goes around comes around.’ I believe you need to work for what you’ve got. I believe in family.”

And she knows what they say.

“Everybody that meets me, they’re like, ‘Oh, you do all that. Wow, that’s amazing.’”

Not so, Kathy says.

“I’m just a normal person, you know, just trying to make a living and trying to do what’s best,” she explains.

“I’m so used to it that it doesn’t seem like nothing.” ♦

Tending the Fire as a teacher to open her students’ minds to other cultures and other ways of looking at the world, to get them out of their bubbles just as she popped her own. In the summers, Katin hopes to come back to camp or do anything else she can to help the Myaamia community continue to grow.

Even as many Native American communities struggle to preserve their traditions in a fast-changing world, the Myaamia grow stronger with each passing year. That’s thanks to Megan, Katin and Zach, the students that came before them, the students that will follow them, and many other tribe members for whom the Myaamia culture still lives and breathes.

“If we’re not revitalized, then most people would view us as a people of the past,” Zach said. “But as we make these strides and continue to move forward into the future, it shows people that our culture and our traditions are not dead.

We’re still here, and we have some things we would like to share with the world.”♦

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

in the university, they will never leave the tribe — nor do they want to.

“One of the big things I’ve learned about all this is the importance of identity.

If I wanted to, I could easily play it off and and play as a Caucasian male for the rest of my life and forget all about this,” Zach said. “[Instead, I want to] not only educate everyone around me about what it’s like to be a Native American in contemporary society, but also educate my family … and carry on our traditions for future generations so it doesn’t get cut off again.”

Megan would love to write more Myaamia books and dreams of being a screenwriter so she can use the platform of TV and film to better represent native people.

“I’ve talked to some of the tribal council people who are like, ‘When we look at you guys, we see a light in our community,’” Katin said.

She plans on using her future career

Tortillas and motorcycles CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

plans for the president. He later worked at the Justice Department on immigration issues and police-community relations.

During George W. Bush’s presidency, he worked in the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. He was an office director in Houston, Texas, and later in West Virginia. After Hurricane Katrina, he worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s recovery program.

This year, he’s been interviewed on Univision, a local Texas NPR station and, most recently, “Fox & Friends.”

George was the only Spanish speaker Univision could find to provide a conservative viewpoint on the border wall.

When George first began making media appearances, he grew frustrated with the mainstream media.

George’s hesitancy comes from a series of bad interviews over the years. One reporter hooked him up to a mic, trained the camera on him and asked for his opinion on the border issue as a Mexican-American.

George explained his father’s opposition to illegal Mexican workers.

42

The reporter didn’t air George’s segment.

“I have learned to be very precise in my comments,” he said. *** My grandma taught me how to roll out tortillas using a rolling pin when I was little.

Rolling out whole batches of tortillas was sometimes too much on my little arms, and I had to take breaks.

No tortilla was a perfect circle. One would be smaller than the rest, another would have a chunk missing, and all were lopsided in some way.

No matter the shape, everyone salivated at the smell of fresh tortillas and stood up for seconds a few minutes later.

Today, the tortilla-making process is faster, shinier. We’ve gone through several modern tortilla presses, but my grandma still measures her ingredients by saying, “We added a bit too much of this, so we should add more flour,” or, “This looks about right.”

There’s no need to take breaks, unless I’m stopping to eat an ugly tortilla that I pressed too hard.

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

The tortilla press is not enough to do it all. First, Grandma kneads the ingredients, lets them rise, and flattens the dough into little spheres.

I join in and take the little spheres one at a time. I take one, smash it in my hands and flatten it on the hot tortilla press. I drag the almost-tortilla off the press and put it onto the even hotter pan.

My grandma grabs the edge of the tortilla, sometimes with a spatula but more likely with her bare fingers, to uncover the golden brown patches on the other side.

We always keep two tortillas on the pan longer than usual, just for my great-grandma Hilda. She likes hers a little burnt, with crispy charred marks.

The process has changed a little, but the end result hasn’t. Anyone who strolls through the kitchen — my brother, my father, my mother, my papaw, my great-grandma, my great-aunt, my great-uncle, my cousin, an old family friend, a new family friend — always steals a fresh tortilla on their way out.

This is why one batch is never enough.♦

FYA ACROSS

1. This book, written by a Miami alumnus, will have its worldwide debut in Oxford this fall.

4. Miami’s Department of Music recently celebrated this wind instrument with a special guest recital.

7. This Residence Life policy limits access into residence halls to a single entrance during late-night hours.

8. Oxford was the location of the first modern hive of this kind.

9. RedHawks baseball reached a ____-game winning streak this season.

13. Miami’s Apiculture Society recently received a shipment of about 10,500 _________ honey bees.

14. In the fall, 40 students will

join the Oxford campus’s first _________ cohort.

17. Members of ASG have been working to bring this company’s bike sharing services to Oxford.

18. Students at Oxford’s _________ High School organized a walkout to honor the 17 students who lost their lives in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

1

I

for your amusement 2G

E

R

3L

I

R

I

N

E

E

D

E

8

E

9

R

14

U

D

4

7

E

N

E

E

D

O

B

R

C

11

I

E

M

R

I

L

E

A N

O

E

O

R

S

B

I

5

R

6

S

S

N

N

E

R

I

A

Crossword by Emily Williams Cartoon by A.J. Newberry

10

13

G

T

A

Y

L

12

I

Y

A

N

R

I

K

O

15

18

A

L

23

U

24

A

16

W

A

L T

19

D

A R

I

17

A 21

U

A

A

C

C

A

S

25

P

R

I

N

N

20

T

A

A

G

22

A W

R

21. This semester, Miami elected junior Megan ________ as its next Student Body President.

23. Senior Olivia Rusek is one of the most accomplished Miami volleyball players ever, and will be playing professionally in _______ after graduation.

25. Miami’s Board of Trustees announced it would extend its Tuition ______ program to regional campuses this fall.

44 THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

O

M

I

DOWN

S

E

K

1. Student Thomas Wright’s use of a racial slur in a GroupMe message resurfaced when screenshots of Wright boasting about the incident on the dating app ______ surfaced on social media.

2. Oxford officials reported a drop in both emergency calls and citations after this year’s _________ _____ Day celebration on March 15.

3. Former Board of Trustees member Dennis ________ completed his term this February.

5. This semester, Miami’s Varsity Esports Program became one of the first collegiate programs to add Super Smash _____ to its list of official esports.

6. This year’s theme was “Into the Ivy.” 7. This office investigated over a dozen allegations of hazing in fraternities this semester.

10. This furry friend made several appearances on the Student’s Culture pages this year.

11. The Miami Student hosted a public safety forum, ______ Matters, featuring representatives from the university and the city of Oxford.

12. Last year, Miami University lost over $400,000 in unpaid _________ fines.

14. Acronym for initiative adopted by Miami and Oxford which aims to stop hate, address bullying and build a safe, inclusive community 15. This common ingredient appeared in every TMS Food section recipe (excluding drink recipes) this semester.

16. Acronym for the student activist group which has initiated protests, meetings with administrators and other actions to address racial issues at Miami 19. Professor of Musicology Tammy Kernodle was the featured speaker at this year’s ______ Freedom Fund Banquet.

20.

An episode of Science Friday, hosted by ___ Flatow, was recorded in Hall Auditorium in April.

22. Red 23.

FSB’s new dean is president-elect of this community of accountants in academia (acronym).

24. Kip Alishio, director of Miami’s _____ (acronym) for 26 years, retired this semester.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

had all the talent and skills he needed. He just needed the right opportunity, and that opportunity was probably right around the corner, Jim said.

But it was around that same time when Tim received a life-threatening diagnosis.

In June 1981, the first known cases of AIDS — a virus that attacks the immune system — were reported in the United States. In 1984, about a year before Tim’s diagnosis, the number of cases had climbed to 7,699. Of those people, 3,665 had died.

Most of the identified cases were in gay men.

Doctors found themselves scrambling to treat a disease that, at first, didn’t even have a name. Some media referred to AIDS as “the gay disease.” Health care providers would diagnose patients with “GRID,” “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency.”

Religious protesters took to the streets calling for an end to homosexuality. Gay rights activists took to the same streets imploring research, not hysteria.

For the gay community, those years were fraught with confusion, misinformation, heartache and prejudice. So, when Tim was told he had AIDS, it was a death sentence.

Sue remembers when Tim showed her

the scabby lesions that had started to form all over his body — the marks of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a form of cancer that occurs on the skin of someone with AIDS. The wounds marked Tim as one of the decade’s “untouchables.”

She tried not to cry, for his sake. But she couldn’t help herself.

For awhile, even after the diagnosis, Tim continued to draw. When Sue got married, he gave her a drawing of Northside, the Cincinnati neighborhood where they both lived.

It was when Tim started to lose his eyesight that Sue knew he didn’t have much time left.

“Tim was such a visual person,” she said.

“He was such an artist that when he lost his eyesight, he lost his will to live.”

“Dirk took off his coat, his vest, threw them on a chair near the bed...Then, quite suddenly, he flung himself on the fine silk-covered bed, face down, and lay there, his head in his arms, very still.” -Edna Ferber, “So Big” On Monday, May 15, 1989, memorial services for Timothy Alan Kemp were held at St. George’s Catholic Church in Cincinnati. He was survived by his parents and three

10 SIGNS YOUR DRINKING OR DRUG USE IS GETTING OUT OF CONTROL

1. Your grades are seriously slipping.

2. Your friends are seriously worried.

3. Your reputation needs damage control.

4. You’re drinking & using to deal with the blow-back from drinking & using.

5. You can’t handle social situations without a full red cup.

6. You’re burning through your relationships.

7. You have no idea what happened last night. Again.

8. Your Cabo fund just went to pay DUI fines.

9. You’ve tried to stop drinking and using but …

10. Deep down, you know you need help. Seriously, you really need help.

Sound familiar? It’s your call.

The Haven at Miami University is an Independently Owned and Operated Outpatient Center

NOW OPEN THE HAVEN AT COLLEGE OUTPATIENT CENTER AT MIAMI 16 S CAMPUS AVENUE Call or email today for more information 513.280.6046 janae@thehavenatcollege.com

thehavenatcollege.com

siblings.

Tim’s parents did not attend the funeral. One brother did come, Sue recalled — a brother with whom Tim hadn’t spoken in a decade.

Now going on thirty years since Tim’s death, whenever Sue hears a funny joke, her first thought is still, “I have to tell Tim.” “I still miss him,” Sue said. “You never get over those kinds of friendships.”

Before he died, Tim gave all of his artwork to his former Student colleague, Doug Imbrogno. For years, the stacks of sketches, cartoons and illustrations had accumulated dust in Doug’s closet even as Tim’s memory still gnawed at Doug’s mind.

He’d thought about publishing it as a book or seeing if the university wanted to display some of it in an exhibit. But when Doug found Tim’s drawings that day in January 2017, shoved away in the back of a closet, he was reminded how many years it had been.

“It was well past time to honor his work,” he said.

Within the month, Doug started a Facebook page where, every few days, he shares another cartoon or illustration, accompanied by a short explanation or memory. So far, he’s been able to get in touch with other TMS alums about the page. Even a couple artists from other countries have reached out to comment on the work, Doug said.

The regret over having not done something with Tim’s work earlier is softened some, Doug said, by his ability now to reach a wider audience online.

The page has become a way for Tim’s friends to reconnect and remember — both the man and the art.

Tim’s body of work is almost entirely populated by cartoons, illustrations or stylized cityscapes, but his last piece of art was a painting. It appeared on the cover of the program for his funeral — a simple beach scene with an empty chair facing the ocean.

“That painting still haunts me,” said Ken Peterson. “It’s just one of those things. Every time I hear someone has died — boom!

It pops in my head.”

The end of Ferber’s “So Big” finds Dirk DeJong alone in his sumptuous apartment, surrounded by unscuffed furniture and fresh, silken clothing. And there in that den of untouched objects, lying face down and still, Dirk starts to feel regret.

Just like his mother warned, he wants art. But he has missed his chance. It’s no longer there for him. He lies there in silence until his melancholic stupor is interrupted by the shrill cry of the telephone and the hollow knock of his butler.

How different from Dirk’s grim apartment is Tim’s oceanfront — a somber but serene solitude, tempered by the comfort that something has been left behind. ♦

THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE, SPRING 2018

45