Lasting impressions

Good morning, everyone out there. Today is the most glorious of all Tuesdays in the year 2007. Why's that? Because it's my lovely wife's birthday, of course. The only other Tuesdays that even come close are November 13 (my grandma's, aunt's, and friend Dave's birthdays), the first night of Hanukkah, and Christmas. But today is #1, for no other Tuesday has the distinct pleasure of welcoming my wife into a new decade of life. Happy birthday, honey.

Yesterday, this same lovely wife emailed me with a bumper sticker she saw. Normally I would wait to mention this in this week's Follow Up Friday, but I'm going to use this to lead into an actual story instead. The bumper sticker? "Something Wiccan This Way Comes."

By a show of hands, how many of you are familiar with Wicca? According to our friends at Wikipedia, "As practiced by lineaged initiates, Wicca is a variety of witchcraft founded on religious and magical concepts, and most of its adherents identify as witches." My crude guestimate of "something like witchcraft" would've been spot on, but I'm glad I went to the universal resource for clarification.

So, the car is basically saying to everyone else, "Look out, I'm a witch." It's very similar to the "My Other Car is a Broom" sticker in meaning, but more spiritual in nature I suppose. In any case, it's a play on words from one of the most famous lines in some play called Macbeth: "Something wicked this way comes." I'd say it's probably tied for the second most famous line in the play with, "Double, double toil and trouble." "Out, damn'd spot!" would have to be first, right? Any arguments on that assessment?

In any case, Ray Bradbury wrote a book called "Something Wicked This Way Comes," taking the line from the aforementioned Shakespearean play. Amber read some Bradbury in one of her favorite classes in college, and that my friends, is what I'm finally getting around to.

Frank McConnell, who has sadly since passed away, was an English professor who taught the Science Fiction course at UC Santa Barbara. Anyone who crossed paths with him remembered him from that day on. As an English major, I saw him in the halls quite often, and it was always the same exact thing: a cane in one hand, and drink in the other. I never got to take a class with him, but the stories are legendary.

Here is how day one of a Frank McConnell class went: He'd walk in and announce to the class, "I smoke too much, I drink too much, I say 'fuck' a lot - get over it." He'd go through his intro about what the class would cover and his expectations of the students. Then he'd stop and ask, "Who here has not seen 'The Usual Suspects?'" Some hands would go up. "Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze," he say bluntly. He would then do the same end-ruining thing with a few other movies before opening it up for the class to do the same with ones he'd missed. During the course of the course, he didn't have lesson plans, but rather years and years of knowledge that he would use to help shape the active conversations he wanted to have with the class. If a student asked a particularly good question, he'd ask if s/he were 21. If so, he'd offer to buy him/her a beer after class. Did I mention that he won the "Professor of the Year" award five times?

I only had one interaction with him, but I'll never forget it. I was outside of a professor's office, waiting for his office hours to begin so we could discuss a paper I was writing. As one might expect, I was quite early. With plenty of reading to do, I plopped myself down on the floor and continued a book that was assigned for another class. It was The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, a very gripping book about the author's time in Vietnam. Professor McConnell walked by with his cane and drink, and then stopped in front of me when he saw what I was reading. "How are you liking that?" he asked. I had just started it recently, but I told him that it was fascinating and well-written so far. He shook his head, and I wondered if I had given the wrong answer. "That guy pisses me off," he said. "I'm busting my ass for years trying to write a book, and he pops out two great ones in a span of 18 months." He shook his head again and then continued a few steps further down the hall. Then he stopped again, still shaking his head, and turned back to me. "I hope he fucking dies," he said, and then he walked away.

That was my one and only interaction with him. When he passed away, one of my poetry classes spent an hour talking about him. I was one of the few who hadn't taken a class from him, and the others were crediting him with inspiring them to do all sorts of things: trust their inner voices, stay in school despite the challenge of being a single mother, have the courage to come out to one's parents, etc. I told my story and got knowing smiles and nods from the group, but I couldn't help but feel cheated that I'd missed out on more of him. Something tells me I'd have enough for a few weeks' worth of blog posts at the very least.

Well, I hope this didn't end up being a downer on such a lovely day. It truly was meant as nothing more than a tribute to one of my wife's favorite professors on her birthday. He was an undoubtedly fascinating man, and I'm pleased to tell what I little I know of him to you.

Have a glorious Tuesday, gentle readers, and a wonderful birthday, Amber. And oh yeah, Soylent Green is people.

p.s. If you're interested at all, here's the press release that UCSB put out after Professor McConnell's death: http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=269