20 Years Ago - Inspiration, Hope, and A Reason To Be Involved

NOTE: I am live at the Indiana State Fair today - blogging about the Barack Obama Rally for Change. I'm including just a small portion of it here - just cause it really applies to what I write about on Child of the Fort.

For information on today's rally, check out Fort Wayne Politics later - where my stuff will appear.

This is my first time blogging about anything remotely political but after thinking things over, I felt strongly that not being here today would be a big miss on my part.

Back in my younger years, I was quite the activist. Maybe I wasn't as "radical" as people wanted me to be but in my own way, I stood up for what I believed in and I was all about stickin' it to 'da man'.

I did a lot of that as a student at IPFW. After flunking out of school (I stopped attending because - I don't know - I was bored, indifferent, caught up in teenage angst...)...I decided to go back and try to get serious.

One of the electives I signed up for was Introduction to Sociology. Yawn. Snoozer. I mean really - a frickin lecture class which was three hours in length on some weekday night (I'm thinking it was a Tuesday night).

I couldn't have been more wrong in my assessment of this class.

I had one of the best professors ever - Patrick Ashton. He made me think. He made me care. At whatever age I was 18-19? - I started thinking about things other than myself. Along with my classmates, we took a long, hard look at the world around us....our community...poverty....child abuse....other social injustices. And by golly - that professor guy, he lit a fire of passion in my belly. But not just mine - others were affected as well.

Just when I thought I was home free, he mentioned towards the end of the semester that the chancellor at that time (NOT Joanne Lantz) had not supported his application/petition - whatever it was - for tenure. Seems that that administrivia person thought that he spent too much time teaching and not enough time researching.

James Craig and I, who became friends because of this class, looked at each other. So did Ashton totally blow off his responsibility for research? We did our own research and the answer was NO. There was oodles. And oodles. Maybe he did 10 things and the norm was 12 but then he taught 2x the amount of classes (to underclassmen) as others up for tenure.

It just didn't seem fair.

And I was pissed.

So, naive as I was, I did something that literally changed the course of my life. James Craig and I stayed after class one night and put together a petition. We worked tirelessly for two weeks. There were at least 10,000 students at IPFW at that time and we were able to procure thousands of signatures. I can't remember how many off the top of my head but it was a HUGE number.

I know that we pretty much stunned the IPFW Administrivia team. We hand-delivered a copy of our petitions but then we took it a step further. We got in a car and drove to Bloomington to see President Tom Ehrlich.

He saw us too. We were give 15 minutes with him in which we explained what was going on, why we were very passionate about this professor and how we spent two weeks gathering the signatures of fellow students.

I don't know what happened after that - but the next thing I knew - that Chancellor was gone, Joanne Lantz was in place and Patrick Ashton was now a tenured associate? assistant? professor.

When I saw him (Professor Ashton) next semester, I wasn't thinking at all about what *I* did. I was beaming at him because he made a tremendous difference in my life. And what I did? Oh my - it was the very least I could do.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal

Twenty years ago today, you drew your last breath.

It was anti-climactic.

I was not there.

I didn’t want to be there.

I couldn’t watch you anymore.

You were out of your head – literally.

Not the man who introduced me to Dairy Queen Blizzards.

Or Colby cheese from The Mouse House.

Or who smoked cigars with the funny-gypsy-looking lady on the box.

Over a very short period of time, you became something that we are all afraid of becoming.

A man trapped inside a body which is physically disabled and cognitively empty.

I know you know that’s why I couldn’t be near you then.

Gosh. Even today, when I stop to write and acknowledge this event which happened half my life ago - the grief comes - floats up from some place not that far away.

How can that be?

I'm still so very angry - at you - at God - at my mom, my dad, my aunts, my friends, my grandma - at the world. I'm angry with myself for not appreciating you as much as I should have. For not soaking in as much of your wisdom and your everyday goodness.

The aching pain in my heart knows no bounds. Although I'm really good at containing it. Squeezing it into a teeny, tiny corner, hiding it from the world so that they don't realize that twenty years later, your absence still affects me like this.

I tried to save you the best I knew how.

All the memories come flooding back to me - Paranoia. Forgetfulness. Short-temper. Falling. Napping. Not making it to the bathroom on time.

Me coming home from working one of my many jobs and grandma telling me that you were at the hospital because you had fallen.

That was two months after I stopped telling people that you were sick. No one believed me. Or maybe I should say, no one wanted to believe me.

Your diagnosis came quickly. The day of surgery is still as clear as day for me. Dr. Kashman came out and said that the tumor was big, cancerous, and deadly. I ran around to the first hall I could find and I sobbed uncontrollably. Noooooooooooooooooooo. I couldn't lose you - the only stable, male role-mode/figure in my life.

And it was SO unfair. And I was tired of life being SO unfair.

My last meaningful conversation with you wasn't meant to be so meaningful.

I didn't think you were lucid. You were plenty doped up. To me, you were already gone. Which is why I just broke down and confessed to you how much I loved you and how broken my heart was and how angry I was and how I didn't believe in God anymore.

Shakily, you grabbed my hand when I wasn't noticing and you said - I don't ever want to hear you say that you don't believe in God.

My tears stopped for just a moment and I searched your eyes - was that really you talking to me?

I lay my head on your chest and you touched my hair. I listened to you fall asleep and I knew that this was the last time that you and I would ever talk as grandfather and granddaughter.

Where the Sidewalk Ends
by Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.