Guthrie All About Me: Society, Serendipity, And Self

An Anecdotal Autobiography Of a &quote;depression Era Baby&quote; Heavily Influenced By Excesses of the 1960s
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4835-9697-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 520 Seiten

This is a highly personal autobiography covering 80 years of my professional and personal life. It is intended for an audience comprised of my progeny, professional colleagues personal friends and unknown archvists.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Guthrie, James W.

Leseproben

Chapter Two

Why?

A great deal of Internet sleuthing revealed that my two closest grammar school friends, Everett and Billy, are deceased. Each had married. Each had fathered two children. Each had pursued conventional paths into middle class and blue-collar jobs. Everett, in becoming an ad salesman for a local Virginia newspaper, had not lived up to the pretense suggested by his historically famous middle name, Spotswood.4 He appears to have died of liver disease and possibly had been an alcoholic. Why did he not attend college? What caused him to become an alcoholic? Why did Billy Hobart forego college and become a butcher?

Much about life in general and myself in particular is perplexing. Sometimes, my wonderment is about big things. Some concerns are little.

Here is a little thing that somehow keeps popping up in my mind.

I had a prized college athletic jacket. I was only a modest athlete. Thus, I had not really earned it, but I had it. One day, I went to class and left the jacket on the backseat of my car. I did not lock my car. Stanford was small and crime was low. I knew virtually everyone I encountered each day. The possibility of theft did not occur to me. How wonderfully naive I was.

When I looked for my jacket the next morning, I could not find it. Later that quarter, I saw someone on the Stanford Quadrangle, where we had most of our classes, wearing a lettermen jacket with a track symbol similar to mine on it. I did not recognize him. He was not on the Track Team. Later that evening, it occurred to me that he might have stolen my jacket. I should have confronted him at the time. I never saw him again.

This jacket is only one of two things I have ever had stolen in my life. It meant a great deal to me then, yet I never did anything about it. I should have. Why did I not act?

The jacket and its eventual disposition is a small item. It is simply symbolic of all the times I wished I had acted and did not.

However, I have much bigger queries.

I have four children, of whom at least three I am enormously proud. I have six grandchildren, most of whom already display substantial promise of being principled and productive adults. I even have a great grandson. It is too early to comment regarding his lifelong trajectory, but I am hopeful. Given the tenacity with which he clung to neonatal life, having been born quite prematurely, I think he just might be a tough little guy.

I attended Stanford University as both an undergraduate and as a PhD student. Once finishing my doctorate, I was awarded a high-level federal government fellowship. I undertook postdoctoral study at Harvard and Oxford. I held endowed professorial chairs at UC Berkeley and Vanderbilt Universities. I worked for the Chairman of the Board of American Airlines. I had a chance to serve or observe three Presidents (in minor ways). I was a twice-elected low-level public official in Berkeley. I have worked in and visited literally dozens of nations. I could go on, but the point would be the same. I have led a most fortunate life.

Now, upon reflection, I ask: “how has this happened?” That is the question that motivates this chapter and much of this book. What is it that shapes, perhaps determines, the path of one’s life? Why are some successful and others chronically ill, inept, feckless, homeless, adrift, unemployed, or otherwise living hapless lives?

Fundamentally, I would like better to understand why I am who or what I am. How did I end up leading the life I have so far led? Why did I go to college when others I knew well did not? How did I find a career in Education, when I had tempting and lucrative opportunities in the private sector? How is it that I went to graduate school, obtained a fellowship to work in Washington, became a college professor, traveled overseas extensively, married not once but thrice, have an estranged son, or otherwise failed to perform to my potential on many dimensions?

There are plenty of solid sociological research findings that, in a most general manner, can answer this question. I will not be able to contribute any blazing new academic theories or practical insights. Rather, my reason for exploring the matter is to personalize the issue, know myself better, and prompt questions among my progeny as to the paths they are selecting for their possible futures.

I make no claim that I can answer these questions. However, the essays that follow nibble at the edges of explanation.

Looking more closely at my childhood friends, Everett and Billy, helps a bit.

These were neighbor children with whom I interacted almost every day, often for hours each day. I played games with them, went to school with them, sometimes ate with them and their families, slept over at their homes, and shared many intimate thoughts with them.

Their full names were Everett Spotswood Covington and William “Billy” Hobart. Their parents, schooling, societal contexts, and material surroundings were quite similar to mine. I do not know about their character, bent of mind, self discipline, inner strength, or aspirations. Characteristics such as these, even if already present or undergoing significant formation, are seldom evident at a very early age, and seem more important to adults than to children.

Everett lived near me in Falls Church, Virginia during World War II. He insisted upon including his middle name, “Spotswood,” in all that he did because he had descended from an 18th Century royally appointed Virginia Governor of that name, and Everett was vastly proud of this fact.

Billy lived near me on 30th Avenue in San Francisco, the place to which my family moved after the Great War. Both were close friends while I went to school with them; for Everett this was the second and third grades and for Billy the fourth and fifth grades.

Everett and Billy lived in conventional nuclear families with their natural fathers and mothers. Each was an only child. In that my only sibling, my sister, Sarah, is almost nine years older than I, and was away at high school or college for most of my growing up years, I was an only child for many practical purposes.

Everett’s father was a federal government clerk, and Billy’s dad sold insurance. At night, he supplemented the family income by playing in a downtown San Francisco hotel dance band. He was a trumpet player at the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel. It is still there.

Both boys had stay-at-home mothers. Both lived in a nice but unpretentious middle class house in a middle class neighborhood. I do not know details regarding their parents’ income or education levels, but I assume in most ways they were similar to my parents. At least as I remember talking to their parents, they seemed a lot like my mom and dad. When we compared elementary school report cards, we all performed about the same. I was considerably faster as a runner than either of them. However, both of them were physically stronger and larger than I, and neither had my handicap of limited vision.

I was born in Chicago at the Illinois Central Hospital. Railways operated many of the best hospitals in that era. Indeed my paternal grandfather whose name I bear, but whom I never met or knew-was a surgeon for a southern railway.

My mother, father, and sister, Sarah (about whom there is much more to be said later) lived in Flossmoor, Illinois, a then new suburb on the south side of Chicago. We lived in a large apartment complex. One of my earliest memories was collecting garbage with the building janitor, Al. I admired him greatly. He was very strong and he seemed to like me. My first job aspiration was to be a garbage man like Al.

I remember our Flossmoor apartment building, to which I have never returned, as being enormous. I wish to be careful in this regard, however. I remember my boyhood home at 405 Park Avenue in Falls Church, Virginia as being large. Upon revisiting that former residence as an adult, I was surprised at how small it was. I do remember that the Flossmoor building had a pharmacy and soda fountain in it. That is where my sister introduced me to milkshakes and “Brown Cows,” vanilla ice cream floating in root beer.

My father worked in business as a high level Montgomery Ward executive. He managed the Montgomery Ward paintworks. He despised his boss, Sewell Avery, President of Montgomery Ward. Avery was a strong opponent of the War and argued publicly with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Avery is worth Googling and reading about.)

Avery was finally forced from office so that the government could mobilize the paintworks for the war effort. Avery was removed physically from office by National Guard troops. A photo of his being literally carried from his office in his captain’s chair appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. I remember my mother and father cheering upon reading the article. I was only four or five at the time, but I had never before seen them make so much noise or seem so happy.

In 1941, my father quit what was a good Depression Era job, and joined the Navy as an officer. Wartime promotions came fast. He rose to the rank of Captain. My friends’ fathers were doing the same in large numbers. Once inducted, my father had to undergo a great deal of officer’s training.5 This is when we moved to Virginia.

My mother was a...