|
 Reunion Notes
Going to the reunion?
Submit your reunion note.
<previous
page | table
of contents | next
page >
Lee Bloomquist
"Please believe that what we started will last forever."
- Richard Greenwood, excerpt from the first song in the tape
given to L&V, 1982
The letter we got from the organizing committee made me think of that quote
from Mary Gwen Owen on the first page of the paperback The Greening
of America. The hardcover of this book had come out in October
1970, the fall after we graduated. Reich had dedicated the book
to the students at Yale and their (our) generation. The book was
about a revolution that had been started. It was not a revolution
in organizations or institutions, but a revolution in individual
awareness.
Mary Gwen Owen had written a letter to Reich about this book and he
published excerpts of her letter in the subsequent paperback versions of
his book. At about the same time, George McGovern called Reich's book
"one of the most gripping, penetrating, and revealing analyses of American
society yet seen."
The first part of Mary Gwen Owen's excerpt sets a context. "As a teacher
on her 47th year of teaching young people," she wrote, "I cannot thank you
enough."
That might put Mary Gwen Owen's birth before 1900. She was from
the same generation—not of my grandmother—but of my great-grandmother.
To frame some possible contemporary artistic influences, Mark Twain
published stories in the early 1900s that she may have read as a
child. After his death in 1910, the posthumous publication of Mysterious
Stranger in 1916 would have reached bookstores when she was
a teenager. And his posthumously published autobiography in the
early 1920s would have arrived fresh at the bookstores when she
was just a young woman. Hers was a voice from across the generations.
She had influence from lives and artists that we could only read
about.
"I've always had beautiful students," she continued. "But today's are
something else! I have a feeling it's truly spectacular I should have
lived long enough to know these fine children."
I never knew Mary Gwen Owen, but I think I got to see some of what she did.
Beyond the diversity in thought mentioned in the organizing committee's
letter, something was still the same for everybody.
Vicki and I haven't lived in Minnesota for about 20 years. Our last
contact with the class of 1970 before we left was Richard Greenwood. On
occasion we would baby-sit his son Ricky. We are deeply saddened to read
in the directory of Richard's passing.
So we pulled out Richard's tape and played it. It holds three songs he recorded
shortly after returning from Denmark. One is built around the chanting
of some Buddhist monks from Vietnam, a recording he obtained in
Denmark from an ex-soldier. As in the greatest songs of the sixties,
these songs have warm human detail, and they have a diffusion in
focus that lets you get into them because they really seem to be
about your life. In fact, they seem to be about existence itself—as
seen through the shared circumstances that drew out the kind of
beauty Mary Gwen Owen had observed.
I met Vicki in Boulder in early 1974. Four months later we got married. About
twenty years ago both my mother and Vicki's sister had to buy new
address books because the old ones had become so filled with the
scratched-out entries of where we had lived. Shortly after that
we moved again—this time from Minnesota to New Hampshire. Then
a year later we moved to Michigan.
Five years ago we purchased some land as close as we could get
to Lake Michigan. We now live in the secondary critical dunes, protected
from the winter winds by the huge barrier dunes between us and the
lake. The land is open-canopy beech and pine forest. The neighbors
hope—as we do—that it will remain this way for many years.
The chances seem good.
On sunny days it's fun to swim out beyond the first sandbar, where you can
easily dive down to between eight and fifteen feet. At first the water
gets dark as you are going down. But when you finally get to the bottom
the sun reflects off the sand at the bottom to make it bright as day. The
sand down there is perfect and forms into little wavelets and mini-dunes
from the action of the water and storms above.
We don't yet know if we can make it to the reunion this year. It would be
great to hear the concert in Richard's honor that John is arranging. The
last time we saw Richard was at an event on peace. I don't remember exact
words, but the speaker said something like this:
"What you're looking for is inside you."
My experience? It is.
<previous
page | table
of contents | next
page >
Submit a reunion note.
Please contact the Alumni Office with questions, comments or concerns. |
