It would be his last graduation. He had seen over 50 such
rites of passage in his time. Now he and the building he had worked in for over
five decades were being retired. They had both served their purpose; time had
passed them both by. People who thought they knew him told him often that
events had passed him by; they were quick to note fault in a life that had
never earned enough. The graduates would go off challenged by new dreams and
newer tools scrambling to turn what they had learned into meaningful work that
would support their aspirations, and he would be no more.
He had seen them all - those that flourished and those
that disappeared. He had raked the autumn leaves as students hurried to class,
excited about the possibilities of discovery. He had seen the power of
discovery and the forces of emotion that animated winter conversation about
biology and love. He had shoveled late winter snow so that spring could hasten
moments of inspiration and romance. He cleared the grassy walkways in the heat
of the summer so that young poets and dreamers could fight revolutionary
battles one more time before the cycle began anew.
For the most part instructors and deans never knew his
name; he was invisible to the great men and women of the institution, except
when some inconvenience kept them from their important work. His building held the
special collections and graduate library, along with three floors of classrooms
in which he worked occasionally at night to keep the heat in and the cold
out as well as the water running. He took the trash and those things that grew old
too fast and removed them from sight so as not to disturb the great industry
of learning.
He heard the polite applause for the guest speaker,
Senator Bourne. From his space off to the back-corner he did not need to see
the dignitary that most of the students did not know. For even as his failing
sight would have kept him from seeing the Senator, he could clearly see in his
mind's eye the young Jack Bourne who had stormed from the building almost 40
years ago throwing his books down the custodian's basement stairwell convinced
that he could not pass the history class. The youthful Bourne raging against
the gods and fate had come face to face with the gentle man. In the ensuing
moments, Jack learned much from the quiet man with the rake. He learned about
the stories in history and about the power over people in stories. Jack Bourne
learned that knowing where to find information is a source of power, and Jack
Bourne went back to class and excelled at what he had learned.
The current class knew nothing of a young frustrated
student---only of a Senator older than imagination. Within the graduation class, at
least one student unknowingly shared a knowledge of the gardener's gift. Jessica
Longworth had seen little use for the calculus but she was told she must master
it. The instructors droned on about mother functions written in increasingly
incomprehensible Greek. She had stayed seated once class had ended until she was alone, staring at the board of
indecipherable forms.
He had come in quietly, and had asked her if she was done
looking at the board. Silence was her answer. His response over the next hour
explored the history of science and of the calculus, and the magic of the limit.
Most importantly, as he had shared so many decades before with Jack Bourne, he
had shared again how to find the information you need. He spoke with her as an
equal.
She was not embarrassed to ask him questions, for he was just
an old gardener, not a subject matter expert, but his answers gave her the
knowledge necessary to master her fears and to master the calculus
of learning. He had told of the collections and the library, and when, where
and how to take the
limit of life.
Friends told him that he gave too much and asked too
little. They sometimes berated him for volunteering. Some even pointed out that
giving his knowledge away for free was why he had nothing. And it was true, he
had nothing but what he had learned from over 70 years of helping people. He
had become a part of events, a building to be forgotten. He and the buildings were
structures past their prime. New ideas and technologies need new homes to fit
the moment.
The graduation was finished, the building closed and old
man was gone now. He had said his good-byes to the building with which he had
shared so many lives. The few who had met him and whose lives had been changed
in meeting him had for the most part forgotten the smartest man they once knew.
The building that had given them shelter was now to be torn down. Its ornate
cornices, polished
floors and wooden doors were too old fashioned.
The Dean had once been young, too, and had studied here,
and now was in the basement of the old man's building in the back corner where
none had gone before, where the man who took care of problems had his space
into which no one ever went or was invited.
The silence thundered like a raging Greek chorus.
Blackboards from a time of chalk lined the walls. On some of them were
algebraic matrices like those that used to lace his conversations, determinates
worked out by hand, when smart phones now power through such problems instantly
today. The rows of books thrown out in the coming of digitization were
meticulous indexed, as were papers
unfinished and reports discarded on projects never
finished. And in the middle
stood the herbaria with every plant for 50 years dried,
mounted and recorded
from the entire campus and beyond---silent sentinels to
what could be if we only
noticed that Eduard had been here.
Appreciation and thanks for reviewing and editing : Cindy MvW. @Gemswinc July 2012
revised with thanks to @BillNigh and @Gemswinc September 3, 2012
all rights reserved THOMPSON, John Peter 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment