FISHER OF IDEAS -- SHARING AN EPHEMERAL BUBBLE OF MEMORY!

FISHER OF IDEAS

SHARING AN EPHEMERAL BUBBLE OF MEMORY

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© April 2006


Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.

Jean Paul Richter (1763 - 1826)
German Humorist


So many of my colleagues have died this present year (going on twenty). It reminds me that all we have is now. So, there is no point in protecting the "now" with supercilious pretensions or false modesty. Life is life and it is lived or it is not. "Not" has reached career status. This is a bubble of life most recent.

Only last night Beautiful Betty and I were talking and I mentioned "taking notes" in college. I asked her if she was good at it. Quite predictably, she answered, "I'm sure not nearly as good as you were. God, you did them in color code no less as if they were a finished manuscript." Being a pack rat the evidence exists to corroborate the fact.

For the longest time, I didn't respond. "Well, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," I answered finally, "and then I would go back to the dorm and type them up and even elaborated on them further. I was a bit of a grind."

She shook her head.

"But that is not why I didn't answer you," I confessed. "I was thinking of a guy I knew in college that took many of the same courses I did and was the best note taker I ever saw. I was thinking about him because he had such a beautiful mind, and for some reason that surfaced in mine now."

BB could feel I was about to launch into one of my stories and so gave me that captive look that I know so well. Wonder was in her eyes: is this one of the old stories or something new? It was something new.

"I played football, basketball, track and baseball against him in high school. Not only was he a great athlete, he was a four-point student, and first team all-state in football and basketball. Like I did, he took all the hard courses: four years of math, physics, chemistry, four years of English, and four years of foreign language.

"He was a four-point student in college, too, majoring in chemistry, and then a four-point student in med school.

"During his undergraduate years, if you can believe this, he managed to play varsity football for four years and make all-American in football in his junior and senior year, and later star in the All-Star Football Game at Soldiers Field in Chicago.

"More impressive still," I continued, "he was the most modest guy I have ever met. Athletes on campus were celebrities in my day, and yet he was approachable by anyone who needed help. I can remember asking him to have coffee with me after I was stumped by an unusually difficult problem in calculus. Then, without making me feel stupid, he said, 'Jim, did you ever think of looking at it like this,' outlining a simple approach that made the problem crystal clear.

"He went on to become a doctor. But even before that all happened, I sensed that he was not in control of his demons.

"It is one of the reasons I wrote the recent article on WHAT ABOUT YOUR DEMONS? I was thinking about him but chose to write about another person. Here I was only an acquaintance of his, but I could feel his unresolved turmoil that had little to do with intellect and much to do with emotions.

"I didn't know, then, that this was a gift that would carry me through my long career, and give me a window to understand others as if there was a banner over their heads telling me what was going on inside them. It was the reason I wrote CONFIDENT SELLING. . .

"Aren't you getting a little off track?" she asked with her patience thinning.

"I guess. Anyway, one of the proud moments of my life was when he tapped me at the University of Iowa Fishbine Dinner, which indicated that I was being selected into Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership honorary. I could tell he was as proud to extend the honor to me, as I was surprised to receive it. All of this rushed into my head when I thought of note taking."

"You know, Jim, you frustrate me," BB confessed. "You give me this wonderful stuff piece meal. One of these days you're not going to be here, and I won't have any sense of this chronology."

"I know," I answered, "I'm a bit of a scatterbrain."

"Your word, not mine. No, I think a better word is denial. You don't want to think that this wonderful adventure has an ending."

As always, she is right, but unfortunately, even with all my acquaintances passing, I choose to let these little explosions of memory pop up, and leave it at that.

"Where is your friend now?" BB asked.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? He died several years ago, not a happy death, not even a fulfilling life with all his promise, but he lives in me as friend, and as a beautiful person." Then as I turned to go back into my study, I said, "He reminds me not only how fragile life is, but how fragile we all are."