Following is a copy of a letter of encouragement to Freck written early in 1992 when he had been stricken ill. In the twenty-three years since then I have revealed it to no one until now and I suspect he didn't either, that he was biding his time.
February 23, 1992
Dear Gaylord,
This is to wish you Godspeed in the days ahead. I cannot imagine what it is like for you, but I can imagine that it would be encouraging to know that others care for you and wish you well. You are assured of that--I think of you often, especially in these recent years when events in my life have changed so radically and I have lots of re-exposure to the people and places of our childhood. We have a time for sharing joys and concerns at our church service and during that time yesterday I lighted a candle and shared my concern for you.
I was delighted with the conversation we had at the class gathering in 1985. Over the years, our high school class has been for me a unique and fascinating group from which to contemplate the before and after of human psychological, social and intellectual development. There have been a host of wild and wonderful experiences along the decades but no other group claims such a time depth to observe. I remember going away from our conversation thinking of you, 'here is this guy who was/is the brightest one of the bunch and besides all that, what a warm and good natured adult he turned out to be.'
My life in high school was so filled with trauma and so radically changed after that, I sensed that it was/is difficult for most of the group to recognize me as an adult. I took great pride in two graduate degrees and a career in academic library management only to return [to Dallas County]to find that most of the people I knew well in high school haven't much of a notion of academic libraries, let alone an appreciation of them!....
...As you know, our class of 1955 met at D.C. Community Hall in July, 1990. It was a wonderful time. I think five years had mellowed most of us quite a bit, the sharp edges worn smoother. I enjoyed it the most of any reunion to date. From that came a remarkable experience of which until now I have spoken to no one except my wife.
I happened to be standing near the door when Elise arrived. Almost immediately her face opened, she put out her arms and gave me a warm and wonderful hug. I was delighted to see her. I always admired her, as we all did. She was my first peer experience with the notion of academic excellence as a way of life. But still, she wasn't emotionally available to me when we were youngsters. I was the first of our group to meet her that summer of 1951 [when she moved with her family to Dallas Center] because my dad and I had helped her family move to D.C. Over that summer, I came to know her and her family well, especially her mother's coconut cream pie. When school began, of course, she became the academic darling to fellow students and faculty alike. The rest is history.
We continued a wonderful conversation through dinner, catching up from 35 years, during the course of which she said, "after all I've finally figured out who was the smartest one of the bunch and it was you!" I, of course, was rendered momentarily speechless, an unusual event in itself! I would have dismissed it with a warm chuckle, musing about the quantum leap over which she had catapulted me, plum over Freck, and all those others, right past herself, except that the woman was stone serious, so undoubtedly so that I was too reserved to say anything more. And, drat, to think nobody else heard her say it!
I did go from that experience resolved for Kathy and me to maintain contact with Elise and John. I have so few friends left in Dallas County that I thought it would be a stimulating contact to renew. Besides, I hoped that eventually I could wheedle from her what she meant and what motivated her to say it. Then I'd return to the next class reunion and cajole Elise into sharing her new conclusions about the juxtapositions of relative 'smartness' among the group. After all, true or not, they'd believe anything she told them, wouldn't they?
But way leads upon way and she took the secret with her! Now, of course, I wouldn't dare mention it to anyone! Who would believe me!? Her affirmation was snatched away forever as inexplicably as it had come. So, I will never get to fully enjoy the claim to this story!
Which brings me to the reason which I have shared the story with you. If the man who should most rightfully accede to that lofty post, were Elise willing to turn loose of it, and were he willing to tell the story after I am long gone, when I have nothing to gain and he has nothing to lose, they would believe it! Wouldn't they?
So that is my request of you. When I am long gone, I challenge you to tell them this story and see if you can get them to enjoy it as much as I did!
I hope that this will give you a chuckle, a challenge and a little entertaining distraction. Do know that my thoughts are with you. If you ever need someone to talk with, feel free to call...
Peace,
Carl
July, 2005, 50th Anniversary High School Graduation, Carl wrote:
I am retired to an IDIYLOCAL (Independent, Do-It-Yourself, Low Consumption, Agrarian, Lifestyle) at The Promised Land, 22 acres in Dallas County that we farmed when I was a kid. The idea here was and is to create with my own hands, from wholly undeveloped land, paradise on earth. Whether it’s buildings, horses, tractors, gardening, farming, timber stand improvement or tinkering of a thousand kinds, you name it, we do it. I am a certified Master Woodland Manager. I am politically active although in these politically dark days a liberal is more easily a cocoon than a butterfly. I have twice appeared before the Iowa Supreme Court pro se. After 18 months of resistance MidAmerican Energy Company’s new 640,000-volt electric transmission line across Iowa does not go here.
The most enjoyable part of my life these years is being served a grand noontide repast each day and then spending as much of the afternoon as I like at “rest and read.”
I share with my wife of 21 years, Kathleen Schneider Hays, two children, two stepchildren, three grandchildren, four step grandchildren, two horses, a dog and a cat. And, guess what, they are each and every one exemplary characters.
I completed two-year teaching certification in 1957 and a B.A. in 1961 at the University of Northern Iowa; a Master of Arts in Library Science, University of Denver, 1964; and post-graduate Specialist Certification in Academic Library Administration, University of Wisconsin, 1969. I taught for five years in the Algona, Waverly and Sioux City, Iowa Public schools. I practiced 21 years in academic library management at Wayne State College, Indiana University and the University of Maryland College Park. After my first “retirement,” I enjoyed fifteen years of self-employment in a hardwoods manufacturing enterprise.
Although I didn’t find high school academically stimulating it was lastingly instructive. It was where I first experienced socio-political activism. Superintendent Ritland, to his credit, did reimburse the boys from his own pocket for destroyed hotrod magazines. That big boy did continue, walking, not running, from the locker-room fisticuff with Harlan Roloff. Exposing the notion that it wasn’t a legitimate use of anyone’s time for a football coach to attempt to read world history aloud from a thirty-five year old textbook to thirty-three 10th graders on a stuffy afternoon did get the coach’s attention.
High School was where I learned that justice is subjective. When the lady across the street complained that a noontide snowball fracas had lobbed a fat one into her back porch she attributed it to “that tall Hays boy.” When I asked Miss Sterrett how she knew it wasn’t the “other” tall Hays boy, She said, “I just know.” Nevertheless, Lillian seized that ideal moment to teach her simple definition of character, one that has stayed with me for life, “the capacity to put others first.”
I learned the pitfalls of excess: too much fertilizer kills tomato seedlings. I learned the power of leadership: one drummer can intentionally render an entire band out of step. And the power of poetic justice: Garth Mann opined in his newspaper that everyone in the band was in step but the drummer. Who could have known that the colorless thump, clunk, thump, clunk of Miss Hostetter’s “A, S, D, F, G—H, J, K, L, :, would fifty years later become our ubiquitous lifeline to the world. I learned from Larry Parr that to be is one thing, to aspire to excellence is quite another and from Raymond Rutt that with the gift of intellect comes the obligation to use it.
I cannot say that everything I needed to know I learned in High School. Whatever, if any, discriminatory socio-economic stratification operated against anyone in DCHS was a secret well kept from me. No matter how dedicated the faculty or how many sports contests were won or lost, three hundred or fewer library books, a ten-year old set of Encyclopedia Americana, Webster’s Second and a complimentary subscription to Ford Times magazine a high school program do not make, even in the 1950’s. Still, my most cherished recollection of high school is that it “did no harm.” It was a safe place, a shelter from the storm of adolescence, a way station that allowed me to survive until the opportunities of life began in earnest, shelter for which I am eternally grateful.
June 2015, Carl wrote: Our Education Challenge: How Sweet It Was
Free, public education for all of its children is one of the most quintessential, long-standing, American ideals. Whereas guaranteed rainfall didn't exactly follow the plow onto our prairies as some had hoped, our collective reverence for the benefit of education for all and our enthusiasm for the upward bound did. Surely Dallas Center in 1955 was no exception. The challenge changes with time, of course, but I have not seen a more succinct expression of what it was in our time and place than the one on Edith's second grade report card from 1944/45. It articulates some tall challenges for the community, the faculty, the parents and the students. These impressive signatures lend considerable gravitas to the contract. Take some time to read it carefully and imagine how these past seventy-plus years it influenced us, the class of 1955, as a group and as individuals. How would it work for our children, theirs and theirs?
