Posted by Art Efron on June 03, 2001 at 12:28:37 from 207.175.211.89 :
< FOR ED POWELL Art Efron I think it is simply impossible to express in words what Ed meant to me. I just know that I am missing him, with a thud of realization that keeps coming back, that we are not going to see each other again. For the past many years the main occasions for our being together were our long walks around the park and up to the bagel place on Delaware. We talked about our lives, our teaching, our dreams, about everything. I knew him since the early 60s. There were a lot of phases of our relationship. What stands in my mind very securely over the most recent period of years is that Ed was a happier person once he found Karen. That reminds me of when he said, a couple of years before that, Every part of my life has been very good, with one exception--the relation to women. That sure did change. He had fulfillment. It's a shame that there couldn't have been many more years of it. I'll just tell a few anecdotes and hope that they give you a sense of what I found in Ed. One is back at the time Ed was on his campaign to save the old student union building on the Main Street campus, Squire Hall. Or Norton Hall, as most of us had known it. The university was closing it down, promising to build a bright new one in a few years time out in Amherst. They said they absolutely needed that building, which they were going to remodel and enlarge, in order to prevent the UB dental school from losing its accreditation. The Dental school had a dire need to move into Squire. But Ed had a lot of good reasons for keeping the old Student Union open. And in fact the new one, which Ed was not shy about visiting and meeting students in--doesn't have the feeling of the mix of the movement of people and events that Squire Hall had, with its visiting lectures and movies and the huge bulletin board full of notes by students for getting rides home. Nor could it serve as a community link for the city of Buffalo, since it is located safely out of town. That community function was what Ed realized, and made a lot of us realize, about the building. The conflict in Squire Hall between Ed's group of student protesters and the administration became pretty tense and heated. Every night at 11, the campus police would lock the place up; everyone had to leave. That was closing time. But Ed and his group were refusing to leave. To me it felt like there would soon be a violent confrontation. I talked with Ed and asked him if I could do anything. He was worried too, and he thought that I could call some of the administration people, and warn them that there might be trouble, that people might be hurt. But who to call? I sort of knew Bob Rossberg, who was then the Provost. Ed took me up on that--he said Rossberg was the most human and understanding person among them. That morning I called Bob and got through to him; I told him the situation, especially about the clash that was almost bound to happen when those doors were closed at 11 p.m. and I hoped he could convince UB President Ketter to try to avoid this clash--but before I could go on very long, Bob broke in and said--"The building's not going to close. I've just given orders that Squire Hall be left open all night; it will stay open 24 hours a day." He could do that because Ketter was out of town, and that made Rossberg the acting president. I called Ed and told him the news. Ed was surprised and delighted to hear it, and then he became thoughtful. He went into action, and the next thing I knew, he and the students were there all night in Squire Hall. They brought their sleeping bags and hung out together and while they couldn't save the place from being taken over by the dental school--they did make that living human connection that can come from some social interaction. Fast forward to about three years ago. Rosberg, good man that he was, had died. I had a conversation with my dentist, a knowledgeable man who told me that the dental school was in a lot of trouble; it was doing just a very poor job. It might even lose its accreditation. But, I said, at least it has that building, that's a nice big place. No, he said--that isn't it--in fact that building is much too large for what the school needs: There are so many empty rooms in there, you wouldn't believe. Here's another story: in my department, I spent years working in a program called Literature and Society. And during the Gulf War, which I was opposed to, I called a meeting to discuss the war. By then few members of the English department were interested in social protest and resistance, but some graduate students came-none of the faculty--and Ed came, as did Charlie Haynie. I spoke for a while, there was some discussion, Haynie spoke, a few others also, and I was expecting Ed to say something. And then, gasp, I noticed that Ed was sitting there a few feet in front of me, asleep!! The discussion went on, but I was starting to get angry. But then he woke up, roused himself, looked refreshed, and then did say something. He spoke and what he said was really insightful; he delved into ancient history, the Roman Empire, for a comparison. He showed us a great new dimension of the problem of the Gulf War. I really learned from him. I loved him. And here is something of a whole different kind: Not too long ago, maybe a few months, we went on one of our walks, got into some topic or other concerning the Vietnam war, and he mentioned a letter I had written him way back near the beginning of the war. I of course didn't remember it. But a few days later in the mail-there arrived from Ed a xerox copy of my old letter, with his note along the margin telling me that I had made a real impression on him. I don't remember what my letter said, but I know that in it, I had questioned some of the value of what he was doing in his protesting. And now all these years later he was crediting me with helping him to have seen another side. He told me that the argument I had made, more than thirty years earlier, had been proven over time to have been a very good one. This message was rather amazing but then Ed often was amazing. Who else would save a letter that long, remember what it was about, be able to find it in his files, and send the old friend a copy, with an appreciative note along with it, signed, as he often did with those who knew him, "in friendship" ? On our last meeting, about two weeks before he died, we had breakfast at the Coffee Bean, up on Main Street. The talk was wonderful, it was fine warm contact. But maybe more memorable than what was said was this: two people, two men, at different times in our being at the Coffee Bean, saw Ed and immediately came up and exchanged big hugs with him. One of them hadn't seen him in years. He got right into talking with them. As Stephen has said, for Ed, his real work was with people. I came away thinking how very lucky I was to have this man for my friend. And, how much he has given me over the years! Finally I want to tell a story that Charlie Haynie told me a few days ago. Charlie is a good friend, who can't be here today because he is sick right now, he has pneumonia. [Note: I had thought to read this tribute out at Ed's memorial, but that was not do-able]. This has to do with Ed teaching those huge introductory Sociology classes. He once told me that he had volunteered to teach those classes, even though with his seniority he really didn't have to do it. And his department chair thought this was a good deal, because Ed was no friend of the depersonalized Sociology that had become the standard bill of fare in "Sosh" courses at all levels. But as the semesters went on and on, and Ed did his radical and personal teaching in those introductory courses, his department began to get worried. I think they thought he was ruining the students for them. And instead of neutralizing him by giving him those lowly Intro courses--they were giving him a field of hundreds of students to teach what he thought was important for doing Sociology. One day Ed had a pretty heated talk with the Chair, who told him: What you are teaching them is not Sociology! Ed's response was to say, It's not sociology? Would you mind putting that statement on paper? Of course, the Chair wouldn't do that. I think Ed had made his point. Charley Haynie's story of Ed happened years back, on campus. One day Ed and Charlie were walking around, talking, when Ed said that he had to break off because he had to go and teach his big undergraduate sociology class. And he asked Charlie if he would like to come and sit in. Charlie didn't feel like doing that, but then Ed said--you should come, I think you would find it interesting. There's going to be a special speaker today. So, Charlie decided to go to the class with Ed. And the students shambled in to this big lecture hall, one with a stage down in front for the professor, and they were talking and grumbling and paying very little attention to Ed. A lot of them weren't there-Charlie saw many empty seats. This class looked to Charlie like it was going to be a dud. Then Ed got up on stage and said, well, in the last class we talking about Capital Punishment. Today I thought you would like to meet a real murderer. Now George here (--or whatever the man's name was) who is going to talk with us today is a murderer. He killed someone. So then this man named George or whatever his name was got up on stage and just sort of stood there. Ed said, George doesn't have anything to say; you have to ask him questions. So the students started asking him questions, like who did you kill, why?? how long were in prison? etc. , and George answered them. By the end of the hour, that class was humming with questions, answers, responses, insights. And the key to it was maybe this: that Ed put the guy up there without any introductory "frame": he just said he was a murderer, he made no remarks about how he had paid for his crime or anything like that. It was for the students to create the context. They did, and that tells you something of Ed's way of teaching. The word for it, is "direct,” as Charlie said--and that is how Ed was a person. If I could speak to Ed, I'd say, Charlie and I will miss you so much, Ed. But while you were with us, you gave us so much. You were, you are, a great gift to our lives.