Posted by Barton Parks on May 10, 2001 at 07:48:42 from 64.8.20.126 :
Ed loved so being among us. His inviting smile, so easily there, followed by chuckles or laughter, infecting everyone around him. Such a good listener. All those “uh-huh’s” encouraging the talker to keep on. Such an interesting, gentle talker. Usually pausing in mid-sentence and looking up or down to formulate his thoughts as he voiced them. Offering what he said, eager for your response. I learned as much from Ed about being in this life as I did about sociology. But he would say that is two different ways of saying the same thing. One of the students he guided through a Ph.D. dissertation, I did most of it during two summers in the early 70’s while living at Ed’s house. Later I realized I could have done a dissertation on life at 124 Jewett Parkway. I was a theoretically minded young man, and he agreed to be my dissertation chair “only if you do an empirical study.” I started on alcoholism but soon became intrigued by radicals in Buffalo starting political communes, natural food stores and other new institutions: the new institutions giving reality to a liberating culture of egalitarianism, communal living, and joy. I found they were wise beyond their years and making impressive inroads on history’s most diabolically clever system of oppressive social control. In spite of his fascination with alcoholism, Ed encouraged my new interest and even doing it my way, though always with his input. Well into the second summer, and in love with data collection – through talking and working with the radicals—I was avoiding sitting down and writing, until one day I came in and, with Ed sitting by the pool, he told me “Damn it Barton, go write.” And so I got my dissertation done. Thanks, Ed. And for many in depth, exploratory conversations and experiences during many visits over the rest of the seventies. I understand most intellectuals as primarily learners or knowers. Somehow Ed transcended that distinction. He knew a lot and put it to wanting to learn still more. I’m sure till the day he died. He so loved being among us. For me, that says something exactly right about him. Now he’s left us, those who so loved his being among us. He’s gone, and that leaves me with an undeniable fact I can’t yet deal with. A challenge Ed would have found intriguing.