Author: patcamerino

Only the individual can change one’s own behavior. Much of that change depends upon what might be called “free will,” a decision to do or not do something, to accept or reject an offering, or even an event. On the other hand, B.F. Skinner, a psychologist, believed in the process of operant conditioning, which excludes the notion of free will. Behavior is modified through rewards and punishments administered when the subject originally acts. The one bringing about the change in behavior administers either a suitable reward or punishment to prompt a repeat of the original, spontaneous action.

HTE, Herbert Todd Eachus, was a Skinnerian. Todd gave me a special reference for the concept of “BFF.” When we met in the early 1970’s, he was in the School of Education, and involved in speech and hearing therapy, a program being phased out because of a loss of external grant support. I needed an assistant and, finally, had the funds from President Bromery and his budget director, Warren Gulko, to hire one. I hired Todd. Over the next five years, we became close friends. And in the process, I became a different person.

HTE was a “surfer dude.” He had grown up in Southern California and was involved with swimming and water polo. About the same time as I hired Todd, I had begun building that swimming pool in our backyard. He, his wife, Maureen, and their two sons, Todd Hunter and Kevin, would visit and make use of the pool on occasion. I envied his ability to wear Speedos. I knew I never could, nor would, wear anything like that, but I could, and did, lose weight, a significant amount. It was not due to the Skinnerian method he held so dear. It was merely by example, which might be some form of what Skinner professed, anyway.

Admittedly, Todd was responsible for my going with him for my first exposure to a hairstylist rather than a barber. The early 70’s was, also, the time of the leisure suit. I remember one of mine was light blue; the other a brown, checked one. In neither case did I look like John Travolta nor Elvis. At least, I was significantly taller than Danny DeVito.

While Todd had an influence on my physical appearance, the changes he brought about in my behavior and attitudes were even more pronounced. We spent the end of the day either with a sherry in my office or a beer in a local pub or at my house. I preferred that the workday be concluded with a pleasant, general conversation and other worthwhile discussions. I longed for the intellectual life of the Halls of Ivy, a radio program from my young days, one which had initiated my dreams of the university life as a professor or even a college president. Todd, however, returned the focus of our discussions to events involving our work, rather than our past-times.

Nevertheless, I looked forward to our daily interactions in the office and after-hours. I also became more interactive with other people; my social life expanded; and I took a few more social risks than I might have taken in the past. I, also, became more involved with the political process that was an essential, but unexpected, part of university life.

Warren Gulko may have given me funds to hire an administrator to work with me, but he made me regret every minute of his largess. He kept threatening to transfer my position from the Graduate School to the Finance Office, over which he had direct control. The situation was not helped by the continuing changes in the Graduate School, itself. Mort Appley, the Graduate Dean who had brought me to UMA, left to become president of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Richard Woodbury, who was the chair of the Anthropology department, became the Acting Graduate Dean for 1972-73. He was followed by Vere Chappell, a professor in the Philosophy department, in 1973-74. The final Acting Graduate Dean during my time with the Graduate School was Eugene Piedmont, a sociologist and previously the Associate Graduate Dean for Student Affairs, as I was the Associate Graduate Dean for Research.

The pinnacle of my political battles with Warren, with regard to Todd and related events, came in 1974, while I was attending an academic-administration meeting at the Playboy Club in New Jersey. Todd phoned to tell me his salary was being deleted and the office was being moved.

Upon my immediate return to Amherst, and in the weeks following his notification, I had a series of conferences about the future of my position. At the same time, a search was underway for the engagement of a new Vice Chancellor for Financial Affairs. The negotiations I had with Warren and President Bromery included my own future as a Vice Chancellor.

After several semi-political interactions with others on the campus, the result was the creation of a new Office of Grant and Contract Administration (OGCA) that was not part of the Graduate School. I now was to report to Robert Gluckstern, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost of the campus. Todd became the new Director for the OGCA at the Boston campus of the University. When, in 1977, Bob Gluckstern was chosen to become the Chancellor of the University of Maryland, my own future was, once more, up for grabs. I became interested in how it would be best for me to consider new options.

Some forty-five years later, I am not sure why the University of Massachusetts was being sued in the Superior Court in Northampton. My diary notes make no specific reference, but they do include details about my observations of that day in court. I have found them interesting enough to include here.

One is first impressed with the ramshackle nature of the Court, itself – something out of a movie set. The hard benches for the visitors, the old-fashioned, hanging, ball chandeliers and carpeting of the court area, the high bench with bookshelves behind, the formality of the warder (or whoever the guy in dress suit and brown vest is.) Then comes the informal banter of the lawyers, particularly Richard Howland representing the student, Dinsmore, whom he never addresses. In fact, it appears that Howland is not really interested in his client at all – although he might be interested in the concept of whether records under Federal closure are or are not open to the public.

Finally, the judge does enter and, indeed, the court does rise while the oyez is intoned – really intoned! The formality of the ceremonial I find to be very interesting. No, I am not bored; the observations are all new. It’s impossible to hear what is being said most of the time. Thus, I depend on sights and feelings.

The first case is the arraignment of a man – short, thin, greying hair, youngish pinched face behind steel-rim glasses, blue pinstripe suit. Ceremoniously plunked down on a straight-back chair in front of the bar separating the visitors from the red-carpeted court itself. The charges are read – a series of alleged rapes of a young girl over the last two years. To each charge he quietly responds “not guilty” as his bearded lawyer stands nearby. A strange performance. But stranger yet is the bulky, uniformed attendant, who whispers information to me, since I have the aisle seat, to relay to Ken Johnson, (the UMA treasurer sitting next to me.) It appears that the hearing is to lower the man’s bail. But more strangely, the girl whom he supposedly raped is his eight-year-old stepdaughter. Now here is an item for a story. If true, what would drive a man, even the diminutive homunculus here, to rape an eight-year-old? Who finally brought charges? The wife? A neighbor? And who would bear witness? The bail is not lowered; the case is to be continued; and the man returned to custody – led away by two towering deputies. His head is on his chest; he shuffles out. Blue suit and white socks on a counterman from a third-class diner.

The second case, a man in a green work-shirt and pants – with a black tie recovered later by one of the policemen in attendance. (Must you wear a tie in court?) Tall, rawboned, poxed face – a service-station man of the 1950’s – not today’s who have long hair and are younger. His charge is possession of a stolen car. But his case is dropped. The swallowed acoustics prevent my knowing why. He turns from the bar and is guided out, having yielded up the black tie, with red, bony hands grasping each other. No smile, but a half-hidden expression of relief.

The third case is “Dinsmore vs. Johnson.” The lawyers, Howland, Myers and Brown – from the State Attorney’s General Office are asked to approach the bench. The acoustics once again turn everything into a record at the wrong, slow speed. You know there are words, but there is no meaning. Finally, it’s announced that the judge wants the facts and would, on their basis, give a legal interpretation. But this would come only after a recess.

The recess time I spend chatting with Jack De Nyse (the University’s business manager) and Betsy Egan, of all people. (She is the realtor who sold us our house.) She is to be a witness in a case on a defaulted house sale. You find all sorts of people in court.

Howland then thanks me for obeying the summons and says we can leave. No witnesses are to be called. Written briefs will be presented for the two sides. And so back to the office.

In the mid-seventies when this trial occurred, there was beginning to be an interest in what the federal government might be supporting within universities in the matter of “military” research. It was possible that the “student, Dinsmore” was concerned about research with funds from DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. UMA received minimal support from this agency; I must have been called because of my responsibilities for research grants. DARPA has been credited with the creation of the “Internet.”

Karen went back to school, and we ate a lot of donuts when we lived in a New England college town in the mid-sixties. Amherst had a large number of faculty wives who became interested in a new movement known as “women’s liberation.” In 1963, Betty Freidan had published her book, The Feminine Mystique, which stimulated discussions among many of our friends, both male and female. Women, who once thought only their husbands could be part of the academic world, realized that they, too, had roles within the professorial profession.

Several of our female friends left the Faculty Wives Club and began attending meetings at the Women’s Center. Karen went to several sessions, but, when she discovered that a major activity for this new group was actually “husband bashing,” she decided she had other ways to pursue these new issues. She did not continue to attend their meetings even though we retained a social interaction with many who did.

Rather than being part of the Women’s Center, Karen decided to enter graduate school, where she earned a master’s degree in the department of Speech and Communication Studies.

Since, as an undergraduate, she had been an English major with a history minor, her choice seemed appropriate; besides we knew several couples who were associated with this Department at UMA. She was offered a position as a teaching assistant and, being a faculty wife, had a partial tuition reimbursement. Her academic studies would cost more in her time and effort than in any financial burden. Our three kids were in middle school or high school so that her efforts in child-rearing were minimized. Nevertheless, she felt she still needed to continue to be a housewife and mother around our home. There was no reason for me to object to this combination! When I did try to help around the house, some of our discussions became more intense than I would have preferred.

The only problem I really had was how to spend my “spare time” in the evenings. I continued to read and engage in my hobby as a gardener. On the other hand, there was a limitation to the time I wanted to spend reading as well as the time allowed by the weather for planting and weeding. Karen had to study in the evenings, when I no longer had the need nor desire to follow suit. I had done enough studying during my own graduate-student years. Now I wanted time after the workday to relax with my spouse.

The result: we began our “donut drives.” We were fortunate that the kids were now of an age they could be left unsupervised while we left the house for an hour. Our next-door neighbors, the Kilmers, were aware of our almost-daily journeys, in the event that an emergency might occur. Only once did that happen during the two-plus years Karen was a graduate student.

As usual, we parents were in the wrong, since we had never said that Ken could not carve wooden figures while we were gone. Jenny Kilmer and Deb did stop the bleeding until we had returned and could take him to the clinic for a few stitches in his hand. We did not give up our “donut drives”; we merely changed the rules for what could and could not be done during our absences.

Even with the possibility that accidents might occur while we were away from the house, our after-dinner drives remained to be essential for our life as a couple. In a short time, we learned about the quality of the coffee and of the pastry in every small diner within five miles of home. On a weekend, we would extend our milage to include drives along the Connecticut River as far as Greenfield to the North and Springfield in the South.

There was ample time to be a young man and woman and not merely a husband and wife, or a father and a mother. Our conversations did not focus on our roles within the family. Instead, they included enjoyable academic topics relating to Karen’s new life as a student involved in Colonial American history and literature. I learned a lot about rhetoric and conspiracy theory: subjects which proved valuable to my later interests in theology and political science. Karen had a particular fascination with Salem and its witch trials, along with Cotton Mather and the University’s archives of the Northampton gazettes she perused on microfilms.

Our “donut drives” involved more than physical eating and drinking; they also fed our minds and thoughts. They allowed us to be both individuals and a happily married couple.

Karen was scheduled to complete all of her academic requirements for her master’s degree in Speech and Communication Studies with an eight-hour, written examination taken over a two-day period. As her reward for this arduous task, I planned to kidnap her. She was, I believe, totally unaware of the forthcoming celebration, even when I would suddenly ask her a question about whether or not she wore a girdle! I had to do the packing for a week-long trip and did not want to omit any item that might be a requirement for the journey. I had sworn the kids to secrecy and had the agreement of our next-door neighbor, Jenny Kilmer, to be available just in case of an emergency.

On the afternoon of Karen’s second-day exams, I picked her up as I had done several times before. As we drove out of town, she thought we were going on the usual donut-drive to celebrate and relax. By the time we entered the Massachusetts Turnpike, she realized this was not going to be our usual drive. She readily entered into the adventure without knowing our final destination. By late afternoon, we arrived at Woods Hole for an overnight stay prior to boarding the ferryboat to Nantucket Island. I finally revealed to her the site for our week-long vacation.

The next morning, we chugged off to Martha’s Vineyard, where day-trippers disembarked, and we continued on to the real island off the tip of Massachusetts. As usual, it was a pleasant, if breezy, passage. The trip was long enough for the stress of the mainland to be blown away and the examinations forgotten. Now we could arrive, unburdened, on the weathered dock on Nantucket. We had left our car and our cares at Woods Hole.

During our seven years in Amherst, Karen and I managed to visit the Island on several occasions. The days there tended to blur together into a very peaceful and harmonious oneness. At the moment, I’m not sure what might have been the details for this particular kidnaping and which ones were experienced at other times. The exact sequence was much less important than the emotions evoked by the Island, itself.

There were the cottages, themselves, built recently, no doubt, but with materials to maintain the weathered, grey-shingled, one-story appearance of those erected centuries ago. The flowers in the white window-boxes changed with the season, but nothing else did.

We have stayed in small accommodations on the outskirts of the Town as well as in the main hotel in its center. The experience of sleeping in one quaint cottage almost killed us, or at least Karen, literally.

It was summertime. We had gone to sleep with the window above our bed in an open position to allow the sea-fragrant breezes to enter during the night. At some hour after we had retired, we heard a very loud thump as the pane of the opened window slid down the wall at the head of our bed and toppled over enough to tap Karen on the forehead as we were awakened from our sleep. If the windowpane had fallen outwards, rather than slipping down the wall, the ending of this tale would have been dramatically, perhaps fatally, different. On the next day, when we informed the landlord of our “mishap,” he expressed his concern and said he would attend to fixing the window. We were too naive at the time, and the age was less litigious than today’s; we should have requested a reimbursement of our rental fee, at the very least.

For daytime enjoyment and relaxation, there were the sand and surf, especially on the south side of the Island. The grains of sand were soft and comfortable for burying feet; the ocean breezes for cooling down the rest of the body. The best way to travel from Nantucket Town to the southern shore was by a pleasant bike-ride over the narrow road cutting through flat, grass-covered dunes.

Shopping with or without buying anything was a very enjoyable pastime for spending a day in Nantucket Town or along its harbor. The small-pane windows of the shops displayed every nautical souvenir that could be designed by a craft-focused New Englander. They, also, wove Nantucket baskets, with their unique shapes, and created lids that included finely-inscribed scrimshaw on pseudo-ivory whalebones.

Of course, there was the food. During one visit, I managed to become a pescatarian and avoided red meat for every meal on the Island. I resumed eating cheeseburgers once we returned to Amherst. We also returned from Karen’s kidnaping trip with a few new items of clothing for her; evidently, I had not packed her suitcase as well as I had expected!

Strangely, perhaps, I’ve written little about events pertaining directly to Deb, Ken or Chris, who was known as Kip back then. It’s possible we had minimal interactions during their early teen years and, as a result, I have not retained many memories of what we did together. I do recall vacations: days when we returned to Hanover and Ithaca. Of course, there were also the returns to Ohio to spend time with either my parents or with the Swanks. Before the kids were born and Karen and I still lived “back east,” the two of us made several trips each year, not only every summer, but also at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. A half-century later, they all blur together.

But what about the non-vacation-trip time together? Each of us seemed to have lived our lives independently. Other than for major chores, such as building that patio around the swimming pool, I don’t remember what I did with either of the boys or Deb. I had always “done my own thing” while growing up. I spent minimal time with my mother and father, actually no time at all! This may have led to my not spending time with my own three offspring. I gave them the same none-interaction opportunities I had received. They each did their own thing; Karen and I did ours, either alone or together.

Deb had theater and horses. She acted in, or directed several, one-act plays. She seemed to enjoy it, but if I recall, she, too, wanted to be “alone” at times. After the plays, she not infrequently came home to spend the rest of the evening in her room, not venturing out to the after-the-play parties, even when fellow actors came to the house to encourage her to join with them. I never learned why she did what she did, or why she felt what she was feeling. Perhaps, I should have been more interactive in her life. However, I was proud when I saw what she accomplished in Blithe Spirit. It was no surprise that she decided to major in theater in college. I wasn’t sure about what the opportunities might be for her future “employment,” but I did not object to the liberal education such an approach might yield. We visited both the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh and Syracuse University as the preferred places for her to start her career in the theater. For her performance portfolio, she chose a scene from Belle of Amherst. It seemed highly appropriate, what with Emily’s grave downtown.

Deb also had a few other distinct approaches to life. I was not displeased when I read her letter-to-the-editor, which appeared in the Amherst newspaper, about sex education in her high school, although I did encourage her to tell me about future postings before they were printed in the newspaper.

Ken had his musical interests matching Deb’s theatrical life. There had been Tom Sawyer in which he was a success. Like the original Twain character, Ken seemed to be equally innovative and independent. It wasn’t until his Houston period that he ventured into Amal and the Night Visitors and Oklahoma! At an early age, he also began his “creative” projects: past-times including woodcarving, basic electronics, and sewing hand-puppets. He also liked to argue. With his devotion to that activity and to solving three-dimensional puzzles, he was an incarnation of my own father. This may have been why he and I had a difficult relationship until we both “grew up.” I tried to avoid debating all of the topics he seemed to bring to the dinner table. Most of the time, Kip and Deb fell into his well-planned traps that resulted in almost daily conflicts. Quite often, the ones he had with Kip turned more violent.

Kip was more “physical” in his interactions, except with the Kilmer girls, with whom he shared a love of horses, but not quite as well-developed a love as Deb had. He and Ken roamed with the Cook boys who lived across the field from us. I’m not sure what “adventures” they had but matches and fires seemed to play a significant role in what they may have done together. He was also able to thwart our directions from time to time. The classic example occurred when he was told not to go out the door of his bedroom where he had been confined, because of something he had done. We were dismayed when he telephoned us from the Cook’s house, saying he had not gone through the door, but had crawled out his second-story bedroom window to leave the house without going counter to our direct instruction!

All three of them had acceptable academic interests, but with differences. Deb loved to read books and spent much of her time in her room doing that. Ken was more into manufacturing his three-dimensional projects than he was with reading. Kip, unfortunately, began elementary school in Amherst at a time when open classrooms and “feelings” were extensively promoted by the University’s School of Education, which had a direct impact on the town’s school system. When he had to retrieve canned goods from our basement, I was never sure if he had read the label or chosen them based upon the illustration he observed on the package.

Yes, each one had a different approach to life. At times I wondered if they really were siblings.

We tried to go on family vacations. Usually, we simply “made do” with week-long visits to Niles or Sandusky during the summer. Those to Sandusky were more enjoyable; at least they seemed more like a true vacation in that we had an opportunity to spend a day at Cedar Point, a premier amusement park for Ohio and the roller-coaster capital of the world. I never wanted to go on the really tall ones; fortunately, the kids were satisfied with getting wet on the final splash down of the mill ride.

Of course, there were also the carousels (after all, Sandusky is the home of the Merry-Go-Round Museum housed in its old Post Office) and the bumper cars. In my days before inner-ear problems and attacks of vertigo, I enjoyed taking the kids on the tilt-awhirl as well. We could spend the entire day without too many conflicts about what we should or should not do in order to have fun. Even sitting on a bench and “people-watching” was a pleasant way for Karen and me to spend time while the kids rode on something geared to their own size. Of course, we tried to stay until the fireworks lit up the sky for the close of the day of at the Park.

Cedar Point had a beach and the waters of the Bay, but we seldom visited them. Instead, we spent a week in a cottage on the shore of Lake Cayuga on a nostalgic trip to Ithaca. We managed, of course, to revisit Cornell, which had not changed all that much over the dozen years since we had lived in its shadows. The town, itself, had become a pedestrian-shopping center, but the campus was as picturesque as we had remembered it to be. Residing on the lake shore gave the kids something to do when we were not sightseeing throughout the Finger Lakes region. Arguments among us were minimal, since Deb had been allowed to bring a girlfriend, Laura, with her to counterbalance the need to spend time for disputes with her brothers or parents.

On the other hand, the two girls did provide a laughable event, even if it was one in which Deb was on the verge of drowning, unbeknownst to the rest of us. The two of them had gone out for their daily swim in the lake outside our cottage. Deb, having grown tired during the swim, grabbed hold of a log floating nearby, while Laura headed, alone, back to shore. Deb tried to haul the log with her as she swam toward the rest of us. She was dismayed when she discovered, upon reaching the dock, that she had been towing a large tree and had almost succumbed to the effort of dragging it behind her. We all thought her panic cries of going under were for our amusement and not for a need for actual help.

Another vacation in a house on Occum Pond in Hanover, New Hampshire was much more tranquil. Again, it was a nostalgic vacation. Karen and I recalled our pleasant years at Dartmouth and made daytrips around the region in order to renew other memories. The house we rented for the vacation was a faculty home unlike the starter-apartments we had once rented in the town.

We found that Hanover had remained as peaceful as ever. Having discovered a reference to the short-term rental through a local agency, he made final arrangements with the Dartmouth faculty member for our arrival. We were amused to have been informed that we would find the front-door key on the kitchen table, providing they were able to locate it. Evidently, they had never bothered locking the door of their home overlooking Occum Pond on the edge of the campus. I have wondered if they ever found it or had to replace the lock with a new one, given the changes in our society since those carefree days.

It was enjoyable taking a vacation in the towns where Deb and Ken were born and where Karen and I had begun our days as a new, happily married couple. We have never returned, during the last half-century, to Chris’ hometown of Corvallis, Oregon. No doubt, it should be on our bucket list, if we had a bucket list; after all, it, too, is located on the water, even though it is merely a river named the Willamette.

It took me several years to like Boston. I had to make the two-and-one-half hour drive about once a month to attend meetings in the Office of the President of the University of Massachusetts. The major or home campus for the university remained at its historic land-grant location in Amherst. However, when a second campus was established in Boston on a filled-in garbage dump overlooking Boston Harbor, it was necessary that the system’s central office be created independent of the sites controlled by Chancellors in Amherst and in Boston, and by the Dean of the Medical School at Worcester.

Classrooms were moved from a downtown office building onto the new site, with its built-in pipes to eliminate the gases being burped from the decaying rubbish underneath its new structures. Years later, the Presidential Library for John F. Kennedy was constructed on the Boston campus, no doubt with its own set of vents.

Since the President’s Office and central administration remained in the old office building, I had to endure Boston’s downtown traffic more than I would have preferred.

On my required journeys to Boston for meetings, I quickly learned that this city is one in which a driver can make four, consecutive right-hand turns and not arrive back at the starting point. It seemed that anywhere a colonial cow wandered, a new street was laid down to confuse any invading British soldiers. Years later, Bostonians, attempting to compensate for the lackadaisical efforts of its earlier planners, began to construct a new highway cutting across the city. It was called the “Big Dig” but many locals thought of it as the “Big Ditch” – it took several years and greatly expanded funding to complete the construction.

Fortunately, the early settlers and their descendants did leave The Commons and the Charles River in a pristine condition.

One day in early spring, while driving along the river, I spied the Harvard crews skimming over the water. It was this sight that caused me, very suddenly, to fall in love with this quintessential college-town. I soon discovered the pleasures of viewing the gardens of The Commons, even if I was forced to follow the winding and clogged traffic arteries to reach my destination.

Karen and I did take some consecutive vacation days in Boston, an experience more rewarding than merely passing through the narrow, cobblestone streets on a daytrip for business. Freedom Trail must be walked; Faneuil Hall and Old North Church must be encountered personally. Gravestones must be remembered with charcoal rubbings on newsprint scrolls. Enough time must be allowed for tasting and smelling Quincy Market and the Italian shops found in the North End. Marzipan must be viewed with amazement, even if it is too sweet to eat.

The Prudential Building cannot be avoided, although pedestrians had to look out for falling glass when wind gusts swirled in the wrong direction around this lonesome tower. At least, students passing by the W.E.B. DuBois Library Tower on the University campus in Amherst did not need to be wary of falling windows; there were tunnels of straw around the site to ward off any stray bricks released from the facade of its upper stories during wintery blasts. Those awarded contracts by the Commonwealth may have been able to bid low for a reason.

My favorite recollection of Boston, however, was formed years after we had left the Bay State. I was the best man for Todd at his wedding with Carolyn. The ceremony occurred on the Fourth of July, and they had their wedding reception on a modest-sized cruise craft. We watched fireworks explode over the harbor and heard the 1812 Overture being broadcast as it was performed to accompany the pyrotechnics on The Commons. It was, indeed, a perfect assembly of what is enduring about this colonial city and its multiple centuries of American life.

Gloucester is known for its fishermen, actually one fisherman more than the others – the one made of bronze, who grasps the wheel of his boat and peers out into an obvious storm on the Atlantic, south of the harbor. His is the memorial for all those Gloucestermen who were lost at sea either catching fish or hunting whales. I would encounter him as I drove by on my visits to the northern coast of the town where the University of Massachusetts Marine Station is located.

For several years, a minor part of my academic career was serving as Acting Director of the Marine Station. I wish I could have done something useful when I held the position, but Warren Gulko, the University’s Budget Director, made sure I had just enough funds to cover the salaries of the handful of junior faculty and a few employees who tried to keep the station open and functioning. Expenditures for maintenance were minimal and certainly not for any expansion. I tried to help them get support through the usual grant mechanisms, but Woods Hole to the south of Gloucester was internationally known for its oceanographic research.

When the Marine Station’s Director moved to a new academic site, Warren convinced Chancellor Bromery that the Amherst campus, which was nominally in charge of the station, did not really need an expensive replacement. Since I was Associate Graduate Dean for Research, it made economic sense for me to take over the administration of the station located on the coast some three or four hours from the main campus in the Connecticut Valley.

Every few months, I would drive to the coast to meet with the faculty there and try to encourage them to keep up their efforts, even though the University was not in favor of providing much financial support to them. I enjoyed learning about what they were doing but avoided accepting their invitations to go out on the water with any of them. I have always loved the tranquility of a coast with its sound of incoming surf and the shifting of the sand beneath my feet. However, actually sailing on oceanic depths beneath me, was a very different matter. Much later in life, I learned to enjoy large cruise ships on the Mediterranean Sea, but back then I preferred to keep my legs on a platform having minimal movement.

Karen and I, later in life, did vacation briefly in Gloucester and Rockport, where we ate as much lobster as possible and viewed the buoys once attached to the traps used for gathering them. A photograph of a red “barn” with its multicolored ornaments hanging on its side, brings back a vivid nostalgia of what life along the New England coast was like in those days. Now, the yellow, orange and pale-blue paints on wood have been replaced with Styrofoam floats to reduce damage to propellers, but not necessarily to marine critters who chew on them. I’m happy I was able to see the real thing so many years ago.

I’m even more pleased we had the opportunity to consume lobsters in their native locale. The taste does depend significantly on the salts found in the tanks where they are kept prior to being dropped into boiling water. Crustaceans shipped to Houston are not nearly as marvelous as those ingested directly in New England. Some might claim it’s really the butter which accounts for the gastronomic pleasure of succulent lobster, but the protein does have its unique flavor. On the other hand, the taste of mudbugs from the Gulf Coast is greatly masked by all of those Cajan spices. I cannot imagine eating any of those tiny crawdads with only a butter sauce!

The arrival of spring suggests it’s time to get out, to see, and to do new things. This was especially true when we lived in New England. This conclusion was even more evident when we lived in Ohio and upstate New York, where the sky was overcast, beginning in November, and remained cloud-covered throughout the winter months. The ground was even more depressing than the sky, since the snow turned to slush and frozen ice shortly after every weekly deposit. I did not realize there was truly a winter-sun until we moved to New Hampshire and later, to Massachusetts.

Houston, on the other hand, may have bright sunshine from December through February. Nevertheless, when the temperature remains above the mid-seventies and the bright blue sky may be devoid of puffy, white clouds, there is a human desire to take to the roads. Unfortunately, most Texans have been unable, during the past two years, to travel. Now that Covid is on the wane, everyone hopes we will be able to return to the open road, providing we can afford to buy any gasoline.

However, when we lived in Massachusetts, four decades ago, the cost was reasonable for a daytrip to many nearby towns or villages, where we could experience something new. On the other hand, what we saw was, often, something quite old. New England likes to preserve its heritage, especially in quaint, colonial buildings. When we lived in Amherst, and, later, when we made special visits to New England, we saw picturesque sites, both in spring and in fall, in such places as Old Deerfield Village (near Amherst), as well as “Strawbury Banke” (sic) in Portsmith, New Hampshire; Mystic Seaport in Connecticut; Gloucester, Salem and Stockbridge in Massachusetts; and Stowe and Middlebury in Vermont. In Stowe we bought a twelve-foot farm-sled that cost us more to ship to Houston than it did to buy it in Vermont. Many companies do not like to transport antiques in a “distressed” condition, since some buyers claim the shipper has damaged them and want to collect insurance money for events that had occurred decades before the move.

Among the places we visited over the years, one of my favorite destinations was Old Sturbridge, a restoration of village life from the late 1700s through the early 1800s. Unlike those who lived in Colonial Williamsburg, another favorite restoration, the residents of Sturbridge were modest farmers and tradesmen, rather than wealthy plantation owners and merchants engaged in the early political life of Virginia.

Karen and I enjoyed the spring sunshine as we wandered around the Old Sturbridge Village Commons, surrounded by white-sideboard homes and stone-construction shops in which we observed pottery being shaped, leather shoes for people being constructed by a shoemaker, and iron shoes for horses being forged by the blacksmith. We spent time watching the formation of freshly cut, wooden planks in the sawmill, powered by a waterwheel, and the efforts of women farmers in their sunbonnets digging and planting vegetables and flowers or spinning woolen thread for use in nearby looms. Our favorite spot for relaxing was sitting on a bench overlooking a weathered, covered bridge above a creek flowing into a nearby pond. The best place for lunch was at one of the dining rooms in the Publick House, a whitewashed building with rambling wings added over a two-century lifetime.

One year we booked a room in this Inn for an extended stay in Sturbridge. It was a unique visit in which we had the entire village practically to ourselves. We had planned to spend a long Washington’s Birthday weekend there. This was in a time when there were separate celebrations for Washington and Lincoln and not a consolidated Presidents’ Day. It was also the year when there was an early, false spring. The weather had been warm, the trees might even have had plans for pushing out a few buds. We arrived at the Publick House in time for dinner on February 21. The evening was completed in the pub-room before we retired to a feather bed with a mountain of quilts covering it.

The next morning, we were greeted with more than twelve inches of freshly fallen snow! Sturbridge Village was officially closed. Nevertheless, those employed by the Village were true New Englanders and came to work, anyway. Although the Village was closed for new arrivals, we were allowed to enter most of the buildings. But first, I had to fill up on Froggers. They are a Sturbridge institution, cookies made from a recipe attributed to Joe Frogger, a free African American, who, following service in the Revolutionary Army, opened a tavern that served these oversized, molasses-and-spice treats.

That evening, we, and a few other trapped visitors, were invited to attend the town’s weekly party. It was pleasant tramping through the deep, crystal snow from the Publick House Inn to the Town Hall for an evening of square dancing. Fortunately, we were members of the College Town Twirlers in Amherst and had learned the basic calls to a degree that we did not break down any of the sets, a major achievement for visitors. The next morning, the snow-covered highways prevented our leaving Sturbridge, but we did return home as soon as the plows allowed travel back to Amherst. Spring which has not yet fully sprung can also yield very pleasant memories.

Each of us had a hobbyhorse to keep us busy when we were not really busy. Deb’s hobbyhorse was real. She took riding lessons at Bobbin Hollow, south of Amherst on the way to Belchertown. Her instruction was less expensive than buying our own Morgan, although we could have kept a horse in the corral the Kilmers maintained next door to us. Somehow, I had convinced Deb I would reconsider buying one when she was a senior in high school. My alternate hope was later fulfilled. By the time she was a senior, she was more interested in high school drama than in owning a horse.

She could continue to satisfy her equine desires by going, almost daily, to the stables at Tilson Farm, an agricultural addition to UMA, bordering our backyard. There she groomed her four-legged friends whenever she wanted to and not when she had to. The lessons and riding competitions at Bobbin Hollow accommodated her needs to straddle an English saddle. My role was to drive her there each Saturday morning. This gave me a weekly opportunity to buy fresh eggs and to purchase delicious honey-filled candy bites in their farm store.

Ken and Chris were probably too young to have “hobbies,” per se. They managed to keep busy by doing whatever they were engaged in doing. Ken did have his electronics. Perhaps, his hobby was to de-construct any and every electric apparatus in the house, with an expectation of returning it to its original working condition.

Karen’s hobby was hiking, rather than riding. The Metacomet-Monadnock Trails associated with the Appalachian Trail passed near Amherst and its surrounding ridges. Karen and her female hiking friends would drive a car to an appropriate entrance to the system and hike to the next station where another car had been left for the ride back.

Spring and fall were no doubt the best times for their adventures, but she did own a pair of snowshoes for winter walks. I was able to borrow them on a few occasions when snowstorms prevented her from driving me for the five-minute commute to my office, a destination I could otherwise reach with a twenty-minute brisk walk. My snowshoeing was not unlike trying to slide on tennis rackets with handles that always punctured the frozen snow at the wrong angle. If the weather was really bad, it was better to stay home, as did the students and the rest of the faculty. The students, however, found that dining-hall trays made exciting sleds for the hills around the campus, when the snow was deep on the university walkways.

My own hobbyhorse consisted of destriers rather than Morgans. For some unknown reason, my years in Amherst were the ones during which I became extremely interested in the history of the Middle Ages and of the knights who rode those war horses in tournaments and battles. The Templars fascinated me. My personal library expanded to include dozens of books on their history and culture. I even began to write a novel entitled: “Beauseant!” which was the battle cry for the Knights of the Temple of Solomon.

My hero was Paul Blackwood, also known as Paulo Bois de Noir or merely Boisdenoir. His companion was Guy de Coeur. Over my seven years in Amherst, I completed the first six chapters of a book that became consigned to an electronic version held captive in my computer and transferred with every upgrade, once I had entered the last revision on my first Compaq in 1983.

The Templars, founded in the early 12th century, were officially arrested on Friday the Thirteenth of 1307 by Philip IV for blasphemy and homosexuality. Actually, the King of France wanted the Templars’ treasury, which was extremely large. Their funds resulted from banking arrangements in which they invented. Their sacred military mission was to help pilgrims journey from Europe to Jerusalem and to the Medieval kingdoms established as a result of the Crusades. Their last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay, associated with the Masonic Order which, in legend, replaced the Templars.

Another result of my interest in the Templars and their endeavors was a corollary fascination with Dante and his Divine Comedy, published in 1317. My fictional hero named Blackwood had a high resonance with the Dark Wood in which Virgil and Dante traveled through the Inferno and Purgatory to reach Paradise. Alas, as I was contemplating my own literary fantasies, I, too, was living out those years of the “middle of my life.”

Although I did not pursue writing my novel, I did continue my interest in Medieval times and, in particular, Dante. During the past two years in Houston, I have taken on-line courses relating to in-depth studies of his Divine Comedy. I finally have made my literary journey through the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. It continues to be debatable where my hobbyhorse currently rests on my own comedic journey.