In lieu of a personal visit from a less than nimble octogenarian friend, I thought of offering by email what story-teller Syd might be inclined to offer on-site—some few of many reminiscences that come to mind when I think of our rich times past. As I recollect, it was our young children who brought us together as parents more than our arrival around the same time at Duke that connected us as professors. That continued to be the case over the years, as we gathered on Sundays at one house or the other (mostly yours, I think), to share them and the Wizard of Oz and camaraderie and (with Ibby more than Darcy) sooner-or-later Duke gossip and politics. Joined sometimes by comrade and brilliant philosophy prof Ed Mahoney and soulmate Elizabeth Tornquist, some of those Sundays truly rocked with words and barbs and laughter.
Somehow in time grew the idea for weekly lunches that would get us out of our departmental silos, and when Walter Dellinger (also through parenthood) and Shakespearian prof Bob Krueger bought in, the weekly lunch became reality, with a guest-a-week, year in and year out, for decades (and a periodically changing set of hosts) to come.
After Syd alias Ed McMahon set the conversation in motion with easy chatter, you zinged in with the key question. To Durham Mayor Wense Grabarek, running for re-election, you asked: With all the flak you take as mayor and the sacrifice of time and energy it entails, why run or run again? (His reply, affirming all you said: "Because I love my country.") We had senators, left-side-of-brain originators, Kenneth Clark, star basketball player Trajan Langdon's father, Toril, and colleagues galore from Duke and UNC and the Humanities Center. Our luncheon's reputation came to precede invitations—I recall a guest from the Business School who declined lunch because, forewarned that he'd be grilled, he ate lunch beforehand!
When I became chair of undergraduate faculty council (chair by default because more senior executive committee members Ed Mahoney, John Oates, Steve Vogel, Jack Preiss, and Larry Evans declined!), I decided well-hell, let's do something this year (and make this year, Passover-like, different from all other years). We, you and I, decided the focus would be on Duke Admissions, which I thought our UFCAS constitution authorized the faculty to govern. So many adventures followed, with you as the chair of the Admissions Inquiry. Getting the Data out of admissions director Clark Cahow (which thanks to Public Policy colleague Phil Cook and Dean Harry DeMik, computer geeks), we got and were able to fathom. Then pushing for more, suspecting rightly that much more than test scores (and a few wild cards and legacies) were involved and that new policies were mandated. And as we got close to the guts of it, getting that tell-tale summons from Terry Sanford to have coffee with him at his office: we were getting close! And then his unforgettable opening line when we started: "If you repeat what I'm about to tell you I'll deny that I said it." (When at your insistence and my compliance we pressed for the scores of Athletes, Terry composed a ringing proclamation—nominally addressed to me but actually only read aloud to the Board of Trustees—declaring he had no intention of singling out athletes from other students and refusing. I never got or saw it but later heard about it....)
Jessie Helms...we'll we both know that story. After Helms attacked Angela Davis for teaching communism in her California classroom, you wrote her department chair to let her know she had the right of reply. Instead, you got the unsolicited authorization to reply on Angela Davis' behalf. We met with Barry Nickell who had taught in the law school there in California. His only response: "Do you have to do this?? To which he added, teaching communism in the classroom was the least of her sins. En route back, you said: I think is why people in Germany kept quiet when the Nazis took over. You didn't flinch, went on, took Helms on, and braved the consequences: Syd pounding on your door after the program as if an irate Channel Five Helms follower had come to take revenge. You were brilliant. And knowing the FCC Rules, you knew and saw to it in advance that you had the last word—Jesse could not rebut or reply.
And in free association with those times, who of those invited to the New Year's Day gathering at your home will ever forget the film you showed to the dressed up guests, who somehow expected light entertainment or luminous conversation and were treated to show-stopping "Blood of the Beast," or if I got the title wrong, to the metaphorical film of Holocaust-analogous slaughter? Even loquacious Bill Van Alstyne was stunned into silence.
And these are just the pre-Toril tales I would share, of the many that come to mind, that made our life-long friendship a priceless treasure to me, and our family times so enriching for kids Heather and Steve and then-wife Ibby and Me. (I still have the indelible picture in mind of you cutting the Thanksgiving turkey at Walter and Anne Dellinger's, carving-knife in hand and the smile of one who had just sampled the sauce.) Times of joy, sometimes of stress, occasionally of sorrow, but always of enriching conversation and unfailing care.
If I were there, that's where I would start, and if it didn't put you to sleep, tales I would Scheherazade-like, continue to share.