A friend told me this story the day after the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. She had gone to get her hair done and at the shop encountered a woman she had not seen for years, a woman who decades ago had welcomed her with great kindness to Crawfordsville but who now suffers from Alzheimer’s.
When my friend talked with the woman near the doorway of the shop, she could see she was struggling to recognize her. “Maybe she never did,” my friend recalled, though the woman smiled and at least pretended to know her. It was never her way to make others feel uncomfortable.
After the woman left with her home health aide, the hairstylists began to talk: Those who had not done her hair were relieved to have avoided her. They told stories of a woman practically the antithesis of the person my friend had known.
“They had no idea what a gracious lady she was,” she said. So my friend told them. She told them stories about the person who had welcomed her to Wabash, who with her husband had opened her home to students, faculty, staff, and alumni throughout the years; whose very presence had defined the generous place the community could be.
She swapped out the symptoms of a disease for the person she knew, and I doubt those hairstylists will ever forget the fierce love they saw that day, or ever see her friend in quite the same light.
A day earlier as the College observed the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a reporter from the Journal Review interviewed Josh Stowers ’14, a psychology major and veteran of the war in Iraq. Josh’s admonition came back to me as I listened to my friend’s story: “Never forget; never, never forget.”
Always remember.
In August I drove to Thorntown for an event honoring Rod Helderman, our computer systems technician who died unexpectedly at age 56 in October 2007. It had taken five years for the family to be ready for this day, this first public memorial for one of the best guys we’ve ever had on staff at Wabash. We gathered at a Christmas tree farm in the middle of this parched summer on what would have been Rod’s 61st birthday. There were pictures of him on each table, popcorn for kids who wanted to watch movies set up in the barn, delicious food. We quenched our thirst with cold craft beer. I met Rod’s best friend, heard about hilarious adventures from his Navy buddy, hugged Jeannine, Rod’s wife and a former Wabash staff
member. I talked with his son, Mike, Wabash Class of 2003. Chris Wilkins ’94 told stories about his student days working with Rod.
The next week I received an email and link to a blog called “Munchies” written by Rod’s daughter, Tamara. During the months following Rod’s death, she had collected and learned to cook the recipes her dad had fixed for her, family, and friends as she was growing up. Each page of the blog has a recipe and a photo of Rod: On the page for “Snow-Capped Tree Cookies” he’s baking with Tamara; on “Cheese Ball” he’s with Jeannine and hugging Tamara at one of her early Christmases; on “Coney Dogs” he’s playing a washboard; on “Spicy Mater Juice” he’s walking one of his basset hounds; for the Colcannon New Year’s dish, he’s with Mike and Tamara enjoying a beer at an early 2000s Indy Irish Fest.
“I never understood my dad’s love for cooking,” Tamara writes. “Hours of chopping, stirring, and seasoning for 15 minutes of enjoyment seemed like a ton of work for very little return. After spending hours categorizing hundreds of my dad’s recipes, I discovered how naïve I was. Extraordinary memories sprung to my mind as I turned through the sauce-splattered, note-filled pages. I discovered the true reasoning behind my dad’s passion for cuisine—his love for us.
“Over the years, food has brought us together no matter how far away we were from home.”
Food and memory hold a high place in my faith tradition.
Our central ritual is a meal celebrated “in remembrance.” The Greek word here is anamnesis. We believe it’s an existential event that brings us in direct contact with the creator of the universe and the infinite power of love. I have stood around that altar and sensed the presence of people long passed who loved me since I was a weird little toddler taking apart my crib to sneak into my parents’ bedroom.
I know—we are a whacked-out people.
But you don’t have to be Episcopalian to recognize the bold stand against oblivion in acts like the one my friend took defending her friend in that hairstyling salon, or to taste “the medicine of immortality” the way Tamara does when she makes those recipes Rod left for her.
She has her own way of remembering: “Tucked away in the back of Dad’s cookbook are pages of untried recipes. When I’m feeling a little adventurous, I like to test one out in his honor.”
Think of this issue of WM as recipes for remembrance.
When the Communications staff moved from Kane House to Hovey Cottage last spring, we no longer had room for the photo archives that my predecessors had kept since the 1950s when Professor Bob Harvey ran the news bureau.
But before we gave it to the College Archives, our summer intern Ian Grant ’13 and I went through thousands of photos covering almost 70 years of Wabash history. I felt like I was showing a nephew a huge family scrapbook from the grandparents’ attic.
Ian didn’t know most of the people, but he was fascinated by the photos. A black-and-white print of Professor Aus Brooks next to Sparks Center—“There used to be a wall between Sparks and Goodrich?” A photo of Professor Bernie Manker serving overhand in tennis—“What a magnificent son of a bitch!” He laughed out loud at the “Eat Zucchini” banners and the old papier-mache Wally Wabash head. He asked about the skinny kid leaning up against the chalkboard in Center Hall, and I told him it was Professor Bill Placher in his first year teaching—“So that’s Bill Placher?”
Those images and Ian’s questions prompted memories I hadn’t recalled for years; I hope they do the same for you. Have a taste, recollect, and please share with us the stories evoked by these photographs. Wabash is carried in each of you, and every recalled moment, word, or gesture sheds new light on our shared history in this place where everyone’s story matters.
Telling those stories is the way we begin to remember.
Thanks for reading.
Steve Charles | Editor
charless@wabash.edu