Icebergs

I have a vivid memory from my teenage years. I had some good grades in high school and the local American Legion chapter was giving me an award (I think about $100) for it. My mother and I went to one of their meetings to accept the check.  I was (and still am) shy so it was not easy for me to sit through; it was worse for the person leading the meeting cracking jokes that made white males feel smarter than other kinds of people.

I wonder now if the jokes were less offensive or more than I remember. I remember after the ceremony wanting to return the check. Did I? I doubt that I had that much courage in my convictions.

The entertainment at the meeting was something I had heard of but not seen; a guest lip-synced to a record. The recording was one by Andy Griffith, a routine that he had done that had been popular early in his career where he acted as if he was so rural that he did not understand the football game that he was attending ("them boys in the green uniforms, they seemed to be pretty mad at the guy carrying the pigskin . . ."). Given that his career was built on a particularly Southern form of charm I never understood the appeal of making fun of your own. That's another story.

In any event a local man lip-synced the routine, exaggerating his facial reactions. The group thought it was hysterical as I watched the clock, waiting until we could leave. All of sudden I saw the man's wife and we made eye contact. (I was short and skinny and there was no feel of anything sexual.) She looked so desperate to leave.

In a moment I extrapolated how miserable it must be for her, going around to local dinner meetings with her husband of the Elks, the Rotary Club, etc., supporting him in something he took pride in that she did not. How often was she expected to beam at him, quietly, in public?

In statistics extrapolation is a dangerous technique, assuming that historical data will continue in established patterns. I was probably way off here. But it put in my head firmly the idea that people are icebergs:  we see very little of what is going on in their lives and we often act as if we fully understand them. Prior to that glance I had assumed that she was a proper, dutiful wife, happy to be invited to the gathering.

Later when I was at university I worshipped at a church with both a senior and an associate pastor. I noticed over about a half a year that the associate pastor had grown grouchy around us students. At the time I thought maybe he was in the wrong profession or at least the wrong career track. Then I accidentally found out that his ministry had been supported by a church fellowship that was about to expire after many years. He was slowly severing the ties to a job that he loved and could not continue at. I had thought that I understood the person while only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

I try to be better now as I interact with students as part of my job description as well as other faculty and staff and administrators and family members and friends. There is always more going on than I am aware of, and humility about how accurate my understanding of their behavior is the only honest way to proceed.