Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

In my youth my primary social justice commitment was through Amnesty International. As an affluent white male I enjoyed freedoms that I thought ideally everyone should share; in the 1980's we had had the vine of United States support for repressive regimes that were nominally anti-Communist bearing cruel fruit and I in my small part of the world wanted to do something about that.  It was a more active support Amnesty International sought back then; nowadays they just ask me for money. We members were encouraged to write to foreign government officials to urge them to take care of political prisoners that we named, the idea being that as long as they knew that they were seen the cruelty would diminish. One letter per prisoner, because they were all human beings, not just a faceless group. I have no independent way of verifying if the hundreds of letters I wrote eased any suffering; I know that they changed me. Selfishly I am grateful. At the time I made a point of reading journalism...

  “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ―  J.R.R. Tolkien,  The Fellowship of the Ring

This afternoon I'll sing in a (short) concert of South African songs as part of a choral ensemble of twenty-one singers. I've been in concerts several times a year for about fifty-five years now and I'm okay with being in front of an audience. It's easier when I've rehearsed the songs often enough to have them be muscle memory as with today. I won't claim that my pronunciation is perfect but it's not bad and I think I've got the tunes down. My current choral ensemble is tied to my work (it is a student-group at my university that they kindly allow me to sing with) and with my commute it probably won't continue after retirement. There are some very good local choral ensembles and barring physical infirmity I intend to continue singing as long as I can. I've never been very athletic, and insofar as I was once in good shape I ran long-distance, by myself and not as part of a team. I started musical ensembles in my childhood and I credit them with wh...

I've had three conferences in two months and so it's been a bit hectic, but now that I'm back we have about five weeks left in the academic year. This is the home stretch. Everyone I talk to sounds weary, which is what they always sound like in early April, they being folk on the academic calendar. I've tried to encourage some students to try to cross the finish line at a sprint for whatever a sprint looks like to them; we'll see. I've cleared my schedule a bit for after classes end so that I can have my arthritic right knee replaced and do rehab before my next conference in August.  I have some class prep for this term yet to do but I'm up to the first week in May with it so I'm not too stressed. My Fall schedule includes classes I've taught before so getting ready for it will be a familiar process. Hoping my students can hold it together for a bit longer---