Tracking Down an Idol

Image Credit: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/03/spitballing-indy.html

This is sloppy, but so is life.

In this week's #slowchated, @EricDemore is asking about rebellion. Tuesday's question was along the lines of: What rebel most impacted you? I saw great answers. Galileo. Henry Rollins. John Dewey. Beakman from Beakman's World. Howard Zinn. Beatnik Writers.

My mind went to an author. He had the single greatest impact on my education and my subsequent growth into adulthood. Former Hobart and William Smith associate professor and author Paul Cody. He has written 5 books that you can find here. (Full disclosure: I've never read any of these in their entirety, but I ordered his memoir, released last year.)

Paul is/was a great man. He read/reads to us. It seemed a silly thing at the time - a professor reading from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried to a class full of English majors. His voice is/was incredible. Soothing and engaging. His cadence makes/made you hang on every word. 

When I was a junior, Paul shared a column he had published about his time as an undergrad. It was laced with drug use and alcohol abuse. It spoke of regret, but it impressed upon the reader the understanding that the time was not lost. It was a piece that spoke to me on a lot of levels. There were elements with which I couldn't relate - after all, here was this great man upon whom I depended to help me grow as a writer and thinker talking about his own dependence on chemicals to keep moving.

Fast forward to now. Asked for a Cody text, I began a search for that column. I found talks he gave at Colgate, dead links within Ithaca's writing department, and an Amazon link to books he's written. His voice still has the same amazing qualities. I was saddened to know that he was no longer at Ithaca. I was happy to see that he's still writing. No email, no social media that I can see, I am reaching out to his publisher for contact information. 

But still I learned more than I expected. When I looked at the Amazon preview of his latest work, a memoir called The Last Next Time, I was thrown when I realized he was writing about his wife driving him to rehab. I wasn't sad. I was thrown. I didn't expect it. He struck me as a man who had a handle on all of it. Then the writing gave setting clues. This was right after he left Hobart and William Smith. He left the year after I did. He was experiencing addiction issues while teaching us. 

It's a strange feeling, recognizing that one of my heroes, a man who inspired me to grow up, to be strong, to take measured risks was fighting demons the whole time he was making me stronger. I don't know how I feel. I know that I feel different.

3 days after my 21st birthday, I walked into his class (because I was in no condition to walk into his class 1 day after my 21st birthday), and he called me out.

"Ross," his voice boomed across the tiered hall. "Where were you on Monday?"

"Paul," I began. "Sunday was my 21st." I would never have considered lying to him.

"That's not much of an excuse."

"Were you in class after you turned 21?"

Pause.

"Touche."

We think we know the people in our lives.  Here's what I know. He's a good man, and he made me a better person, and I wish I knew him better.