LY #113 Conventional Behavior: Old Friends

I was looking over the history of the convention at the WSCA website to try and figure out how many I've attended.  The first thing I noticed is that my memory of going to a snowy Denver WSCA was incorrect -- it was a snowy SCA (Speech Communication Association convention) in Denver in fall of 1985.  Then I figured out that I've been to over 16 WSCA conventions.  Why do I go?  Well, a convention paper looks good on one's vita.  Hearing about new developments in teaching or hearing interesting research in one's field can regenerate interest in subjects grow stale.  And then there are the people.

One of the great pleasures of attending the Western States Communication Association conventions over the past 29 years has been catching up with old professors and the folks with whom I attended the graduate program at the University of Utah.   But time and fortune happeneth to them all.  This year I saw very few.  My profs are mostly retired, too old to travel, or deceased.  Many of the Utah folks with whom I went to school are now scattered around the country and not settled in the West.  But I did have brief interactions with a few old faces.

Of my old profs, I saw only Dr. Robert Avery, phasing toward retirement at age 72.  Bob is still tall, slender, handsome, and given to obsessive boosterism.  He met folks at the door of last night's Utah reception, wearing the customary bright red Ute sweater and handing out the bright red on white U badge stickers.  I chatted with Bob a bit, finding him still cheery.  As long as I can remember Bob's been the man in charge of the party.  Back in the day, he would sneak booze or champagne into whatever hotel was hosting the conference for the Utah party.  But now, perhaps having been caught once too often (or perhaps because the University coughed up some funds) there's now a no-host bar (though Utah Alumni get tickets with their invitations).


Way back in MY day, graduate students who attended the convention were rounded up to act as servers at the party and actually poured champagne for everyone in attendance.  I enjoyed this activity.  First, because it made for a nice change from listening to panel presentations and doing coursework.  Second, because it underlined our role as servants to the department.  We were the ones who did the scutwork for major professors and who taught the "weed" classes.  We were the cheap labor who taught the highly popular basic courses that supported the graduate school.  Acting as a servant, towel over my arm, enacted the "truth" of our relationship to the department in ways that turning in papers never could.

I spoke VERY briefly (2 minutes) to Dr. Jeanine Congalton, of Cal State Fullerton.  Jeanine was at Utah when I arrived and was one of those deeply dedicated forensic types, focused on speech and debate.  I also spoke with Dr. Michael Salvador of Cal State San Bernardino.  I knew almost from the first year we were at Utah that Mike would become a department chair.  He had the proper mix of force and subservience that makes for a good faculstrator.  Mike was a department chair at Washington State University for many years and has recently been hired in as a chair further south in the land of his youth.

My only vital link to my graduate student days is Dr. Professor Alexis Olds of the University of La Verne and Cuesta College.  In the mid 90s Alexis encouraged me to be active in the Media Studies division of WSCA and convinced me that I wanted to be Vice-Chair and program planner one year, an experience that taught me a lot about organizational structures and event planning.  (Mostly what it taught me about event planning is that I hate event planning.)

A story that Alexis told me that she has told her children about me is about the night that she drove me home from a giant celebratory party and I was so drunk I upchucked on the outside of the car.  She claims now that it froze on the outside of her car and that it was horrible all winter.  The last time I heard the story she told me my cathartic upheaval was so corrosive it took the paint off her car.  I remember the upheaval but I never actually got word from her about any damage at a time when I could have done something about it.  I don't remember the actual celebratory purpose of this party.  I do remember that I got sick from drinking ouzo straight out of the bottle.

A person I was worried about seeing, of course, was Professor Fox.  I'd actually done some work with my therapist around the possibility of such an event.  But he was absent and so that problem didn't need to be managed.

Tomorrow night I'll offer a few notes about my favorites among this year's presentations.