Creighton University - Bluejay Yearbook (Omaha, NE)

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TEACHERS fl- I y i i I 134

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if the student ' s remark to the television inter- viewer was entirely foolish. Why riot? Because it ' s spring! I am quite sure that the fellow had no intention of speaking metaphorically, but we might not err should we play a bit with his remark as metaphor. Ultimately, might not the behavior of all of us be based on our sense of the meaning of spring? The late Nebraska novelist Bess Streeter Aldrich called one of her books Spring Came On Forever , a sentence she took from a poem by Vachel Lindsay. The idea behind those words is beautiful, but it appeals to some more than to others. Spring can mean vitality, fresh energy and growth. It can mean signs of strength without spoilage, of delicacy without weakness. It can also mean immaturity, fickleness and false hopes. I submit that students--and other groups in society as well-may be judged by their response to the idea that any spring, in this life, might truly come on forever. There are basically three possible responses. The first is that of the unimaginative realist: such a thing is impossible. Spring is soon followed by summer, and in the course of nature, autumn will bring both fulfillment and decline, and winter no rest but the rest of death. A second response is the opposite. For the idealist it can always be spring, always the time for planting, for the loosening and bursting of bonds, for flaunting the flags of May. Rest is unnecessary movement and budding and flowering are constant, irresistable. And there is a third response. When it is spr- ing, some give themselves to it wholly, joyful- ly, doing some of the foolish, playful things that the old and sage must censor as vulgar and brash, or dreaming and beginning things that the tired and timid dismiss as wild and imprac- tical, sentimental. And all the while these third respondents prepare for more somber seasons. They know that eventually spring will be a season of the past, but there can yet be, after May, more months for vigor and valor, for the accompHshing of goals. My metaphors and abstractions are meant to relate to the specifics of two decades of American campus life. Within eight months of that silly riot on the Ivy League campus, the assassination of our nation ' s President began years of agony for some, questioning for all. Soon, to be a student was to perceive a horrible barrier between lovers and haters of spring. In music and dress, in theater and politics, in religion and family life and work, a generation attempted to practice an ethic of eternal spr- ing. Rod McKuen and Kahlil Gibran and a thousand different posters in head shops pro- mised that we would know love and truth merely by listening to the warm. Others, sharp- ly conscious that the dreams of many had been too long deferred, cried out that the foulness of the communal air could be banished only by an endless April tornado of violent revolution. Weeds grow fast in the spring, often appear- ing where they are least expected. Rudeness erupted within the sanctuaries of the genteel. Hatred possessed the favored, and ignorance and oversimplification were counted as the prized blossoms of an exotic bush. I think that Creighton students never gave themselves so wholly to a season of maudlin warmth or tornadic destruction as did students in other parts of the United States. Yes, we had the campus politician whose banner read, The Jesuits are behind me-way behind me. But even a dozen years, 15 years ago, Creighton students more than others looked forward to something after spring. Perhaps it is the closeness of so many of us to the land, to the natural cycle and its dictation of the order of necessary work in the midwestern agricuhural heartland, that provides the sense of how life will be, must be. As the farmer understands and practices pa- tience, experiences disappointments and even disaster and begins again, as his family knows the importance of working together, of shar- ing, so Creighton students have been idealistic and practical at the same time. Relating has been more than a game en- couraged by pop psychologists. Love of sibl- ings and parents is not sentimental; it is fun- damental. Often shockingly ignorant of historical dates or geographic locations (this despite charter flights to Europe and buses to every ski slope in the Rockies), Creighton students have consistently expressed the im- portance of ties - to grandparents, to friends, to small towns, to urban ethnic neighborhoods, to people around them who hurt and hunger. In spring and summer, Creighton students have helped and healed, some cautiously, some daringly, but always with a confidence in the efficacy of caring. On our campus, perhaps, we have been outrageous only in a conventional way. We too often purchase rather than create expressions of our common feelings. If originality is ra- tioned, if the explorers among us are few, we are still rich in energy, frankness, generosity. Perhaps the subjects of our intellectual con- cerns come seldom from surprising sources, but when we are concerned, we do our own thinking. The unusual puzzles us, but we have not grown lethargic, unwilling and unable to act. We outgrow Hamlet. The Creighton student, in other words (and how risky it is to suggest that there exists such a beast, so varied are the national, regional, economic and cultural backgrounds, so wide the range of professional goals) is wise enough to know that spring is not the only season, nor to wish that it were. Spring is for dreaming and rioting not because the dream or the riot is good in itself, nor because life is meant for those things, but because our summers, autumns and winters will come to us with ques- tions: have we something to build upon and cherish from our early dreams, have we tested and refined our emotions so that we can act forever with passion, civility and joy? I think that the Creighton student will be able to answer yes to those questions in the later seasons of life. Spring will not come on forever, but what is good in it need never die. Dr. Thomas A. Kuhlman Associate Professor of English 133

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Five special teachers, clockwise from below: Dr. Bruce Mattson, Dr. Dan Murphy, Jerry Homing, Dr. Thomas Mans, Dr. Russ Hom- ing. 135