Marquette University - Hilltop Yearbook (Milwaukee, WI)

Page 26 text:

 In Vite Vita; In Vino Veritas” You've heard of circus Jesuits, clown Jesuits, actor Jesuits? You have? Fred Brenk is a gypsy Jesuit, in thought and action. From a thorough knowledge of his hometown Milwaukee to the Greek isles, he traipses his path in the timeless gypsy step. Father Brenk teaches classics at Marquette by day and ancient wisdom in the local taverna by night. He is a firm believer in the student's theory that since it is not money and size but people who make the university, one learns as much outside the classroom as in it. Father Brenk sadly realizes that most students facing the classics are like kids in a museum; they know it's important, but they can't fathom it. so they go nutty.” He feels a compulsion to draw the picture of the way it was and not the gilded version of the way we wanted it to be. Father Brenk sees the Greeks as a fantastically creative civilization. Their writings were sordid, pronographic, intellectual. scientific and poetic. Coming back to Milwaukee in 1970 after being In Europe was like going back to Germany after the war for him. He was certain that modern pragmatic hard-nosed people have destroyed the design similar to classic architecture bequeathed us by the neneteenth century. Square streets.” he intones, square buildings for square people.” So Father Brenk keeps up his gypsy waltz trying to merge the past with the present, however romantically, for the people of the future. Euripides says that when Atlantis, the Amazon, was upsetting everyone with her unorthodox 'liberated' ways, that she said, ‘Well, if I do get married, and heaven forbid I do. and if I have children, my children will be better than children of women who sit in the house all day.' ” 2 2

Page 25 text:

Once upon a time you might find yourself somewhere between the Memorial Library and Lalumiere Hall, when suddenly, from out of nowhere. you will be smote down by a rapidly moving wheeled object. Don't be alarmed. It will only be Prof. Felix Wassermann on his way to the library to tend to the window exhibits which are his. The material used in them comes from the vast collection of such pictures which seemingly generate themselves in his office on the fourth floor of Lalumiere Hall. When you visit Dr. Wassermann in his office (he loves visitors), be prepared to share a chair with some pictures, or to visit from out in the hall. Here at Marquette. Wassermann usually teaches a course on some great age of Western Civilization. With his emphasis on the visual approach. he occasionally borrows some piece of equipment or another. Then one will spend hours trying to persuade a slide projector to regurgitate a slide which Dr. Wassermann persuaded it to gobble up. Anyway, he would never leave without saying thank you. and then threatening to come and see you again tomorrow, before shuffling off to attend to some present ambition which most other people nearing eighty would get tired just thinking about. But then this is Dr. Wassermann. and he will tell you that Hell is where there is no work and where all you do is sleep and drink Coca-Cola! 2 1

Page 27 text:

DO NOT FEED THE TEACHERS 2 3