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Mirth & Misery
Memoirs of a Midwerstern Maverick
by
Dallas Freeman
Twas the other night that I was thinking, for no particular reason, of John Keats, Percy Shelley, William Wordsworth, and the other romantic poets who had captured my attention as a dreamy eyed college student in the fifties. My thoughts immediately beelined to the consumptive English poet Keats, who, faced with imminent death, penned these immortal words:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
............Then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
Though I have not yet seen the sinister face of that dreaded thief in the night hovering around my bedpost, the words seem so fitting to one headed into the last quarter of play and forced to contemplate how best to fill the days of retirement with some productive and fulfilling undertaking, how to harness and challenge the occasional spurts of energy, how to make a quick fortune (dreaming ), and how to channel the myriad thoughts about this life, this journey, into some organized and meaningful flow of words and ideas. Robert Frost hits the nail on the head about the dilemma in which I and other sixty year olds-----seniors, old farts, and old duffers, youngsters call us---find themselves: "The central problem of old age is what to make of a diminished thing." But I want to replace "problem" with "opportunity." It sounds less defeatist, and 'tis true the slightest alteration in semantics can indeed make a Heaven of Hell. At least it's worth a try, however daunting.
Admittedly, I'm not the retired angler who daily casts his lure into the deep to catch the trophy winning walleye. Nor am I the gung-ho golfer strategizing on how to improve drives and putts to make that hole-in-one. Neither am I one of the morning "meet at Bud's" coffee clan reliving last night's heroic interception or bases loaded homer. At times during my working years I wished I were, for I would have enjoyed a closer camaraderie and kinship with colleagues gathering Monday mornings after a weekend of football or PGA tourneys. But I'm not. Those endeavors did not and do not slake my thirst or satisfy my appetite.
Instead, my friends, family, and cohorts have repeatedly told me my passion lies elsewhere, and I, too, have felt it stirring in my bones. Poetry is my passion. 'Tis said I have a way with words, that my prose, particularly in letters, sings like music; thus, the most appropriate gift to them and theirs might ultimately be a book, a novel, an autobiography, a series of letters to the grandchildren, or whatever my muses lead me to create. Though I'm not convinced that I'm a legitimate candidate for "author," I'm eager to put pen to paper and have a go at it, mindful that many notables-Wilder, Angelou, Chopin-did not throw their hat into the ring until they had reached the dog-days, so here I am, guided by my instincts, my desire to share some observations from one man's journey, my assessment of life in general and people and places in particular, and most important, my love of language and respect for its awesome power.
While contemplating this new experiment, I discovered anew the relevance of Keats's words about the fear of demise. Not that I share with him what appears to be almost an obsession with death, but I can identify with his sense of urgency, almost a frantic fear of terminating before having his say. Perhaps he would have shared a later poet's belief, as I do, that "the world is not the same once a good poem is added to it" (Dylan Thomas). Perhaps such an expression of optimism is a bit of an overstatement, in view of how few poets rise to powerful positions, and I'm certainly no Homer, no Shakespeare, no Dostoevsky or Dickens, nor am I that wise and rebellious Tolstoy stirring up a revolution, but I am more than willing and even excited to sift through my mind's file cabinet of famous quotes, long revered classics, and personal experiences to discuss, in a series of essays---autobiographical and philosophical---issues and events worthy of chewing over, of contemplation, of digesting. I'm with Shelley, whose announcement that poets are the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" may be more credible than politicians or the public is willing to admit. I like to imagine myself in such august company as Hemingway, Faulkner, and Lawrence. But that's dreaming, of course.again.
One more thought before I proceed. In what way, a reader may ask, am I qualified to speak, to orate, to philosophize? First and foremost, language has always been my forte, my opiate. I have always loved using it, playing with it, reading it, and passing on the love of it to my family and students, numbering in the thousands. I'm an Antrobus, from Wilder's Skin of our Teeth, in my respect for its worth and value. We recall that Mr. A, or Adam, faced with almost certain extinction from the ice flows or floods, holds out little hope for humanity without the wisdom recorded in great classics and spoken by the wise Homer and Aristotle. There's no use going on without them, he tells an anxious-for-her-children-but-naïve Eve. I must agree. I've always held firm to the belief that the "strongest friends to the soul" (Emily Dickinson) are books. Thoreau blessed the written volumes of history as "the noblest work of man." No doubt about it, nations rise and fall on the choice and interpretation of words and the placement of commas and periods. Unquestionably, the voluminous body of fiction and nonfiction and the written reactions and reviews subsequent to them have helped to erase ignorance, clarify misunderstandings, break down walls, minimize differences, and sustain one and all in times of bewilderment and loss. Wordsworth's lines "nursemaid to my soul" come to mind. So it has been with me, anyway.
Suspecting that there's some truth that one's end is written in his beginning, I now start by digging up roots, those recollections about the South Dakota and Iowa soil and air which gave me birth and wings, that nurtured and determined in great part my destiny. Then, sandwiched in between the opening and the concluding chapters, devoted to boyhood revelations and the musings of an aging man, lie several sermons, autobiographical sketches, and feeble but heartfelt attempts at common sense reasoning.
Dallas Freeman
December, 2002 P.S. As an interesting footnote, I had toyed for months with several possible titles to my manuscript, jumping from 'Twas, to Full of It, to Thereby Hangs a Tale, to On the Wane, to Me Thinks It Were a Happy Life, to Out of Sync, etcetera. Then just prior to Christmas of 2001, after reading a rough draft of a few chapters, I concluded that since the content reveals a mixed bag of both pleasurable and disconcerting feelings and events, I would settle on Mirth and Misery. One week later I happened on a book entitled Tears and Laughter by Kahlil Gibran, the author of the richly musical and parabolic The Prophet. After perusing the contents of this lesser known discovery, I must conclude that what he writes about these two opposing responses to daily and lifetime events could well have been uttered by my own tongue and written by my own pen. Had he lived and writ now or I then, we may well have met in a coffee house to share similar lamentations and joyous moments. Thus, the title I have chosen speaks fittingly to anyone and everyone --- then, now, and, predictably, in the future.
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About the Author
Dallas Freeman was born and raised in De Smet, South Dakota, author Laura Ingalls Wilder's "little town on the prairie." After an eight year stint teaching high school English and speech at Canton, he, wife Carla, and their three children moved to Estherville, Iowa, where Carla became a Physician's Assistant and Dallas served as an instructor of writing and literature at Iowa Lakes Community College, where, after thirty years in the classroom, he still returns to teach summer sessions after spending winters in Vero Beach, Florida. Mr. Freeman received degrees from Huron College and the University of South Dakota, followed by post graduate studies at Universities in Wyoming, Florida, Minnesota and Iowa. Mirth and Misery provides the reader with a coming of age account of a dedicated teacher's journey through life.
