Six a.m. I smell community coffee and the Krylon fixative I sprayed on some drawings I made last week. It's an old smell, a familiar smell, the smell of a world I left long ago. My oldest friends live here. Gojira, the elephants, the whales, the dragons, MY dragons...have you ever heard of Kong? The world I was living in burned to the ground, and this was underneath. That was a dirty trick. My friends laugh at me, as friends do.
I was born into two families. The more brilliant Millsaps family, and my blood family, wrapped around the Millsaps family like a vine on an ancient tree for generations into the dusty past. Yesterday, a meeting was called of the old guard, the wizards and masters, to eulogize one of their own: Richard Freis.
As an undergraduate, I never took a class under Richard Freis. I wanted to, but I'll be honest with you, he frightened me. He wrote and read in several languages. He spoke of subjects I barely knew existed. He had a devoted following of kids who I knew were far more brilliant than I. Keeping up with him would have been like trying to race a giraffe. His one stride was thirty of mine. He was Gandalf, and I wasn't even Frodo or Samwise; I was Merry Brandybuck, the drunk hobbit who spent an entire book talking to trees. Most of all, Richard lived in a world of books, a world I loved but feared, where I used an old cardboard bookmark to hide the line below as I read, so my dyslexia wouldn't confuse the words.
When I returned to Millsaps with a little more confidence, his health had forced him into early retirement. There were courses of his that I knew I wanted to take, but it wasn't to be. His queen consort Catherine was still there, so I could at least see that world, even if I could never enter it. His presence was still at Millsaps, though. It hung in the air. It's there now. Freshmen taking the current version of the Heritage program step through the shrubs and trees he planted.
Richard's family is brilliant, strong, and resilient. The boys resemble the father, especially now they're more than grown. Three generations sat for their father's eulogy. The smallest charmed everyone. A son's eulogy for his father is a brutal but beautiful thing.
Speaking for Millsaps were two of the middle generation of wizards, my generation.
I took Milton from Greg Miller. Then, as now, he impressed the crap out of me. I wanted so very much to do well in the course, but thumbing through the book and waiting for the first day of class to start, I knew I'd never be able to keep up. My reading problems would make sure of that. Like a tortoise, I finished the syllabus, every word of it. I did the work because it was important to me, but it was finished long after the course ended, so my grade reflected that. A lot of my grades did. Ironically, a few years later, someone would invent the current generation of electronic reading devices, which I can use to read almost at the same speed as a normal person.
Gregg's adventures took him away from Millsaps, but he kept up his friendship and collaboration with Richard and Catherine. Together, they wrote and published Richard's last book, George Herbert Journal, which sits behind me on my work table. It's printed in traditional fashion with alarmingly small print, but I will finish it. Just don't ask me when. Greg couldn't attend, but his remarks were sent as a letter, probably delivered by raven or owl, and read aloud at. St. Peter's by a friend.
Next to speak was Mary Woodward, one of the more brilliant kids I spoke of who orbited Richard when I was young. Her father was my close counselor, and her brothers were my dear, dear friends. Mary's career since Millsaps fascinates me as she plows the deeper mysteries of our faith and travels freely in waters I can only imagine. She became what I would have wanted to be if my eyes were more normal. She spoke of words and ideas and volumes, almost unknowable to modern men. She spoke of concepts and precepts she and Richard navigated freely, but I struggled to keep in sight. The language of wizards saying farewell to one of their own.
Catherine has promised to publish their remarks online. I hope she does; I'd like to study them further. After the service, she gave us all copies of Richard's last book. I've never been to a funeral where I came home with gifts before.
After the service, I sat with my own master and dearest friend Brent Lefavor and the new master Sam Sparks, a reminder that the circle continues. Their presence usually means I'm in the right place.
It was a convention of wizards. George Bey, Steve Smith, the dueling Cokers, James E. Bowley, Anne McElvaine, and Bob, appropriately, had a class. What I understand is one of his last. There are some brilliant people in his department now, but it's gonna be hard to imagine a Millsaps without Bob McElvaine. I see TW Lewis everywhere I go. I saw him there too. Of the old wizards, he's the most active and, for me, the dearest. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. Please don't be offended.
Besides Richard's family and Millsaps faculty, there were two women who mean a great deal to me, who I hadn't seen in some time. If you don't know of Jeanne Luckett, you should. She's one of the most remarkable women I've ever known and one of the most influential Mississippians in this and the previous century. She created many of the memes you see today, a word I use in the actual academic sense, not the more colloquial one. Jeanne's career intersected with mine in several spots, and before that, my adolescence and childhood. She was a welcome sight.
Just when I was beginning to think I was the only mere mortal in attendance, Lauri Stamm tapped me on the shoulder. She has a married name; I'll think of it in a minute. Lauri reminded me that not only had my life and hers and her brother's intersected at several points, but her father and my father's as well. Lauri left her thumbprint on a generation of Mississippians. I hope they appreciate it. I reminded her of the Millsaps Alumni function later that night, not precisely knowing she'd be abused by Doug Mann there, but not, not knowing it. Like Doug and Brent, the sight of any Stamm lets me know I'm in the right place.
After the Alumni party, I got back to my rehabilitation facility, approaching nine o'clock. My ventures into the dark hours are getting bolder.
"Do you want your medicine, Mr. Campbell."
"yes, please."
"Where'd you go all night?"
"A party with friends. Before that, I helped bury a wizard."
"Bury a wizard? How do you do that?"
"Very well, I think. Very well. It was a beautiful service. Does the world feel different to you?"
