[lit-ideas] Re: My Friend Stephen Straker
- From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 10:00:20 -0700
I met Steve Straker in 1977, when I was a wet-nosed undergraduate at
UBC. Steve was one of six professors from various departments who
taught a kind of Great Books program called Arts I. Whereas most
undergrad education at UBC, as at most large universities, consisted in
attending lectures in cavernous amphitheaters along with 300 other
students, Arts I was divided into small seminars and tutorials. Once a
week, all 100 or so students would gather to hear a lecture by one of
the six professors. That was the best part, because the other five
profs would tend to argue with the speaker, which in turn inspired the
students to question some of their assertions. For the first time, I
glimpsed the idea that university life did not have to be just the
slavish regurgitation of a professor's Golden Words : profs were human
too (who knew?) ; they could be wrong, and one could even argue with
them. Heck, one could even have one helluva good time arguing with
them, for hours on end.
Part of the Arts I program was a weekend getaway to a camp in the
woods, where we slept (co-ed : what a revelation for an 18 year-old
!!!!) in bunk-beds ; I remember drinking from from a gallon jug of
Villa Sherry as we performed an impromptu reading of the first book of
Plato's Republic until all hours of the morning.
On another evening, I took to wandering about the camp, and I followed
the glimmer of lights and the sounds of music until I came upon a
clearing where a bunch of kids had set up a campfire. Presiding over
the campfire was Steve Straker, cigarette dangling cooly from his lip,
looking like Woody Guthrie as he strummed a guitar and sang Bob Dylan's
Corinna, Corinna. Wow, I thought : this is the coolest prof I have ever
seen. For the rest of the year I became friends with Steve : always
cool, always eager to share a joke, always passionate about the ideas
he discussed.
Here's to Steve Straker, one hell of a cool guy.
Mike.
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