Where Did The Springtime Go?

I’d forgotten that in Colorado, you may be lolling in the sun one day and freezing the next. Fortunately, the weather isn’t so bad that my stay has been much compromised.

(Okay.. it's Friday now and the winds are running from 30 to 50 mph, gusting the radio says to EIGHTY, big limbs are down in the streets of Greeley and working outside, as I wanted to do today, became just too much of a challenge.)

I was asked for a word definition the other day from a reader of these musings.

The term, “snardly” comes from an old family term that goes back to the game of Hearts. Of course, we know that the object of the game is to either run the deck and get all the hearts and the queen of spades to win.. or to avoid getting any hearts and never the queen. The family I played Hearts with loved to sit for hours ‘snarding’ each other by passing all the hearts or collecting them and the queen. We changed the name of the game to ‘Snard’ to reflect the person who was the one who ‘snarded’ the other players by laying off all the bad cards on them.

Thus.. a snardly act is the act of doing something not exactly helpful.

It’s a gentle term. There are those in this current course of events who are beyond snardly. You can make up your own four letter term for them. I have.

As an artist it’s interesting to feel the chilly breath of politics. DeWitt’s defaming me because he intuits that I may not give actual cash to UNC still riles me a little. When I spoke with him on the phone, he apologized, as though that would fix the insult. Interestingly, it was almost in the same breath that he started to pitch “Planned Giving” to me! Of course, in fairness, that’s his job. You can’t put conceptual art that garners front page news in the bank. The idea that one imaginative kid who may bring fame to our alma mater (DeWitt says he’s a ’77 grad) because he saw that article may be a long shot, but, all it takes for an institution of so called higher learning to garner some attention is turning out a few successes.

For instance, the College of Theatre Arts, according to Tom McNally, has almost a dozen grads playing on Broadway (that’s in New York City!) The bestowing of Honored Alum on Gregg Germann last year is testimony that some folks wind up in Hollywood. I wonder if DeWitt did a search for me on the IMDB to check my Hollywood credits?

Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing… what a way to live.

That DeWitt promised to call me back after bailing out on our phone conversation and refusing to respond to my emails shows what respect means to Alumni Affairs these days. I’m truly disappointed that the respect that I was shown over the years has vanished with an arrogant wave. Of course, I still love my alma mater. But, when someone basically says ‘get lost’.. or as he said in his email to all those other folks, that his decision was to say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to my desire to honor Totem Teddy with a harmless temporary art installation speaks volumes. If his dismissal is the true policy of UNC, then, the students or faculty or others who care about the essence of the institution might consider saying something to President Kay Norton (who remains silent on this issue) or to others who may want to examine the type of people upon whom they bestow the title of Vice President.

I recognize that politics plays a part in almost every thing we do. Playing politics is something that people in suits are good at. Perhaps I should have learned that game, compromised my ethics and maybe garnered some local support. The problem with compromising one's ethics is the personal fall out. Some folks will say or do anything to get their way. Guess I just can't do that.

Are folks in Greeley or at UNC are so provincial that they just can’t get contemporary art? If so, it means, to me, that limited thinking begets limited thinkers, begets a tunnel vision that has no place in a true university.

If students see that some department heads are only in the game for personal aggrandizement and the administration is more interested in the business of education as opposed to education itself, the old aphorism of the tail wagging the dog may need moving in. Perhaps the faculty and students should be the tail doing some wagging?

All I’ve ever wanted to do is keep the memory of the totem alive for the Bears.. especially the Bears who don’t even know where their mascot came from.

Tradition is the seasoning.. maybe the mordant of college life and I truly believe, ought to be kept alive. As I’ve said.. maybe in the 21st Century, it’s ‘just the facts, ma’am’ and then off into the world. Wouldn’t that be sad?…