In the field

Suave, elegant, cultured; that's never been me, but thanks for implying it.

Dance Lesson

One of my anthropology professors was a sociolinguist who seemed unaware that hour-long debates on terms like indegenous vs. indigenous could be boring.

Testing, Testing, one, two, three

I lost track of how many public programs I designed, developed, and implemented. Throughout it all, it wasn't the book learning or the lectures that influenced me. It was the pervasive influence of four professors.

What You Know

My recurrent dream that week was sitting down to write my essays in the traditional little blue books, but my writing disappeared as soon as I finished.

Fieldwork

When I lived on or traveled to coastal Maine in the seventies, I was tied closely to my wife's home town by bonds created by that marriage. Back at the university, I was for studying for a career in anthropology. In Maine, I was understudying for the Cap'n on board his 34 foot ketch, being introduced as his son, and learning how to fit in.

RITUAL

That's right, the booze-filled evenings with crazy dance tapes. Dancing till four AM, even if it was sometimes with enemies, was normal. Tomorrow in the colloquium was tomorrow. Tonight we danced our unity as a tribe.