[APPLAUSE]
Jordan Shelby.
Boy, I'm telling you it's terrible to come
at the end of the line.
[LAUGHTER]
OK, it's 1967.
I'm sitting in Centennial Hall before a music concert.
I don't know who is playing.
The lights are up.
The row ahead of me, this far away from me, is this guy.
I'm thinking, late 20s.
And a woman next to him.
And they're having this animated conversation.
A warm conversation, that it wasn't
kind of an ooey gooey first blush of love kind
of conversation, but a real conversation.
And I saw him in profile speaking to this woman.
And the thing that I was struck by
was he's really interested in what she had to say.
And then I started taking in his face--
the profile of his face.
I thought, boy, this is a strong face--
strong features.
And there were a few acne scars.
And then I noticed, yeah.
Well, he was handsome but not American standard leading man
handsome.
[LAUGHTER]
And a longer hair than most people around us
and maybe even an earring.
I'm not sure about that one.
[LAUGHTER]
But it scared me, this guy's presence
[LAUGHTER]
I tell you.
And I thought, well, is he a real hippie?
[LAUGHTER]
Maybe he's a neo-Beatnik or some flavor of Bohemian
I don't know about.
My first ambition was to be a poet and secretly a bohemian
if I could fit it in.
[LAUGHTER]
And I swear to you this image stuck with me for a few days
afterwards.
And toward the end of the next week, my friend,
Florrie, another poet friend who had met in Dick Shelton's
beginning poetry writing class, who hadn't adopted the pen name
Ai yet--
said, "Hey, the fiction writer John Chandler
is having a dinner and had invited me and said
bring a friend.
You want to come?"
I said, "Sure."
She said, "Other writers will be there."
I said, "Great."
So walk into the house.
John Chandler, the fiction writer, and his wife
introduced me.
And I look around the room and sitting on the couch is--
holy crap, that guy.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm dead.
How can I talk to him?
And they place us at the dinner table.
I'm right across the table from him.
And we have this great, passionate conversation
about poetry.
Who do you like?
Who do you hate?
And I suppose a bit about process.
But I thought the greatest thing about-- well, not
the greatest thing.
But one of the greatest things, for me,
was that he took me seriously, as a poet.
And he's not seen a stitch of anything I'd written.
Well, I did a independent study with Steve the next semester.
And we were bonded.
I met with him weekly, and he looked at poems.
We talked about writing, and he suggested further reading.
It was great.
I didn't know it, but--
although I had an inkling--
I was on the steep slide into psychological health.
And I had to drop out of school, and it lasted for some years.
And when I was able to come back to school
Steve just embraced me.
I would not have been able to finish my BA without him,
and he was a supporter in graduate school, as well.
And as this happened, it's one day, we were talking.
And I said, you know when I first saw you,
you scared the hell out of me.
And he said, "What?"
[LAUGHTER]
And I described what I described to you.
And he said, "That's funny," he said,
"because when we were at that dinner you scared me."
[LAUGHTER]
I said, "What?"
He said, "Yeah, you were asking me these probing questions.
And you had a coat and tie on."
[LAUGHTER]
I don't remember this, of course.
And he said that it was like you wanted Socratic dialogue.
And I thought, what am I going to do with this guy?
[LAUGHTER]
I liked you, but that was overwhelming.
[LAUGHTER]
That's great.
One of the most--
I thought it wouldn't be able to finish-- fill up 5 minutes.
And then I started practicing this a little bit.
And I thought I was up to 10 minutes in no time.
But one of the most striking things that Steve ever
said to me was just within probably the last year
and a half.
We had lunch.
We were back in the English department
and walking down the main hallway.
And I don't know what we were talking about.
At some point he threw up his hands,
and he said, "I'm telling you, how
can life be both so great and horrible at the same time?"
And that would be a throwaway line for some people.
But it's something that I've had difficulty all
my life being able to voice.
And Steve in his blunt way just said it.
And I know we really want to get together and celebrate
Steve and say all the positive things about him.
And we could go on for days.
But I think, for me, it's really crucial to recognize that Steve
realized that both great and horrible things happen to us,
despite our will.
And I think that, and I believe that enabled
him to make him a compassionate friend, a champion
friend, and empathetic teacher.
And the thing that I think I will miss most about Steve
is getting together once in a while,
trading notes about those great and horrible things.
That's something he did so well.
Bravo.
[APPLAUSE]