Early in my career, I spent a year as a college philosophy instructor. It seems like yesterday, so it is sobering to realize that it was actually more than 40 years ago.
It was a magical year. I had never taught before, so I lived each day on the edge of my skis, preparing for the next day’s classes. That last-minute approach would not have been sustainable, but that “rookie year” was fresh and exhilarating, almost like first love.
And the reviews were good. Early in the fall a senior administrator who later became a college president told me that student leaders had praised the class discussions in my courses, and by the end of the year my classes had some of the highest enrollments of any courses offered at the college. When the president held a mid-year open forum with students, the most contentious topic was the administration not allowing me to return for a second year. In all fairness, I was just finishing my Master’s, and while I was willing to teach and pursue a Ph.D. at the same time, both my well-being and my marriage would have been jeopardized.. It hurt at the time, but in retrospect the college did me a favor. I can imagine an alternative career history as a college professor, but college counseling was a better path for me..
Two recent news items made me think back on that year. The first was the tragic plane crash in DC. The previous air disaster on the Potomac River near National Airport occurred during my year as a college faculty member, when an Air Florida plane clipped the 14th Street bridge and crashed during a snowstorm.
The second was seeing the obituary for the author Tom Robbins, who passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 92. For those of you not aware of his work, his New York Times obituary describes his comic novels as “the perfect accompaniment to acid trips, Grateful Dead shows and weekend yoga retreats, long before those things became middle class and mainstream.” While I never indulged in any of those, I nevertheless came to appreciate his writing, perhaps confirming a statement I once made at a party in college, “I don’t need to get high. I‘m a philosophy major–my head is already messed up naturally.”
What’s the connection between Tom Robbins and my college teaching experience? The final unit of my Intro to Philosophy classes involved having my students read a work of fiction, Robbins’ first novel, Another Roadside Attraction. I can’t begin to do the plot justice, if indeed there is a plot. Robbins’ writing ranges from funny to weird to thought-provoking, with interesting reflections on art and religion. It was a perfect denouement for the course, pulling together the philosophical themes we had covered.
Each class had a similar reaction to the book. For the first 100 pages or so, they ranged from skeptical to “What is this ….?” But then they were sucked into Robbins’ tale of intrigue involving the Vatican and a roadside hot dog stand in the Pacific Northwest and his interesting perspective.
As much as I loved Another Roadside Attraction, I have read only one of Tom Robbins’ other books. When I had knee replacement surgery in 2014, my office colleague, Scott Mayer, gave me Robbins’ “un-memoir,” Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life, to read during my recovery. If only my body had recovered as quickly as I raced through the autobiography.
So why haven’t I read any of Robbins’ other books? I wonder about that myself. It probably reflects something twisted in my soul, but my rationalization is that I fear that none of his other books would live up to the pleasure of the first one. In any case, working my way through Tom Robbins’ oeuvre is on my to-do list for 2025.
Given that ECA focuses on college admission issues, what’s the connection to Tom Robbins and Another Roadside Attraction? The only college reference in the novel is that one of the main characters is a former Duke football player whose tenure was short-lived because his playing field expanded from the gridiron to the backfield coach’s wife. His journey takes him to a monastery in the Pacific Northwest which houses the Roman Catholic Church’s fictional (we think) equivalent to the CIA and then to the Catacombs underneath the Vatican during an earthquake.. Robbins’ own journey took him to the Skagit Valley of Washington state, where he lived for most of his adult life, but he grew up in the South, attending Washington and Lee University (where his college newspaper editor was none other than Tom Wolfe) and eventually graduating from the precursor to Virginia Commonwealth University.
One of the fascinating digressions in Another Roadside Attraction is a discussion about Armageddon, the final battle for dominion over what’s left of the Earth after mankind is extinct, whether by nuclear war, artificial intelligence, or nature’s revenge for our leaders who continue to pretend that climate change doesn’t exist. Robbins (or one of his characters) identifies two primary candidates to make it to Armageddon, the ultimate reality show.
In one corner we have the sexually-transmitted disease gonorrhea. Gonorrhea was the bane of public health officials, back when we had public health officials, for its efficient means of transmission among sexually-active young people ranging from soldiers to hippies. It is a hard bug to eradicate because it quickly develops resistance to every new “cure.”
In the other corner we have the cockroach, which Robbins refers to as a “repulsive little geek.” (In keeping with the ethical obligation to be truthful and transparent, I must admit that during college I was a propriator of an annual “Cockroach Festival,” featuring decorated cockroaches, a cockroach derby, and the presentation of the “Franz Kafka Memorial Award,” given to the human costumed to look like a cockroach.)
According to Another Roadside Attraction, the cockroach has been on earth longer than any other creature, and except for the fact that cockroaches are good at keeping themselves hidden in out of the way places, we might imagine that Adam and Eve may have shared the Garden of Eden with cockroaches and that Noah took two (and probably more) cockroaches on the Ark. The cockroach has minimal needs, and like gonorrhea it is adaptive and resistant to attempts to extinguish it.
Robbins’ character concludes the meditation this way.
Years after man, over some childish politico-economic understanding, has obliterated himself
and turned the green Earth into a cinder ball, then the real battle will begin. Gonorrhea and
the cockroach fighting it out for ultimate domination of the universe. Now there’s your Armageddon.
The cockroach vs. gonorrhea. Let’s get ready to rumble.
Suppose there were a college admission armageddon, with two entities competing to be the last standing. Who would they be? Your answer may depend on what you think the necessary qualities to win (if, by winning, we mean survive) are. Is success measured in strength, intelligence, or resilience (the same question asked about selective admission)?
ECA has always been more about asking questions than providing answers, and that is true in this case. At one time I would have said the College Board and Hobson’s, back when Hobson’s had acquired Naviance and other admission-related products. The CB has to be a leading candidate, but who else is in contention? U.S. News and its ranking guru, Bob Morse? Common App? The Ivies? Private equity firms like the one who purchased ACT?
What are the college admission equivalents of gonorrhea and the cockroach? And which entity will be the last one standing?