Regrets
Being somewhat past the age of compulsory Medicare does not necessarily make one wise, but it does give some historical perspective on one's own existence. And a sad realization of what might have been better if I knew then what I know now.
If I knew then what I know now,
I Would have drunk much less gin and smoked a better quality of cigars;
Been a much better husband and father;
Administered a much deserved Preston Brooks to one dept chairman, three deans, and two vice-presidents encountered during my “academic career”;
Told my two grandmothers how much I loved and appreciated them while they were here. But I am pretty sure they know it where they are now;
Introduced Gene Genovese and Matt Bruccoili, two maverick Italians from Brooklyn, that one day in the early 80's when I might have;
Caught on to the crime of the Vietnam War and the irredeemable vileness of the Republican Party sooner;
Not have voted Republican even the two times I did—1964 and 1980;
Spent more time in France;
Realized much sooner that, contrary to popular impression, college professors are not particularly intelligent—they are just people who stayed in school a long time and memorized fashionable slogans.
Entries(RSS)
Professor,
You are a gem, a Southern Gentleman, a simple and therfore, wise, man, a teacher who represents what a college might have been or might still becoome, if it ever returns to being a place where "old men see visions and young men dream dreams."
A belated Father's day on behalf of all your former students --including me as a distant reader and listener.
Had I known then what I know now, I would have
– learned more foreign languages
– read Dante first at 19 rather than 29
– converted to the Catholic Faith (RC) in 1969, not 1980
– administered my own Preston Brooks to two seminary rectors for maintaining a hostile work environment; a heretical and butch nun in the seminary for defamation, fraud, and tortuous interference with persons; one touchy-feeling pop psychology layman, acting as the de facto seminary “spiritual” director, for professional misconduct; a large number of sodomites in the seminary (some of whom are now in jail), all of them tolerated and maybe even supported by the seminary leadership; a vocational director for wrongful and retaliatory termination of a whistle blower; and innumerable “liturgists”, one of whom now defrocked for sexual misconduct; and other clergy and religious for detrimental treatment of clients and intentional infliction of emotional distress
– A special Preston Brooks to
some bishops for gross negligence; ignoring warnings; breach of fiduciary duty to priests, seminarians, and laymen; fraudulent inducement of funds from parishioners who thought they were paying for religious activity, but in fact funded unawares the maintaining of a clandestine homosexual culture; and assorted RICO violations
– alerted the press back in 1985 about the clerical scandal that broke in 2002
– joined the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
– bought sooner a Kahr Arms 9094 ultra-compact 9mm Luger Parabellum and an AR15 Carbine
– joined the League of the South in 1994, not 2002
– taught in an institution other than the Public Fool System
– also spent more time in France
– gone sooner to Italy than I did, and spent a lot more time there
– gone to Greece
– taken an earlier interest in architecture of Borromini, the sculpture of Bernini, the music of Tomás Luis de Victoria and Josquin dez Prez, and the painting of Simone Martini.
Call this "Conditional Subjunctive".
Instead of learning on Day 2, I wish that I had known on Day 1 of my high school teaching career
– that the students of the Lumpenproletariat and the Lumpenproletariat wannabes are in high school only to score – by which I don’t be a “earn a good grade”;
– and that when students of the serfs, peasants, proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie, and nobility with titles dating back to the 12th century (Uradel) have an essay question and don’t know the answer, they have the honesty to write nothing, and thus sadly merit a grade that resembles the shape of an egg; and that when students of the upper and grand bourgeoisie, honorary knighthoods, and nobility by letters patent (Briefadel, be they Hereditary Peers or Life) have an essay question and they don’t know the answer, they write yards and yards of prose, some of it eloquent, a bit of it witty, and all of it still nothing, and thus merit not only a grade that resembles the shape of an egg, but also a rebuke for wasting the teacher’s time.
Mr. Cundiff,
Any student of yours who writes nothing eloquently or simply nothing as nothing, must truly be a moron supreme , a moron hopeless, a moron of the highest distinction among the ever expanding number of morons in our nation's High Schools. Just reading your posts makes me want to send one of my own to your classes with the pleasure of knowing that he or she would at least hear real English even if they never acquired a knack for writing it -- about anything or even nothing ! Cheers rr
Prof. Wilson,
Reading your article makes me wish that a noble Senator, in this day and age, would administer a caning to Ted Kennedy and reduce him to a weeping pile of refuse much like Sen. Sumner.
Dr. Wilson, you're a giant. I hope we can pass on the torch.
Dr Wilson,
Why do you regret your vote for Barry Goldwater in '64 ?
I can’t speak for Clyde. To me ol’ Barry was more a libertarian than a paleo-conservative, at least to my eye. And he was also an honest man – the proverbial “good man in a bad trade”, perhaps the Gringo politico with the most old Roman virtue since Cleveland headed back to Buffalo for the last time. I for one believe that Goldwater was the man, all his denials to the contrary, who told Milhous after the smoking gun that he couldn’t support him, and to hit the road – advice wisely taken, and thus sparing the nation a prolonged impeachment. Would that some Dimmykrats had done the same after Monica forgot to dry clean her dress.
Dr. Wilson,
I have never personally met you. I have, however, read several of your books and have read your articles on Lew Rockwell's site as well as on this one. I also believe that I encountered your "character" in the professorial "character" depicted in Hunt for Confederate Gold.
Your professionalism, your integrity and your message have been and remain an inspiration to me.
My own "Hätte ich gewußt, was ich heute weiß!" reads as follows:
1). I would have taken the walk by faith with the Christ much more seriously at a younger age.
2). I would have been a much more focused and dedicated husband to my wife of thirty-six years and a much more loving and caring father to my two children who are wonderful despite my shortcomings.
3). I would have added Spanish to the modern languages which I claim to know and would have been a better student of Greek.
4). I would have listened to the stories of my father much more carefully, for they were and remain my inspiration.
5). I would have majored in forestry rather than in German, and I would have spent more time in the woods with my Catahoula Leopards, herding pigs and wild cows.
6). I would have read, although I read an average of two books a week, many more books and would have been wiser about the choices of the ones I read.
7). I would have recognized the death of the republic and the consequences thereof much earlier in life.
8). I would have spent more time in France.
9). I would have, even if I had majored in forestry, gone to the University of South Carolina and taken a score of courses from Dr. Clyde Wilson.
I thank Mr. Reavis for his kind words (#4). I have, in fact, taught those whom some would call morons – though morons, retards, and the slow are regarded as so “insensitive” and too, too pedestrian. So our educational bureaucrats now oblige the term (go grab your barf bag) “exceptional children” (pronounced as Limbaugh intones “The Reverend Jackson”). Learning Disabled is too quondam; Learning Differently shear kitsch; children with learning difficulties too circumlocutional; the challenged too euphemistic, when not too chivalric; partially hindered (-uu -u) too epideictic; and handicapped (euphemistic enough, one would think) so verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry recherché.
There is a word now so antediluvian as to be sold only on Wardour Street: the crippled. Let me assure that I’m quite willing that we give this kid a crutch: special classes with special teachers in special schools. Indeed, almost everywhere else in the world, before the university and various finishing schools there are different schools for different children for different goals. Back home, our schoolhouse Caesars and this child’s free-lunching parents peremptorily demand his “main-streaming” into the regular classroom. They mark him with his own special one-on-one teacher, whose presence is mandated by the Fed-duh-rul Gubb-ba-ment, and who like Horace’s father accompanies the child to all his classes – and all to no effect. In such a classroom, to unctuously utter over such a child’s head, “rise, take up thy bed, and walk” I find itself quite moronic when not blasphemous. And think of the harm to the child. Not for the first time – call it “Euripidean tragedy” or “sardonic farce” – that those who mean better do worse. Iphigeneia, report to the office at Aulis – hall pass in hand.
The Scholastic APP-tah-toooooode Test spares colleges profs like Clyde such wailful and lachrymose scenes. Myself never shy to miss an opportunity “to engage in educative activity”, as it’s called, here is the officialese for the other end of the axis (still got that barf bag?): “academically gifted” for smart, and “highly academically gifted” for real smart – both terms to be pronounced with likewise Limbaughesque pitch and sonority. So now the news from Lake Woebegone is that and all the children are ....
It is to be regretted that Mr. Brooks did not consummate the deed.