University of New England

The following tribute to Jack Downs affords a smidgen of mixed tidbits reflecting the man as I knew him: mischief-maker of the positive.  Fortunately for me, I had the opportunity to experience Jack as mischief-maker inside the classroom, and too, outside the classroom: I lived at Jack’s home on South Street in Kennebunkport when I was a Saint Francis College student in the turbulent 1960s.  Jack graciously baited the student’s mind informationally and insightfully in an effort to contribute to the development of the student as an objective critical thinker, but . . . never at the expense of voiding humor: personal or otherwise, as a complementary natural vehicle for the same end.
- Michael Hood

Jack Downs,
Teacher and Friend
By Michael Hood

Up now comes the ghost of you Jack,
only now in the absence of your presence
does the eternal now of then allow me
to word you the way I knew you,
and this through the ember glow
from a September fireplace morning
afforded me before daylight takes over.

The draw, my pull toward you Jack,  
was never in your academic credentials, 
though you certainly were strong there,
nor was it in any particular subject matter
within the given subject and period of history
you chose to afford to impart on minds.
As you know, my friend, for me
in the latter matter, all still remains the same.
History is the actions of man in time;
literature is man’s reactions to the actions,
and war . . . war is an unfortunate inevitability
rooted in free-chosen self-imprisonment
of minds steeped in self-directed agendas
disguised in the name of others and otherness.

This is not to say that your choice of matter
and presenters of the given matter were weak:
Beard, Commanger, Steele, Chitwood,
Schlesinger Jr., Hofstadter . . . stood out,
nor were your countless other rich choices
by any means short of addressing student needs:
Mathew Josephson’s  The Robber Barons,
(ahhhh, didn’t we love the railroads, Jack),
Wilbur Cash’s Mind of the South (interesting),
even the industrial world and environmentalism
via Rachel Carson’s  Silent Spring (good stuff).
And then there was Kim Il-sung, Panmunjom,
Vietnam and adjacent southeast areas:
ohhhh, later, Jack: my brother, cousins, uncle,
and myself at Panmunjom: the Pueblo Crisis.

And civil rights talks at the winding staircase
that separated you from me when I lived
at your house with you, Evi, and the children:
my thoughts; you were always probing, Jack.
Much was covered on those winding steps;
the step distance between floors lessened
the more we got into it, the sensitivities,
and too about the symposium itself :
Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael,
and: I can’t remember the entire entourage now,
maybe Roy Wilkins and/or Bayard Rustin
(that eerie evangelical wheeling voice, Jack).
And Dorothy Day was there too, and Al Poulin
and Ruth Roseneau, and figuratively: ad
infinitum, or so it seemed with all the faculty
seated there, listening, riveted by it all,
and student awareness of faculty presence.  
The fever was on, the fever was on: the fever.

But I was about to say, at least I think I was,
I’d say for me: some of my reading of you
had to do with the crispiness in you, Jack:
not here meaning a mood-temperment thing,
though you, like all, could get your gander up.
Your crispiness then, that will do for now.
I’d say you were somewhere between
scholar and current events maverick,
and mischief-maker for the mind:
you got student juices flowing, Jack:
had them thinking, considering, posturing.
You stirred the porridge, lit the candle,
were aggressive in directing your energy
to your forte within the liberal arts.
And too, you were a man who liked
to vary the delivery of information
via humor, not always devoid of bite,
even sprinkled a little drama now and then,
maybe even a dash of embellishment,
like a storyteller is apt to do in his doings. 
And too, I’m real comfortable reading you
as one who avidly pursued his curiosities.

But there was also another you , Jack,
one I have churched deep inside me
for 45 years and which will go down with me
when, as the book title reads:
I [have] Heard The Owl Call My Name.
Those days of mine on South Street:
at the time when summer crowds were gone
and there was the pure spirit of the off-season
in your Our Town town: Kennebunkport,
where as I said, I briefly lived with you and Evi.
You said I’d be happy with the Chat ’N Chew,
happy in taking in some morning meals there.
And I was happy, ate many meals there:
the breakfast sounds of food order calls,
utensils, plate scrapes, fresh coffee smells,
subdued conversations, cigarette smoke,
and fishermen dreaming before starting the day.
And you suggested, and I took your suggestion:
now and then, had myself a special priced meal
at the Kennebunk Inn: my money was tight then:
even a breakfast special was the Cat’s Meow.
And once in a while Jack: I remember, I’d get
your invitation, and of course, from Evi too,
to a homemade meal: ohhhh, that bread.
I remember, Jack. Christ, I remember. 

And always with you: introductions.
I was always meeting someone.
I remember Andy the carpenter,
a colorful character if I recall right.
And then there was the Reverend Howse
and your getting me into ecumenical doings:
my setting up and putting away chairs
at activities held at the Congregational Church.
And I met your mother once, and maybe
a guy named Jerry, a Foreign Service guy?
And of course there was old Miss Knot
who had a big old white house nearby:
raked her leaves and did trim-work painting
and washed some of her windows:
all ended when I made the mindless mistake
of pouring a dash of leftover cement in her sink.
Your reaction, my friend: “My God, Mr. Hood!
Why did you ever pour cement into her sink!”
Your second look was maybe one of wonder:
had I dipped into your homemade beer.
 
Yes, seeing you another way.
Winter mornings and cranking it up:
you always seemed cold; I’d swear you wore
long johns and Army boots and a Cossack hat.
I’d seen you barefoot too; you told me
the linoleum kitchen floor wasn’t cold,
but I’d cross-my-fingers swear you came
down those winding steps at night
and turned down the heat, Jack.
Evi said I had a tendency to exaggerate,
but I’d bet my life on your tiptoeing down
and turning down the heat that wonderful
winter of 1963-1964 when I sensed family.
If I’d been an exaggerator, like Evi said,
I’d have got it out that you wore a nightshirt,
something out of a Charles Dickens story.

And your Volkswagon in the winter:
my hitching rides and our small talk
and window condensation while en route
to the college via some back road route.
And your batches of homemade beer:
had me more than a couple of long nights
in that room to the front right
where the old fireplace did or didn’t work:
sang “Galway Bay” and “Wild Colonial Boy.”
You’d mildly admonish me afterwards
but more than quietly enjoyed it all,
on occasions good-naturedly reminding me,
“My God, Mr. Hood! What a voice. And
to think all along you’ve been a romantic.”

And in you too, Jack, the mischief-maker:
“Don‘t forget to exaggerate, Mickey.
Kids love it when you read to them
and exaggerate: you’ll do fine.”
So when I thought Evi and you were gone,
I got into it: the huff and puff story stuff.
I huffed and I puffed and puffed and huffed
the bejesus out of the Big Bad Wolf.
Andreae loved it, you were right . . . but . . .
well Jack, you did betray me, that very night
and the next day too: popped into the room
right after I finished the Big Bad Wolf story
and burst out: “My God, Mr. Hood!
I never heard that story told better,”
and then the next day told a history class
about what a great babysitter I was
and even gave a snippet imitation
of my huffing and puffing effort.

Jack, teacher and friend,
here now churched inside me:
a warm image during sensitive times
for me maturing slowly, during times
moving fast, damn fast, those times:
Berlin, Cuba, the Beatles, Vietnam,
and campus life at the “The Hang”
where I worked the counter and grill
and received on my face a wad of spittle
for being a “nigger-lover” in the Canticle
when Poulin was moderator and a rising star.
Thanks, Jack: for being a part of my life,
for being a warm image inside me.  
When I kayak Georgia’s Altamaha River
I’ll ghost in on you: we’ll meet again,
or if not then, then on a motor scooter run
from Fort Kent, Maine to the Florida Keys.

Copyright 2006 by Michael Hood