Beta Pi Blog, Vol.2006, No.66 - A THANKSGIVING TIK TALE

Beta Pi:

A THANKSGIVING TIK TALE: It was Thanksgiving, 1974. I opted not to go home for the 5-day Thanksgiving Break. My plan was to have some "alone time" to write poetry. That sounds nuts, and is nuts, but I was (and still am) very "into" poetry writing. I was taking the Poetry Writing Course offered by the Vanderbilt English Department, taught by Poet in Residence, James Seay. You may remember Mr. Seay, he was a young professor, very tall and slender, with very long dark hair. He looked very mysterious because he wore a black patch over one eye. Very bohemian, very cool.

So, the Poetry Writing course requirement was to write a new poem every week all semester long. In other words, be a poet, write poetry - about 15 or 16 poems. Well, the course was terrifying, because it was taught "round-table" style. Here’s how it looked: we all (a dozen or so of us) sat around a big conference room table, and each week, everyone had to show up with a new poem, circulate copies to Mr. Seay and classmates, recite the poem, and then listen to each classmate’s verbal "critique." Finally, Mr. Seay critiqued each poem - on the spot, in front of thewhole class. The student then received the poem back from Mr. Seay. I kid you not, it was intensely frightening. If you were lucky, he put a "check mark" next to a line or two, and if you were very lucky, he wrote a terse comment at the foot of the page. A comment heard a lot from classmates was "that sounds trite" or "that is like Rod McKuen (the popular poet who was always trite). I began hearing "trite" in my dreams. Trite means "used so commonly that the novelty is worn off; stale; syn: hackneyed, stereotyped, commonplace." A powerful word, I’ll tell you.

This method of teaching was meant to teach the young poet to "self-critique" - the idea being, write a page of lines, come back to it the next day, and critique yourself. If there is one good line, keep it, scrap the rest, and start over. This method is actually quite useful. But at the time, I was terrified, because some of the critiques were quite cutting. It felt like Chinese Water Torture.

So, it was Thanksgiving, and I’m planning to light a roaring fire at the Tik House fireplace, set the mood just so, and write. But . . . there was always the lure of our stereo, and the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skinyrd, you name it, I put it on the stereo for inspiration.

Then, about 3:00 a.m., I’m agonizing with writer’s block - I heard screeching tires coming from the direction of the SAE House (this is a true story). So, I go out on the side porch, and I’m looking down 25th Avenue (south, toward Memorial Gym) - and this drunk guy had set a Grocery Store Cart/basket in the middle of 25th Avenue! Then he was backing his car up. It was a very clunky looking Chevy, and not a late model, more like a 1960's model. When he had backed it up sufficiently, he put the car in gear, and he floored it - "burned rubber" - heading at break-neck speed toward this grocery cart. I suppose his goal was to launch the cart into space, because when he hit it, the cart actually did go airborne! The impact made a loud "crack" noise. The thing flew over and landed in the Phi Delta Theta yard, with a thud.

To me, this was intensely entertaining, and because there were only a few people to witness it, this stunt was obviously being done for the pure fun of it, much like when David Letterman features someone throwing large pumpkins off of a tall building, just to watch them splatter.

So, I finished a few poems, showed up in class the next week, and got creamed for trite poetry. One of my classmates was the very cool Marie Raggianti (yes the very same Marie Raggianti who later became very famous for blowing the whistle on Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton, the pardons and parole scandal, which eventually brought down Ray Blanton, and a movie was made - "Marie" starring Sissy Spacek). Well, Marie was a really nice girl, very lovely, very cool. Why else would they get Sissy Spacek to play her on the big screen? I had a very enjoyable, friendly date with her, we talked poetry - she told me she liked "my stuff" - but little did I know she was destined for fame.

All of those words, just to waste time, (I love wasting time) thinking about the Tik Mansion at Thanksgiving. I wish each of you a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving.
GEEZER PHOTO FEST, PART 2, FROM 2006 VU REUNION: In todays e-mail, Doug Martin sent me an additional treasure trove of pics. Great memories - Doug, you make me feel very, well, thankful to be an ATO.

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VTL,

Larry Simons

Beta Pi, ‘72