Vita Brevis, Ars Longa

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In Memoriam All Saints 2023 to New Years 2024      by Charles Peek

Friends and Acquaintances

Bart Bredenkamp, Acacia Senior when I was a pledge, the very image of a tall, good-looking, had-it-all-together soon-to-graduate senior. The last I saw of him was at his wedding in western Nebraska, to which I took Judy Bishop, then nurse in Dr. Leininger’s office. My friend Freddie Hummer ended up marrying Judy, I lost track of Bart, and the notice in the alumni obituaries brought so much back to mind.

Aaron Broweleit, son of a Seneca couple; I zoom almost weekly with his mother, another of that generation caught between her son’s illness and her mother’s assisted living, but possessed through it all of good sense and good humor.

Marilyn Dorf, originally from Albion where I interned under Bishop Rauscher, later of Lincoln, parishioner at Holy Trinity, and member of the Lincoln Chaparral Poets, well known among the Lincoln writers. Rex Walton let me know.

David Glover, to quote from the Kearney Hub: Dave made a lasting mark as a long-time hospital administrator for Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, NE. He went on to work as the Clinic Administrator at Family Practice Associates until his retirement in 2019. During his career, his leadership would play a pivotal role in establishing the Flight for Life program, and later the Nebraska Telehealth Network. Dave also served on the Kearney Public Schools Board for 28 years.

Robert Nefsky, 30-year veteran of the Humanities Nebraska, many years also on the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and all their good work a rich reward for his stalwart efforts.

Rich Oehlerking, Acacia fraternity brother with whom I was able to re-connect not so long ago. I came out of McCook in 1960, joined Acacia, and Rich Oehlerking was the first Democrat of my age I’d ever lived around! Our arguments about the Kennedy-Nixon race stuck with me and we laughed about it many years later when our thoughts were more closely aligned!

Pat Schneider, whom I met in 2008 and whose story was, for me, very edifying. She later wrote a memoir of her childhood near Inavale, very near Cather’s Red Cloud, and when I suggested I’d be happy to see if the bookstore at the Willa Cathe National Center would like to carry a few copies, she generously sent me a box of copies of what is a charming memoir, and indeed the bookstore has been glad to have it on their shelves.

Rae Whitney, beloved widow of the late Fr. Clyde Whitney and herself a noted hymn writer, whose setting to the Nunc Dimittis is my favorite and whose simple small group songs were so clever and singable. Oh Eve, Oh Adam!

Notables in the News

Kenneth Bloomer, sculptor; his Winged Horse and the trellis that is an abstract image of the Platte River atop the Archway Monument that “bridges” over I-80 at Kearney may have been seen by more people than most other sculptures (see photo below)

Rosalynn Carter, who married Jimmy Carter in 1946 when I was 4 years old, went on to be his best advisor and a champion of women’s rights and mental health care in her own right, as well as a presence at cabinet meetings.

Henry Kissinger. If you favor nuclear disarmament and peaceful relations with China, Henry is your man. Unless you remember how he held up the peace process to end the Vietnam War or used his prestige to divide rather than unite the country.

Bobby Knight, the irascible but indisputably talented Indiana basketball coach…hard not to like unless you are a folding chair!

Shane MacGowan, for years lead song-writer for The Pogues, then fired for his no-shows due to his addictions, of whom the Irish president, said “his songs capture within them, as Shane would put it, the measure of our dreams.” My favorite Pogue song: If I Should Fall from the Grace of God.”

Charlie Munger, the other member of the Comedy Team Buffet and Munger, Warren doing the warning of what was to come, Charlie providing the punch line, Charlie regularly donating shares of Berkshire Hathaway to his favorite charities, but not fast enough to slip out of the billionaire class.

Sandra Day O’Connor, who leaves, as did Henry Kissinger, a very mixed legacy—out of hundreds of “tie-breaker” votes on our nation’s highest court, the notorious decision that made George W. our president, and on the other hand, the defense of Roe v. Wade from the earlier assaults made on good sense. And, to my chagrin, we have to credit Reagan with her nomination to be the first woman on the court, a role she lived out with dignity.

Ryan O’Neal, Tatum’s dad, Farrah’s lover, now flown over the Paper Moon.

Jim Salestrom, last in Kearney at the Merryman Performing Art Center for the 50^th anniversary and final tour of Timberline with his brother, son, and a couple of gifted replacements for some of the original band members, and who made Kearney proud whether with gigs at KSC’s Campus Lutheran or on stage with John Denver or Dolly Parton. Jim’s last gig was covered by local (Gibbon) Bill Ganz. Jim’s brother Chuck and his wife Kristi are long-time friends.

Tommy Smothers, who, with his brother, made beautiful music and created pointed and clever comedy routines that helped a lot of us move through a sometimes beautiful, sometimes tumultuous time. Perhaps your PBS station uses their Legends of Folk Music video for its annual fundraising…their madrigal on that video is a prime example of their wit and talent and the joy it brought a generation.

Postscript

Over much of the United States, and no less true of the University of Nebraska at Kearney, this school year and going back some years, supposedly under what is euphemistically dubbed “the business model,” weak or ignorant administrations and clubs of perks for the well-off called Boards of Regents, have been whacking away at the heart (root?) of education—the Humanities (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, and any field that help us understand what forms and informs our humanity). Using metrics, i.e, only what can be concretely measured, and the military surgical strike of what are called “vertical” cuts, and sadly probably thinking they are saving the very education they are killing off, they have narrowed the range of possibilities for their graduates and demeaned the role of critical intelligence, creative imagination, and whatever wisdom challenges our worse natures.

For some years, James Silver, Hodding Carter, and William Faulkner drove around rural northern Mississippi, trying to think of ways to help the Negro that didn’t actually end up further endangering them. Out of that came Silver’s magnificent book, Mississippi: the Closed Society. Discussing how, in a closed society, education is expendable, and pointing the finger at those who ran Ole Miss, Silver quipped, “After all, Geneal Ulysses S. Grant has been the only man in history to make a positive decision not to destroy the University” (110).

Like many places, Nebraska will one day rue the day it turned over the institutions for which generations sacrificed to benighted bean-counters.

Next blog; January…something new for the New Year.

Kearney, Nebraska                                                                             December 30, 2023