Atonement? Not Really. But a Toast to a Good Man

This carol they began that hour,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

How that life was but a flower

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:

Sweet lovers love the spring.

~ William Shakespeare,  from As You Like It

It has a tiny chip and says "England" on the bottom. I keep it in a cabinet of other memories.

It's Christmas time. Like other families we gather and eat. We visit old friends, tell stories, and play games. I apparently confess misdemeanors from long ago.

YC's fiance has a PhD in English. He specializes in Shakespeare (I'm sure there is other appropriate terminology for this, but I have not slept). So I told a little story about my college English experience.

One of my college roommates* and I took Shakespeare classes (yeah, 2 of them) together. She was an English major. I didn't have to take any additional English thanks to Dorothy Niemann (my high school senior English teacher), but I missed being in an English class and had a slew of open electives to take. I had always enjoyed Shakespeare and figured it would be fun.

We took the classes with Brother Louis Schuster. Schuster was a legend. A world traveler and talented artist, we found him fascinating and participated fully in the class. He taught Shakespeare as an actor, performing the works. Students were required to  prepare a "recitation" as one grade. MM and I chose to sing.**

Anyway, during our second class Schuster had a heart attack (we wrote a sonnet and somehow got to the hospital where we delivered it to the man - he inspired that kind of loyalty). And, because Louie couldn't finish out the semester, Dr. Andrew James (Jim) Magill took over the class.

He was decidedly a different, more traditional professor. I remember our class was in a basement in one of the oldest buildings of the school. Dr. Magill often had the ink-stained pocket of a distracted academic. An exotic (to us) transplant from Ireland (born in Belfast), he also had a wonderful Irish accent and curly auburn hair.

And I stole his tea mug. [I still have it.]

"You stole his mug?" asked YC (with that disappointed/surprised voice grown children can sometimes use on their parents - a payback sort of thing since they learned that tone from us).

Well, I stole someone's mug.

I spent a good deal of time walking around the campus when I was in college. I had no idea what I planned to do when I got out of the place. I was pretty naive. All I really knew was that I was not going to work at the Dairy Queen*** if I could find something else I could do. So I wandered - academically and physically.

Anyway, one afternoon I spied a Cornishware**** mug that had been left on a bench in the quadrangle. No one was anywhere around. The mug was abandoned (lonely one might say). So I took it back to the dorm, washed it, and used it. I didn't realize it was Dr. Magill's mug until much later when I observed this style of pottery in the stores in Ireland. It is utilitarian stuff that chips up pretty easily and thus become collectible. Because it is an "Irish" thing, who else but Magill would have owned this mug?

After the kids went home today I looked Dr. Magill up in my yearbook. You see, I stole his mug, but I forgot his name (look, I'm getting old). I knew him immediately when I saw the photo and read his name. Then I Googled him.

Dr. Magill died in 2014. I read his obituary. I knew him as a serious professor and an intellectual. His obituary disclosed he was quite an accomplished fellow both academically and personally. He was a good man. He was the kind of person you realize you wish you had known better.

So, here's to you, Jim Magill. I will toast you tonight - a little Irish whiskey in your teacup. May you be long remembered.


Here is a photo and his obituary from the San Antonio Express-News:

Dr. Andrew James Magill

March 27, 1929 - September 5, 2014
Andrew James (Jim) Magill, Ph.D., 85, of San Antonio, TX, died at home on Friday, September 5th, 2014. He was born March 27, 1929 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to parents James and Catherine Magill. Jim graduated from St. Patrick's Teacher Training College, Dublin, Ireland, and received an M.A. from the University of Windsor, Ontario, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin. He was a professor at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, where he taught English Renaissance Literature for over thirty years. Before that, Jim taught at the University of Delaware, Newark; Seattle University, Washington; Xavier Junior College, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; and the University of Windsor, Ontario. Jim will be remembered as a highly intelligent, unselfish, kind, generous, humble, and content man, who loved his family and friends, daily walks, books, and cat. His children will be forever grateful for the care he took in raising them as a single parent. He was delighted to spend time with his newborn grandson, his namesake, for the last four months of his life. He did not hesitate to speak up for the under-represented, or to defend those who he felt had been wronged. Jim was a member of the ACLU, NAACP, National Urban League, Southern Poverty Law Center, Amnesty International, Anti-Defamation League, National Jewish Congress, and Palestine Children's Relief Fund, as well as MENSA. Jim was preceded in death by his parents; sisters, Molly O'Dea, Sr. Catherine (Kitty) Magill, Sr. Peggy Magill, and Veronica Sheehan; and brother Dan Mac Guill. He is survived by his son, Andrew B. Magill; daughter, Sarah Magill McLornan and husband Paul; grandson, Andrew James McLornan; sister, Eilis Donnelly; and brothers, Bro. Art Magill and Oliver Magill.

This is the guy I remember (from the Diamondback, 1974):

Same smile.

NOTES:

*I had a number of roommates. Apparently I am difficult to live with. MM sang at my wedding and we are still in touch - had coffee last week.

**Okay, MM decided to sing and generously included me in the plan. She is a musician, linguist and more. I always feel a little untalented in her presence. We practiced the music for days, singing as we hiked across the campus of St. Mary's University in San Antonio.

We sounded just like this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eePvx9LPXYU

The versions you can find are Shakespeare's words set to music by Thomas Morley as described by Brian Robins thus -- The quintessential Shakespeare song, "It was a lover and his lass" first appeared in Thomas Morley's First Book of Ayres or Little Short Songs; to sing and play to the Lute with the Base Viol, published in 1600. The song comes from Act Five, Scene Three of As You Like It, where it is sung by the two pages, apparently not to the satisfaction of its auditor Touchstone, who afterwards expresses the hope that "God will mend their voices." It seems possible that Morley and Shakespeare may have had direct contact, although there is no direct evidence to support such a claim. Although it has since been set by a number of other composers, none have captured the same evocative feel of the song, which remains one of the most famous and popular settings of a Shakespeare song.

Yeah, you know I just sang the "Hey ding a ding a ding" portion.  I did not sing today as YC shamed me out of it.

***It was my first job. I'm sure it's been mentioned before. I think I wasn't the best waitress, but I was polite and I showed up.

****https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornishware

 

I am content to follow to its source

Every event in action or in thought;

Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

Everything we look upon is blest.

~ W. B. Yeats, from A Dialogue of Self and Soul