I managed to post this even though Morris has resigned. Don't ask me how I managed it; mum's the word.
A short essay he wrote this fall for his 60th Yale reunion book next year prompted me to tell him that he could teach a class on "How to Write Your Life Story in 500 Words or Less." He seemed to lighten at the suggestion:
I am not sure I could teach such a class. But maybe I have some texts I could consult: my early essay on technical writing about invoking the muse and numerous postings on Moristotle & Co. over the years about trusting our muse. And rewrite, rewrite, rewrite! In private conferences on students' drafts, I'd encourage them to delight in the process of whittling down a piece of writing that is over the word limit. In fact, I think I would retitle the class "How to Write Your Life Story in Exactly 500 Words." There's even a second, better reason for that, because I can imagine some students being hard-pressed to come up with as many as 500 words. I would like to challenge these students to think of things they wanted to do in life, but haven't acted on, and to ask themselves whether they might act on some of them now. I guess there should be an age requirement for admission to the course—50, perhaps?
Here's the 500-word life story Morris submitted for his 60th reunion book:
These essays don't get any easier to write. Memories whirl about, clamoring for attention. Something I remember or intend one moment may be gone the next.
Who was the boy in that first Yale photo? I barely recognize him.
A year after Yale, I traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to try divinity studies. They didn't take then, and they never would.
I fled Edinburgh and then, by way of London and Paris, returned home, back to my parents in Tulare, California, to a teaching position in the high school that prepared me for Yale.
I chanced to meet at the town's new high school the amazing woman who is still my "current spouse." We were introduced by a teacher I dropped in to greet, who had become a dean of students there. Carolyn Warren just happened to be visiting from college that day, too, and the dean seemed delighted to be the one to introduce us.
We were wed six weeks later and moved in with my parents for the rest of the Spring. In the Fall, we drove to Evanston, Illinois, where I began doctoral studies in Philosophy at Northwestern.
We lasted for one semester. Carolyn disliked being a graduate student's wife even more than I disliked being a graduate student, so I gave up a 4-year fellowship, and within weeks, again by chance, I was in training to sell IBM machines in San Francisco.
I quickly learned I was no salesman, but I could write, and IBM had a plant in San Jose manufacturing products that needed user guides….
Eleven years later, San Jose was growing too crowded for us, so Carolyn and I, and our teenage son and daughter, flew east, where I had identified an editing and new-writer training position at IBM's plant in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
We chose to live in Chapel Hill because of its excellent school system, and also because my high-school Latin teacher had majored in Classics at UNC there, and the authors of Carolyn's favorite Botany text were at UNC.
Years passed, and I entered my second career, as a vice president's administrative assistant at UNC General Administration. During that career I discovered Sam Harris' first book, "The End of Faith." Harris' thinking mirrored my own, and his writings—and the writings of his fellow "New Atheists"—helped me articulate my thoughts on religion.
I began to blog—as "Moristotle"—and after retiring from UNC GA, I concentrated on my third, and favorite, career: editing and managing Moristotle & Co. on the internet.
Four other Yalies joined me on the staff: James T. Carney, Rolf H. Dumke, Neil P. Hoffmann, and Jonathan L. Price. Their blurbs in Moristotle & Co.'s sidebar give links to their writings.
On July 31, 2023, I gave up the ardors of blogging for less arduous tasks.
My heart continues to throb to the beat of Mother Nature, leaping up at the honks of Canada geese, all the while singing a sad tune at Autumn's colors blowing in the wind.
I also happen to know that Morris wrote an earlier version (because he shared it with me, just as he shared the final version above). I thought it too was good enough to submit. But it was pretty "dark":
These essays don't get any easier to write. I know less about what it all means now than I knew ten years ago. And I have less mind to try to figure it out and report.
My thinking is distracted, too, by tides of memory, often shrouded in grief. My longing for times remembered has turned to a need to be free of them and let them go, those times gone forever.
My amazing wife has less mind too, but hers is vacating at a slower rate than mine. She can plan European itineraries, make hotel reservations, arrange for rental cars. But in September 2023 she failed to remind me of something almost everyone knows: don't leave valuables in your car. Before visiting the Matisse Museum in Nice our first Sunday in France, we parked our rental with our luggage prominently visible inside. When we returned a couple of hours later, a woman greeted us solemnly and informed us—in better English than our French—that a window had been smashed and luggage extracted by two men she saw running off when she ran out to investigate. The stolen bags held our iPads, quite a few articles of clothing, and all of our prescription medications. What we forgot, of course, was that we should have dropped all of our luggage off at the next hotel before going to the museum.
The woman had called the police, who arrived eventually to check things out. We pieced together that we were to go to the police station and file a report before we returned the car for a replacement. At the station, an interpreter, who came in on his day off to help us, took our statement from my wife, since the rental agreement was in her name. An excerpt from the official report: "Manière d'opérer: BRIS DE VITRE" Ah, yes, that broken window.
We were able to secure new prescriptions for our meds from our doctor in Chapel Hill, who quickly sent them to us by email attachment, and a local pharmacie filled them only three days after the theft.
Weeks later, we were still remembering other things packed in those stolen bags, and I finally filed a claim under the theft clause of our homeowners insurance. One morning early, a week after filing, I lay in bed awake, dreading that the claims department would need for us to submit documentary proof for all of the stolen items, however much we were claiming for each, even as little as a dollar or two for things that had been in my traveling toiletries kit. To quiet the dread, I tried to concentrate on my breathing—anything to evade those thoughts and return to sleep. Eventually, I was able to darken most of the lighter areas on my inner screen. I hoped that with only a few more patches the whole would be dark. Would death arrive like that, I wondered—everything turning black? I tried to stop thinking, to test the notion.
I found the two versions remarkably dissimilar, as if Morris was writing for two entirely different assignments. Here were two perspectives of the same persona, one from 30,000 feet up, the other from a foot away. They illuminated each other delightfully. I was very sorry that Yale could not include both of them in the Class of 1964's 60th reunion book.
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