To The Good, Better, Divine In All Of Us --SALUTE

Whispers of the north
Soon I will go forth
To that wild and barren land
Where nature takes its course
Whispers of the wind
Soon I will be there again
Bound with a wild and restless drive
That pulls me from within
And we can ride away
We can glide all day

Alone In My Apartment
So Long Old Friend
Winter of ‘79

A long time ago, I attended a lecture in Warner Auditorium. The
keynote speaker was an authority on value theory. I had hoped to learn
something from him, but I didn't. After the talk, as was my custom, I
went up to where the speaker took post lecture questions from the
audience. A Professor of mine, who himself had some original ideas on value
theory, was in the crowd. When he noticed me, he immediately came over
and started apologizing to me. He was apologizing for something he
felt uncomfortable about, something that he said to me the last time
we were together.

On that last time, I was taking his class, and, as was his style, he had
just posed a question to the class. I was not satisfied with the
class discussion of that question, so, after class, I went up to
him and asked, "What is the arête of man?" I was simply repeating
back to him the question he had asked the class to respond to. He
wouldn't (or couldn't) answer my question. (Arête is a Greek word
relating to purpose: the arête of a bow is to shoot straight.)

Do to circumstances beyond my control, I never returned to the Professor’s
class (I quite school and moved to Arizona) and because of my absence from
his class, my Professor had jumped to the conclusion that his teaching
method—his silence back when I asked him to respond to his own question,
had caused me to drop out of his class. He was wrong!

Now, upon my return to CMU, and standing in the crowd surrounding the guest
speaker on value theory, Dr. Gill wanted me to know that his silence to my question
was not surrender to the question concerning "man's lack of arête." Dr. Gill said,
“My silence back then was to make the point that the only person who can answer
that question is you!" What Dr. Gill was saying is that “a person's arête was always
peculiar to one's unique situation at the time of posing the question.” Dr. Gill was
apologizing to me because he had not answered my question; that is, until that very
moment, and at that moment, he completely won me over. I knew myself to be
standing in the presence of a man of impeccable character and generosity.
I continued to sit in on Dr. Gill’s classes until he died of cancer on Oct. 23, 1979.