Memory of What's Left

When my father died at the end of my freshman year at Duke, I decided to stay at home with my mother in Louisville, rather than return to Durham. My older brother was married and in graduate school in New Jersey and my younger sister was to enter college that year in Florida. So, I spent my sophomore year of college, commuting with my best friend, Stewart, to classes at the University of Louisville. U of L was less intellectually challenging than Duke, but Stewart and I found stimulation from Dr. Laurence Lee Howe, whose classes we audited. Howe was a part of a small circle of intellectuals in Louisville, who regularly appeared with thoughtful commentary on local radio and television.

Physically, Howe was terribly crippled by scoliosis, but his brain was sharp and challenging. I clearly remember auditing a course in which he lectured on the late 19th century Euro-American left. It was as if he had known everyone from Mikhail Bakunin to Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman intimately. Memory, as we know, is a fragile thing, however. I just googled Dr. Howe. He was, apparently, an expert in ancient history, with a field in Chinese studies. I scarcely know what to make of his membership in the Louisville Rifle and Revolver Club and the Civil War Roundtable or his fascination with Barry Goldwater, the American Party, and the John Birch Society, much less of his defense of his fraternity's prerogative to discriminate against racial minorities.

I left the University of Louisville for my junior year at Duke – and graduated from there – but very deeply reshaped by my experience those last two years in the civil rights movement. Mom hadn't expected that, when I returned to Duke, I'd graduate with both a degree and a police record. Still, I like to think that Laurence Lee Howe's lectures on Herzen, Marx, and Proudhon committed me to a love of history. Keith Gessen's"The Revolutionist," New Yorker, 30 October, reminded me of them. Written in anticipation of the opening of Tom Stoppard's nine hour drama,"Coast of Utopia," it's a terrific piece in its own right. Thanks to Eric Alterman for the tip.