We did. Tim was extremely happy in the Irish school system, made a quartet of good friends who were constantly in each others' pockets, did well on his Irish exams and his American college boards and SATs.
This was my second lecture tour: more extensive and better planned than the previous one. I should have a nice addition to my capitaclass="underline" enough to spend some time writing an adult book I'd in mind, and for Tim to stop worrying about how we were going to meet his college fees.
Mr. Porter said that he would collect me at the motel, to be sure he could deliver the speaker on time when they thought her snowbound. I was ready for him when he entered the lobby. Score one for me, I thought from his pleased expression. There's always a bit of awkwardness, when the shepherd/watchdog/p.r. man encounters Visiting Celebrity. For starters, the p.r. man has to gauge the V.C.'s egocentricity or absentmindedness. The gal who did p.r. at Milwaukee said she dreaded the absentminded darlings: the egos were much easier to handle: all you had to do was get them to talk about themselves and they'd go on for hours.
Mr. Porter started on the subject of the blizzard and that took us through the initial sparring. It amused me to wonder what Mr. Porter…Jim, I should say for he invited me to use his first name by the time we got to the elevated road spaghetti about Portland… what Jim would have said if he'd known how I actually had spent my time in Denver. Then he acquainted me with the size of my probable audiences and what aspects of writing, and library work I was expected to discuss. He'd like me to give an interview to the University radio, and one for the local newspaper. I agreed since I felt that I'd been a bit overpriced by the lecture bureau and was determined to give value for money.
The lecture went welclass="underline" the hall had good acoustics, being an amphitheatre type lecture room so I didn't have to shout to be heard. The second roundtable was trying. A young girl wanted to know if any of my tales were drug-induced, which I denied categorically. She then questioned me about my private opinions of current drug restrictions and what was the climate in Ireland as regards drug-addiction.
'The climate in Ireland is always damp, and people take aspirins just as they do here.'
Her indignant reply 'That isn't what I mean' was drowned in the laughter and I saw Mr. Porter tapping her shoulder and speaking to her.
Last year I'd been heckled and had made the mistake of answering honestly and fully, thinking that the best policy. It had embroiled me in a rather disgusting word-brawl with the young man. Afterwards, in the bar where I'd been taken to recover by a considerate faculty member, it was pointed out to me how to handle such exigencies. If possible, you make a funny; you never explain your position unless it is germane to your lecture topic; you keep your cool and if the situation looks like getting out of hand, then you agree to discuss the matter with the heckler privately after the lecture - and conveniently forget to arrive.
I enjoyed the librarians' meeting the following morning: they were a keen bunch, and seemed familiar with my thesis on collection cataloguing and data retrieval. I noticed some faces familiar from the other lectures and wondered if the students had misunderstood the topic. Or, maybe they were indeed library science students. I got sidetracked onto children's books in Ireland toward the end of the meeting but I honestly feel that the British Isles have marvellous childrens' books, inexpensive, well-produced and with understated content. You don't have to bludgeon facts into childrens' minds: they're a lot more perceptive than most adults will credit them; and 'perceive' is the operative word and process.
I was given an elegant lunch, with sufficient pre-meal drinks to make the atmosphere congenial. Then I had my interview for the campus radio and with Jim Porter for the University newspaper.
Audiences are very stimulating to me but by the time Jim drove me back to the motel, I was absolutely whacked. He wanted to continue chatting but I told him that I'd run out of energy. I think he was genuinely sorry. He was profuse with invitations to return again, and promised to send me transcripts of the articles and a tape of the radio broadcast.
I didn't think about Dan-the-Mystery-Man until the next morning when I was packing and opened my knitting bag.
Berkeley was next on the itinerary and I was already regretting that I'd agreed to stay with Raymond's sister, Beth. I couldn't retract gracefully because I'd always liked Beth and Foster Hamilton, and their boys. But I suspected I was in for a good deal of reminiscing about Ray, moans about his early, tragic death now a good fourteen years in my past. I didn't mind talking about Ray: I liked to remember him but Beth had a tendency to dwell on the macabre instead of the merry and that is tiring. I needed my energy for the lecturing.
As luck would have it, I arrived in the midst of a family crisis: the older boy, Sam, had been living with a classmate, a girl, and she was pregnant. Should she or should she not get an abortion? I was drafted as an arbitrator which could have been a prickly situation except that I quickly discovered no one really wanted my opinion because I couldn't understand the entire situation, now could I? To which I readily agreed. The crux of the matter was that the girl, Linda, was afraid that she might be aborting a second Messiah, a genius and 'you could never be sure, could you?' And it really couldn't matter if she'd been smoking hash because they hadn't proved it harmed the unborn, now had they?
Foss was out of his depth: Beth was trying to be 'modern' and 'understanding.' I tried to suggest to her that they would solve it themselves among their peers but she couldn't make up her own mind whether she wanted to be a grandmother at thirty-nine or not; or if Linda was wrong about using hash and the child would be a moron. I decided that if Tim ever got into a similar situation - and it was possible - I would insist that the girl carry the child to term. I'd look after it, though it would wreck my writing schedule. I was missing the involvement with someone who depended on me. I liked to be needed. I liked to plan around the requirements of someone other than myself. A man would have suited me better but a child would be welcome. Having solved that knotty problem in my own mind, I tried to avoid discussions about Sam and Linda. What I would do was not necessarily what they would elect.
I was committed to a series of lectures at local community colleges for grade school teachers and library science majors. I could repeat that lecture in my sleep, and almost answer all the questions likely to be generated. In the informal sessions that would crop up after the official lecture, I wondered why I was living on what my writing could bring in when PhD's in my field were pulling in thousands of dollars. I would pull myself up short: I had had that 'glory' before and never more relieved to have the excuse of Tim to pull stakes and replant in Ireland, peaceful, green, haphazard, friendly Ireland.
Easter vacation intervened to let me catch my breath before the second round of junior college talks. I did some sightseeing in San Francisco with Foss, who was delighted to have an excuse to get out of the house. Foss is an associate History professor and a keen war-historian. I'd brought him several Irish textbooks so that he could see how 'our' wars were treated in other history books. We discussed the historical significance of the troubles in Belfast and decided that it would take a massive re-education program to improve the situation which had been in existence for four hundred years.
No sooner were we back in their house than the current war raged about us. Linda was in floods of tears, Beth trying to console her and Sam was glaring at both of them,
thoroughly rebellious.
'She's made the appointment --' said Beth defiantly, helplessly.
'Appointment?' Foss was having trouble dragging himself out of the Belfast troubles and its historical significances.