(The
following appeared in the New Bedford
[Mass.] Standard-Times on Nov. 1, 2001.
Marsha McCabe is an award-winning columnist for the newspaper whose extensive
Union connections include her husband,
Robert ' 57; his brother, Howard McCabe
' 56; and her brothers, Donald Lawton ' 58, Harry Lawton ' 50,
and Bruce Lawton ' 60).
“Life
is what happens while you ' re making plans,” so the saying goes. Since
9/11/01, we don ' t know how to live our lives – we have no plan – but life
keeps happening anyway.
The
government tells us to live in a state of “heightened alert,” which means we
must be always watchful, or even suspicious, of what is going on around us. It '
s not much fun, like living on the edge
of a cliff.
Meanwhile,
life happened, as it will, this past weekend while I was making plans. We went
to Schenectady, N.Y., to visit my mother and even the ride was amazing. I have
never been enamored of U.S. highways but my mind was so filled with desolate,
godforsaken images of Afghanistan, of dust, dirt and rock, where nothing grows
and little has been built that our highways and bridges, our waterways and
cities, looked like miracles to me.
Even “sprawl,”
which I hate in ordinary times, seemed hopeful. At least, there ' s energy here
and in time, I felt, we ' d learn to do things better. But for the moment,
flaws and all, our landscape seemed wondrous to me. Is this what it means to be
on “heightened alert?” To simply notice what is around you with fresh eyes and
overwhelming gratefulness?
After
visiting with my mother, we – my husband, my brother, and I – slipped out to
take a walk on the Union College campus, one of the best and most beautiful
colleges in the country (and perhaps most famous for starring in the movie, The
Way We Were, with Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand).
Autumn
had turned the campus into a blaze of yellows and hot reds, and as we walked
along, we recalled what a big part this college had played in our lives. Both
men went to college here, and my husband and I were married in the chapel. We
slowly made our way to the old library, now the Nott Memorial, a magnificent
circular building and centerpiece of the campus. Passing through these doors is
like entering old Europe, a place that speaks.
Though
we ' d hoped to see an art show on the second floor Mandeville Gallery, today
the exhibition featured William H. Seward and I thought, oh, yuck, a memoriam
to an old dead white man. The name Seward made me think of “Seward ' s Folly,”
then “Alaska,” and then nothing.
As we
began poring over the memorabilia in
the circular gallery, we became entranced. A graduate of Union College, William
H. Seward was governor of New York, a U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State under Abe Lincoln.
Reading through letters and diaries,
looking at photos, a world opened up, and we found ourselves back there in the
1860s, with this extraordinary man, a leader of the anti-slavery movement and a
pioneer of prison reform (greatly influenced by his wife, Frances).
I had
forgotten that Lincoln ' s assassination was part of a conspiracy and the other
intended victim was Mr. Seward himself. John Wilkes Booth ' s co-conspirator,
Lewis Powell, attacked William Seward in his bedroom and succeeded in stabbing,
but not killing, him and his son, Fred. The fierce-looking knife was displayed
in the exhibition.
The
show, brilliantly curated by Rachel Seligman, gallery director, did exactly
what an exhibition like this should do. It opened our minds to another time,
another place, and made us want to know more. So enthusiastic was I, I
decided I would write to David
McCullough, author of John Adams, and ask him to please do his next book on
William H. Seward.
Later,
back at Mother ' s, as I was reading
the brochures I ' d picked up at the exhibition, a quote describing the Nott
Memorial leaped out at me: “There ' s nothing like it anywhere else in the
world” – David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.
Now,
how about that?
On the
way back to Dartmouth, I began thinking about all the small miracles around us,
beginning with our college campuses, these fine places of learning, so full of
the past and future. Yet, they are not miracles at all but institutions created
by men and women who believed in the human spirit and the power of learning.
And they believed in the future.
I hope
someday we will see a university, many universities, grow out of the ruins of
Afghanistan and they will transform the people and give them hope. As for me, I
hope I can stay in a state of heightened alert indefinitely. I might even call it
a plan.