This piece is shared by Brian Williams, on the passing of Alan Bloom, Valparaiso University professor
Another mourner has written Alan always had a smile, and I thought, “Yeah, that’s right, he did – and how’d he do that?” While for many of us life presents an ongoing challenge to remain up, Alan was always up, he was always eager. In point of fact, maybe he didn’t always have a smile. But he always had a gleam in the eye that seemed to be equal parts delight, challenge to you and gameness.
He seemingly never stopped. He had students and classes to teach, a department to chair. He had endless friends. He engaged with people – lots of them – in the flesh, on Facebook, via email. He was a challenging, invigorating presence in campus and city involvements. You’d see him driving around town in his van with his boys. For fun, he orchestrated summer academic enrichment programs. “When does this man sleep,” I thought, “let alone read student papers or see his wife?”
I once asked him to come talk to my class of international students about the hows and whys of good academic note-taking skills. Alan was game. “Yeah, let’s figure out a time,” he said. We did, and he came, breathless (whether from the rush of a busy schedule or his excitement at the topic), turning what I’d envisioned as a simple advice session into a Socratic elicitation of the value of a liberal education. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “he just accomplished in 20 minutes what I only aspire to, in style and substance, over a whole term.”
I first encountered Alan, I think, as a driving force with Michelle Michaels behind the city’s Valpo Reads a Book initiative. With Alan, it seemed, planning sessions were not just about the annual book selection and program logistics. He raised questions. Lots of questions. It was not the answers, but the thinking – and the possibility of finding new angles of viewing the thinking – that he was into.
A couple years ago, Alan and I organized a public reading of the Declaration of Independence at the city’s Fourth of July celebration. Here too, his ever-game mind insisted on going beyond the simple logistics of a feel-good patriotic event. We ended up having many discussions between us and among several potential readers of the contradictions and conflicting legacies in the Declaration. We recruited a good cross section of city residents to join in the reading and it has become an annual event, but still Alan’s question after this year’s reading was: How can we find an even wider, more varied group next year?
My favorite Alan moments over the past year or so turned out to be several serendipitous late night encounters at Town & Country, both of us doing the grocery shopping at the only time we could find. While I was usually eager to get home, Alan was always game to hear what I thought of some particular issue of the day. Extended conversations would ensue. One time this summer, Alan was accompanied by Zeke, Jin and Kuo, and the boys had with them a very large, almost boy-size ball which they were chasing up and down the almost empty aisles. In his free form parenting, Alan seemed oblivious to them as he worked instead to persuade me that his New York Yankees were not as bad as I made them out to be. All the while I was thinking, “Yes, you’re probably right about the Yankees – and those three are going to grow up as very happy boys.”
“He will be missed,” mourners have said. With due respect, Alan will not “be missed.” The passive voice cannot capture this active man. Instead, I miss him. You miss him. We all miss him. We miss him greatly. Alan, we can’t quite comprehend that you’re not with us. It’s strange, it’s a shock, and it hurts. But we will continue to think of you and thank you for your great gameness for life. And if we want to honor and celebrate your life, we will work to stir some of that gameness into our own.