When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed
This past week, as I puttered through setting up my new
nonprofit museum, and corrected a set of proofs for one of my books, I learned
that my mentor, friend, teacher, former boss, colleague, Dr. Roald Tweet, had
died suddenly.
Once again, death has touched me, the 6th
devastating death in two and one half years.
I’ve joked gallows style that the Angel of Death walks with me, even to
Dr. Tweet. We laughed, but this was too
close. The bottom dropped out of my
world.
I met Dr. Tweet as an English major at the small college
where he chaired the English Dept. and taught.
I worked in the department, and studied there. I drank coffee before class with Dr. Tweet,
often his wife, Margaret, and other members of the faculty and student
body. That began in 1979. Off and on, I’ve been drinking coffee with
him and Margaret for 41 years, barring the times I was away in graduate school.
We kept in touch, and he often brought souvenirs, usually a
doll for the future museum, from his many travels. When I taught, he came to my class and taught
my students about folk toys, and how writing could be fun. When we did Moby Dick, he not only reviewed
notes with me, he borrowed a real harpoon, and brought it to my class, hefting
its considerable weight as he strode down the hall of my college.
Dr. Tweet always supported me in my writing, writing
references, reading manuscripts, getting me little jobs to write poetry,
encouraging me to enter poetry contests, defending me against office politics. He helped me when I looked for jobs, and I
was honored to be on the radio show about writing he and Senator Don Wooten
hosted, “Scribbled.” Other times, my
students and I were invited to read on other radio programs he hosted.
Sometimes, Dr. Tweet would ask me to fill in for him and give a lecture when he
had a conflict. In school, and while I
taught at my alma mater, I published a couple of small articles, and was the
recipient of the coveted Tweet Awards, small figurines Dr. Tweet carved, one a
rooster, another a duck.
He was a man of many talents, whittling and carving just
two. He gave me a necklace called “Gifts
bearing Greeks!” and hand carved earrings. One Christmas, I got a tiny unicorn
rocking horse he had carved; he knew I loved unicorns. He whittled an arm for one of my antique dolls
that had lost hers. When I was still a
student, we went on department lunches, field trips, flew kites on the lawn,
and attended hog roasts for special occasions with others from the Humanities
Departments. Sometimes, we met in his
Victorian home, full of handicrafts and antiques. I made doll clothes and dolls for his
youngest daughter, and spent many happy hours there and at occasions we
attended like the Henry Farnam dinner.
I have enough memories to fill a book. He was even my late Uncle George’s
professor. In recent years, I got up
early to get to Hardees by 7 am to meet him and Margaret for coffee. We talked about books and writing; sometimes
I wrote reviews for him to use on the air.
He was helping me to find an agent, and he contributed ideas and research
to my current book, and to other writing projects. He brought me poetry magazines to keep my
current on what was in.
His sense of humor was legendary. He once attended our 12th Night
Medieval Banquet dressed as a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. He
made a sign to hang over my desk in the English Department that read “Blessed
are the Meek, for they shall inherit the earth, if it’s OK with the rest of you
guys!” Once, in American Renaissance, he
handed me a false final exam, then after I started writing, he came up and
asked if I wanted the “real test.” I
earned 99/100 on that exam; the only comment read, “99, because nobody’s
perfect!” On the last day of that class
he brought in a box of Whitman’s Sampler candy to class, with green Easter grass
glued to the top for, The Leaves of Grass.
We also had a good time one summer at Disney World, when we
ran into Dr. Tweet and his family. What
were the chances!?!
Besides all these things, Dr. Tweet and Margaret where there
for my wedding, and for the funerals of my mother, father, aunt, and
uncle. While I was in California dealing with my Uncle’s death,
and getting the house in order, he called to check on me to see how I was. That meant everything.
We spent several Christmas Days with him and his family, at dinners they hosted at their church.
Around ten days ago, I talked to him for the last time. He
was upbeat, cracking jokes, and encouraging.
He sounded good, and we were trying to figure out if Hardees would have
dine in seating soon, or where else to go for coffee. Covid 19 curtailed our fun, but we kept in
touch, and we checked on each other.
The Epigraph from Whitman is from one of his favorite
poems. Because of him, I loved
Whitman. As luck would have it, my late
cousin, a poet and literature professor in Athens, also loved him. He wrote book a in Greek on Whitman; Dr.
Tweet got a kick out of it when I showed it to him.
For his many talents, Dr. Tweet became a celebrity. He has been remembered in many types of media
this week, by many people. Many claim to
have known him well, but it’s funny, in 41 years that I knew him, he never
mentioned most of them to me. All I know
is that I couldn’t be what I am today without him, and we had coffee together
for over 40 years.
Dr. Tweet at Margaret's Birthday Party,
around 7 years ago, wearing a party hat he made. We all
created our won.
