today, i realized that my honors thesis still exists, and i have copied it and made a notebook. that experience has informed me to this very moment and is the hugest reason of all i was fortunate to have been an honors student which made me the activist and individual i am today at age 73. stay bright and plucky! my cat died monday and i am beside myself but the honors college and dr. strother have perked up my soul to say the least!
i am at last humbled? jesus! i am even reading through it, white-out blemishes and all. too bad i was such an abominable typist! and that drawing? looks like i might have been in kindergarten when i sketched it? i am no artist i fear. and either i was smart enough to use big words way back then or dr. strother had a strong impression upon “this writer” as i refer to myself throughout the “thesis”. strother was a true gentleman and a delightful, darling puckish fellow who even attended campus plays i had bit parts in at the time. he had a deep fondness for henrik, so i sense strother thoughts and concepts and language in my dissertation. and this experience made me the man i am today…a rugged individualist and activist.
Troy LaRue, a fraternity brother of my son’s commented on facebook: “Dr. Ed Strother – quite a big deal at BSU! How very neat! I wrote a paper on Ibsen for a theater class at Wabash College. It wasn’t that great. 😂 …but in fact, some of my research was done at Ball State including discussion with a theater professor (father of a good friend) who worked under Dr. Strother. Perhaps he referenced your work and I didn’t even know it!”
i friended a person named strother years ago on facebook and he was a great person but was not related to dr. ed. who was just an exceptional human. i wrote to dr. ed long ago after i had grown up and faced the real world and he wrote back and i still have that letter…somewhere!
holy moly! i am thinking i may feel proud on this day when i am still grieving for my wonderful disney cat who has left my side forever…but my typing sucks. my excuse? a portable manual typewriter and onion skin paper and white-out which i occasionally sniffed to accomplish staying up all night in a creepy dormroom reading by candlelight and typing and never dating nobody at no time! i love you dr. ed strother. where are you now? what a cute cute person he was and worthy of writing alongside neil simon. those were the days! indeed they were!
Henrik Ibsen: “An Enemy of the People” …
Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels 