[R-G] Jim Dan who? [A Horror Story from the Groves of Academe]

[Hunter Gray]

NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

Eldri and I were married at Superior, Wisconsin, on June 25 1961 -- and a few weeks later arrived in Mississippi
for six years of activism in various parts of the hard-core South. This interesting article, "Jim Dan who?" was published on June 25 2008 -- out of Duluth, Minnesota, right across the river from Superior.

But that's not the only connection we have. We met in the context of Superior State College in what can only be described as an academic nightmare for students, most faculty and staff, and many townspeople indeed. The college president was General Jim Dan Hill, something out of the Dinosaur Age. [Too many schools today exhibit -- at all levels --and in however veiled a fashion, some of these same sorry characteristics -- in addition to using multitudes of poorly paid, non-tenured, adjunct faculty in higher ed levels.]

The article covers the man and the purely horrendeous situation he created -- and over which he presided -- quite well. And, although it misses a few of the courageous community activists who challenged him, it includes most of them. We knew and worked with those people in common cause.

 Something of the flavor as it relates to me is conveyed by this little section. It's an accurate one, save for the fact that it was 1960-61 that I was at Superior and Not 1961-62. As I've indicated, we arrived at Tougaloo College in the latter summer of '61-- after Superior.

"Hunter Gray Bear (John Salter), a Native American activist who taught at
the Superior campus in 1961-62, recruited faculty into the American
Federation of Teachers and helped organize students when Hill suspended
student government.
Bear writes on his Web site, “An increasingly incoherent General Hill got
control of his voice long enough to denounce me repeatedly as a ‘Communist,
an atheist, and an advocate of free love.’ Exactly what he meant, especially
on the final point, was never clear.”

Hill never met me before I was hired as a sociology instructor. Short on faculty and with time running out before the onset of the 1960-61 school year, he found me via a teacher agency and sent a lackey to Denver who briefly interviewed me. [I drove from Flagstaff.] I suspect he was reassured by the fact that I was an Arizonian and an honorably discharged Army vet [still in the inactive reserves.] Eldri, an Augsburg College sociology grad, was employed as Lutheran student counselor by Minnesota Lutheran Student Foundation -- at and within Superior State . She helped our activist cause immensely.

See the story as the saga winds its way: http://www.businessnorth.com/exclusives.asp?RID=2489 The painting of Hill is a highly idealized one, I should add. 

I saw him last when I walking in a driving rain along Superior Street and he drove by in his huge black Chrysler, obviously laughing at me as he gestured wildly in my direction. He then drove around the block and went through his thing yet again. I was tempted to "flip the bird" but that really isn't my style. I simply looked coldly at the old S.O.B.

I add, as a kind of personal conclusion re Superior, this excerpt from our Hunterbear website:

FEAR, SEX AND BABIES GALORE -- AND SUPERIOR WISCONSIN EXPERIENCES [HUNTER
GRAY]

Note by Hunter Bear:

This post of mine stems from a recent newspaper article indicating that many 
Americans are responding to the post 9/11 pressures by producing babies. 
Here is my comment [I've herewith omitted the article for space reasons.]

Personally, I find this very encouraging. As a rule, babies are nice.
I do recommend a good diaper service -- and, when they yell, just feed'em.
Keep feeding. Later, when they're older, do the bribe thing. Negotiate with
zeal, of course, but buy'em off all the way through at every point. And stay
away from glorified crack-pots like Dr Laura.

 My first semester of my first year of college sociology teaching [AY
1960-61 at Wisconsin State, Superior] involved five three semester hour
courses -- one of which was Marriage and the Family. An earnest young
bachelor, I certainly did my best with that one, quickly upsetting most of
the town's clergy [Protestant and Catholic] when I indicated my strong
conviction that, given the high divorce rate in US society, the Swedish
system of trial marriage had a lot going for it. "Free love" was a charge
hurled at me by some of the less inhibited clergy. [On my initiative, I met
directly with them as a group and they were generally reassured.]

That was a turbulent year for me and my many activist students -- with
a number of significant social justice and academic freedom victories. We
showed Salt of the Earth [three 16 mm reels shipped up from Bayard, NM by
Juan Chacon] many times indeed and did many related things. We also had the
welcome arrival of my friend, Catholic Anarchist Ammon Hennacy [Catholic
Worker], who spoke all night to students and workers and radicals and other
community folk from my large apartment. [The local Monsignor had forbidden
all priests to give Ammon a parish hall in which to speak and the adult
Protestants were really bigoted on the Catholic thing at that point with JFK
running and winning.] I used C.Wright Mills' excellent pro-Cuban Revolution
work -- Listen Yankee! -- as a text in several of my classes.

With the very large student Student Action group we organized --
really excellent kids, Indian and Anglo [ many Finnish] -- and with very
little backing from a frightened faculty, we were able to put the tyrannical
college president, General Jim Dan Hill, a Texas Bircher-type, on the skids
[retired a few years later.] In that, we were assisted by then-Gov Gaylord
Nelson [later, of course, Senator] with whom we met. We were also helped by
Glenn Parrish of Superior, a national Vice-President of AFT, who was an
uncle of one my strongest student supporters -- and a good friend of my old
Arizona AFT buddy, Bill Karnes of Phoenix, himself a national VP of AFT.
Among my several union affiliations was my at-large membership in Phoenix
AFT Local 1010.

Anyway, when Eldri and I were married at Superior that June 1961, it
was, of course, a proper Church wedding -- with a number of clergy and many
students and all kinds of labor unionists and radicals present to wish us
very well. We were then Off-To-Mississippi. I never taught Marriage and
the Family again -- was never asked to do so, fortunately -- but I certainly
did have a number of baby experiences as the River of Time flowed onward.
One was born at Jackson, another at Raleigh, still another on Chicago's
Southside, and the latest at Gallup N.M. And then, in addition, there are, of
course, the many offspring of the first three.

And, many years later, when I stumbled upon my notes from that long
ago Marriage class at Superior -- the notes formulated by a well-meaning
young instructor who took himself and his subject so very seriously -- I
read no more than three or four pages of bachelor wisdom before grinning and
tossing the whole sheaf into our pine-burning fireplace.

Eldri and I had a quiet 47th Wedding Anniversary here in the Gem State.

 Hunter [Hunter Bear]


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 

Check out our Hunterbear website Directory http://hunterbear.org/directory.htm
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray: 
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

See Forces and Faces Along the Activist Trail 
http://hunterbear.org/forces_and_faces_along_the_trail.htm

And see Wobbly Mentor http://hunterbear.org/wobbly_mentor.htm

In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the game trails, 
in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and 
they dance from within the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially 
when the bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley 
and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious 
and remembering way.