Pandemic Father's Day

This morning, in honor of Father's Day, I went looking for a photo of just my father and me from when I was a child. I thought I'd remembered a photo of him holding me, or maybe one of me sitting on his lap. Those photos might be out there, but this is the one I found.

It's funny because you can't even really see my dad in this photo. Instead, on one side of the photo, there's me as a baby, mouth open, arms outstretched, stepping toward the other side of the photo, and aiming for the outstretched hands of my father.

There's an easy chair in the background, and Venetian blinds let in a peek of light; this was most likely taken in my parents' Army-base apartment in Alabama, at Redstone Arsenal, where my Dad was stationed during the early 1960s.

Maybe my dad had just gotten back from his work with Sergeant missiles on the base and was sitting in the late-afternoon winter sunlight with me. Maybe my mom took a break from cooking dinner and got the camera as she saw me start to take some wobbly steps. I can imagine my dad encouraging baby me: come on Jane! You can do it! 

In a way, this photo is emblematic of my relationship with my dad. He was always out there, encouraging me, believing in me, sure that I could make it to wherever I needed to go: up the last hill of a day-long hike in the mountains, through seemingly unending years of graduate school, and past the milestones of my own children as they grew.

Thanks, Dad, for your belief in me, for your encouragement, and for your strong arms that wrapped me in loving hugs that I miss to this day.

*****

In pandemic news: things seem to be about the same. Nationwide, the number of cases has plateaued out, but at a pretty high level. And maybe there's even a bit of an uptick recently.

News stories about "hot spots" (Oregon, Texas, Florida, North Carolina) where cases are going up dramatically. And other news stories point out that more younger people are being diagnosed with Covid. I wonder how--if at all--those statistics will affect college openings.

At a faculty meeting last week, the administration told the faculty that they are planning to open up the college and begin face-to-face classes on August 19 as planned. In my department, 1/3 of the faculty have requested to teach online only, and we've been asked to hire an adjunct to teach a few classes on campus. Coe really is wedded to the "residential" part of residential liberal-arts college.

As for me, I'm OK with teaching f2f. It's the running of the Writing Center that I'm really going to have to think about and plan for over the next couple of months. And it's not the work part of the Writing Center that's most difficult: it's building that the close-knit community of consultants that is going to be challenging. I have some ideas. One involves dividing my enormous staff (60 consultants, "six-zero," as I often have to explain to astounded writing center director colleagues from other schools) into "houses," a la Hogwarts!

Stay tuned for more on that adventure!