It’s been nearly ten years, and some nights I still just curl up and cry, I miss Professor Flanigan so badly and feel so desperately unworthy of his memory. I did last night, again.
The first few sessions of his Monastic Texts class included a guest student, a monk from a Benedictine monastery in southern Indiana. He didn’t stay long, as for obvious reasons he was hugely more knowledgeable than the rest of us. He only stayed as long as he did because of Professor Flanigan, who had that effect on people.
(Not undergraduates. More fool they; the dropouts missed out on Irish monastic penitentials, which are an absolute laugh riot in a masochistic sort of way.)
He did, however, extend an invitation to the class to tour the monastery in late October. So one Saturday, we piled into cars and drove down twisty little state roads to Saint Meinrad’s. We were a little nervous toward the end of the trip owing to a burst of snowfall, but we agreed it was worth it when we came out of the abbey guesthouse to see a picture-postcard view of the abbey church through swirling flakes. The snow melted by midafternoon; the sun came out as we rounded a hill on the way to the abbey graveyard.
I remember passing a classroom whose walls echoed a tentative recorder lesson. “He’s pretty good,” I ventured, “but he shouldn’t be so afraid of his instrument. It won’t break if he blows harder.” Professor Flanigan smiled. He knew I played. (I did, then, not having yet completely ruined my hands for it.)
We stayed for vespers in the abbey church, bade our guide farewell, and drove away, stopping by agreement at a pair of roadside restaurants. The group split; far less interested in picky eating than in listening to Professor Flanigan, I silently attached myself to his group.
As we waited at the door for those who had wisely decided to make a quick run for the facilities, Professor Flanigan turned to me and said he had something to ask me. The Medieval Studies department had a graduate reading circle which he had been leading for some time. Nothing formal; someone chose an article for everyone to read, and they got together at the Comp Lit annex (a big rickety ex-house the other side of Third Street from campus) to eat, drink, and talk about it. They’ve never included an undergrad before, but would I be interested in coming?
“Me? Really? Well, um, sure,” I answered with truly stunning lack of savoir-faire. I’m sure my face must have lit up, though. It wasn’t competitive triumph, or a child’s glee at being included with the big boys and girls. It was, quite simply, that Professor Flanigan thought me worth reading with and talking to, even though I had never felt so ignorant and slow-thinking in my life than in his class.
Reading circle turned out to have his personality stamped on it as firmly as on his famous “sherry hours.” Professor Flanigan couldn’t keep up with a syllabus. He simply had too much to say, and too little regard for structural strictures, even self-imposed ones. The grad students were used to this, and if I recall correctly they started clamoring for a sherry hour before he even mentioned it. So at a time agreeable to all, class met for an extra few hours in the Comp Lit annex. With food and drink and conviviality.
Neither sherry hour nor reading circle consisted of a glum group of detainees-after-class. Nor were we grim, determined social climbers intent on currying departmental favor. (Professor Flanigan never had much to give. Though greatly loved by his students, his department-of-record never did much more than leave him alone. His preferment—in Comp Lit, at least; things were probably different in Medieval Studies—meant nothing.) We all hoped that given enough time, enough practice, we’d be able to keep up with him—more, think and articulate thoughts the way he did.
We were pretty hopeless at it, I’ll freely admit. But we kept trying, because he encouraged us to and we loved him. Because he clearly believed that given time and encouragement, we’d get there.
The other grad students, incidentally, treated me with nothing but respect, even when I didn’t come up to their level. Again, Professor Flanigan’s hand. If he thought me worth inclusion in his community of mind, for whatever reason, they weren’t going to argue. We all saw him cross social and political boundaries with royal largesse and grace; to emulate him, we had to do likewise.
One student in particular, a pretty strawberry-blonde woman married to the nicest guy in Monastic Texts class, disliked me but was too scrupulous to be mean. I don’t know exactly why she disliked me. Might well have gotten fed up with the smartass undergrad; I do arouse that reaction in people, all the more so when I’m so completely engrossed in something that I forget what few manners I have. She certainly wasn’t jealous of my mental capacity; she had no need to be.
Now that I consider, I wonder whether she was jealous of Professor Flanigan’s interest in me. She had appointed herself his caretaker, I remember that much; I don’t know how long they’d known each other, but she fussed about his health and kept track of his obligations. I don’t wonder she thought me an upstart. I’m only grateful she could keep her hands off my neck.
Eh, enough for one post. Besides, I’m about to start crying again.