My senior honors thesis was just published online at USU Digital Commons. Feel free to check it out, if you're into that sort of thing. It's about the political ramifications of a little-known Soviet dystopian novel on the question of individual liberty vs. state security. Yes, that's what I'm into.
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors/23/
Reductions in Force (essay)
Author's note: This is a braided essay, fusing personal story with research. It's a wonderfully revelatory genre of nonfiction that aims to find significance and connection across seemingly unrelated space and time. It's extremely fun to write, and I'd love to do more. I'm especially proud of this particular piece, which is incomplete here because it's currently being submitted to literary journals for potential publication. Feel free to contact me for the entire piece.
The morning sun threw 800 long, quivering shadows onto the green grass of the quad at the Agricultural College of Utah. For the farm boys casting them, this would be the first day for a lot of things—college, manhood. The boys, many as young as 18, stood in formation in three groups of about eight rows each. They wore thick khaki with five buttons, two chest pockets, two lower shirt pockets, tight collars, matching pants, tan hockey-style socks that rose over the pants almost to the knee, and black boots. It was President Wilson who decided that full-time uniforms and orders was an acceptable new price for a college education—a price that proved lofty for some, but a godsend for others. And whether or not the lurking fine print, the potential sacrifice of a pastoral Utah life for a deadly European combat tour, was truly acceptable, it was pointless to consider now. On this first day of October, 1918, early in the morning, simultaneous ceremonies in identical khaki were already underway on the green quad at the UAC and more than 500 other colleges across the country.
Captain Stephen Abbot spoke first, after accepting a commemorative flag from the mayor: “The honor of every man here is as solid and sound as the hardest rock in these mountains,” he said. Members of the administration and faculty looked on from the north corner of the Main building under the secure civilian black of their hats and long coats. Those who glanced up from the shadows had a clear view of the solid, sound Wasatch Mountains enveloping the quaint valley and tiny campus. The scenic view, however, just like everything else at the college, it seemed, would soon be a remnant of the past. A tower crane resting at the edge of the quad already hinted at a brave new era, guarding the construction of what promised to be an imposing three-story brick barracks. A testament to the whirlwind of activity that brought them here, the farm boys’ brand new home wasn’t even finished.
When Captain Abbot concluded his speech, Captain Henry D. Moyle rose to the podium and administered the Oath of Allegiance to the 800, who repeated it back in unison, probably focusing more on getting the words right than internalizing their meaning. Capt. Moyle then read a statement from President Wilson, thanking them for joining the war effort and congratulating them on becoming inaugural members of the Student Army Training Corps. College students and soldiers on the same daunting day. Years later in retrospect, differentiating between the two roles must have been problematic.
*
The brittle March grass folded under my feet as I sprinted diagonally from one end of the quad to the other, running as if from gunfire. Strong spring gales blew down from the mountains. “I can’t believe how dead campus is at midnight,” I remarked to my three accomplices. Lucky for us.
We didn’t know exactly where the entrance was, but it had to be somewhere between the historic Old Main building on the west face of the quad, and the Ray B. West building on the south face, we thought, so that’s where the search began. And then, almost immediately, there it was, inconspicuous on the sidewalk halfway between the two dated structures—a round, rusty manhole cover with twelve silver-dollar-sized holes dotting the iron. It was completely obvious to somebody looking for it. We gathered around. “What do you think’s down there?”
“I’ve heard it’s just for heating vents and pipes and stuff—nothing exciting.”
“Yeah, but it’s still a tunnel.”
The wind blew through and obscured the fearful squirms about us, replacing the truth with the voracious flapping of the flag at Old Main. Blaine aimed a quivering flashlight at the circular holes, and Matt and I peered down, but there was nothing to see but gray. Other than the one light, none of us had brought along any tools. Having never attempted breaking and entering before, we didn’t think we’d need any. Just pull up a grate and climb down the ladder—it should have been that simple. For some reason, though, the manhole cover wouldn’t budge. It was as though it was never meant to move at all. For the next couple of moments, Melanie stood by and watched as the three newly macho 18-year-old boys took turns bending over and pulling skyward on the rusty lid, trying to lift it like a dumbbell.
*
I dig through the wicker basket and fish out a green jawbreaker—precisely what I was looking for. The thin plastic wrap pops as I squeeze one end, and the marble falls out. As I ingest the first of its sugary juices, I step out of the office and into the hall. Scavenging leftovers from the candy basket is one of the more thrilling joys of my job as supervisor of the Utah State University Writing Center. I’m always here. Honestly, I feel like I live here, after three years of both work and school every day in the same dilapidated English department. I adore the prospect of discussing truth and morality through stories, exploring movements and ideas far greater than myself. Being an English major almost satiates my desire for adventure. Out in the hall, a white flyer seizes with an unexpected title: “The War is Over!” It’s not enough to stop me to discover why, or which war. Instead, I ascend the stairs, past the framed portrait of Ray B. West, and toward the restroom on the second floor.
Over the years here, I’ve gotten to know most of the faculty pretty well. That familiarity, though, only makes this time harder. It’s 2009, and they say it’s the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression, but as a full-time student on protected government dollars, I’m not in a bad position personally. As far as my student job goes, I don’t get paid enough to be laid off. It’s ironic, because despite my greatest efforts to make it appear otherwise, my position is largely expendable. It’s the actually vital, meaningful careers of many of my friends that are on the line. The state legislature imposed a massive budget cut to the university, and the non-tenure track lecturers—the collective backbone of our department’s instruction—are at serious risk. Not long ago, the department head called each one of the fifteen or so lecturers in and offered them severance packages if they would willingly walk away at the end of the semester. All of them. I’m sitting at my desk when my boss and a couple of other lecturers return from the meeting and relate the news. They each throw their arms up and shrug in surrender. What else can they do? I picture each of these middle-aged women outside in the heat, thumbs out, wandering the desolate job market armed with nothing but English degrees intended for times of excess. These are supposed to be my superiors. That’s the day the recession hits me.
*
A letter sent from Newton D. Baker, U.S. Secretary of War, to the “farmers’ college,” among others, related that military instruction should be provided for those desiring to enlist, and in accordance, provisions would be made to facilitate the creation of the Student Army Training Corps, or SATC. The corps was to serve a twofold purpose: to mitigate wartime reductions in student body, and to train up more soldiers for the effort. Enlisted men would be paid the same amount as privates, train for combat, and all the while work toward a college degree. Locally, The Logan Journal proclaimed that when the fall quarter of 1918 commenced, the college would be “a veritable West Point,” and indeed, for the farm boys enrolled, it must have seemed that way. University reports show that the SATC in Logan expected 53 hours per week of “military work, class room recitation, and preparation,” 11 hours in “physical training and practical and theoretical military instruction,” and 42 hours in “allied subjects,” including courses in standard university specialties from English to chemistry to descriptive geometry. That makes 106 hours, out of the total 168 that constitute a seven-day span. The remainder is just under nine hours per day. Assuming the student soldiers slept, the guidelines didn’t allow for a wealth of spare time.
As is life in the military, the boys of the SATC didn’t possess much in the ways of personal effects or space either. As they stood at attention at the foot of their narrow, metal-framed bunks, or racks, awaiting the crisp orders of their commanding officers, they could have easily reached out and clasped the hands of their bunkmates for support. The beds, if they can be called such, consisted of nothing more than thin mats atop the shiny frames, none too long or wide. Small foot lockers were stored underneath. In all of Utah State University’s surviving archival photos of SATC racks, there appears no evidence of pillows. When the lights went down on the drafty barracks, and the boys curled themselves sideways atop the abbreviated altars, they must have appeared quite like human sacrifices.
*
Lifting the manhole cover was hopeless. There was no need for the flashlight, the entirety of our preparation, as we scoured the well-lit grounds for more possible cavities. The soft light, just as the absence of tools, comforted me and allowed me to maintain the guise that what we were doing was completely in line with my conscience. This wouldn’t hurt anyone.
I had heard whispers about a whole system of tunnels that snaked and spread under the quad area, and some of my friends had overheard similarly vague stories from upperclassmen, but nobody was specific about where. Somewhere around Old Main. The initial source of the rumors, my uncle was able to descend freely when he was student body president in the ‘70s, but this was 2004, and we were freshmen with no official business and no connections whatsoever. Just a penchant for exploration and the allure of the underground. Our own secret space.
The wind continued to howl around us as we searched the ground on the quad-side face of the brick building, the university’s first. Nothing on the southeast end. Once we passed the front doors, though, we discovered the northeast corner to be an utter gold mine of orifices into the deep. The giant fluorescent ‘A’ atop the famous bell tower illuminated window wells cutting into the foundational concrete below the brick. Each one was covered over with a thick grate. The window wells wouldn’t be much help, we surmised, but there were also two similar-looking rectangular grates along the building unconnected with windows. In addition, there was a gated-off wide stairwell down to a set of white double doors in the basement, and there was even a separate brick structure—some sort of wide, cylindrical ventilation shaft—rising six feet out of the ground a short distance away from the building. Long iron grates ran along the sides of the shaft, and adjacent to them, two hatches with handles. The cylindrical structure itself opened only at the top, which opening, of course, was also covered with a grate. To me, this spelled solid evidence of a tunnel’s existence. Our prospects were looking better. These flimsy openings were nothing like the thick, weighty manhole cover we had encountered earlier.
*
From my desk in the basement of the Ray B. West building, when there’s no one blocking the doorway, a portion of the hall opens to my view. Admittedly, though, there’s not much to look at. I can see the bottom of the red-orange stairwell leading up to the quad, and a white door on the white wall directly under the stairs. It’s room 105, but nobody cares. Sometimes I see maintenance workers go in 105 with mops and electrical equipment and don’t seem to ever come out, or maybe I just don’t notice. Long periods of time go by with seemingly simultaneous crises and conflicts in the Writing Center. My job title says supervisor, but I’m basically an empowered receptionist. As such, long periods of time also pass by with little to no activity at all.
This is not one of those times. I’m trying to juggle two student clients and talk to a tutor and fill out a request-for-leave form when I’m interrupted by an ethereal sight in the doorway. A small brown-haired boy, about four years old, stares up at me. He holds in his hand ribbons tied to three helium balloons—two blue and one white, our school colors. Together with the frazzled woman that appears behind him, the boy and his balloons block every square inch of the doorway, high and low. It’s John Engler’s wife and one of their six children. They’re looking for his class so they can surprise him for his birthday, and they can’t find the room. John is one of the lecturers whose his career in serious danger. After making a living for ten years writing manuals for computer hardware, he came back to school to pursue his original love of literature. Now he teaches lit classes for non-majors and ends up actually converting students to the department with his enthusiasm and deep commitment to the moral accountability of literature in society. I know, for I am one of his converts. I changed my major, took another one of his classes the next semester, and we’ve been friends ever since.
John’s son gives the balloon strings a tug and relates to me a truth: “I got these.”
“They’re perfect,” I respond. He already looks just like his father. I tell Mrs. Engler awkwardly what a great teacher I think her husband is, which statement for some reason sounds redundant, or unnecessary to me. I’ve told her before, though I’m sure she doesn’t remember. She replies that he loves to do it. However, rather than being openly gracious or friendly, she appears on-edge. She shoots sideways glances up and down the hallway as we talk.
*
--Please contact me for the rest, which I'll happily give--
The morning sun threw 800 long, quivering shadows onto the green grass of the quad at the Agricultural College of Utah. For the farm boys casting them, this would be the first day for a lot of things—college, manhood. The boys, many as young as 18, stood in formation in three groups of about eight rows each. They wore thick khaki with five buttons, two chest pockets, two lower shirt pockets, tight collars, matching pants, tan hockey-style socks that rose over the pants almost to the knee, and black boots. It was President Wilson who decided that full-time uniforms and orders was an acceptable new price for a college education—a price that proved lofty for some, but a godsend for others. And whether or not the lurking fine print, the potential sacrifice of a pastoral Utah life for a deadly European combat tour, was truly acceptable, it was pointless to consider now. On this first day of October, 1918, early in the morning, simultaneous ceremonies in identical khaki were already underway on the green quad at the UAC and more than 500 other colleges across the country.
Captain Stephen Abbot spoke first, after accepting a commemorative flag from the mayor: “The honor of every man here is as solid and sound as the hardest rock in these mountains,” he said. Members of the administration and faculty looked on from the north corner of the Main building under the secure civilian black of their hats and long coats. Those who glanced up from the shadows had a clear view of the solid, sound Wasatch Mountains enveloping the quaint valley and tiny campus. The scenic view, however, just like everything else at the college, it seemed, would soon be a remnant of the past. A tower crane resting at the edge of the quad already hinted at a brave new era, guarding the construction of what promised to be an imposing three-story brick barracks. A testament to the whirlwind of activity that brought them here, the farm boys’ brand new home wasn’t even finished.
When Captain Abbot concluded his speech, Captain Henry D. Moyle rose to the podium and administered the Oath of Allegiance to the 800, who repeated it back in unison, probably focusing more on getting the words right than internalizing their meaning. Capt. Moyle then read a statement from President Wilson, thanking them for joining the war effort and congratulating them on becoming inaugural members of the Student Army Training Corps. College students and soldiers on the same daunting day. Years later in retrospect, differentiating between the two roles must have been problematic.
*
The brittle March grass folded under my feet as I sprinted diagonally from one end of the quad to the other, running as if from gunfire. Strong spring gales blew down from the mountains. “I can’t believe how dead campus is at midnight,” I remarked to my three accomplices. Lucky for us.
We didn’t know exactly where the entrance was, but it had to be somewhere between the historic Old Main building on the west face of the quad, and the Ray B. West building on the south face, we thought, so that’s where the search began. And then, almost immediately, there it was, inconspicuous on the sidewalk halfway between the two dated structures—a round, rusty manhole cover with twelve silver-dollar-sized holes dotting the iron. It was completely obvious to somebody looking for it. We gathered around. “What do you think’s down there?”
“I’ve heard it’s just for heating vents and pipes and stuff—nothing exciting.”
“Yeah, but it’s still a tunnel.”
The wind blew through and obscured the fearful squirms about us, replacing the truth with the voracious flapping of the flag at Old Main. Blaine aimed a quivering flashlight at the circular holes, and Matt and I peered down, but there was nothing to see but gray. Other than the one light, none of us had brought along any tools. Having never attempted breaking and entering before, we didn’t think we’d need any. Just pull up a grate and climb down the ladder—it should have been that simple. For some reason, though, the manhole cover wouldn’t budge. It was as though it was never meant to move at all. For the next couple of moments, Melanie stood by and watched as the three newly macho 18-year-old boys took turns bending over and pulling skyward on the rusty lid, trying to lift it like a dumbbell.
*
I dig through the wicker basket and fish out a green jawbreaker—precisely what I was looking for. The thin plastic wrap pops as I squeeze one end, and the marble falls out. As I ingest the first of its sugary juices, I step out of the office and into the hall. Scavenging leftovers from the candy basket is one of the more thrilling joys of my job as supervisor of the Utah State University Writing Center. I’m always here. Honestly, I feel like I live here, after three years of both work and school every day in the same dilapidated English department. I adore the prospect of discussing truth and morality through stories, exploring movements and ideas far greater than myself. Being an English major almost satiates my desire for adventure. Out in the hall, a white flyer seizes with an unexpected title: “The War is Over!” It’s not enough to stop me to discover why, or which war. Instead, I ascend the stairs, past the framed portrait of Ray B. West, and toward the restroom on the second floor.
Over the years here, I’ve gotten to know most of the faculty pretty well. That familiarity, though, only makes this time harder. It’s 2009, and they say it’s the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression, but as a full-time student on protected government dollars, I’m not in a bad position personally. As far as my student job goes, I don’t get paid enough to be laid off. It’s ironic, because despite my greatest efforts to make it appear otherwise, my position is largely expendable. It’s the actually vital, meaningful careers of many of my friends that are on the line. The state legislature imposed a massive budget cut to the university, and the non-tenure track lecturers—the collective backbone of our department’s instruction—are at serious risk. Not long ago, the department head called each one of the fifteen or so lecturers in and offered them severance packages if they would willingly walk away at the end of the semester. All of them. I’m sitting at my desk when my boss and a couple of other lecturers return from the meeting and relate the news. They each throw their arms up and shrug in surrender. What else can they do? I picture each of these middle-aged women outside in the heat, thumbs out, wandering the desolate job market armed with nothing but English degrees intended for times of excess. These are supposed to be my superiors. That’s the day the recession hits me.
*
A letter sent from Newton D. Baker, U.S. Secretary of War, to the “farmers’ college,” among others, related that military instruction should be provided for those desiring to enlist, and in accordance, provisions would be made to facilitate the creation of the Student Army Training Corps, or SATC. The corps was to serve a twofold purpose: to mitigate wartime reductions in student body, and to train up more soldiers for the effort. Enlisted men would be paid the same amount as privates, train for combat, and all the while work toward a college degree. Locally, The Logan Journal proclaimed that when the fall quarter of 1918 commenced, the college would be “a veritable West Point,” and indeed, for the farm boys enrolled, it must have seemed that way. University reports show that the SATC in Logan expected 53 hours per week of “military work, class room recitation, and preparation,” 11 hours in “physical training and practical and theoretical military instruction,” and 42 hours in “allied subjects,” including courses in standard university specialties from English to chemistry to descriptive geometry. That makes 106 hours, out of the total 168 that constitute a seven-day span. The remainder is just under nine hours per day. Assuming the student soldiers slept, the guidelines didn’t allow for a wealth of spare time.
As is life in the military, the boys of the SATC didn’t possess much in the ways of personal effects or space either. As they stood at attention at the foot of their narrow, metal-framed bunks, or racks, awaiting the crisp orders of their commanding officers, they could have easily reached out and clasped the hands of their bunkmates for support. The beds, if they can be called such, consisted of nothing more than thin mats atop the shiny frames, none too long or wide. Small foot lockers were stored underneath. In all of Utah State University’s surviving archival photos of SATC racks, there appears no evidence of pillows. When the lights went down on the drafty barracks, and the boys curled themselves sideways atop the abbreviated altars, they must have appeared quite like human sacrifices.
*
Lifting the manhole cover was hopeless. There was no need for the flashlight, the entirety of our preparation, as we scoured the well-lit grounds for more possible cavities. The soft light, just as the absence of tools, comforted me and allowed me to maintain the guise that what we were doing was completely in line with my conscience. This wouldn’t hurt anyone.
I had heard whispers about a whole system of tunnels that snaked and spread under the quad area, and some of my friends had overheard similarly vague stories from upperclassmen, but nobody was specific about where. Somewhere around Old Main. The initial source of the rumors, my uncle was able to descend freely when he was student body president in the ‘70s, but this was 2004, and we were freshmen with no official business and no connections whatsoever. Just a penchant for exploration and the allure of the underground. Our own secret space.
The wind continued to howl around us as we searched the ground on the quad-side face of the brick building, the university’s first. Nothing on the southeast end. Once we passed the front doors, though, we discovered the northeast corner to be an utter gold mine of orifices into the deep. The giant fluorescent ‘A’ atop the famous bell tower illuminated window wells cutting into the foundational concrete below the brick. Each one was covered over with a thick grate. The window wells wouldn’t be much help, we surmised, but there were also two similar-looking rectangular grates along the building unconnected with windows. In addition, there was a gated-off wide stairwell down to a set of white double doors in the basement, and there was even a separate brick structure—some sort of wide, cylindrical ventilation shaft—rising six feet out of the ground a short distance away from the building. Long iron grates ran along the sides of the shaft, and adjacent to them, two hatches with handles. The cylindrical structure itself opened only at the top, which opening, of course, was also covered with a grate. To me, this spelled solid evidence of a tunnel’s existence. Our prospects were looking better. These flimsy openings were nothing like the thick, weighty manhole cover we had encountered earlier.
*
From my desk in the basement of the Ray B. West building, when there’s no one blocking the doorway, a portion of the hall opens to my view. Admittedly, though, there’s not much to look at. I can see the bottom of the red-orange stairwell leading up to the quad, and a white door on the white wall directly under the stairs. It’s room 105, but nobody cares. Sometimes I see maintenance workers go in 105 with mops and electrical equipment and don’t seem to ever come out, or maybe I just don’t notice. Long periods of time go by with seemingly simultaneous crises and conflicts in the Writing Center. My job title says supervisor, but I’m basically an empowered receptionist. As such, long periods of time also pass by with little to no activity at all.
This is not one of those times. I’m trying to juggle two student clients and talk to a tutor and fill out a request-for-leave form when I’m interrupted by an ethereal sight in the doorway. A small brown-haired boy, about four years old, stares up at me. He holds in his hand ribbons tied to three helium balloons—two blue and one white, our school colors. Together with the frazzled woman that appears behind him, the boy and his balloons block every square inch of the doorway, high and low. It’s John Engler’s wife and one of their six children. They’re looking for his class so they can surprise him for his birthday, and they can’t find the room. John is one of the lecturers whose his career in serious danger. After making a living for ten years writing manuals for computer hardware, he came back to school to pursue his original love of literature. Now he teaches lit classes for non-majors and ends up actually converting students to the department with his enthusiasm and deep commitment to the moral accountability of literature in society. I know, for I am one of his converts. I changed my major, took another one of his classes the next semester, and we’ve been friends ever since.
John’s son gives the balloon strings a tug and relates to me a truth: “I got these.”
“They’re perfect,” I respond. He already looks just like his father. I tell Mrs. Engler awkwardly what a great teacher I think her husband is, which statement for some reason sounds redundant, or unnecessary to me. I’ve told her before, though I’m sure she doesn’t remember. She replies that he loves to do it. However, rather than being openly gracious or friendly, she appears on-edge. She shoots sideways glances up and down the hallway as we talk.
*
--Please contact me for the rest, which I'll happily give--
It Takes a Family to Raise a Village (magazine)
To read the full text of the feature article from Utah State Magazine, please proceed here. Also, enjoy the photography, some of which was also mine. This was a fun project. Here's the link.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)