Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 23:51:28 -0500
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re: PLC: Thanks (and no thanks)


In my view, George is a valuable member of this list, and he's human like the
>rest of us -- we all have warts and worse, and it is, so to speak, 'a package
>deal.'  I lack evidence to explain the unusually sharp line of George's posts;
>perhaps Greg is right.  Whatever the case may be, we've all said things that
>might better no have been said, and most of us have gotten ourselves into
>conditions where we said a lot of things we might like to be able to retract.
>None of us would think it fair to make of such ill-occasioned words the
>crypt in

Dear Reg, 'preciate the kind words. don't much appreciate the request that
folks be large about my share of warts. Warts? I don't see no steenking
warts. My comments to Thad were from the heart. This is my profession. This
is what I do. I don't teach lit. I profess it. I see my "profession"
(another thing again) as co-conspiratorial with the professional
educational administrators in the destruction those who wish in something
like Thad's words, to kick some literary butt.

I'm tenured. Tenure may not (may not, hell, will almost certainly not)
exist by the time Thad gets there. He will be at the mercy of Myers of the
world. I congratulate him and rejoyce [sic] with him on the pleasure he
derives from literature. I regret my complicity in the destuction of the
joy he might have gotten from the "profession" of it.

Now if Laura is our Mom, I'm not sure I'm ready for you as my Dad. As far
as the things "we might like to be able to retract," let me please speak
for myself. When I have written such things, I have retracted them, and in
public. That is one of the beauties of email. It is now. If I am sorry., I
can say so. And I do. So, as the man said, it follows as night does day,
that if I have not said I am sorry, I am not, and I don't appreciate your
implication that I have said things  for which I ought to be sorry. Tell me
what they are, and if you convince me, I will bloody apologize. We are all
only words here. Reg, my real father died two weeks ago. I'm not yet ready
for another.

Cheers, and much respect (really)
g





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