December 8, 2004

Sorting through papers, in my garden study on this chilly November day, my journal opens randomly to Wednesday, October 27, 2004. Re-reading my entry for that date, it’s easy to recall the talk Sy Hersh gave just the day before at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater in the Michigan League. The League has always been one of my favorite campus buildings. It was erected in 1929 with funds collected by the women graduates of the University of Michigan and was intended to create a center for the activities of women students on campus. The history of the League is clear, it is the “direct result of the hard work, oversight, dedication and contribution of hundreds of University women in the 1920s.” (http://www.umich.edu/~league/75/tour.htm).
For the very short while that my father was a student in Ann Arbor in 1926, he lived in a house which was soon demolished to make way for the new Michigan League. Combing thoughts of my father and the hardwon efforts of women to find their place in the University, I was charmed by the fact that Sy Hersh would be speaking in this memorable building.

Hersh was in town as part of the New Yorker College Town Tour. Everyone seems to love, even adore Sy Hersh. He is truly smart and works very hard. But I found him a little pompous as I watched him that day on the Lydia Mendelssohn stage. Hersh sat with his editor, a younger, very goodlooking man. The two of them were completely in control of the afternoon and also in command of the large audience who had waited in line so long to hear them speak.

In the question-and-answer period, several people made their way to the front of the room and stood awaiting their turn at the microphone. A woman asked “What can happen? What can be done to stop this dumbing down of our children, of our culture?” Hersh smiled and answered: “The Easter Bunny.” Everyone laughed and for a short while the woman’s question went unanswered. The laughter itself mocked the woman’s question which must have taken some effort to set before this academic audience.

Hersh went on: “The only thing you can worry about is yourself and your family. Read, read as much as you can.” The woman went back to her seat. As she sat down she gestured to a friend who had tuned in her direction. Holding her hands palms up below her waist, the woman looked unbelieving and defeated.

Here, in a building that was erected for women and by women, it was hard to imagine such a question being left in the dust of everyone’s laughter. I wondered at that moment how it was that Hersh was so famous for being so smart.

On the Sunday after the election, my husband and I meet with friends for coffee at Zingerman’s. Everyone was in a funk about the election. Kathleen told the story of her daughter Norah, who is nine years old. Norah had stood up at a “get out the vote” rally in Hill Auditorium before the election and asked a question of Michael Moore, the filmmaker. Because Norah was sitting in the balcony and because she is so small, it took a while for Moore to realize that she was waving her hand. Those around her started chanting, “call on her, call on her.”

When finally called on, Norah asked with great clarity “I am only nine years old and I can’t vote, but what can I do?” Michael More took her quite seriously, telling her first that getting up in front of this audience and making her preference known was already quite a brave move. He tried to envision her life as a nine-year-old and went on to give her several suggestions as to how she might help.

I thought that afternoon in Zingerman’s garden about the young Nora and the woman who asked a question of Sy Hersh. The voice of one small girl had been encouraged and the voice of another woman certainly discouraged. I wondered how each would respond to the invisible assumptions about the important of their thoughts. What others’ questions would they go on to ask …or not ask?

And, of course, I thought of my father who I never knew but whose demeanor I find myself always imagining. What would his reactions have been to the questions I would have certainly asked him through the years?