The Lilly conference was over.  I was overwhelmed by fulfilling happiness mixed with a tinge of sadness.  As I put my stuff into the rented car, getting ready for a short jaunt to the Dayton airport, a young man approached me, and the Lilly mystique shone once again in all it’s glory and began to work its magic.  “Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“I noticed that a lot of you hugged and said ‘Love you’ as you left.  I don’t get it.  We never do that at our English conferences.  We’re so ‘professional.’  At best, if we even say goodbyes, we merely shake hands.  After all, we’re just colleagues.  Why do you do that?  I don’t understand.  But I want to.  I really want to.  This conference seems so different.”

I smiled and initially gave him a quick answer.  “It’s Lilly!!”  Then, I went on. “A lot of us don’t just talk about teaching or academics in general.  Lilly is more than about methods and techniques.  This is a place where you can help someone be happy, help them improve their life both professionally and personally, help them find a purpose to live for, help them guide themselves through the rough water of a storm, help them find a meaning in their lives.  This is a place where a lot of us do more listening than talking.  What I mean by that is what Greg Wentzel said during a schmoozing conversation, ‘There is love.’   That says it all.  For me and many others, Lilly it’s a very special place,  I hug with my hellos because I’m happy to be here and hug with my ‘love you’ because I’m sad to leave.  These good people are not my colleagues.  These are my friends; they’re my family.  Some of them I won’t see for another year, but I’ll talk and listen, share with and be shared with, throughout the year.  This is my first of two yearly Thanksgivings where I am grateful and give thanks for having these people call me “friend.”  Come here a few times and you’ll feel that gratitude; it’ll get under your skin, and seep into your soul;  and, then, you’ll live it.”  That’s why I go to Lilly each year.  It’s a place of authenticity and sincerity, of renewal and growth, of helping and being helped.  Sure, it’s a time and place to get and keep both the open mind and heart of a learner on the Mondays after the weekend of the conference.  And, boy, did I learn this time.  I’m going to experiment with incorporating something new in my classes:  clickers.  That’s what Lilly does to you.  I came here as an “anti-clickerer,” heard a plenary on it by Derek Bruff, got a flash of an idea a day later, bounced it off over lunch just now with him, and now I’m going home to work on it with my IT people for my Spring semester classes.”

He looked at me.  “But you’re a real old timer.  What keeps you going?”

I wasn’t sure how to take that “real old timer stuff,” especially the “real.”  Smiling, I answered, “This is a place where you’re constantly reminded that being a teacher, or just a plain ole human being, is like being an athlete keeping yourself in mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual shape.  The science of teaching means a mind, body, spirit meld, an organic unity of physiology, the brain, with psychology, the emotion, with sociology, the connection.  I’ve studied teaching for the last twenty years.  If I’ve learned anything, it’s that if you truly love teaching, if you want to do it for a long time, if you don’t want to burn out, it takes constant unlearning and learning, and constant deconditioning and  conditioning of the spirit, of the attitude, and of the mind.  I guess it’s something of academic yoga that makes you emotionally and mentally flexible, that allows you to accept change, that urges you to grow, that gets to the attitude of always asking ‘now, what’s next?  What’s over the hill?  Where’s the next mountain?’  It’s about transforming challenge from an obstacle to an opportunity so you can achieve the fullest potential.  It’s about reinventing yourself from time to time, time after time; it’s about growing and changing.”

“How do you know anything will work, for example, the clickers?”

“I don’t.  But, after nearly dying from a cerebral hemorrahage, I’ve learned there are no guarantees.  You don’t stay trim by being a couch potato.  You just have to take chances if you don’t want to become mentally and emotionally flabby.  Nothing worth doing doesn’t involve risk.  I mean, if it’s easy, if there’s no element of ‘danger,’ if there no possibility of it falling flat on it’s face, you already know how to do it and you’re heading for the straitjacketing rut of safe routine.  Personally, I feel so much better and it feel so much more meaningful if I overcome something new and risky than if I just keep on doing something ‘old hat’ and ‘safe.’  You have to have a ‘seeking spirit’ to be and stay alive; you have to have a sense that you can never get to the end of teaching; you have to realize and accept it’s an eternal journey.  I know a lot about teaching.  I offer conference sessions, plenaries, and keynotes.  I give workshops on campuses that will have me.  But, there so much I don’t know and have to learn.  It’s a constant intrepidness, a constant curiosity, a constant search, a constant adventure venturing out into the known, constant challenge–and constant wonder.  Whatever I do will work if I keep working at it!”

Then, he countered me with a fearful tone and look, “I bet you have tenure.”  We talked a tad more.  He tried to end our conversation by offering me his hand. I moved forward slowly and gave him a hug.  “Can I talk with you later?” he hesitantly asked.

I said, “Keep in touch.  You’ve got my telephone number and email in the conference book.  Buzz me any time.  I’ve got a shoulder and ear.”

He smiled.  I got into the car.  As I was heading to Dayton to catch my flight back into Susan’s arms I was thinking about that conversation.  Lilly really is a time and place when and where you can strike the spark or keep the spark alive, kindle or rekindle, and get or keep your “inside me” ablaze.  It’s a place where you don’t have to power walk to keep your heart in shape, for you discover that there is no better exercise for your heart than helping to lift someone up.  And, in the effort to do that, nothing is a waste of effort or time.

Susan and I wish all of you and your families the happiest of Thanksgiving.  And, may you not overdoes on food and go into a caloric coma.

Louis