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PIONEERING OVER FOUR EPOCHS (The Fifth Edition) An autobiographical study and a study in autobiography By RonPrice TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PIONEERING OVER FOUR EPOCHS VOLUME 1: INTRODUCTIONS AND GENRES Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Introduction 2 Chapter 3 Letters Chapter 4 Diary/Journal/Notebooks Chapter 5 Interviews Chapter 6 A Life in Photographs VOLUME 2: PRE-PIONEERING Chapter 1 Ten Year Crusade Years: 1953-1963 Chapter 2 Pre-Youth Days: 1956-1959 Chapter 3 Pre-Pioneering Days: 1959-1962 VOLUME 3: HOMEFRONT PIONEERING Chapter 1 Pioneering: Homefront 1: 1962-1964 Chapter 2 Pioneering Homefront 2: 1965-1967 Chapter 3 Pioneering Homefront 3: 1967-1968 Chapter 4 Pioneering Homefront 4: 1968-1971 VOLUME 4: INTERNATIONAL PIONEERING Chapter 1 International Pioneering 1: 1971-1973 Chapter 2 International Pioneering 2: 1973-1974 Chapter 3 International Pioneering 3: 1974-1978 Chapter 4 International Pioneering 4: 1978-1982 Chapter 5 International Pioneering 5: 1982-1988 Chapter 6 International Pioneering 6: 1988-1996 Chapter 7 International Pioneering 7: 1996-2005 Chapter 8 Epilogue VOLUME 5: COMMENTARIES, ESSAYS AND POEMS Chapter 1 Credo and Resumes Chapter 2 Pioneering An Overview Chapter 3 Anecdote and Autobiography Chapter 4 Autobiography as Symbolic Representation Chapter 5 Essays on Autobiography Chapter 6 A Study of Community and Biography Chapter 7 About Poetry Chapter 8 Social Problems Chapter 9 Praise and Gratitude sections below: (found in these volumes) SECTION I Pre-Pioneering SECTION II Homefront Pioneering SECTION III International Pioneering sections below: (not found in these volumes) The material below is found in other locations and, although not included in this autobiography, it could be useful for future autobiographical, biographical work and historical work. SECTION IV Characters/Biographies: 24(ca) short sketches SECTION V Published Work : Essays-170(ca): See(a) Resume Vol.5 Ch 1 above and (b) Section V: Volumes 1&2 of private collection. SECTION VI Unpublished Work: Essays-Volumes 1 & 2---150 essays(ca) ........................1979-2006 Novels-Volumes 1 to 3---12 attempts ..........................1983-2006 SECTION VII Letters: Volumes 1 to 35: 3000 letters(ca)... 1967-2006 SECTION VIII Poetry: Booklets 1-58: 6000 poems(ca)........ 1980-2006 SECTION IX Notebooks: 300(ca)........................................1965-2006 SECTION X.1 Photographs: 12 files/booklets/folios..............1908-2006 SECTION X.2 Journals: Volumes 1 to 4.................................1844-2006 SECTION XI Memorabilia...................................................1962-2006 DEDICATION This book is dedicated to the Universal House of Justice in celebration of the fortieth anniversary of its first election in April 1963 and to Alfred J. Cornfield, my grandfather, whose autobiography was an inspiration to the one found here. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION The first hard copy of the fifth edition of this work was made in early April 2004, six months after creating the fourth edition. This hard copy, the first in the public domain, as far as I know, was made by Bonnie J. Ellis, the Acquisitions Librarian, for the Baha’i World Centre Library. The work then had 803 pages. Anyone wanting to read that fixed edition will find it there. This fifth edition is the base from which additions, deletions and corrections have been made in the months and years since then. The latest changes were made on April 18th 2006 with 2 days left in the Baha’i community’s current Five Year Plan. This edition now comes to 1050 pages in the form of five volumes with some 2000 references. Such a number of references are enough to turn off anyone but the most zealous reader. Readers of the Internet edition may come across one of several of these editions since I frequently make changes to the content and I have been placing editions or parts thereof on the Internet for the last two years. This is one of the advantages or disadvantages of the Internet. I trust this fifth edition will be the final one of this autobiographical work. The Baha’i Academic Resources Library and Morfik.XS.com both have variations of this edition at their sites, although my work at this latter site will not be online until later this year. At this stage in the evolution of this book, though, I could benefit from the assistance of one, Rob Cowley, affectionately known in publishing circles back in the seventies and early eighties --as “the Boston slasher.” Guy Murchie regarded his work as “constructive and deeply sensitive editing.”1 If he could amputate several hundred pages of this work with minimal agony to my emotional equipment I’m sure readers would be the beneficiaries. But alas, I think Bob is dead and I have not found an editor or even a copy-and proofreader willing to wade through my labyrinthine chapters and pages, smooth it all out and excise undesireable elements. John Kenneth Galbraith’s also had some helpful comments for writers like myself. Galbraith’s first editor Henry Luce, the founder of Time Magazine, was an ace at helping a writer avoid excess. Galbraith saw this capacity to be succinct as a basic part of good writing. Galbraith also emphasized the music of the words and the need to go through many drafts. I’ve been working my way through endless drafts. I’ve lost count, but I’m not sure if in the process I have avoided excess. In some ways I have found that the more drafts I do, the more I had to say. So I have Galbraith watching over my shoulder and his mentor, Henry Luce. Galbraith is now in a nursing home but his spirit will live on, I’m sure, after he leaves this final domain. Spontaneity did begin to come into my work at 1 Guy Murchie, The Seven Mysteries of Life, Houghton Mifflin Co., Bonston, 1978, p.viii. perhaps my sixth or seventh draft. Galbraith says that artificiality enters the text because of this. I think he is right; part of this artificiality is the same as that which one senses in life itself. The capacity to entertain and be clever will not occupy such an important place in the literary landscape in the centuries ahead, I tend to think. Still, I like to think readers will find here a song of intellectual gladness and, if not a song, then at least a few brief melodies. I would also like it if this work possessed an unwearying tribute to the muse of comedy that instills the life and work of, say, Clive James. Alas, that talent is not mine to place before readers. They will be lucky to get a modicum of laughs, as I’ve said, in the more than 1000 pages that are here. I avoid humour except for the occasional piece of irony, play with words or gentle sarcasm that lowest form of wit. Not making use of the lighter side of life, not laughing at oneself and others in a country like Australia is perhaps an unwise policy. But readers won’t find much to laugh at here.2 In some ways I don’t mind the relative dearth of humour because, as Gore Vidal pointed out in a recent interview, ‘laughing gas is pumped into most homes every night’ as society amuses itself to death.3 If readers miss the lighter, the more humorous, touch here, they may also miss the succinctness that they find in their local paper, a doco on TV or the pervasive advertising medium that drenches us all in its brevity and sometimes clever play on words and images. One thing this book is not is succinct and I apologize to readers before they get going if, indeed, dear readers, you get going at all with this work. I have grown fonder of life after years of having to suffer ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.’ As far as laughs are concerned, I have made much ‘ha ha,’ as Voltaire called it, in the public domain in these last six decades, especially since coming to Australia in 1971. A goodly portion of my life has been light and cheery and I’m confident, with Gore Vidal, that it will stay this way, barring calamity or trauma, until my last breath. I hope some readers will enjoy this narrative in all its excess, its voluminosity and its serious note and tone. In one of John Steinbeck’s letters he wrote: “Anyone who says he doesn’t like a pat on the back is either untruthful or a fool.”4 I look forward to many pats on the back. Gertrude Stein’s autobiography was published when she was 54 and it led to the beginning of her popularity after more than 20 years of trying to publish her writing, unsuccessfully. The reason for her autobiography’s success, she once said, was that she made it so simple anyone could understand it. Perhaps I should have done the same and removed anything obscure or complex. Sadly, for those who like to ‘keep it simple stupid,’ as one of the more popular lines in business English courses emphasizes, they may find this work a bit of drudgery, far more that they want to be bothered to bite off. 2 J.K. Galbraith in Harry Kreisler, Conversations With History: Intellectual Journey-- Challenging the Conventional Wisdom, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996, 3 Gore Vidal, “Interview with Bob Carr: Foreign Correspondent,” ABC TV, 9:45-10:05 p.m., February 21st, 2006 and Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Penguin, 1986. 4 John Steinbeck, “Letter March 14th 1963,” in Steinbeck Studies , Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2004. Stein marketed her book in several important ways, ways I do not resort to.

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