University of South Florida Scholar Commons FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities Florida Humanities 9-1-1991 Forum : Vol. 15, No. 02 (Fall : 1991) Florida Humanities Council. Sheldon R. Isenberg Louis H. Pratt Joan S. Carver Deborah G. Johnson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine Recommended Citation Florida Humanities Council.; Isenberg, Sheldon R.; Pratt, Louis H.; Carver, Joan S.; and Johnson, Deborah G., "Forum : Vol. 15, No. 02 (Fall : 1991)" (1991). FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities. 4. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Florida Humanities at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FALL Women in Florida Politics - Page 12 ____________________________________________________________________________________ -____________________ BOARD OF DIRECTORS Carl Christian Anderson THE HUMANITIES Leesburg Philosophy, ethics, religion, history, art criticism, literature, Marcia Beach Fort Lauderdale language, linguistics, folklife, archaeology, Samuel P. Bell Ill anthropologyand jurisprudence. Tallahassee They tell us about our lives, our cultures and our societies. Cici Brown Ormond Beach They provide the traditions, interpretations and visions Cecilia Bryant which define our existence. Jacksonville Locke Burt Ormond Beach Myra 3. Daniels Naples Inside Highlights Francisco Jose de Varona Miami Nancy 1. Ford 4 Richard Eberhart Teaches Me By Sheldon R. lsenberg Tampa About My Father’s Death Marcia Frey Winter Park William 1. Hall Jr. A discussion of the writings of one of America’s elder poets Niceville Lois C. Harrison 6 Lift Every Voice and Sing By Louis H. Pratt Lakeland Thomas 3. Hegarty The life of James Weldon Johnson, Jacksonville-born Tampa educator, writer and civil rights leader Mildred Hill-Lubin Gainesville Richard P. Janaro 12 The Long, Slow Climb By Joan S. Carver Miami Thomas P. Johnson Seven political pros discuss the emergence of women Fort Myers in Florida politics Eugene Lyon St. Augustine 17 Seeking Ethical Guidelines By Deborah Johnson Patsy 3. Palmer G. Tallahassee for Use of Computer Technology W. Stanley Proctor Monticello Can we apply traditional moral theories to new situations? Yvonne V. Sapia Lake city 21 New Grants Issued By FHC Board Annette Scherman Sarasota 22 Meet FHC’s Five New Members Frank E. Taylor Board Key West STAFF THE FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL ANN HENDERSON Executive Director FHC FORUM * Vol. XV, No.2 * Fall 1991 ANN BOOKS The magazine of THE FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL Associate Director for Administration 1718 East Seventh Avenue, Suite 301, Tampa, Florida 33605 SUSAN LOCKWOOD 813 272-3473 Associate Director for Program - JOAN BRAGGINTON The Florida Humanities Council, a non-profit organization-funded Program Director by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the state of Florida RON COOPER and private contributors-supports public humanities activities in Resource center Director Fiorida. Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those CYNTHIA DAVIS of the Florida Humanities Council. FHC Forum is distributed free of Teacher Institute Coordinator charge to the friends of the Florida Humanities Council and CHRISTINE LENTZ interested Floridians. If you wish to be added to the mailing list, Administrative Assistant please request so in writing. NANCY LEWIS Bookkeeper MYRA STONER Secretary FRONT COVER Editor John W.Koenlg Pencil sketch of James Weldon Johnson by artist Mark Priest, Design & Production an instructor at Seminole Community College. Russ Kramer © 1991 Fl-IC A NEW NAME: The Florida Humanities Council once was introduced to an audience at a community college as the executive director of the Florida Endowment for the Manatees. It was the only time when I have been introduced that a majority of those in the audience actually looked as if theyJ knew what did for I, I a living. of course, was madly trying to remember everything I ever had heard about sea cows. Fortu nately, I was the commencement speaker and the audience was more interested in getting on to the important stuff - watching family and friends graduate - than in listening to me. I tell this story to help explain why we recently changed the name of the organization to the Florida Humanities Council. Originally the Florida Citizens’ Committee for the Promo tion of the Humanities when the organization was founded in 1971, the name was changed to the Florida Endowment for the Humanities in 1974. Florida Endowment for the Humanities always was diffi cult. The word "endowment" kept getting in our way. It was a misnomer. We are not endowed; we are supported by grants from the state of Florida and the National Endowment for the Humanities. As our support from the state has shrunk, we have begun to seek private sector funds. In our discussions with cor porations, foundations and individuals, we often have found it necessary to explain first that we are neither rich nor endowed. Our decision to abandon the term "endowment" makes our role easier to explain. Although we have changed the name to better describe ourselves, we are still committed to the humanities - no matter how difficult the word is to explain. As Sharon Scholl of Jack sonville University explains, public humanities programs give people a deeper sympathy with the worlds around them. The composition of our state demands a citizenry with the capacity to understand communities outside their own. This is the contribu tion of the humanities. The Florida Humanities Council will con tinue to make sure that people throughout the state - not just those on the college campus - have opportunities to develop this capacity. Ann Henderson Executive Director FALL 1991 3 Richard Eberhart Teaches Me About My Father’s Death By Sheldon R. Isenberg 0 good life he does not affirm-but 0 the wonder and mystery of all ‘5 being, he does affirm. know Richard Eberhart 5 through his poems, and I have In "Survivors," published in 0 IonIymade that acquaintance only ‘5 The Lpg Reach: N Uncol recently. Maybe my innards are lected Poems, 1948-1984 New just getting old enough to learn Directions, 1984, Eberhart talks from him. about the "ancient ladies" who, "At Play ninety, My preparation for this read ninety, golf at At ing has included experiencing my Castine, a way from sorrow. ...Who have evaded ill By some father’s dying which he completed mysterious principles... last summer: 10 days unconscious in intensive care, breathing at the The mystery, given "The rate it takes to sustain 110 heart common lot, Nature ruthless beats per minute-the pulse of a but "nature is Not ruthless to marathon runner at the end of the them, Seemingly. ..." And yet "1 course. Everything gave out but cannot accept/That to live long his heart. means truth? When I think Of My father’s aging was very Keats, of Hopkins/ Of Dylan hard-not because he resisted it, Thomas." but because the end game of his Watching mother and father life was so long-decreasing cir Richard Eberhart swallows feeding their chicks and cles of activity as his body disinte teaching them to survive, he grated until the magnetic force of poets write "to perform the self in decides that "The laws of nature! his bed became irresistible. His acts of creation against the total Are from ancient time,/ Why story is not like the ones Eberhart loss of time were one silent." Eber then/ Not Salute? Old ladies full tells of 90 and 100 year olds play hart continues to write--he seems of grace/ Who have! Outwitted ing bridge and sinking holes in to find time, not lose it. We were time,/ or so it seems." one. Nor like the story that is the delighted and astonished as he poet himself, writing at 86. helped prepare us for this occasion He gives us lots of time. with gifts of new words. In "On Hearing of Auden’s death, he So I approach Eberhart as a Aging," an unpublished writes in "Trying to Hold it All teacher. I’m looking for inspira manuscript, he points me to a rela Together" Collected Poems ii2tSi tion, models for aging-ideas and tivity of time more profound than Oxford University, 1976: images. Reading him, I have found Einstein’s: "to feel old at 30, young We cannot outface time, many wonderful poems about at 80," as he says. Nothing can be done about the elders and eldering. But there are human condition. other themes that I need to learn My father was rarely young about from Eberhart-death, of for me. But I remember one time, O nothing can be done! course, and youth. Our ideas of when he was just 80, he danced Don’t think it. eldering are knotted with our with my mother on legs that Don’t believe Will will help us, ideas of youth. And time and almost refused to carry him. But or religion, his civilized stance, timelessness. And nature. he bore a young delighted smile A comic attitude, any saving grace, In an essay published more on his face. We cannot hold it all together, the than 20 years ago, he says that Eberhart keeps pointing me depth, to the mystery: the inexplicability We cannot trick it out with word Dr. lsenberg is associate professor of reli of being born, of dying old or embroidery. gion at fheUniversily of Florida. He deliv dying young, of living long and Time is the master of the man, and ered this paper in 1990 at a Florida healthy or we know it. Humanities Council-sponsored program, not so healthy. No easy ‘Writing in theUpward Years," at Santa Fe morals-no morals at all. The Bib Community College.