Basketball, a printing press, and the white whale

One of my greatest regrets about leaving the University of Minnesota–Morris after my freshman year was walking away from Professor Jim Gremmels. I had my reasons for leaving, but you don’t find a guy like Gremmels every day. He was original faculty at Morris, having been hired when the U of M campus opened there in 1960.

I took a couple of his literature courses that year, including one in which we read the famous love of his life: Moby Dick.*

A few brief memories:

• Gremmels interrupting his own lecture to defend Jim Beam whiskey against some sneering, ignorant undergrad.
• One of those “blue book” booklets used for the essay portion of mid-terms and finals stapled to his office door. On the cover, in red pen, was a big “A+” and the name of some student many years past with either nothing to lose or nothing to fear. Inside, only the words “I’d prefer not to.”
• Working on his ancient printing press with him in the basement of Camden Hall.
• His honest digressions about the struggles of teaching in the 1960s and 1970s, when flunking a struggling student often meant that the kid would lose his student deferment and head to Vietnam.

A year after leaving Morris, now installed at the Twin Cities campus, I had kept in touch with my old professor. He seemed to have kept in touch with a lot of people.

His beloved girls’ basketball team was coming to town to play at Concordia and we made plans to rendezvous at the game. I joined him on the sidelines and, at half-time, he naturally invited me to stick by his side as he headed into the players’ locker room to deliver his pep talk. It was awkward, but memorable.

Thanks to the Star Tribune‘s Dennis Anderson for his heartfelt memory of a professor of the old school who we both shared.

* I confess, I don’t believe I finished “Moby Dick” in Gremmels’ class. Perhaps it is time do so.