Published Winter/Spring 2009
 
Innocent Fiction
For Michael Sprinker
by Pamela Free | ns 71-72
"We all need a fiction of innocence—Marxism is mine for the moment. The trick is to motivate the fiction as an efficacious force in the world."
—Michael Sprinker
Twice Michael Sprinker pointed me in the direction I needed to go. The first time was in 1976 when I worked at Campus Shell Gas Station in Corvallis, Oregon. I responded fairly rapidly to his you shouldn't be working here and enrolled at Oregon State that next term, leaving the gas station far behind me. But upon reaching the second crossroads in 1981, when he suggested that I go to grad school (more an assumption on his part than encouragement) I went the other way, taking much-needed time off from school. 27 years passed in a flash! But last fall when I began my MA program, I saw that I had spiraled by Michael Sprinker once again, and his influence was still upon me.
I cannot make the claim that we were pals. We did not engage in lively debate outside the classroom. I was far too shy for any of that. Nevertheless, there was a strong meeting of the minds and a subsequent mentoring. The moment he stepped through that classroom door with an armload of books and a smile that said you are about to be gifted, I was hooked.
He demonstrated how little family background need impede. Ever sensitive to my own West Virginia coal-mining roots, I was inspired by descriptions of his working-class family. Oregon State University in the late seventies, early eighties, was noticeably white middle class. I cannot recall having met a single person of color there and certainly no coal-miner kids. Often I wore a cultural disguise in order to get by. Michael indicated that he did that also. He fit but maybe didn't look it; I looked it but maybe didn't fit; both of us were from somewhere else.
In the way that he approached life, he was most instructive. More than anyone I have ever known, Michael Sprinker was his work. By this I mean something more than "work-aholic" or "go-getter." Be the work was his credo.
And what exactly was The Work? Simply put, there were two aspects to it: Truth and Word. Personal risks were sometimes required. In the quest for truth, one did not shut down, burn out, grow lazy or cynical, hide behind a reputation. In the world of Word, no matter what befell one, what mattered was to continue to communicate, write, publish, lecture, deliver, and stay current with world events in order to shed light and bring forth the news.
One of the most valuable things Michael did for me was to take the time to comment extensively upon the pages of the journals that I wrote for his classes. His attention to my work made me understand that he took me seriously, even when I did not. He read what I wrote with consideration, as if truth could speak through me although I was merely a student. This expectation encouraged me to scrutinize what I had written, to re-examine it, to apply attention and mindfulness rather than assumption, and to stop writing generalizations and clichés. My world-view expanded through contact with his intellect.
But more than that, his comments showed me that there was a higher level of scholasticism at work, one that I had not imagined. A style of analysis, interpretation, and discussion second nature to him but new to me was on the pages placed by teacher for student to mull. He repeatedly instructed and enriched my mind, effortlessly cutting through my intellectual vagueness via the act of demonstrating how his mind worked. In short, he showed me the world of the scholar. Apprentice-like, I began to imitate and to find my own voice in the process. This is one of the things that exposure to a fine mind can do. Often teachers forget that they can do this for a student. I have not encountered this ability and generosity to such a degree in anyone else since. I call it generosity because he did not have to do it. He could have put in his time without giving so much of himself; professors often do that. And students still learn; students still take degrees.
In class, when his observations would pull from me the ah-ha moment of discovery, I responded with a double take. He did not waver from the spot. The image of his smile, the way his eyes sparkled at this meeting of the minds—this stays with me after all these years. My: Ohmygodyougottabekidding. His: I maintain it is as crazy as all that.
He knew his subject matter; he brought enthusiasm; he continued to quest to know; he took his students seriously unless they convinced him of the futility of the enterprise, in which case he quietly let go and pressed on. There was only so much time to discover truth and little of it should be allocated to the persuasion of the disinterested.
He was approachable and accessible when the questioner was sincere in the pursuit of knowledge, which I surely was. In my mind and heart he has remained the model teacher. I wish he were here so I could tell him that.
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