Stuart Maynard's visit 7.23.09

(I found this treasure today.)

Stuart Maynard drops by...

On this quiet day in the alumni house I was working away when I heard whistling in the stairway. Certainly this was Jerry who whistles to let you know he's "in the house" coming back from Tennessee travels. I turned around to see, not Jerry, but Coach Maynard at my door!



This sharp as a tack 91 year old is always a boost to my day; an infusion of kindness, humor and grace. I've known him all my life. A role model; and icon; and mentor to my Dad and so many others. We are working on a project together with Dave Odom and others to raise money for an endowed athletic fund in his name. There are sketches of a batting center, and hopes for other improvements for baseball - the sport he is now most closely associated with. But is hasn't always been baseball...



He started out as a football player. Unlike today's kids who may have a football in their crib, he didn't ever see a football until high school, when he was growing up in Harnett County, NC. He had a good arm and threw a lot in the cow pasture with his brothers. They made their own baseballs then out there in Harnett Co. - tobacco twine wrapped around a fishing cork, then covered with tire tape. He wished he still had one of those.



Coach walked to high school which was about a mile through town after his family moved to Dunn. It was depression days and they had lost their farm. He'd arrive early and help the teacher start the fire. He told me he loved school. And he had great affection and admiration for his coach then, Mr. Averett. "Stuart, I want to see you after class" he said firmly one morning. Knowing he didn't do anything wrong, but still racking his brain for something he'd missed, he met Mr. Averett after school and was told to come out for the football team. He really wanted to work after school, but Mr. Averett assured him there were no jobs available; "go home by way of city hall and see all those people sitting on benches waiting and hoping for someone to hire them." Football it was.



Baseball came in the spring and the hope was for 2nd base. Coach Averett gathered the team around and asked for a volunteer to catch one day -- no takers. Stuart was picked because of his exceptional arm. He learned it well and played catcher from then on.



Coach received a 1 cent postcard from Block Smith telling him he'd been accepted to Guilford. His brother drove him to Raleigh and he took the bus the rest of the day, just in time to meet the coach by 12 noon. When I asked when and how he'd met Ruth, his partner for some 60 years, he said that he met her on the way to George White house for a freshmen orientation meeting. Their first date was to the fall athletic banquet for football and field hockey players. The rest is history. They graduated together and married the following July. Stuart joined the Navy and Ruth went to Clinton, NJ to teach. When Stuart was moved to Geneva, NY, Ruth moved there too and worked for the water department (she was a biology major at Guilford). Molly, their first child, was born in NY state.



He was a Navy man and was a trainer for the Rooster squad - the best of the best. He said it was just like coaching. They called him "Reb." He was the only southerner around!





He and Ruth moved back to NC after the NY/Navy days. After working for the YMCA in Eden/Spray, NC area he took a job in Williamston, NC at the high school. He coached everything - football, baseball, girls and boys basketball. He took a football team with no wins, to 5 wins the next season, and within about 4 seasons they were state champs. No surprises there.



One day he was reading the News and Observer and saw mention of Guilford's alumni day. They also mentioned that Guilford had lost 3 coaches. He wrote Dr. Milner on Monday, and by that Thursday was asked if he could come up on the alumni weekend to meet with the athletic committee of the Trustees. After the meeting, Dr. Milner said "Stuart my friend, would you be able to let us know your decision on Monday!?" Ruth and Stuart weighed the pros and cons, and made their decision to move their young family back to Guilford College.



Dr. Milner asked coach to take on baseball for a while, until the college could get more financially healthy. 33 years later, he was still coaching baseball!



"I realized that in all my years of coaching, with each team I was coaching my friends. I tried to treat them they way I was treated by Mr. Averett and Block Smith. I treated them all the same. I have met so many kind and good people."



He said I was a good person. You better believe I'm writing that down. Coming from Coach, that's something to hold onto.



We talked about the Tour de France and endurance and my bike on the front porch. We talked about how he could and maybe should write a book. "I'm getting to the end...I'm 91. People say I look good." He remembers dates and details, the strength of 100's of arms and the speed and footwork of so many feet.



You look great Coach. You always have. You make us all better. You coach us all to our strengths and our own potential, whether we can wear the mitt, or whether we work in the alumni house.

In my own backyard...

Yes, it's been a while.  Not since I've met Guilfordians on their home turf, but since I've written about it.  That could be an entire blog entry, but who wants to hear about all the ways I've let nonsensical "busy-ness" get in the way?

A few weeks ago, I had occasion to be in the county I lived in before I returned to Guilford as an alumna and employee.  The county where my children were born.  It was a time when Guilford, aside from my Guilford friendships, and my lifelong identity as a Guilfordian, wasn't too much on my radar screen.  I wasn't thinking about higher education, what it took to keep the College going financially, who was stewarding our core values and our idealism.  But, I was definitely benefitting from my  significant Guilford friendships I was a part of then, and my education.

I also didn't spend very much time thinking about generations of Guilfordians in the world or where they were, or, the possibility that some of them could be in my own backyard.  Yes, I thought about being a Guilford graduate every time I attended a Quaker meeting.  After all, this place I was living was Bucks County, PA, cradle of Quakerism for goodness sake. But in retrospect, I wish I had thought to call the alumni office then and ask "where are our people!"

This brings me to a few weeks ago.  I went back to the old "backyard" of Bucks County.  Spring had burst onto the scene in a show-offy way that was just breathtaking.  The Delaware River, River Road drive, and the heartland of Upper Bucks County...all extraordinarily more beautiful than I even remembered.  I set out on a stunning Saturday morning with my very best travel companion, the GPS lady,  and off we went.  I had run across information about a graduate from 1959 who lived in the area.  With Quaker ties, and ties to George School I was aghast that I had not ever met her or known of her.

GPS best friend (I haven't named her yet and it's not Siri) led me out to the rolling GREEN hills of Upper Bucks, and to an intersection when she announced "you have arrived at your destination."  I looked to my left and to my right.  No sign of life.  No house, no mailbox, no pathways.  Just fields.  On all four corners of the rural intersection.  I was about to have a word in my head with Guilford's database, but I first thought to check myself to see what careless mistake I might have made in entering the address.

I scratched my head and did some driving around to investigate when I found the address hanging from a small post at then end of a not quite driveway looking path.  I had arrived.  The night before, I had called this person, my fellow alumna.  In a most gracious way, she immediately started to explain to me that she was planning to give her annual fund gift before the end of the year.  I cringed a little, and tried to find the words to explain to her that I truly was interested in a connection.  That my interest was in hearing her story about Guilford and Bucks County, and about being Quaker in Bucks County.  Her follow up response, and I believe it would have been her response no matter my request, was "we will be home, and we are expecting out of town guests, but if you can come over in the morning you can meet them too!"  "Can you come at xx time tomorrow?"  I was struck by her generosity.  I was already astounded by the Guilford kinship that must have prompted her to invite me, a stranger, to her home not only to meet her, but to meet her friends.  I got that buzzy feeling I get inside when something good is about to happen.

When I drove down the path I entered into a collection of old Bucks County stone buildings in the middle of farm terrain.  Before I could even look around to see which one might be her home, I see a woman coming out of her front door, smiling, and waving.  I can't really describe the experience of that moment, except to say that I could sense her spirit even before I got out of my car.  It was like a big wave of openness - the ones they show in color in movies and on t.v. - that engulfed me and said "welcome."

A lot happens in a moment of greeting.  So many factors are in play that have nothing to do with just  the words spoken.  So much happened in our greeting.  Clara, my fellow alumna, accepted me based on something that was bigger than both of us.  Something about the ideals associated with whatever "Guilford" means to people.  And so it began: the story telling and story sharing, the commonalities, the friends/alums we have in common.  She came to Guilford from Newtown Friends School,  and before that, China.  She worked at George School for many years.  So much more to tell. But I was entranced by the way she welcomed me into her home; by the way she interacted with her 14 year old grandson who walked in while I was visiting. She was the embodiment of care and love and acceptance - this woman who lived in my old backyard and who I haven't known until now. She filled up the room with something that is rare. And it affected me. The two friends we have in common were her best friends from Guilford. They are also women who fill up the room with love, and intellect, and humor and grace.  But the real story here is the one about being embraced because of the belief in a shared experience just by virtue of living, and learning in a place that you believe in.  Even if it is just believing in the potential, the idealism of it  all,.  The fact that it has been shared, even when the years and decades, societal trends, leadership and emphasis was different.  Something common has been experienced.  That, is the story.

Because I met Clara and her husband, the decision to go to Meeting the next day in Bucks County was easy. I attended a local Meeting on another ridiculously gorgeous morning. 40 to 50 people, silently worshipping in a very old Quaker Meetinghouse. The query for the morning? Yes it's true...it was about Quaker education. At end of Meeting, I shared greetings from Guilford and from New Garden Friends Meeting. I asked Friends to hold the College in the Light. I felt again, embraced. As I sat down, the gentleman on the bench in front of me turned around. I had been admiring his bodacious eyebrows and his aura during Meeting. With a knock out smile, he told me his name and said "I graduated from Guilford in 1944." I'm not sure how I found the restraint it took to not grab him in a bear hug, but our handshake will last me a long time. We talked about some of his classmates, and our dear friend Stuart Maynard who had just passed away.

I floated away from Meeting that morning. I felt like the most privileged person. I sat in the middle of what felt like a global community of people who aspire to something important. This is critical for me to remember today. I just spent two and a half days in an "Understanding Racism" workshop at Guilford. Having core values, Quaker context and history, a mission statement, does not mean it is all so. There is a myth of Guilford. And, there are realities. We are humans. The ideals and the realities don't always or even often match up. But the ideal is the hope. And, the connections based on the ideal, are real. They matter. That again, is the story.

Meeting Guilford on the trail...some quick thoughts after a trip

(I'm not sure why I never posted this..but here goes. This was after an IDS senior camping trip with Maia Dery's class, Aaron Fetrow and Jeff Favolise.)

This weekend I had the pleasant opportunity to be in the woods and on the trail with 18 Guilford seniors, my son,  and three Guilford colleagues.   I looked up "colleague" this morning to see if it actually is the right word to describe my relationship with these three: 

 colleague 

1533, from M.Fr. collègue, from L. collega "partner in office," fromcom- "with" + leg-, stem of legare "to choose." So, "one chosen to work with another."

If  "chosen" is indeed part of this descriptive, then, yes,   I think by "colleague" I do mean that I have chosen, and hopefully, been chosen, by these three people as partners in a work adventure that we are trying to define.   These three are like minded in their passion, humility and cravings for partnership here.  They seem willing to "not know" the answers;  to be shaped by the questions, and by what the "moment" is calling for from them.  It takes courage to lead this way.  It takes a comfort level with vulnerability.  It calls for risk taking, and the willingness to make shifts that call for new, and sometimes initially awkward postures.    So, to be on both the literal and figurative trail with these "colleagues"  causes me to feel an amazing sense of gratitude.   

 Similarly, I feel honored to have walked part of the trail with Guilford seniors on  this weekend trip off campus.  I am rarely disappointed by Guilford seniors, which means, I am rarely disappointed by what Guilford continues to collectively co-create.  I think by that I mean that I see in seniors that this place - Guilford - has taken root somehow, yet again.  Aaron Fetrow says it often...that Guilford continues to be Guilford despite administration, budget challenges, shifting politics, etc.  It is similar to what  Arthur Larrabee, guru of Quaker process, said at opening community meeting a while back:  (and this is my paraphrase) -- in whatever dealings you have with each other here, always consider one more entity at the table and in the room - always consider that Guilford College is in the room.  

Around the campfires in the NC foothills,  it seemed very clear to me that" Guilford College" was there.  It was evident in some anxious questioning from students about whether or not Guilford is changing.  Where else could this question come from besides a desire to protect and preserve the sacred dharma of the College?  Why have countless seniors asked this question through the decades?  What do we all want to make sure is not lost?  We talk about knowing what IT is - but what is IT?  Is it the process that turns naive, wide-eyed, self-focused first year students into inquisitive, tolerant, curious, humble seniors/alumni?  Is it actually and subconsciously the deep hope that first year students will have access to the same transformative experiences that they have had in order to access the best, most deeply spiritual parts of themselves?  How can upper class people make the shift from thinking that there is an administrative plot to undermine our community of free thinkers, to, taking on the responsibility to be part of the process of making certain that "Guilford" is in the room with every first year and younger student?  

That is what I mean by colleague, ah yes!  We must all choose each other as partners in this work;  this work of figuring out what IT is that we want to protect, preserve and promote that is the heart of this rich academic, intellectual, spiritual, experiential crossroads on these 380 acres of dirt.    How do we tell the story to those arriving early, so that they become excellent stewards of the place they have chosen to occupy for four years? And, how do we make sure that each person moving on from this particular plot of dirt knows how precious each of their particular way of preserving the "IT" of this place can continue to be, long after their physical occupation of space here?

Yes, I'm grateful for all my colleagues today who want to keep asking the questions of the community, but mostly of themselves, about their shared responsibility, their part in honoring Guilford in each and every "room."

I'm on the road again, this time in Florida.  In some ways, it feels like I've been gone for a long time.  I think that is because I have a weird relationship with travel.  For some reason, I always find it so disarming to be plucked off my spot of the universe by a jet airplane and dropped down on another one.  And, though Florida isn't SO  far away from my particular spot, it is incredibly different.  Packing was a challenge.  I found it difficult to think about what to take, and not just because of the temperature difference.  Moving from scarves and boots to flip flops seems drastic, and, I didn't have immediate access to my summer gear, and, I'm in winter mode so not that excited about revealing my pale, winterized flesh.  Also, because my life has become more farm-like - I don't know another way to describe it.  Florida is clean lines, sea shells, white carpets, shades of light blue.  My life is wood piles and bark debris by my fireplace, dog fur, hay remnants, muddy boots, and grounds from the occasional hippie coffee shop.  No, I'm not actually living on a farm, but some days it feels as if I'm preparing to do so.  I had scary thoughts of entering my Florida friends' lives looking like "Pig-Pen" from Peanuts with my little cloud of dander!  Ok, that is an exaggeration.  I clean up pretty well I think.  I know I can count on my flexibility and ability to adapt to a variety of situations and being able to  meet whoever I'm with right where they are - right where they live.  But in my mind, my cloud stays with me! Come to think of it, I love my cloud.  It is a combination of the beautiful dander of my children, my animals, my friends, my house, my yard, a farm, a campus, darkrooms, lecture halls, alumni homes, coffee shops of every port, student and alumni campsites, lovely dinner meetings, an old alumni house, classrooms and my rolling Prius home.  It is real and rooted.

There were two really important posts/blog messages I read this week from women I love and depend upon for insight (both Guilfordians!).  One was about community.   The other, about authenticity.  Both seem pertinent to the meaning of why my "job" has relevance -- why I travel to meet Guilfordians "where they live,"  why Guilford College's survival is of importance, and why keeping Guilfordians' Quaker liberal arts education alive and fresh makes a difference in one's daily existence.  My dear friend put (another) this important message on her facebook page this week (thank you Cyndi!):

Don’t change yourself
just to fit in
with a place
or a person.

You risk
becoming an exile
to the luminous plans
that first brought you here.

- Frank Owen, Medicine

Then, there was this excerpt from Patti Digh's blog about community, which really speaks to that place where you find your "tribe" -- where you can honestly and with support explore, and find creativity and innovation for what might become:  

“Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts.
Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted,
not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can
but as a true source of new life.” -Henri Nouwen

True community is not clever. It does not necessarily speak in Twitter-worthy quips. It is not dazzling or quick or sarcastic or cute. It is not a place to impress people, but a place to be vulnerable about our shared poverty--our human-ness and our frailities and the promises we make to ourselves and often break. It is a place to see that shadow self not as something to be overcome or "fixed" but as the very thing from which new life springs.

I hope you have such a tribe. You will know it when you find it, a place where admitting is met with recognition, not an urge to "fix." Where sorrow is allowed, not swept up in our collective urge toward tidiness. Where showing off has no place. Where your shadows are your gift.

Finding your tribe may make all the difference for you, as it has for me. In a fluid, hyperconnected world of dazzling surfaces and promises, look beneath.


As I'm on the road in the name of Guilford College, I know I am seeking the ties that bind we Guilfordians as a tribe.  I look for what has remained with us, and what continues to influence  we Quaker liberal arts graduates from that time on campus when we too were "vulnerable about our shared poverty--our human-ness and our frailities..."  The place where, hopefully, we all experienced moments where "..sorrow  is (was) allowed, not swept up in our collective urge toward tidiness.  Where showing off has (had) no place.  Where your shadows are (were) your gift."    I have heard from many of us who lived for a time on those 380 acres, at the head of the Cape Fear Water Basin, in the Piedmont, on the edge of those historical woods, that Guilford was a place true to Henri Nouwen's quote above.  A place where "poverty,"  our "poverties, " became a "source of new life."  


How will I continue to bring my own "dander' to the place where I meet another person in a respectful and authentic way?  How will I keep fresh the time when I was in that Guilford campus "tribe" of learners and explorers?  How will I support members of this tribe to keep the tribe alive?  How might I assist in making connections between we tribe members?  I'll have to keep traveling and keep meeting,  even if it means packing flip flops in February.  

Dorothy Demos Daye '52 - Holt, Missouri

Worn out from a day of computer work in a room with no windows, in an "everywhereville" looking crossroads outside of a Kansas City office park, I left the building wondering if I could awaken my extrovert self enough to be "on" for an evening with Dorothy - a friend I hadn't met - yet.  All indicators from our phone calls had been great - she didn't seem phased at all by my initial call - you know, the one from me, the Guilford alumni staff stranger to the alum who hasn't heard from Guilford (except maybe for phonathon calls) for, well, (in a '52 grads' case) decades?  Quite the contrary to being "phased" Dorothy started busily making plans for us to meet in Kansas City, which is about a 30 minute drive from Holt, where she and husband Richard live.  So, I was hopeful that even if I was tired, that we would have a good time eating dinner and talking "Guilford."  I felt bad because I hadn't been able to check in with her in the afternoon - and it got close to 5 p.m. when she called.  Would she still be able to meet, I wondered?  Heck yeah, Dorothy called and said she was already on her way (was my new 80 year old friend talking on her phone while driving?!).  Like a dear old friend, she checked on me once she arrived to the restaurant, making sure I didn't miss seeing it as I was trying to navigate a new city.  We arrived about the same time.  Now, the strangest thing happened when I saw Dorothy - she looked exactly the way I thought she would look, (only more beautiful).  I had to ask myself if I'd seen a photo of her, and then realized there was no way I'd seen a photo.  But there she was, and I knew it was her because I'd seen her before, in my mind!

We started talking right away - I had so many questions:  what was it like coming to Guilford from Ohio in the 40's?  what was her family like growing up?  did she know anything about Quakers?  the Air Force?  her family, her children, her husband, her career?  Sometimes, I just can't get the questions out fast enough and never, ever have enough time to find out the depth of the answers.  Maybe a new requirement for maintaining alumnus status needs to be to write your Guilford story!  Shouldn't Guilfordians expect a required paper again in their lives at least once?

Dorothy's life sounds so interesting, from her upbringing with a Greek father to her trek to a Quaker college in NC, to being recruited for Air Force meteorology while at Guilford, to joining the Air Force and meeting her husband, to traveling to Tokyo, living in Omaha, NB and more.  But even more importantly to me, was being with her and experiencing her tremendously positive and kind essence.  It took about a minute and a half to witness her openness, that she delights in life, and that she is a person with an open heart and mind.  She was instantly someone I wanted to know better and I also instantly regretted that I only had a short time to get to know her.  I secretly wanted to follow her home to Holt!  We talked and talked before remembering that one of the reasons we met in the particular part of town was to be near the Art Museum, which had evening hours that night (Dorothy researched all this for us by the way).  She was completely game for heading over to the museum.   "You need to see it" she said.  So she led the way and we sped about 3 blocks over, even though it was already 8:30.  It was a lovely, perfect evening in KC and I was so glad to have a chance to walk with Dorothy up to the gargantuan museum for a little more conversation time.  I love a woman who isn't worried about time or constraints, who just wants to enjoy the moment!

I love these gifts of  encounters that I am given through my work at Guilford.  Even while I've been writing this, a got a call from Charles Neelley, also class of '52, from Wyoming, just calling to tell me that he was thinking of me while he walked in the Big Horns today.  Just last evening with Dorothy, I mentioned his name and she remembered her former classmate.  I love the Guilford thread.  Love it.

So, I sit in Kansas City here in Mildred's Coffee shop.  Wanting to eavesdrop on all the surrounding tables - the tatooed man with the most outrageously cool glasses I've ever seen who seems for all the world to be having a very high level, hip conversation about event planning, restaurants and maybe music with a couple of other very cool looking men (not that I'm paying attention to that!), the other two men who seem as if they could be talking about philosophy, the young women who are undoubtedly planning some sort of urban, organic upstart philanthropic venture and more.  I'm in Kansas....KANSAS!  I love being 51 because I think that's why I still get really wowed by the fact that I could be in Greensboro one day and Kansas City the next - a whole new terrain, out here in "the middle," with all new people, and even a Guilfordian.

Day 21 - ends with Meeting for Worship at Grass Valley Friends Meeting

Day 21

Trip ends with Meeting for Worship at Grass Valley Friends.  Thank you for this haven dear Friends.

Ends with Meeting for Worship at Grass Valley Meeting.  Met Doug Hamm and Bob Barnes.  Home of Coleman Watts '00, and current student Norah Cooke.

Thank you for this haven dear Friends.

Day 20 - Sacramento and the Skubics, parents of Sarah!

Day 20

The Skubics!  Blanche and Stan - great alumni parents of Sarah!