Mere days after my dentist appointment I had occasion to be back in the waiting room. Of course I had a book with me. Then my attention was caught by either a patient or someone waiting for a patient. This man had not one, but two books with him. He was poring over one of them, which was an older hardcover, like an academic. Since I’d just posted about seeing nobody reading books, I felt I needed to publish a kind of, well, not exactly retraction, but reflection. The sight of this man, about my age, was profoundly hopeful. I have no idea who he was and waiting rooms are not generally where I choose to introduce myself. I do sometimes weigh, however, the demerits of interrupting someone reading with the merits of meeting another reader. We reading sorts can be private people, although reading in public marks us.
The book I happened to have had a bright, trade cover. His were more somber and academic. How could I, whose reading looked facile (it was not, but it looked like it might be) approach someone perhaps awaiting a root canal, who had some serious reading to do? Two hardcovers bespeak serious business. This made me reflect on another occasion in Easton. Again, I was waiting for someone and it was summer so I sat outside on a curb, at the traffic circle, reading a book. It was actually Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Evening was falling. A couple of coeds, or they seemed to eyes from my age, stopped and asked what I was reading. I explained, and, unaccountably, they seemed never to have heard of Morrison, but were interested. It was a teaching moment.
Back to the dentist office. Had I missed out on the opportunity for a free lecture? If this man were a professor, he’d likely have talked gladly about his work. One thing I learned from being a professor myself is that people rarely ask about your work. Yes, colleagues in the same field do, but even at Nashotah House with its small faculty, nobody seemed interested in the research of their colleagues. As academic dean I even tried to institute a faculty seminar where we could read a paper and discuss it. I was the only one who ever volunteered to do it. In retrospect, it might’ve been a lost opportunity, that waiting room visit. I’ve attended many medical appointments in my life, and finding a fellow reader at one of them was a bit of a silent gift. I was glad to have been proven wrong.
