#225 Some History and Travel Stories

 

This is not the post that I expected to put up this month, but trouble loading older photos from external hard drives has commanded that I punt that plan. The new plan (this post) consists of a memorial I have wanted to present for years and a couple of stories from my travel book (16 Years of Travel in Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales which is still available on Amazon) intermixed with photos taken recently around the Canby Community Park. I hope you like plan B.

R.S.Baker

The pictures of R.S. were taken in 1978.

My introduction to Robert S. Baker, professor of English at Oregon College of Education, was the summer I went from Linfield to OCE in Monmouth. After four years at Linfield I didn’t graduate because of not having a second year of foreign language even though I tried them all. Instead, I transferred into a fifth year program to get my teaching credentials. That summer session I took a massive load of classes, many were lower division to get me up to speed with the education requirements and meet OCE’s requirements for a degree in English. My Linfield major was speech with a minor in English. I needed several writing classes as well some more extensive Lit classes. Thus I met R. S. Baker.

Baker taught a graduate level composition class needed for a fifth year program. I had made my way through Linfield’s English requirements by writing essays—I even ghosted essays for frat brothers for extra income. This one class would be a snap. The summer class was made up of many working teachers getting needed hours or degree requirements and a few undergrads with me somewhere between the two. After some basic class info, professor Baker gave us an in-class writing assignment. The topic was a personal essay about something easy to write on. We turned our essays in and I thought, "Easy peasy."

The next day we all showed up and Balker chose a paper to read to the class—he chose my paper. What a great thrill! He read the one page paper aloud, then looked at me and said, “Mr. Jones, this is a f***ing piece of shit!” He outlined all that was wrong with my writing  and tore the paper in half and threw it in the bin. He read a couple more papers, not as bad as mine, but still weak. He assigned us the next essay and I walked out crushed!

I did better on the next paper. Half the working teachers did not show up for the third session. Those of us who stuck it out worked really hard. I know I never worked so hard for a “B” in my life, but I learned. 

Over that year at OCE I had R.S. for every class I could. When I went for my Masters at OCE (now Western Oregon University) I took more classes from Baker. I was one of numerous R.S. Baker disciples and he became a friend. We’d talk in his office crowded with books and go to jazz concerts together, Not only was Robert S. Baker an outstanding teacher who helped us get the best out of ourselves, I consider him one of the major influences in my life.

Bio

Born Robert Samuel Baker in 1926 in Weed, California. His elementary schooling was in Salem and he graduated from Vancouver HS, WA, in 1944. R.S. spent time as a Merchant Marine and with the Army Signal Corps where he was stationed near New York City where he developed his love for jazz. After his stint with the Army, he went to Pacific University in Forest Grove, graduating with a degree in literature in 1953. He earned his Master’s Degree in English at the University of Chicago in 1956. Baker started his teaching career at OCE where he taught for 31 years. While teaching he published numerous articles in publications such as The Nation and Commentary. He remained a jazz devotee with special affinity for female vocalists. He died on June 26, 2004, and will always be remember for his influence on so many teachers.  

Attack of the Ducks

While touring the far northwest corner of Scotland, from

Durness east towards Tongue, we had one of our most unusual

animal encounters. We were attacked by a flock, herd, bevy, covey,

gaggle, crowd, or what ever you call a gang of crazed ducks. I had

gotten out of the car at an ocean overlook to photograph the view

and was soon accosted by a group of local ducks, at least they all

quacked with a northern Scottish brogue. They kept up their

begging behavior as I walked across the road, but left me when

I headed down toward the beach.

After about ten minutes of picture taking, I walked back to 

the car. Anne had rolled down her window and was shouting 

at me to come feed the ducks who had been pecking the car 

door under her window demanding a ransom of cracker crumbs 

for her release. I found some Carr’s Cheese Melts (our  favorite 

cracker) and lured away the mob who I discovered would fight 

each other to eat right out of my hand. We were several miles 

from even a small village in the remote far northwest corner of 

Scotland, yet the ducks were able to eek out an existence by 

gang attacking tourists. Clever birds!

Attack of Ice Cream Crazed Gulls

In Llandudno (clan-DID-nu), Wales, we hit an absolutely

gorgeous stretch of weather--clear skies, 80 degrees, almost no

wind--in mid April. After golf one afternoon we walked from our B&B

down to the waterfront and then out the Llandudno pier. It was too

early in the season for most of the pier shops and attractions to be

open, but the ice cream shop was doing a brisk business in the fine

weather. We each bought a cone and continued to walk out toward

the end of the pier making jokes about a long walk on a short pier.

Without warning, a gull swooped down and hit Anne’s cone holding

hand, knocking the ice cream and cone to the ground. A couple of

gulls pounced on the dropped cone with relish. 

After seeing what happened to Anne, I guarded my cone 

much more closely. I saw a gull dive at me and turned to the side,

but the gull hit me with a wing and knocked my glasses off. It might

have been the same gull who hit Anne or a different one, I didn’t get

a chance to ask for identification. In trying to keep my glasses from

a watery grave off the pier, I dropped my ice cream cone to the

great delight of another couple of gulls.

Without ice cream cones we walked back to the beginning of

the pier and noticed locals standing next to protective buildings

enjoying their sweet treat. When we told our B&B hosts about the

vicious attacks, they apologized for not telling us that the local birds

were a “tad aggressive.” Tad aggressive! Our military needs these birds!

NEXT: Your guess is as good as mine.