Professor Vardaman's Influence on a Couple of Students

Professor Vardaman and Betsy

in England with Friends

Professor Vardaman's most special student, whom he most influenced,was Betsy, as she says in her own words:

As I told him more than once, in all the important ways he made me who I am and without question, he gave me the world . . . . Dr. Vardaman (James, Jim) obviously inspired students far and near to realize learning was the only thing for them, too. He opened minds and motivated students to weigh carefully the trajectories for their lives. He insisted that they become critical thinkers and ponder evidence.

Professor Vardaman also believed in me, and said he was proud of me, in a letter of five or six years ago, written in response to a 2012 article of mine ("Points Toward a Culture of Discussion," Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond: Humanistic Approach) that I had sent to him:

I sit here on a Thursday evening approaching 8 p.m. and hearken back over the years, remembering such warm and fine things about you. I take pride in you though perhaps I have no right to do so. I'm sure that all of the things that impel you to greatness took place in Salem, Arkansas, long before you appeared on Baylor's campus and in my life.

He's right to see that I was already set on my scholarly path before I met him (but "greatness"?) He nevertheless had some influence on me in his teaching, which I praised him for in warm words that he in turn thanked me for:

I'll always recall your intelligence, your wry humor, your hard work, and your sensitivity. . . . It is hard to believe that you have indeed become a successful Gypsy [Scholar] with your keen mind still intact. I thank you for your warm words [about my teaching and my character]. I hope I deserve some of them.

I'm sure he deserved the praise. Next, concerning the article of mine that I sent him, he wrote:

I read your article and found it deeply interesting, indeed, in places quite fascinating. It seems to me you have asked the good questions, and you certainly have picked a judicious topic! And it goes without saying that I agree with your basic thesis. What educated person could disagree with your opinion! I trust you will be convincing when you deliver your paper at your conference. It's good that you related Sam Huntington's clash of civilizations - rarely do people talk about his view of culture in a positive way as you do. I appreciate your allowing me to read your work. It is quite stimulating.

That was, in truth, a good article. A few other articles of mine attain its level, I hope. Some general observations were also forthcoming from Professor Vardaman:

You've done it well. You've paid the price. I know it has not been easy. There's the loneliness, sometimes the rejection, sometimes the longing for rich understanding from others that just won't appear when we need it most. It pleases Betsy and me that you have been selected to discourse at this global forum. Hopefully it is more than a stewpot. With you there, I think it will be.

And Betsy wrote an addendum to his letter:

Jim is very proud of you, and your sending him a copy of your paper meant a lot to him. When he put it down, the first thing he said was, "Impressive."

I could ask no higher evaluation from such an elevated source, and I hope I deserved the praise. I know I'll never hear its like again, leastways not in his voice. Now, he belongs to the ages . . .

A Few More Words from Betsy

Elizabeth Vardaman
and Students

Betsy speaks of Professor Vardaman's good health and abrupt death:

Jim lived to be 89 year of age. He did indeed "rage against the dying of the light" and knew himself fortunate to enjoy a long and mostly healthy life. Certainly he had every synapse firing in his brain until the week when all the clocks stopped. Just over four months ago. In this complex, fragmented world, he was a person we turned to for historical context, for wisdom and perspective, for affirmation that we were okay, even if we did not know everything, and for peeling the layers of issues back to their origins.

This might sound like Betsy's last word on the subject, but she still has four more pages, so I might cite some more.

More from Betsy on Professor Vardaman

Elizabeth Vardaman

At Ten O'Clock

Betsy Vardaman was privileged to be with Professor Vardaman every day, and two of her daily wishes were unchanging:

I wished for a tape recorder every day, and more shelving. Books were stuffed under tables, tipping over from stacks in the corners, and sideways on the tops of volumes lined up neatly in their categories and rows around the room. I've always imagined that one could get smarter, just by breathing deeply the air in there. (And, okay, most of the chats between my husband and me were one-sided. The scholar mused on topics from his childhood and/or across time. I listened and nodded as if fully comprehending all the news "the king" rained down on me.) For example, one morning about a year ago, I brought up Tennyson  because I was going to lead a few sessions at our church on Victorian poetry. Suddenly Jim began to quote "Locksley Hall." (This is a very long poem -- and hauntingly crafted, with lines such as these woven throughout: "Many a night I saw the Pleiades, rising thro' the mellow shade,/ Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.") He recited pages of it . . . not quite all, but almost. I pulled my college English from the shelf and followed along -- truly aghast that he could just access 200+ lines of Tennyson without a year to prepare. He responded, when I asked him when and why he had memorized it, "Well, [my sister] Ann encouraged me to learn poems when I was young. And I liked Tennyson, so I started there."

Life with Professor Vardaman must have been full of surprises. There was always another level to his knowledge.

Betsy Vardaman: Still More on the Professor

Betsy Vardaman

Here is Betsy listing only a few of Professor Vardaman's early morning informal, if impassioned lecture topics

[Jim] and I of course held rich exchanges upon wildly diverse topics, but all with intensity and detail -- and often before I had had my first cup of tea. I list here just a few of his sunrise lecture topics: the Magna Carta, Dunkirk; the HMS Calliope; the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution; Martin Luther; William Tyndale; Martin Luther King; the Huguenots; Vaclav Havel; the Netherlands' history of religious toleration; Palestinian and Jewish relations; Bosnia; William Faulkner; Kemal Ataturk; Czeslaw Milosz; Stalin; Hitler; the difference in Pilgrims and Puritans; Scotland's role in shaping US democracy; Quanah Parker; his admiration for Winston Churchill, William Gladstone and Oliver Cromwell; and every other aspect of the British Empire throughout history as well as the roots and derivations of just about every word in the OED.

This might look to you like a mere list of disorganized topics, but for those who knew him, an entire lecture on each of these and thousands more was instantly available to him if called for, and not because he had prepared in advance by memorizing lectures he had given before but because he knew history in such detail that he didn't need to prepare at all.

Everything was there in his mind, ready at a moment's notice to be crafted spontaneously into a lecture inscribed upon the air . . .

More from Betsy Vardaman on the Professor

Betsy Vardaman

Baylor

More from Betsy on her late husband, Professor Vardaman, in his very active retirement years:

Our home and library, in truth, became hallowed ground for us as a couple. The library became the soul of our home. It was filled with silence often, and I was privileged to study Jim's face then as he communed outside of time with the authors, ideas, and ages he held in his mind and in his hands. He was the perfect reader . . .

What more can one say about a man like that? Well, there is more . . . tomorrow.

Betsy Vardaman relates more about the last years of her very intellectually engaged husband

Elizabeth Vardaman

Baylor University, alma mater to the student James Vardaman, called him to a professorship in its history department in 1967 for the next 33 years, and his wife, Betsy, tells us of his busy retirement years after that:

Then retirement began and he filled his days with even more volumes and topics, ranging more freely from Africa, to South America, to the American West, to the cosmos, to the history of salt, to the novels of Cormac McCarthy.

He had great friends and immediately began to organize lunch groups . . . . On occasion, they came to our home and, sitting in the library, enjoyed homemade apple or pecan pie . . . . Jim was, of course, a dynamic presence in those and many other conversations that took place in "the room." He was a master at orchestrating discussions, choosing when to remain quiet and listen; when to posit a complex, follow-up question; when to challenge or complicate a historical point or provide context; when to contribute an anecdote or correct a date about a leader, scoundrel, war, world issue; or if encouraged slightly, when to explain the riveting history of the potato.

More tomorrow from Betsy, the person who knew him best. The quotes are from her Remembrances of Dr. James W. Vardaman and his Library.

Another Note on Professor Vardaman

Betsy Vardaman

Baylor

Readers of this blog will recall that one of my great teachers, Dr. James Vardaman, died this year. I've just received from his wife, Betsy, a copy of her "Remembrances of Dr. James W. Vardaman and His Library." Here is an initial quote from the small booklet:

[We spent many a happy day in what had been the garage, now Jim's office, holding his thousands of books, by which,] the power and weight of the air in his office at Baylor was replicated, floor to ceiling, here. Year in and year out, each book has stood tall in its assigned place, meeting the terms of its multifaceted, ongoing relationship to its overseer. The room . . . was and is now a palpable testimony to the passions of one mind to encounter, comprehend, wrestle with, and harness vast fields of knowledge.

I'll quote more of these remembrances over the next few days. This one is to establish that the man was not only a seeker after knowledge, but also a thinker.

Professor James W. Vardaman: His Summary of His Oral History Interviews

A Young James Vardaman

with

His Sister Ann

In "Texans, Texas, and Me," Vardaman related a number of humorous anecdotes. The passage below offers a picture of the discussion of religious 'truth' as pursued in the Marine Corps:

After more than another year, I was stationed as a guard at the Naval Base in Bremerton, Washington. A lot of Texans were there. Lynch from Amarillo I especially remember -- big, raw, almost primitive. Another from Port Arthur -- DuPlantis, small and inoffensive. They had high words. Discussion was about religion. Lynch had some strong views about that subject -- especially regarding Jesus. Deep into the conversation, he proclaimed with unmitigated, if unproved, certainty that no one really knew what Jesus looked like. Duplantis really knew what Jesus looked like. Duplantis, thus, firmly dissented, saying "Oh, yes we do because holy St. Veronica had placed a handkerchief on the blood-stained face of the Savior and thus had preserved a perfect likeness." The holy relic was housed somewhere in Italy and many had seen it. Lynch shouted not to give him any of that Catholic shit. He meant business so Duplantis became, upon short reflection, persuaded to refrain from further discussion of the matter.

I think I'd likely follow the 'Christian' action undertaken by DuPlantis, discretion being the better part of valor, as someone said . . .

Baylor University Oral History: Rebecca Sharpless Interviews History Professor James W. Vardaman

The Sacred and the Profane?

In poking around on the Internet for more information on my old Baylor history professor James W. Vardaman, I came across Baylor's oral history series, and I found three long interviews there with Professor Vardaman:

"Oral Memoirs of James W. Vardaman: A Series of Interviews Conducted by Rebecca Sharpless, July 15 - October 20, 2003"

In the second interview, Vardaman talks about Marine boot camp, six weeks of hell in which profanity was a good part of every sentence and just one thing was sacred: your mother. The drill sergeants were sadistic and stupid, Vardaman recalled, but they respected that one rule, "Your mother is sacred." Vardaman himself couldn't even let slip that his own mother was a bad cook:

Vardaman: The food [in boot camp] was better than any I'd ever had, but I couldn't say so. My mother was a horrible cook. My grandmother was worse. But, you know, your mother is sacred. You don't play with that. Your mother -- that's a [pure figure] -- [as for] the food -- I always had to say,

"Yeah, my mother was a good cook."

Nobody [back home] would admit that she wasn't [a good cook], but I knew perfectly well that the food I was eating [in the military] was the best I’d ever been given. Wasn't prepared very well most of the time. They didn't know how. They'd stick a person into the cook's slops [to serve the food], and you got it sloshed on your tray, mixed with everything else [and it was still better than my mother's cooking, but I couldn't say so because] . . . . food and your mother, they're one together [or were supposed to be]. These guys would dream about the[ir mom's cooking] -- kid from somewhere in Tennessee, Cauley was his name. Cauley would talk about his mother's fried chicken until I could see it. I just wanted it -- that so bad. I mean, he was a master at describing his mother’s cooking.

But I'll say one thing about [a] mother again, one more thing about [a] mother. Your mother was God. I can see how a Catholic could think of the Virgin Mary as somebody just absolutely fabulous who could protect you; save you, if you please. You never said anything [bad] about the mother.

One day at mail call, one of the drill instructors, the stupid, most stupid of the three, Jadzuk -- what an oaf, a clod. Lord knows where he crawled out of. Somebody must have kicked over a rock. Anyway, he was sailing the mail out to the platoon. Standing in his presence, [you'd see that] he’d find some way to insult you.

"Here, cotton ball. A coal cracker, I see. This is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Are you a coal cracker?"

"Well, no."

"Yes, you are. I said you were. That's enough."

And then they'd go around this --

"So you're from Chicago. A gangster, huh."

Guy named Orpin, a Greek kid.

"A gangster. What outfit were you with? Pretty Boy Floyd or Al Capone?"

And that's it. You know, they could say anything they wanted to humiliate you. But one day at this mail call -- forgive me for diverging -- this stupid Jadzuk says,

"Oh, who here knows somebody named Daisy? Daisy."

I said, "That's my mother."

It's the only time I was able to get at these people and not be punished. Because, boy, that was your mother, and you had touched on the magic word."

Sharpless: So they didn't give you a hard time because you had a mother named Daisy?

Vardaman: He was going to [get me with the name "Daisy," or so he thought].

Sharpless: He was going to and then --

Vardaman: If it'd been a girlfriend, Lord only knows. But I had the right answer. [Mother.]

The entire three interviews are in this same vein - detailed, funny, simply great! Go and read!

Dr. Michael Livingston: Tribute to Professor James W. Vardaman

Dr. Michael Livingston

I found a wonderful tribute to Professor Vardaman by a man whose life Vardaman changed, and I'm posting some of the tribute below (though the entire tribute can be found at the link):

A Great Teacher is an Earthquake – For Dr Vardaman

Michael Livingston, 2 February 2018

A great teacher is an earthquake . . . . I learned today that Dr James W. Vardaman has passed away.

He was a great teacher.

He was one of my earthquakes.

I . . .  had a number of scholarship offers for college . . . , including one from Baylor University . . . . [W]hen my father and I traveled to Texas for some campus visitations, Baylor happened to be a point between other destinations . . . . [W]e stopped into the visitor center.

It was a Friday, early afternoon. Campus was relatively quiet. The folks who greeted us learned that I wanted to study history, to become a teacher. Phone calls were made, and they suggested I go meet with a history professor who happened to be in his office.

A fault line, though I didn't know it, was forming.

Not long afterward, I found myself alone in the basement of the Tidwell Bible Building, home of the Department of History . . . . Professor Vardaman was grading.

I knocked. He looked up . . . The next hour comes in flashes. We talked of many things. Throughout, he treated me as a peer, as a man. He was, he later admitted, appraising me. In those minutes he found my strengths, my weaknesses, and most importantly, my potential. He knew what I needed, because this is exactly what a great teacher does.

He introduced me around. The world was a blur. He told me I belonged at Baylor. He told me he wanted me to be in his classes. He shook my hand.

I remember walking out to meet my dad, who was sitting on a bench beneath a wide and glorious tree. It was our first campus visit, but I confess to you now that I already knew exactly where I was going to go . . . .  Dr Vardaman, in a few minutes that afternoon, changed my life.

And then he did it again.

A few weeks into my sophomore year, I walked out of Dr Rust's survey course on the modern world and found a familiar face in the hall, waiting for me. I had not yet been able to have Professor Vardaman in class, but he'd apparently been keeping tabs on me. "I want you to come to Europe," he said.

I was, you must understand, a young man from a modest background who could count on one hand the number of times he had crossed the Mississippi. "Europe?"

His great bushy eyebrows nodded. "I run a study abroad program every spring in The Netherlands. I want you to come". . . .

Dollar signs were flashing in my head. Lots of them. If it wasn't for the scholarships I couldn't afford to be at Baylor at all. To add expenses to Europe on top of that? Well . . .

"I don't think I can afford it," I said.

The eyes beneath those eyebrows twinkled. "But if you could afford it then you would go?"

"Sure," I said, thinking he was risking nothing . . . .

A week later he was waiting there again. Same time. Same spot.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

His gaze appraised, seemed satisfied. "You're going to come to Europe with me."

"Dr Vardaman," I said, trying to be gentle on the good soul, "I told you, I just don't think we can afford it. I've got scholarships, but --"

He waved me off. "Oh, I took care of that. I told some people you needed to go and now you have an extra scholarship to help cover it."

"You . . . what?"

"Let's go to my office," he said. "We'll need to talk about the details."

Not waiting for my reply, not waiting for me to retrieve my jaw from the floor, he turned on his heels and headed for the stairway to the basement. I followed him . . . to his office and then across the Atlantic to a semester spent in Maastricht that fundamentally altered my perception of the world and my place within it.

[And now,] James Vardaman has died. For all of us, the earth quakes again.

A good tribute. I need add no more . . . but Livingston does, so go to the link.

Baylor Professor James Vardaman: Memories and Obituary

Professor James W. Vardaman
Photo by Louis Muldrow

I've borrowed, and lightly edited, the following information and official obituary, all of which I believe was originally collected for Baylor University by Lori Fogleman:

"Baylor Mourns Passing of Professor Emeritus of History and Master Teacher James Vardaman" (Baylor Media Communications, Feb. 7, 2018)

Baylor University is mourning the passing of Professor Emeritus of History and Master Teacher James W. Vardaman, Ph.D., who died Jan. 31 in Waco. He was 89.

"Dr. James Vardaman was an iconic figure for thousands of students at Baylor University who were fortunate to take one of his classes in British, French, German, European and world history or journey with him on one of his numerous study abroad trips around the world," said Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D. "Dr. Vardaman was one of the University's most distinguished teachers, attaining the highest designation of Master Teacher. He was brilliant in the classroom, and he highly valued the open hours he spent with his students beyond teaching, which is a hallmark of a Baylor education."

A recent College of Arts and Sciences article stated that, "During his 33-year teaching career at Baylor University, Dr. Vardaman instilled a love of history in thousands of students and in the process he became one of the most beloved faculty members on campus. Many students would echo the sentiments of film director Kevin Reynolds, who recalled his time at Baylor by saying, "It is one of the greatest treasures of my life to be able to say, 'I took history with Jim Vardaman.'"

Many Baylor faculty members and friends have been sharing their remembrances of Dr. Vardaman, among them:

Robert M. Baird, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Master Teacher: "The contributions Jim Vardaman made over the years to the life of Baylor University were so many and diverse that if you had not witnessed it first hand, it would be hard to believe: the architect of Baylor's multifaceted study-abroad-program, shepherding hundreds, maybe thousands, of students over the years in his annual summer Baylor in London Program, the long-time chair of the Beall-Russell lecture committee that by dint of his persuasive persistence brought the likes of Bill Moyers, Edward Said, Carlos Fuentes, and Czeslaw Milosz to Baylor, and in the classroom a Master Teacher. Beyond the classroom he and his wife Betsy entertained countless students at meals in their home, many of these students from foreign countries so in need of the warm hospitality of the Vardamans. We have, indeed, lost a giant in the life of Baylor."

Wallace Daniel, Ph.D., former Baylor history professor and Distinguished University Professor of History, Mercer University: "Jim Vardaman is the very image of Baylor -- totally committed to students, to teaching and to scholarship, firm in his belief that teaching is the noblest of professions and convinced that one must strive to be the best one can be, all the time, every day. He not only expected this of himself, but it was this quality that he expected of his students, and he inspired it in them. In his legendary trips with students abroad, he brought students to the world. As chair of the Beall Russell Lectures for nearly 20 years and the international leaders whom he invited here, he also brought the world to Baylor. In so many ways, his contributions to Baylor and its students are profound."

Babs Baugh of San Antonio, longtime Baylor University supporter and friend of the Vardamans, president of the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation: "I never had a class with Dr. James Vardaman, but his impact on my life was profound. I had the privilege of helping him plan many of his travel experiences -- especially with friends going anywhere he wanted to go. They knew that it would be interesting to them because he knew the history of every place and would share that knowledge with us. He often began his lecture for the day by saying to the group, 'I insult your intelligence by telling you this but . . .' No one was ever insulted! With that brilliant mind came little spurts of great humor and the singing of the Marine Corps Hymn – all three verses. This great teacher loved God, Betsy, his country and Baylor University, his sister Ann Miller and his many friends. If you are fortunate enough to be one of the latter group, you will understand why we will miss him so much."

Cullen Smith, B.B.A. (Law) '48, J.D. '50, retired Waco attorney and longtime friend of the Vardamans: "Jim joined the Marine Corps at age 16 toward the end of World War II. The day he received his discharge, he drove to Waco and entered Baylor. Because he had not graduated from high school, he was accepted conditionally. Years later when a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established at Baylor, Jim was made a graduate member. Jim was loved by his students. I have attended two dinners honoring him. Students flew in from all over the world, literally, to honor him. On numerous occasions when my wife Ann and I have joined Betsy and Jim at local restaurants, former students of all ages would come up to speak to him. Amazingly, he always remembered them by name. It was obvious they loved him. Jim loved to travel. He led numerous tours to Great Britain, Europe and the Middle East. In cities, we would often have a local professional guide to take us around. I would begin to notice Jim standing on one leg and then the other. Finally he could stand it no longer. He would correct the guide about the facts, one after another. If we had another tour the next day, the first thing the guide wanted to know was if Professor Vardaman was present. I have heard, and I believe it is true, that on one occasion, a member of the British Parliament asked to be temporarily excused during a debate in order to check with Dr. Vardaman at Baylor regarding some facts about English history."

Dr. Vardaman’s obituary was published today (February 7, 2018):

Dr. James W. Vardaman was born on Nov. 26, 1928, in Dallas, Texas, where he grew up as the youngest of five children of Daisy and Ephraim Jeremiah Vardaman. In 1945, at 16 years of age, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines and served in the Philippines as well as on board the Pasadena. His military service provided him an introduction to the wider world, to war and the aftermath of war, to typhoons, to sergeants and their disciplinary techniques, and to fellow enlisted men in the Marines with whom he lived and served. His lifelong regard for friendships made during those years was always specific to the individual. He spoke of fellow Marines warmly by name, state, hometown and pithy remarks that were as fresh in his mind at 89 as they had been when he was 20.

He also maintained lifelong regard for those military and government leaders whose values and vision enabled them to conduct themselves by admirable and lofty standards.

Most importantly at that juncture in his life, military service in World War II gave Dr. Vardaman the door through which he walked into higher education -- the G.I. Bill. He was grateful forever. Being decommissioned at one minute after midnight on March 18, 1949, at a base in Oklahoma, he then drove all night to Waco, Texas, where he enrolled that day, the last day of registration for the spring quarter at Baylor University. As a distinguished scholar and historian later in life, he reflected on occasion that the most significant moment in his life was seeing his name and grade posted on a small piece of paper by a professor’s door in the summer of 1949. He had passed a university course – and was going to be able to become a college student at Baylor.

His intensity for learning and maximizing every day of higher education had begun. Beginning with gratitude for his sister, Ann Miller, who tutored him at Baylor, his love of all things literary and historical grew with each year of extraordinary courses and undergraduate studies. The fine history faculty, particularly Dr. Bruce Thompson, affirmed their student's aptitudes and encouraged him to consider a career as an historian because it would be a perfect fit. It was. He completed Baylor in two years, taking overloads each term. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1952 and his Ph.D. in British History at Vanderbilt in 1957.

His teaching career included winning the top teaching award at TCU, then earning a special place in the lore of Virginia Military Institute for five years as well as taking wide-ranging opportunities for summer teaching and fellowships, including University of Virginia and University of North Carolina. However, in 1967, when several Baylor professors and Judge McCall contacted him regarding an open position in the history department, there was no question what would be his next step in academe: He was coming "home" to his alma mater. Here he thrived and received many teaching honors. He was named a Master Teacher in 1993 and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, as an alumnus.

He chaired the Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities for nine years, bringing to campus distinguished national and international giants, such as Nobel Prize recipient Czeslaw Milosz; the Very Reverend Michael Mayne, dean of Westminster Abbey; A. S. Byatt; Edward Said; Bill Moyers; Robert Haas and many others. He taught in and then directed many international programs for the University, including teaching in Baylor in Vienna and Baylor in London before becoming director of Baylor in the British Isles, a program housed for nearly 20 years within the confines of Westminster Abbey at Westminster School. His international teaching included serving an exchange professor to the Yunnan Nationalities University in Kunming, PRC, in 1984-85 and was followed by a memorable trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia. He began the semester-long program for Baylor in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in 1995, a program that continues to be a proud feature of Baylor’s international programs and draws students and faculty from across the University. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Dr. Vardaman also led many alumni trips across Europe, to South America, and most notably, of course, back to the British Isles and Ireland. His relationship with former students was a great treasure to him, as were his friends and family. Dr. Vardaman concluded his tenured years at Baylor in 2000 after 33 years of teaching and inspiring students to ground their worldviews within the vast narrative of humankind.

At retirement, Dr. Vardaman built a library to contain about 5,000 of his favorite books. He could be found there many hours a day for the past almost two decades. Drawing on his vast knowledge, he was the perfect reader of the great tomes across all times and spaces, countries and civilizations. He often offered up sober details about historical events and personages to his family and close friends, insights that the most learned scholars could possibly have profited from knowing. (One point among many to remember: the Magna Carta was "sealed," not "signed" by King John at Runnymede.)

In 2017, a professorship in the history department was established in Dr. Vardaman's name. As additional tributes have been lifted to Dr. Vardaman's memory and legacy this week, Michael Livingstone, a former student, has described him as "my earthquake." Another, Dr. Scott Harper, reflected on his professor in terms of the Dylan Thomas poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and speaks for many when he says: "I have never known anyone like Dr. Vardaman who more raged against the dying of the light: the light of enlightenment and education, the light of justice for wrongs committed at every level of society and culture, the light of friendship and love, the light of his own life. He did not go gentle into anything."

I took perhaps only two of Vardaman's courses, but he asked me to serve as his grader for my final year at Baylor, and I not only got to know him well, I kept in touch with him over the years after I left Baylor, and I can honestly say that we were friends. But I never knew so much about him as I now know after reading memories such as these and writings of his own that I found online. I can now say not only that he was a great teacher and a great friend, but also a great man.

Vardaman's Stamp of Approval, and a Sad Farewell to the Man

The Baylor Line

Some six or seven years ago, I sent the Vardamans a poem and an article. The poem was titled "Final Exam," and it was inspired by words of wisdom from Louis-Hector Berlioz that Vardaman loved to quote: "Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils." My poem reads as follows:

Final Exam

If time be better teacher than the rest,
I need an explanation to explain
Precisely why that final taxing test
Should have to cause such overtaxing pain.

That final is a killer, so I'm told --
No student ever makes it out alive.
I'd rather take the test when I get old,
But don't know when my test-date will arrive.

Yet if I only knew the testing place,
I'd try to stay so very far away
So as to never ever show my face
For testing on that very fateful day.

And once that final test date were surpassed,
I'd live because that final test were passed.

So much for my poem, which now appears in my book of collected poems, Radiant Snow. As for the article, it was one I'd composed for the 2011 Global Forum on Civilization and Peace, a yearly forum for which about eleven other articles had likewise been written. All articles were published together under the title Resolution of Conflict in Korea, East Asia and Beyond: Humanistic Approach. My own paper was titled "Points Toward a Culture of Discussion."

Professor Vardaman read the article, and Betsy read the poem. Here is his response to my article - and note his dark allusion to the NoZe Brotherhood, Baylor's satirical social club (to which I might or might not have belonged):

Dear Jeff,

I sit here on a Thursday evening approaching 8 p.m. and hearken back over the years, remembering such warm and fine things about you.

I take pride in you though perhaps I have no right to do so. I'm sure that all of the things that impel you to greatness took place in Salem, Arkansas, long before you appeared on Baylor's campus and in my life.

I'll always recall your intelligence, your wry humor, your hard work, and your sensitivity - despite your allegiance to a dark organization [called the NoZe Brotherhood] which made its home in Elm Mott . . . .

I recall, incidentally, some of the very, very bright people who were your fellow members in that organization. It seems to me it is now in a bit of decline. I hope that is incorrect. Baylor always needed the sharp [intellectual] knife which your group [metaphorically] thrust into the belly of our beloved Baylor. It was always done with love, not malice - I think and hope.

It is hard to believe that you have indeed become a successful Gypsy [Scholar] with your keen mind still intact.

I thank you for your warm words [about my teaching and my character]. I hope I deserve some of them.

I read your article and found it deeply interesting, indeed, in places quite fascinating. It seems to me you have asked the good questions, and you certainly have picked a judicious topic!

And it goes without saying that I agree with your basic thesis. What educated person could disagree with your opinion!

I trust you will be convincing when you deliver your paper at your conference.

It's good that you related Sam Huntington's clash of civilizations - rarely do people talk about his view of culture in a positive way as you do.

I appreciate your allowing me to read your work. It is quite stimulating.

Let me quarrel with one word you use twice in your essay. The word "probing." I think you should look it up. "Probing" is often mistaken for something more than it is. Probing means to explore a bit, not to really come to grips with the issue. The term is often misused. I will expect that you will not misuse it again.

I was very happy to find at least one thing a bit fuzzy in your thinking.

You've done it well. You've paid the price. I know it has not been easy. There's the loneliness, sometimes the rejection, sometimes the longing for rich understanding from others that just won't appear when we need it most. It pleases Betsy and me that you have been selected to discourse at this global forum. Hopefully it is more than a stewpot. With you there, I think it will be.

We wish you were at Baylor. Since you are not, it is most rewarding to hear from you.

We care about you and what happens to you and your family always.

Sincerely,

Jim

And Betsy wrote:

Jim is very proud of you, and your sending him a copy of your paper meant a lot to him. When he put it down, the first thing he said was, "Impressive." I think that means you have taken all the final exams you need to take and have passed with flying colors.

As you see, Betsy has responded to my 'Final Exam' poem, wittily connecting its theme to the first word uttered by Professor Vardaman upon reaching the end of my paper: "Impressive."

I could ask no higher evaluation from such an elevated source, and I hope I deserved the praise. I know I'll never hear its like again, leastways not in his voice.

Now, he belongs to the ages . . .

Professor James Vardaman: "Charge to Phi Beta Kappa Student Initiates" (Baylor University)

Professor James Vardaman

Baylor University

Photo not from Phi Beta Kappa Talk

(Image from Baylor Alumni Association)

I received a communication yesterday from an old friend at Baylor University, Betsy Vardaman, about whom I've previously blogged, and she provided an update on her husband, James Vardaman, my old, very learnéd, impressively erudite history professor of some thirty years ago and likewise a long-time friend:

Your professor continues to read voraciously and rail against all things that do not suit him. He has not lost his intensity or his memory . . . .

I might here note that Jim has almost total recall and knows more history than anyone I've ever met.

[B]ut both of us would forego chances to run races these days. We went to Chicago this summer (I had a conference there) and we enjoyed many good memories of other Chicago trips when Jim was attending his history conferences. It is a spectacular city in every way. Even the temperatures were kind to us, never spiking above about 75 . . . .

That would be considered near freezing on a Texas summer day.

I will enclose a speech Jim gave to Phi Beta Kappa when the Baylor chapter elected him to its membership this spring. They asked him to be the keynote speaker, as well as receive his Phi Beta Kappa pin. It was a very high moment indeed, only 60 years after he graduated from Baylor!

I read the speech and found it moving and significant, so I asked permission to post it here on Gypsy Scholar. I should note that the talk goes through a sequence of quotes shortly after its introduction, but there is a point to them -- or several points -- so bear with the professor, and reflect on the quotes as you read:

Charge to Phi Beta Kappa Student Initiates

It has been my privilege to hear a large assortment of "charges" delivered to students during my forty-six years of teaching. Frankly, many of them have been rather bombastic and all embracing. It all too often seemed that speakers were inclined to declare "Never mind your questions, here's the answer!" Please relax! I am not going to hurl another verbal boulder at you tonight. Instead, you are going to get a few pebbles tossed lightly in your direction.

I hope you won't need to listen as an act of penance with glazed eyes or badly suppressed yawns, interspersed with stealthy glances at your watches [or iphones]. I've been both witness and participant all too often in my career to wish to inflict any more pain on your innocent heads.

What I do intend is to pass along a thin bundle of thoughts I have collected during my years of teaching college students. This distillation of twenty-three statements is an average of one for every two years of instruction. Indeed there were many others but most were cast aside and only those which seemed best to me survived. I don't recall the source of some of them. Most of the ones retained are not earth shaking but quite simple and brief, with one exception. I do not presume or necessarily expect that you will agree with all or any. I humbly request that you think about some of them. Then dismiss them if there is no appeal. They possess value for me. I would be keenly sorry if there is none for you.

So here they are:

The wayfarer, perceiving the pathway to truth, / Was struck with astonishment. / It was thickly grown with weeds. / "Ha," he said, "I see that none has passed here in a long time." / Later he saw that each weed / Was a singular knife. / "Well," he mumbled at last, / "Doubtless there are other roads." - The Wayfarer, Stephen Crane

There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries. Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3 - Shakespeare

Experience: He marched out of Berlin with the king and participated in forty battles over seven years, and with all his "experience" did not understand any more at the end of it when he returned to the capital than he had at the beginning when he had departed. Frederick the Great's Mule

Arrogance is the father of stupidity.

You are looking at the problem!! (on my mirror)

Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately it kills all its pupils. - Hector Berlioz

Every great idea has its origin in heresy. - George Bernard Shaw

After you have encountered a wasp, don't you love a fly. - John Mortimer

Beware of analogy: because a cat has kittens in an oven doesn't make 'em biscuits.

Where books are burned, they will in the end burn people, too. - Heinrich Heine

Be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. - Philo of Alexandria

The characteristics of an educated Christian should be a cold eye and a warm heart.

It may be that our only hope will lie in the frail web of understanding of one person for the pain of another. - John Dos Passos

It is a deadly mistake to assume that the words "critic" and "enemy" are interchangeable terms.

Today a rooster; tomorrow a feather duster. - Australian Proverb

Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience sake. - Pascal

The wise are heard through their silence. - Lao Tsu

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. - Abraham Lincoln

Remember that in every Eden there is probably a snake.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth -- and soon the world is blind and toothless. - Gandhi

Be more than you seem. - Helmuth von Moltke "The Elder"

A Paris newspaper's six successive headlines reporting Napoleon's escape from his exile on Elba in 1815:

"The Corsican Monster Has Landed in the Gulf of Juan."

"The Cannibal is Marching Toward Grasse."

"The Usurper Has Entered Grenoble."

"Bonaparte Has Entered Lyons."

"Napoleon Is Marching Towards Fontainebleau."

"His Imperial Majesty Is Expected Tomorrow in Paris."

You probably did not count them, but I only listed twenty-two. I deliberately omitted the one statement because it has come to have very special meaning of late and I would like, with your permission, to tell you why.

About three months ago and within the same week, I received two books as gifts -- one from a friend in Kentucky and the other from a friend in San Antonio. They do not know one another. Strangely, both volumes were biographies about the same man. That man was a remarkable German Christian named Dietrich Bonhöffer. One of the authors was Eric Metaxas, an American. The other was a German, Ferdinand Schlingensiepen. I really knew little about Bonhöffer, except his declaration which I previously omitted: I now quote it: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." -- a hard, unvarnished and uncompromising challenge if there ever was one!

I took the opportunity to read the two magisterial biographies and to discover for myself what Bonhöffer exactly meant by his demanding, compelling, and all-inclusive statement. Soon I discovered that he was possessed of staggering talent. While at the justly renowned University of Berlin, he studied under a galaxy of preeminent professors -- among them, Adolf Von Harnack, Karl Holl, and Reinhold Seeberg. While holding them in awe and great respect, Bonhöffer had no hesitation in contradicting and debating with them on any and all issues. He consistently astonished them with his learning and perception.

Bonhöffer had read broadly and passionately since childhood. In addition to classical and German literature (he will go to his death with a copy of Goethe in his possession), he was engrossed in history, art, music (he was an accomplished pianist), science, languages, and theology. In short his intellectual endowments were breathtaking! Beyond things of the mind, he was positively marinated in all the basic virtues that a mortal could wish for.

Despite his great gifts, he was humble, kind, loving, devout and obedient. False pride was an abomination and he was always willing to aid any person, be he high or low if Bonhöffer had the resources to do so. Admiration for him seemed limitless from those who came to know him.

However, despite his devotion and rich commitment to life -- after deep reflection and searching prayer -- Bonhöffer took the most radical step of his life; he joined the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He concluded the Nazi leader was evil to the point of depravity and thus must be destroyed to prevent his continuous assault on life, religion and the basic values of humanitarian civilization.

Bonhöffer reached the crucial decision that it was not sufficient to stand aside and hope that others would hazard the fateful deed. The only way to prevent this pathological monster from continuing his insidious brutality was for decent people to dedicate every fiber to the eradication of such a reprehensible tyrant. Thus, Bonhöffer became implicated beyond recall. All too soon his activity was exposed. He was arrested and after long months of incarceration was hanged at Flossenbürg prison in the early hours of April 9, 1945.

Little is known about the last agonizing days of his life. However two pieces of evidence have emerged long after Bonhöffer's death from two witnesses who hardly knew him. One was written by a British officer who was a Prisoner of War, Captain S. Payne Best. I quote:

"Bonhöffer was quite calm and normal, seemingly perfectly at ease -- his soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison. I don't suppose I spoke to him more than three times. He told me how happy prison made him [because] he had always been afraid that he would not be strong enough to stand such a test but now he knew there was nothing in life of which one should ever be afraid [including death]. He was cheerful and apparently free of care. Without exception he was the finest and most loveable man I ever met!"

For him there was only one reality and Christ was Lord over all of it or none [and that was that].

The other scrap of evidence came from the camp doctor at Flossenbürg, H. Fischer-Hüllstrung. He had no idea whom he was watching at the time, but years later he gave his account of Bonhöffer's last moments alive: I quote:

"On the morning of April 9, 1945, between five and six o'clock the [condemned] prisoners were taken from their cells -- Through the half-opened door in one room I saw this man [later identified as Dietrich Bonhöffer] kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this loveable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution he again said a short prayer then climbed the steps to the [hangman’s] gallows, brave and composed. His death came [shortly thereafter]. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."

Winston Churchill once speculated on which of man's virtues was the greatest. He concluded that it must be courage because without that quality all the others became useless.

I submit that Dietrich Bonhöffer claimed that dominant virtue in company with all the others, so as to shine through eternity. Thus the 23rd quotation: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." And so Bonhöffer did!!!!

Thank you and may the sun shine eternally for you and may the wind always be at your backs. Good luck and God bless you all, now and forevermore.

Such were my old professor's words, and surely one of the finest inspirational talks I've read. I wish only that I'd been present to experience it directly from Professor Vardaman himself.

If only Anders Behring Breivik had been a Christian like Bonhöffer, sacrificing self rather than others.