The Marginal Man

I wrote my BA thesis at Reed on Robert Ezra Park, one of the founders of the Chicago School of Sociology and not, really, all that interesting of a guy. But one of the most relevant and life-changing things I read (or skimmed, but still) as an undergrad was when I came across The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture by Everett Stonequist, one of Park’s students. A “Marginal Man” is somebody caught between cultures, and the focus of the work was persons who were racial or ethnic minorities (including new immigrants, one of Park’s and the Chicago School’s foci) and the struggles they faced when they attempted to enter the “dominant” culture.

This idea of “marginality” (which is different from the more common sense as synonymous with “powerless” as is usually implicit in contemporary sociology) really resonated with me. I was a first-generation college student, which by itself isn’t uncommon and certainly isn’t, by itself, a sign of Stonequist’s “marginality.” But I wasn’t only first generation; I was the youngest of seven kids in my family and only the second to graduate from high school. I moreover went to friggin’ REED, a liberal arts school 2000 miles from home and a school that was really a place that professors’ kids, and ONLY professors’ kids, belonged. I did not know or expect this when I was admitted; I was just looking forward to a good academic experience at a school that had a reputation for welcoming bookish outcasts, which was how I saw myself at 17.

I did fine at Reed. I graduated and got into a great grad school and am now doing what I dreamed of doing before I even knew what a “professor” was. But I never realised it when I jumped on that train to take me from Chicago to Portland in August of 1982, but I was saying good-bye to more than my mother that day: I was saying good-bye to my whole personal history, and all the people who were part of it. I wish I knew this, then.

What this has to do with today’s rant was really brought home yesterday. Every once in a while, I get on a jag where I become obsessed with contacting, or at least finding out about, people from my previous life: my life pre-Reed. And so I was sitting here with my high school yearbook propped in front of me (really!), googling name after name after name, entering names in the Facebook search bar, and nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I look at a listing in the yearbook and think, “this guy seemed to have his shit together; maybe he did something with his life.” Nope. High school alumni discussion boards? Nix. The hammondindiana.com message board is dead, and even when it was active, it was full of nothing but reminisces from the 1950s before Hammond turned into the terrifying dump that it is now. I even try to search for the haunts of my youth and find these horrifying images of Woodmar Mall, my high school stomping ground of choice. It’s been demolished after languishing in typical dead mall fashion for years.

Tom Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” For me, this is true, no question. My hometown qua hometown no longer exists. My mother moved to Griffith, a step up from Hammond, several years ago when it became obvious that the old neighbourhood, which had always been rough, was simply too dangerous for a 70-year-old (at the time) widow. There is no semblance of anything or anyone at “home” for me anymore, and this, combined with the fact that nobody ever, really, tries to contact me, is the bane of my existence. THE BANE of my EXISTENCE. If I had conventionally successful friends (pre-college) with what I think of, given my subsequent education, as a conventional internet presence, I could find them, no problem. But those I left behind are not like me. Well, there are some important exceptions, and you know who you are. But for the most part, I occupy a different world now, and it’s often painful to admit that. I have never once just “run into” somebody I knew from, say, high school, since I was perhaps 20 years old. Never. Not ever.

I have a great life, but damn, this Marginal Man stuff is hard to take sometimes.

If you’re reading this, and you knew me when? Drop me a line. Please.