Lament for Carl

I generally have no luck in finding old friends using an internet search as 500 people with the exact same name pop up with no identifying pictures. I was shocked to actually find a recognizable photo of Carl. I was sad to be reading his obituary; the photo was taken years ago. 


Obituary in part:

The Passing of Dr. Carl Putz- 10/14/2010 

Carl Hampton Putz, PhD (1940-2010) Carl was a philosopher and a lover of the natural world, music, science and art; a constant scholar, and an insightful and patient teacher and friend. He taught Philosphy at DePauw University, University Without Walls, and JFK University in California.

When multiple sclerosis took away the use of his legs and dimmed his eyes, he turned to his incredible intellect and ever-questioning mind. He was, he claimed, an "old curmudgeon", and he was a shining light for those who knew and loved him.

Carl is mourned by his companion of 28 years, Asha Stager, and by his friends and students around the world. There will be a celebration of Carls' life, December 17th, 2010 at Penobscot School, Rockland. His friend Anne Dodson will perform her original dulcimer song entitled "Lament for Carl."

I'm sorry to have missed his memorial celebration; a chance to have met and spent time with other people who loved Carl. I'm resorting to my own memorial/lament.


I knew Carl in the early seventies, when we both lived in Berkeley. Maybe not his favorite time; he was going through a separation and divorce from his wife that took years to negotiate. He was a member in good standing of the Berkeley counterculture and seemed properly confused as to what exactly, he wanted to do with his life. 


We met in an encounter group, a form of group psychotherapy that emerged with the popularization of humanistic psychology in the 1960's. Carl was, of course, the group leader. I was enamored, as was everyone else in the group; Carl exuded a kind of self-effacing charisma. There was a strong Peter Pan element in Carl's nature; if Peter Pan had grown up and gotten a Ph.D in Philosophy. He was intensely "in the moment", made an adventure of everything he did, and entertained with the stories he created from his adventures.

Flashback 

Carl and I are on our way to a Renaissance Fair in Marin County, somewhere in a very wooded area. There is an entrance fee, and we can see security guards in costume planted discretely  around the perimeter. They look to be taking the job seriously, kind of like the Swiss Guard in the Vatican. 






There's no story to tell if we just pay at the entrance. Carl decides we should circle around to the  surrounding woods and sneak past the guards. We spend the next hour playing outlaw; doing reconnaissance, finding the weak link in the security spacing, moving with stealth and heightened alertness to our break in point of entry. We make a clean break in and are flushed with the success of our mission. Once we are in, the fair itself is of little interest to us. Where's the challenge in watching people in medieval costumes sell things?

***

A short string of online condolences was posted at the bottom of the obituary page and one in particular impressed me as overheated romanticism from a no longer young cardiologist. But I understand completely. 

Online Condolence:

From: H. Kirk Hammond MD, La Jolla

Carl was my Intro to Philosophy Professor at DePauw (1969), giving some lectures from a tree. He helped talk me down from an LSD bummer one late summer night. He lived near me in Berkeley when we fought the Revolution. I worshiped him. I will never forget him, not ever. A seminal character in my life. Sent: 3/14/2011

In a similarly overheated online condolence, I might have said that because of Carl's attention and interest in me, I was able to spring myself from a neurotic, unhappy relationship. I'd been involved with a man for over a year who was an unfortunate choice from the beginning, and I had been planning to move in with him when I met Carl. Roughly equivalent to talking someone down from an LSD bummer, I think, except that it wasn't actually Carl's intention to free me. 

Berkeley's a small town and over the next four years or so, Carl and I would run into each other about every six months to a year while "we fought the Revolution", as H. Kirk Hammond, M.D. described that period. I was just fighting my own personal battles though Carl and Kirk were possibly operating on a much grander scale. Carl did have the perfect disposition for a righteous revolution of the downtrodden. Beneath his zany lecture from a tree personality lurked the weariness and dissatisfaction of a café philosopher in a French film. One that dies in early middle-age from smoking and disillusionment. I thought he tended toward melancholy, and felt some concern that Carl's wit and charm might wither with age and depression. Reading his obituary, it seems I was wrong, and I couldn't even have imagined Carl would have to contend with multiple sclerosis.

Flashback

We're looking for something to do on a Friday night, preferably something free of charge. Carl suggests we go to the International House on campus where international dance night is in progress. A succession of folk dances from many different world cultures; tutorial not included. Carl is unfazed, or maybe he's a regular here, but with each new dance he grabs me and we join right in. It would be unthinkable to plead that I don't know how. I just give each dance a go, pretty much the way I joined right in on the breaking and entering at the fair. 

***

Online Condolence:

From: Tip Scott, Leesburg I remember Carl every day by singing some of his songs to myself and to people I'm working with. Sent: 3/14/2011

I have a favorite Carl song too. I don't know if he wrote it, or just collected it, but I've taught it to all of my family members with the request that it sometimes be sung back to me.

You're right, you're right, 

You're absolutely right. 

You're absolutely right and I'm wrong. 

If the innocent seeming little song is intended to be disarming, it is indeed Carl's song. 
As H. Kirk Hammond testified, Carl was generous with his time and attention when his friends needed consoling or entertaining, but it was all very random; nothing to depend upon. Maybe we all told him at one time or another that we wished he would be less quixotic, less capricious; a little more constant and available. Carl might then have conceded that we were absolutely right, but that he was comfortable being wrong.