Tag Archives: Jr.

1970

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The year 1970 is permanently engraved in my memory. Lots of things happened that year that irrevocably changed my family and those things still have an impact on me today.

In July 1970 I had my third birthday.

That same year, my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Oberg, died. I don’t remember him unfortunately, but I have particular memories of his death, such as seeing him in a casket in the dining room of the house belonging to my Uncle Laverne and Aunt Harriett Oberg, my father’s older brother and his wife. People, mostly relatives, were standing around in groups, many of them crying. Then there was the graveyard and the gravesite where he was buried. If my memory is correct, it was a sunny day and my brother, Dan, and I ran around a bit, and I particularly remember looking down into the big black hole into which my grandpa’s casket was to be laid. In my memory, my mother had made us black suits with matching jackets and shorts with a white shirt underneath. (Interestingly, a few years ago when my Uncle Laverne died, I drove out to Nebraska to attend his funeral along with some other family members. My uncle was buried in the same graveyard as my grandpa. The graveyard was definitely familiar to me even after more than 30 years had passed since my Grandpa Oberg’s funeral. My brothers and I decided to look for his grave and I was the first one to find it. That whole, short visit to Gothenburg, Nebraska, was like a series of flashbacks to memories long suppressed.)

In 1970 the church group my family belonged to suffered a huge split over revelations of immorality, or at least, ‘inappropriate conduct,’ of what they then termed the ‘universal leader,’ a man from New York named James Taylor, Jr. (a.k.a. JT Jr.). My maternal grandfather, Stanley McCallum, was involved in uncovering the ‘inappropriate conduct’ and was therefore near the center of the whole controversy. People in this church group (generically known as Exclusive Brethren) split over who believed which side of the story. This affected people all over the world, splitting families, pitting children against parents, husbands against wives, friends against each other. Two of my grandpa’s own sons refused to believe him and actively worked to discredit him and support JT Jr. (and still do to this day). I have no memory of Uncle David and Uncle Garth and I know next to nothing about their children or grandchildren, my cousins, except for one who left that group about eight years ago. I know of situations beyond count where separations were forced by JT Jr. supporters, e.g. children were taken away from their parents by relatives, in some cases, never to be seen again. I know of husbands whose wives and kids stayed with the JT Jr. camp and spent the rest of their lives living alone and never recovering from the pain of separation. My grandpa and grandma never recovered from this, either.

Partly due to this split, my parents decided in 1970 to sell their farm in Nebraska and move in with my maternal grandparents in Detroit. I well remember living in the basement of my grandparents’ home for several months, then moving into a nearby house, where we lived for the next year and a half or so before moving to east central Illinois where I spent most of my growing up years. Lots of dramatic and difficult experiences punctuated that 18 month stay in Detroit but I won’t go into them here. My grandma died in 1982 and my grandpa in 1987. After their death when going through some of their papers I remember coming across my grandma’s diaries in which she documented some of the anguish, loss, and depression they felt as a result of the 1970 split.

For me the events of 1970 became almost legendary, serving as a backdrop to just about everything and everybody I knew. And there were many more splits after that. I no longer think that one side was entirely evil and one was entirely good. I do know, however, that the legacy of this JT Jr. guy is still very prevalent today, especially in Australia and New Zealand where the latest ‘universal leader’ is a Sydney business man named Bruce Hales. These people have received a lot of media scrutiny over their political machinations in that part of the world and elsewhere. It was pretty freaky for me to read about and then see a few videos on Google Video documenting what’s been going on. Fortunately I haven’t had much interaction with these people, although my sister Becky and her husband, Martin, have. Martin has many siblings who are in that group and they have been involved in legal proceedings about custody battles and such between parents and children who are part of this sect and those who aren’t. Both times I traveled to New Zealand, I saw members of this sect (a.k.a. Peebs, Exclusives, The Brethren, PBs, etc.) everywhere, and all of the people I knew there were tragically affected in some way or another. I well remember going to a small town in the north of the South Island called Motueka where there is a meeting of about 200 members, a big population of Peebs in such a small town. As soon as we arrived in town, our arrival was noted by these people and we were watched during our stay. My brother-in-law’s father and I would walk down one side of the main street, and notice some of these people coming toward us on the same side of the street. As soon as they noticed us, they crossed over to the other side of the street so as not to come in contact.

I am very thankful to have not been raised in that group, that my parents raised me and my siblings in a better environment, even though that environment was heavily influenced by, and contained a lot of legacies from, the JT Jr. era such as alcoholism. I’ve glossed over most of the darker elements to the story because I don’t think they need to be gone over yet again and also because I still don’t have a complete understanding of it all. And I don’t really want to anymore.

So…There you have it. 1970 was quite a year.

To squee or not to squee

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To squee or not to squee?! That is the question. I’ve been getting some criticism over the past few weeks about my stated dislike of gushing praise for librarian luminaries such as Lorcan Dempsey. This was in reaction to some reports by conference goers at the recent Computers in Libraries conference, made in a previous post entitled “Thoughts on reports from conferences.” Dorothea Salo of Caveat Lector started it all by using two words in one of her posts on the conference that I had never heard before: ‘fangirl’ and ‘squee.’ I recently looked up the definition of ‘squee’ (the meaning of ‘fangirl’ is pretty clear) and here what I found via Answers.com (which in turn derives this from Wikipedia):

Squee can be an exclamation, or interjection, of excited happiness or surprise, especially when referring to fangirls, or be a squeal of glee over something incredibly cute.

In a series of comments made in response to that previous post, I made the point that after reviewing my criticism the day after, I concluded that I had been too harsh. However I stuck to my dislike both of the term and the implied adoration of well known librarians, and made it clear that this was just my opinion. Fortunately Dorothea took no offense, for which I am thankful, although she later wrote in her blog that we in librarianship need to be unafraid of expressing admiration and/or delight over meeting up with other librarians whom we’ve admired from afar.

A few others have picked up on this thread (e.g. see a post at Random Access Mazar and one at Solvitur ambulando). There is a sense in which my initial criticism has been taken as a “hit” against showing general enthusiasm for the profession. My interpretation of what I’ve read from others on this issue is that we should not shy away from celebrating and showing excitement over meeting and interacting with highly respected colleagues. In fact, it is felt that we should be doing more of this, especially to generate excitement for and interest in the profession among those who are in library school and/or newly begun in their librarian careers.

I’ve thought about this issue a lot during the past few weeks. It has been nearly fifteen years since I graduated from library school. I am already so out of touch? So jaded and cynical? I well recall the first professional conference I ever attended. It was in June of 1991 at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, and I was attending the 6th annual NASIG conference as one of that year’s fortunate NASIG Student Grant winners. One of the highlights of the conference, for me, was the relevant conference program that included speakers whom I had read about such as Charles W. Bailey, Jr. at the University of Houston, a professor at SLAIS at the University of British Columbia whose name escapes me and who is now retired, etc. I thought it was cool to see such people “in the flesh.”

But did I ‘squee’ over them? The answer is a definite NO. And I still don’t ‘squee’ over highly respected colleagues whom I may see here or there at a conference. Why? More importantly, what do I have against others ‘squeeing’ over famous colleagues? By being critical of this issue, am I against showing enthusiasm for librarianship? Absolutely not. Simply put, I am VERY enthusiastic about being a librarian and about the profession as a whole. I think enthusiasm and excitement are great, and I like being around people who get enthusiastic and excited about librarianship. My problem with ‘squee’ is that it may focus too much on a person or persons instead of on ideas, on proposals, on concepts and dreams about librarianship. Let’s get excited and show it, but let it be over issues, not persons. The cult of person that has grown increasingly strong in this day and age is one for which I have an abhorrence because I think it is misleading and could even be dangerous. We can be so taken up by a famous colleague’s person that we are blind to her or his faults, missteps, and deviations. We can be (and often are) led astray by charisma and personality.

It may be thought that I am digging a little too deep, truly exaggerating, except that there is a prime example of this very thing in our profession today. I will not name names or even hints but the situation exists (thankfully for not much longer). This person has legions of fans and adoration has been lavished upon this individual. For what? Largely because of charisma and because of a past track record of having done or participated in something famous.

So to get back to the question posed at the outset: To squee or not to squee? For me the answer will remain a resounding NO.