Sometimes I think about the people who shaped me, whether or not I knew it at the time. The role models. Or the others. One "other" was the philosophy prof. at Long Beach City College whose outspoken agenda was to dismantle the faith of his students, should they believe in anything transcendent, by carefully and systematically, using the best philosophical arguments, exposing the weaknesses in any and every belief system. But primarily the Judeo-Christian tradition, with its archaic myths and internal inconsistencies. He wanted to show, without emotion and prejudice, the supremacy of science and reason, and, in turn, the foolishness of believing in the unseen. So when he stood up on his desk during one late Fall lecture and shook his fist at the ceiling, shouting "I can't wait till the day of judgement...that's when I will judge God!!" I began to wonder about all the preceding stoic, "unbiased" lectures. And there was a hush that fell on the classroom over the deists and atheists alike and everyone in between. I learned something valuable that morning. There is a strong psychological and emotional drive or undercurrent behind every belief. Worldviews don't exist in vacuums, and the rational and emotional are somehow interwoven. What you believe is fueled by more than just facts. Experiences, your emotional wiring, your fears, all of that, is part of the mix. I asked my instructor after class if Socrates really existed, or was he just a figment of Plato's imagination, and that led to a ten minute rabbit trail ending in the horrors of the Depression and his family and growing up with nothing and the fear of loss and where the hell was God when I was a kid starving in the mid-1930's.
I didn't know it then, but that semester was a springboard for further philosophical inquiry in my college and graduate years. I realized that even good teachers are biased despite the banner of objectivity that supposedly governs the classroom. I taught for a few years as an adjunct, and I was biased, although I tried to make that clear at the outset so the students would learn how to think more than what to think. And at the end of the the eight-week intensive, after all the teaching about Kant and non-consequentialist ethical theories and the Modern anti-thesis mixed with the Pre-Modern thesis creates the Post-Modern synthesis, where meaning trumps fact as the way to ascertain Truth, because Truth is just language, afterall.... the students would fill out a written evaluation. And there was one recurring comment that surfaced more than others during every quarter: "the instructor asked us about our posture toward truth...am I defending the truth or pursuing it?" (ironically I first heard that question, not in a classroom, but over a coffee break on the roof with my boss painting a house in Simi Valley after the Northridge earthquake in the mid 90's). I didn't want them to leave my class with simply a new package or twist on what they ultimately believe. I didn't want them to be content with the recycling of doctrine and theology that you get from the latest sermon-series or well-intentioned Christian radio or forwarded emails or youth group curriculum. I wanted them to dig deeper than the familiar, to get dirty and sweat. There's nothing more satisfying than holding the piece of gold with blistered hands.
College professors are often role models, especially to kids who don't know what they want or where they're going. That's where I found myself in the early 1990's. Philosophy, theology, biblical studies. Not really marketable degrees unless you want to teach. And I was never sure what I wanted, other than owning a shack on an Indonesian white-sand beach and taking tourists out for a coastal cruise in my Boston Whaler. This was before the Corona commercials. So, what else to do than teach like Dr. So and So? Better get some more education. But the more you study something, the larger that particular world gets, and you realize there's so much you'll never know, so you have to specialize in something. I finally stopped this pursuit when I realized that it would take some years to become a specialist in Second Temple Judaism where I would discern the importance of Siniaticus Codus A and the Qumran findings. And it didn't exactly pay too well either. I was making more money painting houses in Pasadena than some of the tenured profs at APU. When you have a house payment and a wife and a child, you don't worry so much about college professor role models. Life is more simple and hard and real, and you get on with it.
But one role model keeps coming to my mind. I was 14 or 15 years old. It was the late 80's in Long Beach, CA. I was a high-school kid who surfed and skated, got A's and B's, played soccer, and got a job with my mom's business partner in the rougher areas of downtown. His name was Dick Dekreek, and he owned a lot of duplexes and small buildings. I went to work for him for a few dollars an hour, mostly picking weeds among beer cans and cigarette stubs in the ghetto. I worked hard and advanced to hosing off balconies and courtyards, and eventually learned to paint, frame, pour concrete, and look gang-bangers in the eye while loading up the broken lath and plaster in the back of the truck. I drove the diesel to the Paramount dump off the 91 freeway, and I mixed with the bulldozers and loaders and smells of sweet trash as I offloaded and swept out the bed. Long Beach Blvd., North Atlantic Blvd., the 710, 4th street, these were my backroads. And Dick worked. He taught me work. I knew a crow bar and a push broom and a dust mask. Dick came from Holland to Canada to the U.S. few decades before he hired me, and he had nothing. He was one of those Dutch immigrant stories that inspire you. And he told me stories over a good hamburger and fries in the hood. He lived on an acre in Diamond Bar (an equestrian community about 40 miles away from downtown Long Beach) with a jaguar in the garage. Every morning he got up early and drove his old diesel GMC an hour to his properties where he'd fix up and collect rent, and I was the grunt worker who knocked out concrete porches with a sledge hammer and gutted old duplexes wearing used leather gloves. Those were hard days, unglamorous, and part of me longs for them again. I remember one time he called me to come downtown to help him board up the windows of the properties during the riots. Hammer and nails, plywood, and people setting their businesses on fire hoping to blend in with the riot damage and collect insurance money. Exciting times. I learned some things about real life, stuff you don't get in school. I learned that you don't give up, that you can't, just because something doesn't fit right or make sense. You push and you make it work. Another guy started doing what Dick was doing, buying properties, fixing them up, renting them or selling them. He was a lot younger, and he had an eye for design. He put more colors on the outside of his houses, and he looked at Dick with condescension for being rough and less polished. But style wasn't the main thing that separated these two. Jim collected rent from two or three doors; Dick had over 70. Jim lasted a few years. Dick, a few decades. Where Jim would hire something out, Dick would do it himself. If he didn't know it, he would learn it, usually trial and error. It seemed like a long time when I was in it, but it was just a few years. I wish I stayed longer. There was so much I could have learned about business and property and investing and the downtown community. But I got a good taste those years, and the grit and drive to work hard has stayed with me. He wasn't perfect, but he was a good role model. Different paths lead you to where you are, and I'm grateful for those downtown years with Dick.
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