My Sacred Places: Walt Whitman's House in Camden, New Jersey

Writing my dissertation about the poetry of Walt Whitman coincided with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship games in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As I played clarinet in the Indiana University Pep Band and had nine years of seniority in the famed Marching Hundred, I was entitled to a trip to the City of Brotherly Love. I planned to visit Whitman’s house in nearby Camden, New Jersey, on the day in between the first and second matches.

On March 30, 1981, my trumpet-playing friend Ken and I took the subway to Camden and found Whitman’s house. There, we met Eleanor Ray, the caretaker and docent. As my dissertation was nearly finished, I had enough knowledge about Whitman to verify that Eleanor knew her stuff! To this day, I think of her as one of the foremost experts on Whitman. She had grown up in Camden, had seen a want ad listing the caretaker job, had applied, and had been chosen. Eleanor told us she felt she was under obligation to learn as much about Whitman as she could. She definitely fulfilled her promise!

My Friend Ken Walking Away from the Walt Whitman House

(Painted Light Gray) in Camden, New Jersey, in 1981

We slowly toured the small shotgun house. Many of Whitman’s belongings were on view; seeing Whitman’s effects made me feel that he was peering over my shoulder. I thought I might glance at his rocking chair and catch him rocking!

The great biographer Justin Kaplan had published his life of Whitman the previous year. Eleanor told us she and Kaplan had lengthy conversations about the poet. As Kaplan was most interested in examining Whitman’s environments to discern the ways in which Whitman constructed a public persona consistent with the high aims of his literary art, Kaplan had come to a significant location when he visited Camden, Whitman’s final home (the only house he ever owned) and his burial place. While we stood in Whitman’s front room, I sensed that I was standing where many famous writers, past and present, had stood.

After our tour, Eleanor, Ken, and I lingered on the sidewalk in front of Whitman’s house. A drizzling mist was falling, and the sky was leaden. I had the notion to step up on the block that Whitman used to step up into his buggy. No sooner was I atop the slab than lines from Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” flashed into the forefront of my mind. Whitman had written the poem in honor of slain President Abraham Lincoln. Suddenly, Eleanor asked, “Do you feel that change in the atmosphere? Something bad is happening somewhere.” I admitted I had the disquieting sensation that an evil act was occurring. Feeling vulnerable, I quickly dismounted from the stone. Eleanor explained that, ever since she had worked at the Whitman house, her extrasensory perception had been in harmony with the poet’s psyche. On that occasion, she seemed almost a reincarnation of the author of Leaves of Grass.

Ken and I journeyed back to our hotel in Philly. We had plenty of time to don our pep band uniforms. We were surprised to find our fellow band members glued to the television sets in their rooms. “Haven’t you heard?” they asked. “Someone just tried to assassinate President Reagan.” The TV reporters solemnly repeated the facts about the assassination attempt, which had occurred precisely when Eleanor had said, “Something bad is happening somewhere.” Most fortunately, President Reagan survived and reportedly felt he should be especially mindful of his actions because a Merciful Providence had spared him.

The band boarded the bus for the Spectrum. The NCAA had decided to delay the game. Everyone waited, including then sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, who engaged in friendly conversation with band members. The crowd quietly awaited news of President Ronald Reagan’s condition. Eventually, the voice over the loudspeakers announced that the President was recovering and that he had urged the NCAA to start the games, saying he would rather be in Philadelphia. I had been in the Spectrum when IU won the NCAA championship in 1976, and I was there in 1981 when, late at night, the Hoosiers beat Dean Smith’s North Carolina Tar Heels 63 to 50.           

My Friend the Medium, Installment 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

Ever since Mary’s death, I’ve toyed with the fanciful notion that she was called to heaven during a severe lightning storm because the powerful energy made for a smoother passage for her soul. I like to think that the light of her being rode on a lightning beam into the clouds and beyond.

All of us who knew Mary were devastated. We cried incessantly. Dabbing our eyes with tissues, we said to one another, “Mary wouldn’t want us to cry. She would want us to laugh.” Although she was 70 years of age, she had seemed many years younger. Everyone missed her youthfulness, her joy, her wisdom, her friendship, and her love.

Mary’s brother, who was an engineer, summed up his sister’s talent. “She had an extraordinary gift,” he said. I like his wording. Her gift was indeed rare because she brought tremendous reassurance and happiness to so many people!

My Photograph of Early Spring

Within three days after Mary passed, one of her closest friends opened his front door to find a butterfly hovering there. It alighted on his shoulder. An Irish tradition transplanted in America through immigration holds that souls of recently passed loved ones can appear as butterflies to inspire and guide those living.

One day, I had nothing better to do, so, for a few seconds, while half asleep, I pretended to type what Mary would dictate if she could be standing and talking nearby me: “How opportunity comes is mysterious, but it surely does come when you are ready. Be in good spirits! Joy is everywhere in trees changing colors and birds at the feeder! Write what you hear being written, or else you will have directionless books. Be ready! Have faith!” I immediately felt I was wasting time. The expressions did not sound exactly like Mary, and I did not regard them as profound.

Only a few days after typing those words, I received a letter from one of Mary’s friends in Omaha. She wrote, “So tell me, have you heard from Mary? For some reason, I feel you have. Mary used to say she would not speak in parables if she could break that barrier [death]—she would communicate clearly, no games! Is this happening now? Has it happened to you? Have you tried for it, or has it simply come to you?”

The friend’s letter persuaded me to save my typing for future reference.

Over the ensuing decades, I experienced perhaps a dozen occasions when, for no more than a few seconds, I felt as if Mary were trying to communicate with me. Such fleeting occurrences took place when it seemed as if she were the farthest thought from my mind. I always concluded that my subconscious mind was still seeking to compensate for the loss of a dear friend.

All the same, I have turned again and again to the sentences that I typed on that day when I was pretending to take dictation. I have wished that my often cynical temperament would permit me to follow the advice. I am frequently pessimistic, and I customarily gripe that I lack opportunity. Finding joy everywhere is a challenge for the defeatist that I have become. “Write what you hear being written, or else you will have directionless books.” I have pondered the meaning of that guideline, and I have taken the suggestion to listen carefully to what I have to say before stringing words together in sentences. I have followed the counsel to write what I hear, and I have developed as a writer with sixteen books to my name and over two hundred articles.      

Now I am nearing the age that Mary was when I met her. Perhaps illogically, her ideas have helped reaffirm my more traditional expectations set in motion by my parents, who regularly attended a Methodist church. Mary had always believed I would become an author. Did she assist me? Yes, she undoubtedly did. During the part of her life that I was privileged to share, she taught me to observe people accurately and to hear their stories fully. Grateful for the lessons, I have passed these gifts forward to students in my writing classes at the university.

My Friend the Medium, Installment 5

While blogging about Mary, the medium I once knew, I’ve been thinking that those of us who want to believe in what mediums claim to do are those that want additional proof of life after death to undergird faith that has been developed through religion.

Mary consistently situated her mediumistic abilities within her Catholic upbringing; for example, she said the guardian angels her parents had told her about were the spiritual guides that spoke through her.

I asked Mary in what way she “heard” the spiritual guides. She said she meditated so as to clear her mind. Whenever an idea began to take form, that idea did not originate with her but from a guide outside her.

Over the years that I knew Mary, I was gradually becoming skeptical of whether her readings were from guides. I suppose I have a proclivity toward scientific thinking, which demands incontrovertible proof, even though I have enjoyed a long career in arts and literature, fields so expansive as to entertain speculation beyond scientific evidence.

My skepticism persisting, I began to consider that Mary might be a counselor unusually adept but not a conduit for voices from beyond the grave. I know she helped the customers that came to her for readings. She offered them advice that benefited them. Often, her readings began by contacting FGH, Mary’s master guide, but ended with lengthy conversations about the clients’ specific difficulties and solutions to those problems.

Mary developed quite a list of customers, most of them earnest people who visited her regularly. She was a positive influence in their lives.

The year after Mary and I enjoyed Quebec City, we decided to take a vacation in Omaha, where Mary’s husband had died unexpectedly and where her financial troubles had begun. In May, we set out for Nebraska. We had a lovely time along the way. I remember one spectacular sunrise in Iowa City after pre-dawn showers that made the world look fresh and new.

Arriving in Omaha, we drove past the suburban house where Mary and her husband had lived. I could tell that Mary felt ill at ease in the location. We rang the doorbell, and the owner graciously permitted us to step into the living room where Mary and her friends in Omaha had regularly gathered to discuss books and to share spiritual concepts. Even though Mary spoke in sunny terms about her time in that house, I could tell she was reliving the sadness of the sudden loss of her husband not long after they had moved there.

While we were in Omaha, Mary and I delighted in long visits with two of her closest friends. They were women very different from one another but alike in their high regard for Mary. One had been a stewardess in the early years of jetliners; she was a stately woman who carried herself with the grace of a model. The other was a housewife who loved to cook; wherever she was, she inspired a sense of comfort. The group talked about the past but also about more recent spiritual investigations. I listened intently. Both of Mary’s friends said how greatly she was missed, and I developed the impression that Mary had been the adviser to whom the others had turned.

When we came back home from our journey to Nebraska, Mary and I were tired but elated from having experienced uplifting conversations. All the same, I sensed that our world had no intention of remaining pleasant.

The summer flew by, and Mary and I were ready to begin another fall semester. Every evening of the week before the first day of classes, thunderstorms roared. The lightning was fierce.

My Drawing of the Lightning

Mary and I had come up with the idea to market recordings of her talking extemporaneously about spiritual concepts. I served as the interviewer. We had doubts about the success of our venture because we lacked professional equipment. Using an inexpensive cassette recorder, we were trying to do in the dining room of my rented house what needed to be done in a studio. Each evening that we met to record, the thunder crashed and rumbled so loudly that our tapes were not the best.

At dusk on the day when Mary taught her first university class, she was to stop by my home for another recording session. On cue, the thunderstorms appeared. I walked through my darkened house while waiting for Mary’s car to pull into the driveway. The lightning was especially frequent, and the thunder was particularly powerful. After Mary was more than an hour late, I began to worry. I rang and rang her telephone number, but there was no answer. After another hour had elapsed, I drove to her apartment to see what was keeping her. I parked near her car. I knocked on her door. No answer. Using a key that she had given me, I let myself into her entryway. Lightning was still flashing on the horizon. I called Mary’s name. I walked through her rooms. I found her sitting upright on the edge of her bed. I said, “Mary, what’s the matter?” She did not reply. I reached my arms around her to shake her, and the skin on her arms was cold. I jumped back in shock.

I ran to her phone to call 911. Soon the paramedics arrived. They said that Mary had died at about the time that she was supposed to drive to my home. In the palm of her hand was a pill prescribed for her heart.