The other night a photograph popped up in my Facebook feed.
This photo, posted by Randy Burse, was taken during my college days which now
are more years removed than I can readily recall. Even though time repeatedly
adds space between then and now, the photo took me back as if that frozen
moment was just yesterday.
That photograph was taken at a Halloween party during 1987.
Those of us who were studying broadcasting, public relations, theater, and
organizational communication at that time at Freed-Hardeman were involved in a faculty-sponsored
group called COMMA, Communication Majors and Minors Association. We met several
times each semester often networking with those from the real work world who had careers many of us aspired toward. Our group was small enough so that
we all mostly knew one another. After four years worth of classes and COMMA
meetings together, we also came to know our professors well. This group hosted
a Halloween party inviting guests to dress up in costume for the night.
It was during those last few semesters when those of us with
those specific majors turned our eyes toward tackling the big two courses we
needed to complete to graduate. One course was Communication Theory taught by
Dr. Steve Johnson. The other was titled Survey of Rhetorical Theory, taught by
Dr. Gerald Fulkerson. These courses uncovered the backbone of how communication
developed and behaved. They brought clinical views of the various ways we
communicate for deeper consideration. These courses brought to light those important
figures from long ago who began to analyze then record patterns then develop
theories about how and why we communicate.
That said when a person is just looking for a career in
broadcasting or public relations, this level of classroom study sure seemed
heady stuff. As classmate Dawn Bramblett stated in a comment about the photo,
those two classes were talked about by seniors in hushed tones when we were
mere freshmen, a deserved tradition we passed along to others. These were tough
courses with reputations that loomed all around us each year as we crept further
down our academic path. That journey ended on the fateful first day of the
semester when we walked into a classroom to finally read the course syllabus.
Additionally, the two men who taught these courses expected serious
participation and effort from those who made it to this point in their pursuit
of a degree.
The photo shows left to right, myself, Dawn Bramblett and
Christi Pugh. It was taken at the aforementioned party. At this point in the
semester, the three of us, along with several others, were about halfway
through “rhetoric”, as we often called the course. On this night, no doubt with
rhetorical theory running wild in our minds, we attended the party dressed in
togas. Adding to the visual, we wear leafy headdresses as if we just stepped
out of Athenian ruins. Around our necks are name tags so that everyone could
know who we were representing on this night. We weren’t sure if the ancient
Greeks had any “My Name Is” tags back in that day, so Dawn’s excellent
penmanship was put to good use as she boldly and neatly printed names on orange
construction paper in large letters. We affixed strings to each paper then draped them 
Remember, it was 1987. We were not far, geographically, from
Memphis. It was a time when some felt Elvis was still alive and well. It was a
time when the thought of Elvis Presley still had some cachet although I likely
wiped that out with my appearance this night. As the “Elvis Presley” of rhetoric, I recall using a box of stick-on stars, the kind a Sunday school
teacher may have let students place on an attendance chart years earlier, to
attach them to the toga in an attempt to match Elvis’s rhinestone-laded
jumpsuits. I wore gaudy sunglasses then wrapped fake sideburns around the
temples of the glasses. Meantime, my friends, Christi and Dawn, were part of a
larger group who appeared this night known as the Beatles of rhetoric.
Looking at the photo recently brought back a lot of good
memories. As several commented on the photo, a bit of the backstory came to
light. In a class session prior to this party, Dr. Fulkerson had likened Gorgias
to Elvis Presley then likened other philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle to
the Beatles as far as impact on the things we were studying at that moment.
Several of us took Dr. Fulkerson’s explanation and ran with it in a literal
sense to the COMMA Halloween party.
There is a bit more to the story though that I recall. Indulge
me please as I attempt to add more backstory to this occasion. Hopefully, it
will jog the memory others have about this event so that they can fill in more
details.
The story begins on the first floor of the BCWE building on
campus. The rhetoric class met several mornings each week in that first-floor
classroom. During this particular semester though I had another course in the
very same classroom. That other class was Communication Law, taught by the late
Lora DeFore. This course met once a week in the evening.
This classroom was mostly unremarkable for the time, desks,
chalkboard and a table for the teacher. There was one notable thing about this
room though. On one wall hung a framed photo of an older woman alongside a small plaque with information about this woman. Sad to say, I do
not recall this woman’s name. I do know though she in some way had donated
resources to the school to help fund the building of the BCWE building. In
return, the school honored her contribution by placing this nice framed photo
on the wall in this room.
While the Communication Law course was interesting, meeting
once a week for three hours after a long day came to be somewhat of a grind. I
do not know who in that class looked at that photo on the wall then determined
to make a small change to it. That isn’t important. But, one class meeting,
someone had taken transparent tape then attached a small thin mustache to the
space between the nose and upper lip of the lady in the photo. Our class met
that night. We took a few minutes to chuckle at the photo then the class went
on, and we forgot to remove the mustache.
Guess which class met the first thing the next morning in
that room? You don’t have to answer since I meant this as, yes, you guessed it,
a rhetorical question. For those keeping score at home though, Rhetorical
Theory met in that classroom the next day.
At first, the Rhetorical Theory class went as it did every
day. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I sat about three-fourths of the way
back in a desk near the middle of the classroom. As the class
progressed, in the corner of my eye, I noticed my friend Scott Ballard seemed
to be shaking. I glanced at him as he fought to keep from laughing out loud. I
furrowed my brow at him asking him, without words, why he was struggling to
keep his composure. He answered, without words, by cutting his eyes toward the
photo on the wall. When I looked there, here was this sweet-looking grandmother
figure with a pencil-thin mustache. I had forgotten about the photo, so it was now
my turn to keep from bursting into laughter. Others began to take note of a
growing disruption of the normalcy of the class. The suppressed laughter grew
person-by-person and row-by-row from the back of the class to the first seat of
each row.
At this point, Dr. Fulkerson understood something had taken
over his lecture, he just did not know why or what. His initial reaction was to
ask if his fly was open. His question allowed the classroom of students to
explode in laughter. Some kind soul stopped laughing long enough to direct Dr.
Fulkerson to the photo on the wall. Once he saw it, he laughed along with us
adding a joke or two of his own, as only he could do with his wry, dry wit.
Dr. Fulkerson though was in a groove. He had material to
cover with precious time slipping away. The whole series of events though had
taken a toll on us as students. We could not stop laughing. We tried to
suppress the laughter as we had earlier but trying to do so just made things
worse. We tried to focus on the task at hand but learning about rhetorical
theory seemed as far away then as the columns of the Parthenon. Dr. Fulkerson
looked around at the ruins of this particular class session then ended it
early, something he rarely did.
Sometime later, I am hazy on details, some of us began to
dream of other ways to use the photo in the classroom so that we could,
frankly, end another class session early. And, this brings us to Elvis Presley,
and eventually, to Gorgias.
A photo of Elvis Presley was located. It was a profile of
the left side of the entertainer’s face. A photocopy was made. This copy was
taped to the frame in the right-hand corner making it look as if Elvis was
looking down from above at the woman in the frame.
The Rhetorical Theory class met again. This time, Elvis
occupied the picture frame along with the sweet-looking grandmother. Dr.
Fulkerson though short-circuited any plans to derail the class by quickly
acknowledging the picture. He chuckled at the feeble attempt to replicate the
previous prank then transitioned into his lecture for the day. It is likely
during this class period, Dr. Fulkerson looked over to Elvis on the picture
frame and likened Gorgias to Elvis and other philosophers who followed as the
Beatles of rhetorical theory.
Even though Dr. Fulkerson has passed away and Dr. Johnson retired,
there is still comfort knowing students now still study the ancients, maybe
even Gorgias. I am not sure how they remember his place in the great thinkers
of that day and time. I just know when I think of him, I think of Elvis Presley
but I also think of good times with good friends and I marvel at how all that comes
back together now in the form of good memories.
~~~~~~~
In case you need your memory jogged about what life was
like, musically, in October 1987, here is a playlist of songs from that time,
along with one or two which just seemed to match the memory in some way.
Michael Jackson "Bad"
Bruce Springsteen "Brilliant Disguise"
Elton John "Candle In The Wind"
Heart "Who Will You Run To?"
Bourgeois Tagg "I Don't Mind At All"
Fleetwood Mac "Little Lies"
Swing Out Sister "Breakout"
Richard Marx "Should've Known Better"
Cutting Crew "I've Been In Love Before"
REM "The One I Love"
Rosanne Cash "The Way We Make A Broken Heart"
Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes "I've Had The Time of My Life"
Jimmy Davis and Junction "Kick the Wall"
The Replacements "Skyway"
And, if
you are really ambitious, read up on Gorgias, you know, the Elvis Presley of rhetoric.
