awakening.Brad Dean was a Thoreau scholar. I kept in contact with him off and on every couple of months. We would get to emailing back and forth through a day or two, and then we’d be silent for a while. It was fine that way. I was just lucky he gave me the time of day.
Just over a month had gone by, so I decided to get in touch again.
What would it be like for you to nonchalantly approach a casual friend’s website, to see of any news there, and discover those titles with dates that usually correspond with someone who’s deceased?
I can’t describe what those first emotions were like.
10:37am …. Bradleypdean.com …
(page comes up and I begin to read)
Bradley P. Dean, Thoreau Scholar,
February 4, 1954 – January 14, 2006 …
I last heard from Brad on December 27th, 2005. I had emailed him, telling him that some friends and I would be reading Walden beginning in January and did he have any suggestions of certain annotated editions or other pertinent corresponding texts? He recommended a book that I am really enjoying! I was going to email him yesterday and tell him thanks. I was also going to post here and mention how a quote under the recommended book’s title is just so appropriate to Thoreau. Well, after the news and a day’s reflection, I can also say it was appropriate to my friend, Dr. Brad Dean. I’m glad this is the last recommendation he gave me.
The quote is from Charles Anderson’s The Magic Circle of Walden.
It reads,
“In his own magic circle wanders
The wonderful man, and draws us
With him to wander, and take part in it.” – Goethe, TASSO
That is how I will remember Brad Dean.
That, and I’ll always remember that he was a major fan of mine! Okay, maybe not a major fan, but I did lend him a cd of a Thoreau monologue I have done and he emailed this response to me:
Hey, Shaun: Just finished listening to your CD performance. Pretty good! I was favorably impressed. Good job. I can see why kids would enjoy it--a real person speaking in earnest tones and measures. Good for you.
Brad Dean
It was always little responses like this that encouraged me. Brad seemed to have time for anyone who was interested in Thoreau, but he would always shoot straight with you. I was always shocked that such a talented and renowned scholar befriended the kid in back; the kid who found Thoreau inspiring, but didn’t really know the details concerning the ongoing debate about exactly where Thoreau’s bean-field was located! I remember Brad giving a talk, as a group of us walked around Walden Pond, about the “real” location of the bean-field. I wondered to myself, “what in the heck does it matter where this bean-field was?” And I later learned from Brad that it mattered because of how Thoreau spoke of it. He would mention working with the beans and seeing certain things take place or noticing certain people along the road nearby. So, the bean-field location was a connection to other aspects of Thoreau’s life. And Brad Dean knew those. He recognized the detailed connections and he cared about them. In that sense, I do fear that Thoreau scholarship has lost a valuable contributor. And, this blog lost a potential contributor that I had been afraid to spread the word to. I feared that kind of knowledgable eye & mind here! Now, I completely wish we’d all been able to hear more from Brad.
I’ll make it a point to quote him here as we proceed (I can’t say any more here and now). His three books are extremely great additions to the body of work on Thoreau (see above link to "Brad Dean"). Debra Kang Dean, Brad’s wife, is a wonderful poet and a uniquely peaceful person. I can only hope peace and goodness to her through the recent loss. And, as Thoreau’s words continue to impact my studies, my thoughts, and my life, I will be grateful to Brad Dean. I am thankful that he drew me in to "wander" with him, and with Henry David Thoreau, “to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places” (Thoreau’s Journal).
With a heavy but thankful heart for Brad,
-s.o
No comments:
Post a Comment