Dept. of Dated Lexicographic Entries (was Re: "Pull any")

[Mike Salovesh]

Let me start with a dated reference to struggles long past.  I will,
eventually, show the relevance of that ancient history to the discussion
that has been going on under the subject heading I'm perpetuating.

Time: Academic year 1969-1970.  I made the mistake of resigning from my
job at Purdue, as a protest against their administration's having gone
entirely too far in stripping students of their rights as citizens.  (I
thought that Purdue had gone off the deep end, but that was my own
narrow parochialism.  In my job search that year, I visited campuses all
over the country. I discovered that Purdue's repressive actions were
pretty close to middle of the road in U.S. academia that year. The
reductio ad absurdam, of course, came in the killings at Kent State and
Jackson State.)

I had a very pleasant visit to the C.U.N.Y. Brooklyn College campus, and
they came through with a tempting proposition.  They offered me a
tenure-track appointment as a linguistic anthropologist.

In the end, I turned them down.  I just couldn't see how to explain to
my wife and friends that I was willing to accept a salary as a CUNY
linguist.

-- mike salovesh                    <salovesh at niu.edu>
PEACE !!!

P.S.:  Honest to God, I really had that offer and I really said I
couldn't take a CUNY linguist position when I turned down the job.

Usually I get those blinding flashes of something brilliant to say a few
decades after the fact, when nobody has a clear enough memory  to be
sure that I never said any such thing at the time.