Roll Over, Cecil Rhodes

W.R. Priskna
fliesinyoureyes.com

Potala in Lhasa - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Who wouldn’t want to win an Oscar, Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Rhodes Scholarship, Presidential Freedom Medal, “key to the city”, or 4th grade student of the month?  Awards set recipients apart from the rest and recognize unusual achievement or exceptional service.  The problem is how the winners are selected.  Politics, prejudice, and popularity muddle the process.  Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, which transformed the field of physics, were presented in 1905 and 1916 respectively, yet he had to wait until 1922 to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with the more ho hum photoelectric effect.  Why did this man only receive one Nobel Prize?  Contrast this with Barrack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize on the ninth month of his Presidency while the United States was engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

During senior year in high school, my friend Dave Sundin and I goaded a sophomore to run for school treasurer.  To pad his credentials we formed three or four clubs with impressive names but without any function or purpose and elected him president of each.  If this happened in little old Podunk, USA, how often are resumes padded for those with real connections, lofty aspirations, and financial resources?  

I am one of those who has gone through life with few awards or kudos, except a slap on the ass from a coach who occasionally liked the way I played.  But I had a chance once long ago in college to make it in a big way: the chance to compete for a Rhodes Scholarship.  My interests were in science and mathematics, but I had a broad background in the humanities and had performed sufficiently well in college that my professors recommended me to represent the school.

“Priskna, we think you got what it takes.  You look like Jack Armstrong, the all American boy, and even through you were raised in the sticks, when you speak you don’t use ain’t or drop the g’s from participles.”  After that heady endorsement, I won my home state competition and then traveled to the regionals in Portland, Oregon, where the winners would be selected.

When the selection committee and candidates met for social hour before interviews, something wasn’t quite right.  I had the impression the swashbuckling Cecil Rhodes preferred the adventurous, beer drinking, rugby playing scholar to uphold the pillars of Western Civilization and defend the Queen’s realm.  Yet the contestants in the room, who were all men, seemed more at home reading poetry and drinking from a brandy snifter.  These were not robust, hardy men, but to their credit presumably first rate scholars from prestigious schools and, interestingly enough, liberal arts majors like all the judges in the room.
  
Several of the contestants were engaged in animated conversations with the professors.  To be thrown into a room full of salty academics and have these older men hinging on every word, one must possess truly extraordinary conversational skills.  Within moments the dialogue had gone beyond “I’m so and so from such and such” to a thorough analysis of man’s destiny.  I strained to listen and found myself moving closer to two of discussants, a dapper elderly man dressed in a three piece suit and a frail, mousey looking student dressed in a similar fashion.

“Professor Humbly, what a lovely carnation in your lapel.  Where ever did you find it?”

“Thank you, Mr. Fooby.  How observant and kind of you to say so.  I know a florist in Portland, who orders them especially for me.  By the way, I’m looking so forward to having you in my English literature class again this next semester.”

“Holy Shit!” I thought.  “These two guys not only know each other personally, but Fooby is Humbly's student!  I wonder if the professor will vote for Fooby only twice.”

The experience became one of my life’s first reality checks.  Since many of the judges and contestants hailed from the same universities and knew one another personally, how could impartiality be maintained?  Perhaps this was the common thread which allowed the dialogue between student and professor to flow so smoothly. 

The interview did not go well.  No softball questions about science, history, current events, or the starting line up for the Green Bay Packers were lobbed my way, just esoteric queries about English literature.  I left the room frustrated, knowing I had lost, and badly.  I wondered how Fooby had fared with his questions about differential equations and the Reynolds number.  Wasn’t it clever how in a polite fashion skillful inquisitors could make one look like a genius or dolt?
Later that afternoon, the winners were announced.  Professor Humbly beamed when his clone, Mr. Fooby, was told he would be going to Oxford.  

Hong Kong - photo by JoAnn Sturman