David E. Hailey, Jr., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Professional and Technical Communication at Utah State University, resigned from the Techwr-l list today. I had enjoyed reading his posts over the last few months. In his resignation letter, he wrote:
"[I] joined the forum in hopes of keeping my finger on important issues in the field, and perhaps from time to time contributing something. But I have found that there are no important issues on this forum - just ongoing quibbling over insignificant issues. Moreover, I have found the forum uninterested in anything I might contribute. That said, I am wasting all of our time remaining here."
The reaction to all this has been somewhat subdued.
There was Jim - who had been cited earlier in the resignation - who wrote, "I have appreciated your contributions, and I certainly did not intend to offend you."
It wasn't until later in the day that Janice Gelb reminded me of the "big picture" in all of this. She wrote:
"... this isn't the first and definitely won't be the last time that someone online has provided a lengthy exposition of his or her own very individual ideas and then retreated when someone dared challenge them without ever responding to the challenge. My feeling is, if you're going to participate in an online forum, you have to be prepared to discuss and defend your ideas, not just deliver them from on high and expect them to be accepted just because you bluster about how well qualified you are to hold them and because a single preferred source of yours backs you up."
The big picture is this. I was driving north on I-380 this AM. I saw a man walking on the shoulder of the road, carrying a gas can. He was walking away from a car. Instantly, I knew he had run out of gas. The nearest gas station, from his car, was at least 4 miles away. On an impulse, I pulled over ahead of him. He ran up to my truck and I let him in. His name was James. He was on his way from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids and had run out of gas. His wife was still sitting in the car because she can't walk very well. She has Alzheimer's.
I gave him a ride to the nearest gas station. While we rode, we talked about his wife. We talked about how God doesn't give us more than we can handle. We talked about how his wife is not the same woman she used to be - that sometimes, she doesn't recognize him. He said that he had seen her go downhill in just the last year and that he didn't wish this disease on anyone, even his worst enemy.
At the gas station, I paid $3.66 to fill up his can. I drove him back down the interstate to the exit south of his car, then re-entered the interstate heading north. Soon after I had pulled up, a couple showed up in a car with a gas can full of gas. After the gas I had purchased was put in the car, they put their gas in the car. I gave James a hug and told him that he would be okay.
I think that people come into your life for a reason. I think that God directed me to pick up James and to help him. I think it was a sign. Out of all the people in the world, with all the different diseases in the world, why James? Why Alzheimer's?
That's why I also think, in the big picture, that whether David E. Hailey, Jr., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Professional and Technical Communication Utah State University, resigned from the Techwr-l list today or not, is insignificant. Reality always trumps a virtual community.
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