In Memoriam

 Ann Miller

I got to know Ann Miller in the Fall of 1982. She did two wonderful things for me that semester; she taught me to read short stories and she introduced me to my future husband.

Craig and I remember the story of our introduction differently. In my version, I’m sitting quietly on one of the couches at the foot of the stairs in Carroll Science. I look up to observe the spectacle of Ann Miller swooping down the stairs with Craig under her wing. I hear her saying, “Craig – do you know Ashley Bean? You two must meet; you must meet.” And with a final dramatic gesture we are introduced.

The way Craig remembers it he is the one sitting quietly on the couch. Lady Ann comes swooping down the stairs with me in tow. The thing we both remember clearly -- is the swooping.

In fact, a great ability to swoop is the characteristic I most closely associate with Lady Ann.

My friend Greg Hassel tells the story that when he was taking short stories from Ann Miller, she called him into her office one day after class and said to him, “If you make an A on your final exam you will make an A in this class. I want you to do that for me.”

He said, “I’ll try.”

And she replied, “Then I know that you will.”

He studied like a maniac for that test and made a 98 or something like that. I hate to think about what happened to the rest of his grades. He did it for her – she swooped him up into a higher plane where it seemed like rational behavior to read and re-read and read again a bunch of short stories in order to make a ridiculously high grade on a test in a class that wasn’t even in his major if I recall.

When I am with her she swoops me up out of my ordinary existence into the Ann Miller dimension where everyone’s clothes drape more beautifully, conversation is more witty, and no one would ever think of bringing out a plate of food that didn’t have some color in it.

In the Ann Miller dimension – ordinary transactions are elevated to the level of dance. I love watching these dances, although I do sometimes feel sorry for the other people involved who don’t always know they are supposed to be dancing. One of my personal favorites is the “ordering something to drink” dance.

Here’s how that particular dance might go. You’re having lunch at Harrington House with Ann Miller. The waiter, and unwitting dance partner to be, is a student worker. The dance is most fun if it’s a young man – pretty good looking, maybe a sophomore, and too polite and intimidated to get snippy.

“What can I get you to drink Ma’am?”

“Vodka please; I’d like some vodka if you have it.”

Now our young man is pretty clever, so after only a moment of letting his jaw sort of hang loosely, he collects his wits, realizes she’s teasing and replies, “I’m sorry ma’am we don’t have any vodka today, may I bring you something else?”

“Oh alright,” says Lady Ann, “I’ll have a Dr. Pepper I suppose.”

Our waiter smiles – he’s pretty pleased with himself. She knocked him off balance at first, but he is a worthy partner; he responded well to the challenge. He turns toward the swinging door to the kitchen. He doesn’t realize the dance has just begun.

“I really shouldn’t have a Dr. Pepper though should I? They’re not good for me. I should have something Diet. I’ll have a Diet Coke – could you bring me a Diet Coke?”

Our waiter turns back toward the table, “We don’t have Diet Coke ma’am; would you like a Diet Dr. Pepper?”

“Oh of course we don’t have Diet Coke here. We must drink Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper is the drink of Baylor. It will be a Dr. Pepper for me!”

“A Diet Dr. Pepper then Ma’am?” He assumes the answer will be yes. He turns again toward the swinging door.

“Diet drinks always taste so bad though don’t they. It’s terrible that we all have to be on diets. We should all enjoy our food and not eat terrible diet things. I don’t know why I drink these diet drinks. I’m sure they are worse for me than real drinks, but I suppose I must. Don’t you have a Diet Coke back there for me. That’s what I would really love, a Diet Coke.”

“No Ma’am, we don’t have Diet Coke. We have Diet Dr. Pepper.”

“Oh Diet Dr. Pepper. Yes that’s right. I’ll have a Diet Dr. Pepper.”

“Yes ma’am”

“But Diet Dr. Pepper is really not as good as Diet Coke is it? I should just go ahead and have a Dr. Pepper. Don’t you love Dr. Pepper. A Dr. Pepper would be perfect. I’ll have a Dr. Pepper.”

By now our waiter has lost track of where he is in the dance. He is beginning to be really afraid that the swinging door will never swing his way again. “So you want a Dr. Pepper, not a Diet Dr. Pepper. Right?”

“Yes a Dr. Pepper.”

“Regular Dr. Pepper?”

“Yes a Dr. Pepper. Or maybe I should have a glass of milk. That would really be better for me wouldn’t it? I don’t drink enough milk. I think I’ll have a glass of milk.”

“A glass of milk?”

“Yes. A glass of milk.”

“Yes ma’am”

Now at this point our waiter really should ask if she wants skim or regular. You can see in his eyes that he’s thinking about asking, but by this time he is eyeing that swinging door to the kitchen the way a lonely man might look at a beautiful woman. He is afraid that if he asks “skim or regular” he might not only miss his next class, but his graduation, and quite possibly the next appearance of Halley’s comet.

Lady Ann draws him back into the dance. “I should have a glass of milk, but you know what I really want is a Dr. Pepper. Would you be a love and bring me a Dr. Pepper.”

“A Dr. Pepper?”

“Yes. I must have a Dr. Pepper.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

This time he lunges for the swinging door. He is wishing that they did serve Vodka at Harrington house and that he could have a little swig of it right now. As the door swings shut behind him he hears a voice from the table, but can’t quite make out the words.

“Do you think he’s bringing me a regular Dr. Pepper or Diet? I hope he’s bringing Diet.”

What I learned in Ann Miller’s short story class is that some of the most important stuff of life is in moments like these: the way someone you love orders a Dr. Pepper, the way a black Labrador retriever bounds through the rose garden chewing on an evening slipper, the way Miss Brill takes her fur out of the box for her Sunday afternoon at the park, the way three girls look when they come into the A&P with nothing on but bathing suits.

“Fondle the details,” she told us – taking sly but obvious pleasure in the slightly risqué implications of the word “fondle.” God is in the details. In a great short story nothing is there accidentally, every detail has a purpose – it helps you get the theme.

When Dr. Daniel called and asked me to say a few words tonight, he said he was thinking of something along the lines of “Lessons from a Master Teacher.” All good teachers love their subjects, and I have been lucky enough to have had lots of good teachers. I think the difference between a Master Teacher and good teacher is that a Master Teacher understands that to just love your subject is like looking at a pair of glasses instead of looking through them. The purpose of the subject you study is not to be an end in itself, but to be a lens that helps you see life more clearly. Ann Miller helped me – and still helps me – hold the lens up to my eye. I learned to see better from her. I learned to see the world in the details – in a grain of sand, or the tilt of a chin, or the color of the sky, or in the way someone orders a Dr. Pepper. Thank you Ann Miller – Thanks for teaching me to see, thanks for introducing me to my husband, and thanks for still swooping me into your dimension every now and then. I love you.