Remarks at the Memorial Service for Frederick W. Cropp III

Remarks at the Memorial Service for Frederick W. Cropp III

August 19, 2017

The College of Wooster

Scheide Music Hall

J. Douglas Drushal

I guess I am in love with the Earth!

Coming to Wooster

Fred Cropp arrived at the College of Wooster in 1950, from Wheeling, West Virginia, where his father was Presbyterian minister.  Fred’s initial thought was that he would be an English major, later he thought Sociology.  Fred’s father, Wooster Class of 1926 and a good friend of Howard Lowry, was a very prominent force in the Presbyterian Church, and recall that in those days there was much more concern about the perceived conflict between religion and the teaching of evolution.  As such, those who knew neither his father nor the College very well thought Fred’s eventual choice of Geology as a Major to be curious.  Fred found this amusing, knowing that Wooster stood firmly on the side of science in this debate and that there really was no conflict to be debated. After all, Prexy Wishart had debated the topic with William Jennings Bryan on the floor of the Presbyterian General Assembly in the early 1920s, taking the side of teaching evolution.  It was into such a campus, and such a Geology Department, that Fred stuck his toe with an introductory class.  The Department, led for many years by Professor Charles Moke, Wooster Class of 1931, hooked Fred and therein arose his lifelong love for all things geologic. 

Fred was often asked if he argued with his father, to which Fred replied that they did, indeed, have bitter arguments … about baseball, and whether the National or American League had the better talent.

Scientia et Religio Ex Uno Fonte … at its best.

Returning to Wooster/Administration

Excited by Geology at Wooster, after graduation Fred went on to earn his doctorate from the University of Illinois, where he also taught for six years.  He and Helen returned to Wooster in 1964, recruited to a new administrative position of Associate Dean, along with being Associate Professor of Geology (promoted to full Professor in 1969).  Howard Lowry suggested Fred for this new position and when my father checked with Charlie Moke as a reference for Fred, Charlie responded that Fred was one of the department’s best students ever and they had been trying to bring him back for some time.  That was all the reference checking that was needed.

The Deanship did not last too long due to the sudden death of Howard Lowry on July 4, 1967, at which time Vice President Drushal became Acting President and Fred essentially became acting Vice President.  A national search was undertaken for a new President, and Fred was one of the faculty representatives on that committee.  Upon the Board selecting my father as President in early 1968, he immediately asked Fred to be his Vice President for Academic Affairs, which Fred accepted at the youthful age of 36.  They formed a great team for the rest of their decade of leadership.  Both trusted the other implicitly and duties were delegated and not second guessed.  It was unusual for my father and Fred to attend the same meetings since they didn’t think that necessary.  A delightful outgrowth of this professional relationship was the Drushal family and Cropp family becoming close, a relationship I am pleased continues to this day.

One important task impacted by Fred’s leadership was the effort to begin the transformation of the faculty at the College from what was, in 1967, almost exclusively Western-oriented, Protestant, white, and male.  While there were a few female faculty members, virtually every one of them was unmarried, and low paid despite including some wonderful teachers.  Fred set about to change this, and improve faculty salaries and fringe benefits across the board.  He was successful, at least in getting started on this process, although all of these issues certainly remain challenging yet today.

1967-77 were perhaps the most turbulent years in the history of higher education in the United States.  I am sorry if I sound like the old timer who walked uphill to school both ways in his youth, but this is simply the truth.  The trio of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement and a revolution in values presented issues on college campuses which remain unmatched to today.  These were heady times on this campus.  Recall that we are just down the road from Kent State, where the outcome was much different than here at Wooster.  Fred was at the forefront of dealing with those issues in a manner which related to student concerns but kept the situation peaceful.  Fred was instrumental in coordinating a very student-oriented team, including the likes of Westminster’s Ray Swartzback, College physician Viola Startzman, then-Dean Henry Copeland and Dean of Students Doris Coster.

Of course, if you knew Fred and my father, things were also fun in Galpin Hall.  Both had a great sense of humor that fed off of one another.  A smile was never far away.

Do you recall the Pet Rock craze of the mid-1970s?  Well, being a Geologist, of course someone got a Pet Rock for Fred, which he proudly displayed in its original gift case.  One day, the rock was missing and in its place was a ransom note, demanding that a large sum of money be delivered to a location to be disclosed later.  In those days, ransom notes consisted of words assembled by pasting on a sheet of paper excerpts cut out of newspapers and the like.  Well, Fred foiled the kidnappers by placing in the container a number of smaller pebble-sized rocks, with a note explaining that his Pet Rock was pregnant and had reproduced and thus he would not be meeting the kidnappers’ demands.

Some of you will also remember that at their last Commencement in 1977 every graduating senior handed my father a golf ball, which quickly started overflowing all of the available storage space on the podium.  This was Fred’s idea, but as a Plan B to divert a devious group of students whose Plan A was to move all of the furniture out of the President’s office and onto the podium.  Upon learning of this plot, Fred succeeded in diverting the conspirators into the golf ball donations.  Although it turned out they were just the very used balls from the driving range at the College golf course, to which they were returned shortly after commencement.

Returning to the Classroom

After the end of his time as Vice President in 1977, Fred took a year’s leave at the University of Arizona, thus beginning a long association with that state.  More about that later.  While Fred enjoyed administration and excelled at it, I think it is fair to say that his real love was teaching, and he became one of Wooster’s most beloved faculty members in the long history of this institution.

Fred had what it takes to be an outstanding Professor.  Full command of his subject matter, an evident caring for and empathy with students, an engaging style of delivery of the material, a challenging approach that made students work harder than they thought they might have to.  He never excused poor grammar, to the chagrin of many students who wondered why that mattered in a science class.

Listen to the following collection of comments from former students:

“I will always remember Professor Cropp and my freshman Geology 101 class. His contagious enthusiasm and passion for the subject, coupled with an ability to make rocks interesting will never leave me. I still regularly bore friends and family alike with random, unsolicited comments on things like the Kaibab formation, siltstone layers, thrust faults and glacial erratics. I remain fascinated by the subject to this very day. He was a great teacher and a great man.”

“Fred Cropp was the person I listed on a recent C.O.W alumni survey, ironically the day he died, as the person who most influenced me while at Wooster and after graduation. So very many twists and turns in my life since graduation in 1983 can be traced back to him. Thank you, Dr. Cropp, for making my life richer.”

“I knew Dr. Cropp in both his capacity as Dean and as a geology prof. Wonderful, inspirational person with lots of smiles and laughs. Loved his geology class that was informative and had lots of illustrative slides. If I had taken this class in my freshman year instead of my senior, I probably would have majored in geology. I live in western Canada. In my travels around western North America I've visited lots of the places he showed in his slides, and I always think of him.”

“No one epitomizes Wooster or the Wooster experience more than Fred Cropp, and I feel truly blessed to consider him a teacher, mentor, and most importantly, friend. My fondest memories of Dr. Cropp are simply watching his eyes light up, discussing plate tectonics, or slogging around a rainy, muddy field trip, sharing his knowledge and experience. Dr. Cropp taught immeasurable life lessons to his students, many of which I carry with me to this very day. And of all things, I learned how to truly write and write well in his classes? Learn to write and think critically in a Geology class? Yes, if you have Fred Cropp as your professor. While I mourn the passing of Fred Cropp with his family and friends, I also celebrate a life very well lived. Few are lucky enough to have such far-reaching impact and influence on the lives of thousands, and simply have fun doing it. Fred Cropp was someone who did and I consider myself lucky and privileged to have known him.”

I could go on at length, but I think you get the point.  Many other comments could be boiled down to “He was the best professor I had at the College.”

And especially interesting were quite a number of comments to the effect of “I am a Geologist today because of Fred Cropp.”  Abe Springer, now Professor of Geology at Northern Arizona University (see how Arizona keeps popping up?), wrote “Like many Geology majors, I didn’t consider majoring in Geology until I was turned on to it through Physical Geology with Fred. … I still have my journals from that semester and immensely enjoy pulling them out every now and then and reading them.  I even assign similar writing assignments for [my students].”

Fred was often a spokesperson for the College, on campus and elsewhere.  A colleague of mine who graduated from the College but never took a class from Fred commented once to me, after hearing a presentation from Fred at an alumni event:  Fred Cropp seems to be who the College trots out to alumni to impress them with what’s happening on campus.

And from another former student: I went to Wooster because of Fred. He came to Washington DC with the recruiting team and he gave an amazing presentation of his trip down the Grand Canyon and created an analogy to the Wooster experience and I was hooked!

While Fred loved Geology and thought it important, he never wanted students to think only about that.  Abe Springer again:  “Fred encouraged us to balance our lives inside and outside of Scovel Hall.  I’ll never forget how Fred talked Frank Koucky into delaying a minerology exam so that we could come over to Fred’s house and watch an NCAA basketball Final Four game.”  Fred definitely thought that sports, whether as athlete or fan, was an important part of the college experience.  And theatre, lectures, concerts, late night bull sessions, take it all in and find something new.  It was no accident that Fred’s closest friends on the faculty taught in other departments.

Fred’s approach was outlined in a series of letters he wrote to each of his children as they headed off to college at various schools.  He adapted these letters into an Op-Ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1989, just after the youngest, Tom, headed off to Northern Arizona University.  After some practical tips about independent decision making and good study habits and social habits, he encouraged them to do at least one extra thing every week, including things that might not appeal at first glance.  Do not worry about asking “Who am I?”, as that will come in the daily decisions made outside the classroom.  Rather, remain open to growth and change.  “If the college you go to is any good, it will hit you like a ton of bricks and stretch you until you squawk.”  He closed, “Peace, love and good luck.”

And finally, The Grand Canyon

During Fred’s leave year, while in Arizona in the summer of 1978, through the pre-Google search processes of the day, Fred arranged to take a raft trip through the Grand Canyon organized by Hatch River Expeditions.  He was hooked.  He returned to Wooster with a plan to both coordinate and lead such trips for the College as an alumni travel opportunity.  Thus began nearly twenty years of leading such trips, starting out in 1980 with one trip that included some people in this room today and Charlie Moke, long retired and then living in Arizona.  The administrator in Fred oversaw the coordination of the logistics before the trips.  The Geology teacher in Fred had the joyous task of explaining the Canyon Geology to all along during the trips.  

Careful to call it The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River (as there are other places, Yellowstone included, that have canyons labelled “grand”), it became a place that Fred liked to call his “La Querencia.”  This is a metaphysical concept in the Spanish language which describes a place where one feels safe, a place from which one's strength of character is drawn, a place where one feels at home.

Always one to compose his own journal, and encourage others to do the same, during Fred’s first trip, his first journal entry was “I guess I am in love with the Earth.”

From a single trip in 1980, word got out and the next year it was two trips, already including repeaters from the year before.  This pattern of repeaters continued throughout, with some going nearly every year.  My first trip was 1983, memorable as the year of record-setting flows and fears that the Glen Canyon Dam, just upstream from the Grand Canyon, was at risk of sudden collapse.  The pattern was established of trip lists of Fred’s former Wooster students, Fred’s former Geology colleagues from around the country, local Wooster folks, and others who knew someone in one of the former categories.  There was virtually no advertising and no promotion.

The thrill of the rapids in the Canyon was definitely a draw.  After all, it’s the fastest navigable white water in the Western Hemisphere.  Fred enjoyed watching others enjoy the Roaring 20s, Unkar, the Jewels, Hance, Sockdolager, Hermit (my personal favorite), Crystal, Lava Falls.  But the River was just a means of conveyance to see not only the Geology visible from the River but also to access the side canyons, places of spectacular beauty, with lush greenery and warm waterfalls, the latter being a nice respite from the frigid waters of the main River.  The River got Fred to fantastic hiking trails, facilitating frequent hikes, sometimes just short strolls and other times taking up to eight or more hours.  We would hike up to the Granaries at Nankoweap, up and over at Carbon Creek and Lava Chuar, up to Elves Chasm to jump off the cliff into the water pooled below, to the waterfall up Stone Creek, and the genuinely grueling up Tapeats Creek, across Surprise Valley and down into Deer Creek through the Throne Room.  Toward the end of each trip, there would be a “silent hike” up National Canyon, an otherwise routine (albeit, still spectacular) side canyon, where Fred required walking quietly by one’s self and taking some time to contemplate.

And, of course, I must mention Blacktail Canyon, where just a few dozen yards off the main River is an excellent view of the Great Unconformity, a place where two adjoining rock layers should not be adjoining, missing hundreds of millions of years of geologic history.  Now, I must confess that this exposure to the Great Unconformity was more awe-inspiring to Fred and other geologists who might be along than it was to the History Majors in the group.  But to sit in this place, a cool respite in the shade away from the 100 degree air along the River, and listen to Fred talk about the passage of hundreds of millions of years was a special experience.  We still stop in Blacktail every year, I was just there a few weeks ago, and new geologists share Fred’s enthusiasm for the place, and always place their fingers on either side of the hundreds of millions of years gap.  I will never forget the thrill of seeing Fred revel in this small portion of La Querencia. 

At Mile 170 in the Canyon, there is a rock formation along River Right the forms a small mesa-like structure.  When we would pass that spot, Fred would quip that if there were ever a statue erected in his honor that this rock should be the “plinth”, a term he explained was the base upon which a statue is erected.  This was good Cropp humor, said with a smile, as he really did not expect a statue to be erected anywhere.  And Fred was not a Saint.  He had his human frailties, as we all do.  I know he had some regrets and some things in his life did not turn out as he would have liked.  But if anyone deserves a statue to be erected in his honor, I would be eager to nominate Fred.

In 1990, the College decided, for reasons I never really understood, that the College should not be the sponsor of these trips any longer, but Fred was not ready to quit, so he came to me as his lawyer with the task of creating a new non-profit corporation to be the sponsor.  He said he wanted to call it “Environmental Experiences, Inc.”, and thus was born EE.  I informed him that Ohio law requires at least three directors for a non-profit corporation, so he said he would be one, Tom would be one, and, pointing at me, said “You’ll be the other.”  I did not take this as a request, but rather an order.  But that was fine with me, and led to a wonderful ongoing relationship with EE which has been a meaningful part of my life.

The name was important to Fred, as he saw these trips as not just vacations for those coming along, but truly an environmental experience in the wilderness, surrounded by the best Geology workshop known to humanity.  Folks who went along were not “passengers”, but rather “participants”.  He wanted participants to emerge with a new, or renewed, appreciation of the environment.  He explained what we were seeing, starting with the bus ride from Flagstaff to Lee’s Ferry and continuing through the bus ride back to Flagstaff from Lake Mead.  He carried a Canyon library with him on every trip, in addition to the normal collection of maps which seem to accompany all geologists.  All of his adult life, Fred was an “environmentalist”, before that term was popular.  He certainly did not waste paper, as those of you who received his hand-written notes on scraps of paper can attest.  Before anyone knew anything about “carbon footprint”, Fred’s was quite small.

When Fred retired from teaching in 1998, he decided to retire from running Environmental Experiences.  He had recently undergone bypass surgery and while he was still the same old Fred we did not realize at the time that he was beginning his long, slow descent into what robbed him of his mind that was so painful for the rest of us to watch in recent years.  But Tom and I thought that EE was too good a thing to just let it die, so we took over and have continued it, still using Hatch as our outfitter but hiring another Geologist to play the Fred Cropp Geologist role in the Canyon.  The Canyon is still magnificent and Tom and I are pretty nice guys, but we quickly found out that the real draw for these trips was Fred.  We now are happy to fill one boat (maybe two) once per year.

Think about this:  Imagine, if you will, organizing a trip with a group of friends to visit some beautiful place.  Perhaps Provence or Tuscany, perhaps India and the Taj Mahal, or an African Safari, or a River Cruise, some place anyone would like to go.  Then, imagine finding 30-some people who would like to take that trip with you, and coordinate their travel plans and arrange for lodging and meals and all that would go with such a trip, and they would all pay their own way.  You can imagine that.  I was on such a trip just last year to Normandy.  But now try to imagine finding four more groups of 30-some people who also want to take that same trip the same year with you.  Then try to imagine getting most of those people to go again with you, sometimes over and over again, year after year for twenty years, eventually having some two thousand people take your trip.  I just cannot imagine doing that.  I just don’t have that many friends!  Such was the draw of traveling with Fred Cropp.

One year during the peak years of EE, Fred sponsored a reunion, held at the President’s Home on campus.  Henry Copeland remarked afterward:  “Fred, you’ve created a cult!”  While not meeting the technical definition “cult”, there was quite a following of people who smiled when they heard the word “Sockdolager”, who didn’t say “Goodbye” but said “See you Down the River”, who knew they were “participants” and not “passengers”, who appreciated “The Great Unconformity”, who knew to say “rock” and never “stone”, and otherwise “spoke Canyon”.

While thinking about these remarks, I thought it would be appropriate to close with an eloquent passage from the extensive collection of Canyon literature.  Perhaps the journal of John Wesley Powell, the leader of the first recorded passage through the Canyon in 1869.  Perhaps the writing of Edward Abbey, noted author of such books as The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire, two of Fred’s favorite books.  Indeed, Fred and Edward Abbey even had an intriguing exchange of correspondence about the relative merits of rowing trips vs. motorized trips in the Canyon.  But my research included a Convocation Talk by Fred and none of these other authors said it any better, so let’s end with Fred’s own words, again taken from his own journal on his first trip:

“I guess I am in love with the Earth. 

Tonight I am lost in time and space.  I put my watch away last Saturday and I do not know when it is – although I suspect it is early morning on Friday, July 14. 

Since I woke up I have been lying here looking at the stars – and clouds – wondering where we all are – where any of us is.

I think I know better than ever before where I am.  I think I learned that Wednesday – after a long hike up Deer Creek where cold water poured from the Muav Limestone and where I wept – me – FWC.  I wept for joy and appreciation for what the Grand Canyon has meant to me.  I wept as I looked east from the top of the Tapeats Sandstone – and saw almost the entire Grand Canyon geologic story before my eyes.

I have thought a lot this week about our Earth, the people on this trip – and some people not on this trip.

My appreciation of those who appreciate our Earth – and who, I suspect, share my love of it – has grown.  I have loved watching them push themselves – and me – to a greater appreciation of the Earth and some of its inhabitants.

I have felt sorry for those whose minds and/or bodies do not allow them to experience what I have experienced.  But I have felt most sorry for those whose minds and bodies would have allowed them to do more … and grow more….  ****

My flashlight has attracted hundreds of bugs – a rarity in the Grand Canyon – and I need the rest my mind and body cry for.  Yet sleep is hard for me in the Grand Canyon because this canyon brings me to peace with myself and with our Earth –and I think maybe that is God.”

Fred’s spirit is now certainly in his La Querencia.  Rest in Peace, my friend.  And we do not say Goodbye, we just say See you Down the River.

Reflections presented to Westminster Presbyterian Church, March 16, 2014

ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISM?

Reflections Presented to Westminster Presbyterian Church

Sunday March 16, 2014

Dries is out of town this weekend with the Border Links trip, so in an act of desperation and knowing I work cheap, he asked if I would provide some reflections today on his recent theme of violence in our world.  In particular, knowing of my interest in things environmental, he asked if I would talk about violence to our environment.  I told him No, I really didn’t like the imagery of that language, but if I could call it something else, perhaps.  And I asked if he wanted a real sermon, or just some reflections.  He said “just some reflections”, so with those qualifiers, I agreed.  So you don’t get a sermon today, just some thoughts and ideas, mainly some questions for you to ponder yourself.  I can pretty well assure you that I will not be providing a lot of definitive answers.  Sorry, but you’ve probably heard of the client who wanted to hire a one-armed lawyer, so that he couldn’t keep saying “Well, on the other hand……….”

So, why the title “Environmental Extremism”?  I start with my view of myself, as a bit of an environmental extremist in my personal life.  I walked here today, and do most Sundays, and almost always walk to the many events I attend at the College.  I ride my bike to work…. well, on weekends anyway.  I recycle every scrap of paper I can get my hands on.  I don’t use paper towels to dry my hands in restrooms, they always get dry in a minute or two anyway.  I drive a car which gets 30 miles per gallon, and I turn off the engine if I’m waiting in a line and not moving, and coast either in neutral or with the engine off whenever I can.  We keep our house pretty cold in the winter, turning the thermostat down even lower at night.  Our house is not air conditioned and we rely upon shade trees for cooling in the summer.  I walk and carry my bag when I play golf.

I pick up pop and beer cans on the street to take them home to my storehouse of cans to take to recycling.  When helping my son clean up at his business, I fish pop and beer cans out of the trash to be sure they get recycled.  When Dries recounted last week his and Beth’s encounter with a plastic item on campus, saying that Beth playfully kicked it while he was reminded that in South Africa such was never done for fear of the kicked item blowing up, I just thought they should have picked up the plastic item and thrown it in a recycling bin!  I recycle absolutely everything which I can at home and regularly have much more in my recycling container than in trash bags every Wednesday morning.

I believe with all my heart that bottled water is immoral, unless one is in a third world country where the tap water can’t be trusted.  My co-workers will assure you that I am kind of a fanatic about this (and other things) at the office.  I don’t eat red meat and am about 80% vegetarian, partly for health reasons but also because that is one of the most effective ways that an individual can reduce one’s carbon footprint.  I’m not quite to vegan, but respect those who are.  Especially since my good friend Dave Noble says the hardest thing about it is enduring the grief he gets about it from his friends.  (But he can take it, so don’t worry about that.)

I could go on … and on… and on, but I think you get the point.  And I can assure you that you really don’t want an extensive list of my personal quirks and eccentricities!  But kind of extreme, don’t you think, or at least it seems so to me since the vast majority of the people I encounter in my daily life do very few of these things.  And many people I encounter really don’t seem to even care about even the simplest of these things, such as throwing a can into a nearby recycling container instead of the trash.

But am I really an extremist?  Or just kind of wacky and out on fringe just on my own selective basis?  After all, our other car is a gas hogging SUV, I drive when I could walk to work most days, we buy more packaged food than we really need to, I certainly use more paper than I really need to, I use a clothes dryer instead of hanging clothes out to dry, and our house is warm enough that I don’t need to wear my coat inside.  I travel and use more of the earth’s resources than many, probably much more than 90+% of the world’s peoples. 

Am I just rationalizing my otherwise excessive use of the earth’s resources by taking the steps listed earlier?  Am I like the Prius owner whose main atmospheric emission is “smug”?

My answer to this question is very clear and it is “I don’t know”.  This is Reflection Number One for today.  I think about these things often.   I really do think I’m helping by the long list of things that I do to try to help out.  But I often wonder, am I making a meaningful difference?  I hope so, and I’m not going to quit doing all of this (perhaps just because I’m old and stubborn).  So I invite you to think about it, too, and react as you see fit.

Let’s turn to another use of my title “Environmental Extremism”, by looking at public policy matters.  A fair amount of my daily work is dealing with various business owners who deal with environmental regulators, and anecdotally I would say that well over half of the environmental regulations that I encounter are nonsense and counterproductive.  It is the nature of the job that EPA enforcement folks are “cause” people who probably live their personal lives along the lines of mine but who have no common sense and no understanding of running a business and providing employment and economic advancement for our society.  Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that tough environmental laws are important and the reality of pre-environmental law days was pretty nasty.  As recently as the 1960s, it was very common for businesses to simply dump toxic chemicals outside and not think anything about it because that’s just what was done.  Everybody did it.  The United States is a much better place now that we don’t do that any longer (or at least not very often) and now that we are getting those places cleaned up, one by one.  But when one of those sites has been largely cleaned up, and time will attenuate anything remaining, and there is no impact on public water supplies or anyone’s health, it makes no sense to require a business to literally go bankrupt because it cannot afford the cost of getting that last little bit removed a little sooner than natural attenuation would do it anyway.

An article in the March 7 Wall Street Journal carried this headline:  “Rare Détente:  New EPA Chief and Industry;  Executives Say Gina McCarthy’s Willingness to Listen – and Make Concessions – Sets a Different Tone on Regulations”.  Time will tell how this works out, but this article makes my point that too often environmental enforcement has been counter-productive and more harmful than helpful.

We need environmental extremists pushing public policy, because it is an ironic truth of our world that the pushy extremists are the ones who cause things to happen.  But when the regulators insist upon things that just really don’t matter, it offends me.  And I am sure it offends the business owners who get these things shoved down their throats, and I am sure it really offends the workers who lose their jobs because the business owner is spending money on something counterproductive.

So, Reflection Number Two for today is again nothing definitive, no final answer for you to go home and implement.  But rather just a request that you think about the public policy implications of environmental enforcement and hope for common sense to prevail, at least sometimes.

For another use of my title “Environmental Extremism”, consider one of the most amazing things to hit Ohio and our neighbors to the East in many years, maybe ever, and that is the shale oil and gas drilling boom that is underway in Southeast Ohio.  This is the real thing.  All indications are that it is not an exaggeration to say that this region can become the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.  One horizontally drilled well can produce the oil and gas of 400 conventional vertically drilled well.  I won’t bore you with the details, but this is something I have worked with quite a bit and our law firm is up to its waist in related legal work.  And much of the publicity that surrounds this development is just plain wrong.  I want to scream when I hear the phrase “the new technique of hydraulic fracturing”, because that process is not new at all.  It’s been going on since the 1940s or so, and there is not a single reported instance of hydraulic fracturing (also called “fracking”) impacting a water supply.  Not one.  The so-called news to the contrary is simply false.  That is not to say that the drilling of an oil and gas well cannot negatively impact a nearby water supply, because it can if the drilling is not done properly.  But existing regulations already protect against that, and the point is that that has absolutely nothing to do with fracking.

So, Reflection Number Three for today is something definitive, with a clear final answer for you to go home and implement. The shale boom in Ohio is real and it’s a good thing for our area and fracking is making it happen with zero negative impacts on the environment.  Again, I am not saying that there is no chance of something bad happening when an oil and gas well is drilled.  But there is nothing wrong with fracking and the next time you hear that …  well, just be skeptical, and remember that you heard the truth here.

And to wrap up, let’s remember that my Reflections today are here in Church.  What does all of this have to do with Church?  Are we stepping outside theology and into geology?  If so , should we?

            Some say we have a mandate to care for God’s creation which stems from scripture. We read in Genesis 1:31  that God beholds all creation as “very good” and commands us in Genesis 2:15 to “till and tend the garden”.   We read in Psalms 24:1, “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” .   Psalms 82:3 says we have a paramount obligation to “defend the poor and the orphan; do justice to the afflicted”  and Matthew 25:35 says to care first for “the least of these”.  Care for God’s creation particularly requires protection of vulnerable life.  

            But Genesis 1:26-28 also says that God wanted humans to “rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.   So God created humankind in God’s own image….  God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Isn’t a little pollution a pretty logical consequence of that?

So, I still wonder if it’s really from the Bible that we have an obligation to sustain the future well-being of all life on Earth.  Isn’t it really a public policy issue and not a religious matter?  I certainly don’t find anything in scripture that gets me too close to saying that we ought to reduce our use of paper or to recycle pop and beer cans.

And don’t you sometimes wish that some public policy issues would just stay there and out of Church?  For example, can’t we figure out the right thing to do for marriage equality without citing Scripture?  Just sayin’…………….

So, Reflection Number Four,  the last one for today is again nothing definitive, no final answer for you to go home and implement.  But rather just a request that you think about why is it that we should do what I think most of us think we should do.  That is, I think everyone in the room would agree on some basic principles of environmental stewardship, even if we disagree on some of the specifics, but why?

I am not sure if it’s biblically based or not.  My leaning would be to say Yes, it is, because that is at least one important source for most of us to order our lives and one of the tenets found therein is to do our best to care for others, and certainly good environmental stewardship does help others around us, here in Wooster, in Ohio, and throughout the world.  But maybe it’s just the right thing to do anyway.

When Dries first asked me to talk today, he suggested that I share some thoughts about the raft trips that I regularly take through the Grand Canyon.  I am always happy to talk about that, and why wouldn’t I when this is the scenery:

One of the joys of the trip is the peaceful solitude with nature.  No cell phones, no email, no work to do.  Just get up when the sun comes up and go to bed under the stars when the sun goes down.  We just follow the current downstream, away from all the cares of the world, hiking throughout and being in awe of God’s creation.  If you have a coffee table book of Grand Canyon photos, I can assure you that this following shot is in that book, taken from some ancient granaries at the end of a grueling hike and looking down the Canyon:

Here are the boats which we use.  Notice the small outboard motor at the back.  The purists say that one should go downstream powered only by oars and the flow of the River.  So, is this acceptable, since the motors make it an 8-day trip, compared to the 16-day trip required for a rowing trip?  Is the Environmental Experience diminished by this concession to modernity?

And how do we get out of the Canyon?  By helicopter, up to the North Rim, from where we fly back to Flagstaff, Arizona.  Same questions.  Same lack of clear answers!

******

After you have given some thought to all of these things, please get back to me if you have found the definitive answers!  In the meantime, I’ll just keep thinking about them, and hoping for the best.

Thanks for listening.  I love this place and all of you.

The following piece appeared in The Daily Record on Saturday October 19, 2013:

Al Van Wie Tribute

J. Douglas Drushal

I first met Al Van Wie some time in the summer of 1961.  I was 8 years old and Al and Judy and their 3 children had just moved into our neighborhood on East University Street.  Our houses were a short stroll from The College of Wooster campus, to which Al had just returned to be a rookie coach.  Thus began a life-long friendship between the Van Wie and Drushal families.

Much has been written about Al’s storied career at the College and in the community since his recent death.  All the accolades are well deserved.  There could be more, but such articles can only be so long.  Please permit me in this space to share a few memories that did not make it into the other publicity.

Mike Van Wie was also 8 in 1961 and fit right into our happy little world of softball in our back yard, basketball in driveways during decent weather and in basements during snow storms, marauding around the rest of the neighborhood at all hours of the day and night, and sneaking around the College campus.  We probably thought we were pretty adventurous at the time, but I am sure by today’s standards the worst of our behavior was pretty tame.  I remember Mike informing me of Paul’s birth, a somewhat late arrival to the Van Wie clan, and thinking “OK, that’s nice, now let’s go outside and play.” 

The growing Van Wie family needed larger quarters, so their first move was just up the alley that connects University and Henrietta Streets.  You can tell the house today by the concrete slab which fills most of the back yard which Al installed to have a basketball hoop with a decent surface from which to shoot.  Before too long, another move took them out of the neighborhood, but we kept in contact.

My next personal memory of Al goes back to the first Camp Fighting Scot, in the summer of 1970.  I was there, as the entirety of Al’s administrative staff.  (OK, I was really just a Go-Fer, and paid accordingly, but it seemed prestigious at the time.)  Other publicity about Al’s career has told the story of Al creating this new program at the College, which has grown into one of the premier summer athletic camp programs in the region.  But that other publicity omitted the fact that the creation of Camp Fighting Scot was quite controversial at the time in some circles.  The NCAA thought that the Camp was nothing more than a thinly disguised recruiting tool, illegal under NCAA rules.  This was, of course, not the case, but the NCAA put the College on probation.  The College’s President knew this was nonsense and fully backed Al and the continuation of the Camps.  (I have this on first hand information, too.)  The NCAA finally came to its senses and now summer athletic camps are found on college campuses around the country.  But Camp Fighting Scot was first.  Al had a great vision.

Others have written about Al’s leadership in the creation of the North Coast Athletic Conference, still going strong today, but it must be emphasized that one of the key motivations for this was to upgrade women’s athletics.  After Title IX was enacted in the early 1970s, opportunities for intercollegiate athletics for women increased dramatically, but without a league which had other women’s teams to play, that promise was hollow.  The NCAC had as one of its key features a roughly equal number of men’s and women’s teams, and it has worked.

One of the key backers of Title IX was New York Senator Jacob Javits, a liberal Republican who authored the extension of Title IX to athletics.  Al liked to add “There’s a phrase you don’t hear too much anymore:  ‘liberal Republican’.”  But that’s pretty much what Al was, and he was proud to wear that label.

After fully retiring from the College, Al undertook a new endeavor as Publisher of The Intercollegiate Athletic Forum.  This periodic newsletter focused on college athletics outside of the Division I context and became a popular forum for many of Al’s colleagues around the country to address a wide variety of issues of concern.  Al asked me to contribute articles on legal themes (actually, he just told me that I would do so!) and I enjoyed doing so.  While the newsletter eventually ran its course and stopped publication, it remains a good source for ideas for coaches and athletic administrators who do not have the billion dollar budget of an Ohio State University.

Al’s interests ranged far beyond athletics, and involvement in the Wooster community was a high priority.  He and Judy had a special place in their hearts for the Crippled Children and Adults organization.  He recruited our son, Ben, to serve on that Board with him, and both enjoyed the mentorship experience.  And even on the College campus, Al’s interests extended beyond the gym.  At the Van Wie Christmas Open House, there were usually more professors from other academic disciplines than coaches in attendance.  This is the heart of the small college experience.

At a recent meeting of Rotary, I gave the invocation and used Micah 6:8 as my source.  Al asked me after the meeting if I would send an email to him with that verse included, as it was one of his favorites.  That was the last time I saw Al, and this was my last email to him: “and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  This is how Al lived his life.  We will miss him.

India or China: Which Will Win?

I wrote the following piece in reaction to my first trip to China (October 2010) and my third trip to India (January 2011). I initially wrote the piece as follows, but divided it into two parts for publication in The Daily Record on Sundays February 20 & 27, 2011.


India or China: Which Will Win?

Special to The Daily Record
J. Douglas Drushal


As I complete my third trip to India over the last dozen years, I still claim no expertise on this complex nation. But my prior trips left me certain of one thing, and that was that India had at least three structural advantages over China which I thought meant India should do better than China in an economic competition.

These two neighboring Asian behemoths have much in common. Both have populations of over a billion, with crowded cities and backward rural areas, all with historically high poverty and illiteracy rates. The air in each country is, like their politics, dirtier than one would desire. Both have about sixty years of progress under their current forms of government since Indian independence in 1947 and the Chinese revolution in 1949. Both have vast territories with crazy quilts of regional languages and ethnicities.

But India has three things China does not. First, virtually all educated people in India speak fluent English, which is essentially the international language of commerce and culture. Second, India has a reasonably stable democracy with open elections and a free press, and the corresponding personal freedoms which go with that. Third, India operates a relatively fair and efficient court system which honors the rule of law and, important for business, enforces contracts.

My impression that India should win an economic battle with China due to these unquestioned advantages was shaken by a recent trip to China, although not because I was wrong about the three points mentioned above.

Those of us on the recent Wooster Chamber of Commerce trip to China learned that China may well catch India soon in English fluency. An apparently effective push for universal education is on its way toward greatly reducing illiteracy. Indeed, overall literacy is higher in China than India, and students in Shanghai recently scored the best in the world on a battery of standardized tests. English is gaining a strong foothold, although usage often humorously finds not quite the right English word. But it will be many years until China's language skills approach those of an Indian people who have lived with English for generations.

Even if China does catch up in communication skills, the opportunity to use those skills will be thwarted because there is no democracy or free press in China. There is one political party, the Communist Party, with only two percent of the population even a member of that totalitarian group. And the Communist government controls all media, as evidenced by our hotel room television screen going blank during a CNN story about the jailed Chinese dissident who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Our tour guide, an otherwise bright and well educated young lady, had not even heard the story of her countryman winning the Nobel Prize.

While there is a court system in China, the rule of law simply does not exist. Courts resolve disputes in whatever manner the government favors. Contracts are widely known to be nothing more than a rough guideline of what parties might do. Judges decide contract disputes based on what is best for the local economy, not on what the parties agreed to. Intellectual property rights are a joke, with patent and copyright violations running rampant.

But we saw first hand some real advantages which China has over India which gave me pause as to which nation might do better economically. At least in the large cities we visited, all in the Eastern part of the country, the infrastructure was far superior to anything I have seen in India. China has excellent highways, as good or better than the best interstates and urban avenues in the United States. India has terrible pot-holed mass confusion on its roads. China has replaced its blight with an amazing collection of high rise apartment and office buildings. India has some of the worst slums in the world and the poverty is never far from sight. China is incredibly clean and free from trash and graffiti, while one literally cannot escape litter and filth in India. The Beijing and Shanghai airports are as nice and modern and clean as any in the United States. The terminal in Chennai (India's fourth largest city) is run down and dingy and dirty. The Olympic venue in Beijing was impressive, while India's hosting of the similar Commonwealth Games was marred by things embarrassingly breaking down, literally.

In short, there were some very obvious and impressive things which China's authoritarian government has unilaterally implemented. And we were uniformly impressed with many of these things. If you are in charge in China, you do what you want since you don't have to worry about the next election or being criticized by the press. And it doesn't matter if someone's home is in the way of the next high speed rail project, since the government just moves them out of the way and into one of the many high rise apartments nearby. Or maybe not so nearby, since the father might just be sent to wherever his labor is needed for a factory, again directed by the government.

Another system which China's authoritarian government has implemented is a relatively free market economic system. Not without irony is the so-called Communist government deciding about thirty years ago that capitalism was a better system. Democracy and capitalism need not go together, as China has just passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world, with a recent growth rate far ahead of any Western economy. The results are impressive to see. Things look nicer in China than in India, and appear much more prosperous.

But for all the superficial prosperity in China, I still see a long-term advantage for a nation which values personal freedom and individual initiative. The litter and trash and wandering cows are indeed frustrating aspects of daily life in India but at the end of the day they are just that, frustrations. Better to be frustrated by annoyances around you than to have your next great idea repressed by an authoritarian bureaucrat. Better to have your trip delayed by dodging pot holes and animals than to have your travel restricted by the government. Better to have your broadcast interrupted by unreliable electricity than to have it censored. Better to think that failure might land you in a slum than a prison.

And India has made some infrastructure improvements since my last visits. The New Delhi airport terminal is now sleek and modern. The city has a new subway system with clean stations and fast trains, the cars literally jammed with riders. The national government buildings and their surroundings are elegant and clean, with excellent streets and walkways. Some of the more prosperous cities have figured out how to clean things up.

The Chinese people with whom we interacted seemed genuinely grateful for what their government has done for them. And grateful they should be, as millions have been lifted out of poverty by the market reforms of recent decades. The factories which make the products we used to make in America provide a standard of living far greater than that of the workers' parents. The high rise apartments with clean water and indoor plumbing are vast improvements over the shacks that housed the occupants' grandparents. But there was a feeling of repression and hesitation in China that somehow dampened this gratitude.

Other observers have commented on this contrast. The October 2, 2010 Economist editorialized about the same inefficiencies of India's government but noted that India's economy was on target for 8.5% growth last year and by 2013 its growth rate could overtake China's. While in India, we saw the Times of India trumpeted the World Bank's recent prediction that the overtaking will occur in 2012. Still with far to go -- China's economy is four times bigger -- but the Economist gave two reasons why India will soon outpace China.

First, India has a young and growing workforce and its ratio of working age adults to children and the aged is one of the best in the world, and will be for a generation. China, on the other hand, is starting to reap the dividends of its repressive one-child policy, so that its workforce is aging and will soon start shrinking. This is consistent with our observations in China about their curious demographics, whereby they have also created at least one generation of spoiled children, who have grown up with no siblings and six people each (two parents and four grandparents) who have just one child to indulge.

The Economist's second stated advantage to India was the same as my second: what it called "India's much-derided democracy." While the absence of democracy has certainly allowed China to impose beneficial reforms, India's personal freedom unleashes entrepreneurs and yields strong private companies with more innovation.

So I am still giving the edge to India in the economic warfare of the 21st Century. As the Economist put it: "Ideas flow easily around India, since it lacks China's culture of secrecy and censorship." Of course, China will continue to grow and prosper, too, and in many ways will still look better than its neighbor to the Southwest. But China's admittedly impressive growth has clearly been possible only because there is no democracy or personal freedom of expression there. And until that genie gets out of its Chinese bottle, innovation and creativity will flourish better elsewhere. But I must confess there was some irony in discussing this topic while driving through Chennai and Delhi, hoping we did not hit a pot hole or an animal while snarled in traffic.

Grand Canyon Raft Trips

Since my first trip in 1983 (a memorable trip with record high waters not seen for decades) I have been fascinated with raft trips through the Grand Canyon. Fred Cropp, now-retired Professor of Geology at The College of Wooster, started leading trips through the Canyon in the late 1970s, and we later formed a non-profit corporation called Environmental Experiences, Inc. to run the trips. EE has now led over 2,000 people on incredible trips, rafting the best white water in the Western Hemisphere and camping in some of the most incredible territory on the face of the earth. We travel every year, with Fred's son Tom Cropp and I alternating years as leaders.



We ride through the fastest white water in the Western Hemisphere.



We hike through spectacular side canyons, lush and green with warm, clear streams flowing into the Colorado.



We camp on warm sandy beaches located right along the side of the Colorado, soothed by the rush of the water over a nearby rapid.



Lunch is served wherever we happen to be around lunch time. Again, on a nice sandy beach. Ample, excellent food often causes over-eating!



A unique feature of Environmental Experiences trips is being accompanied by a Geologist who points out the geologic features of the Canyon, as well as commentary on Western water issues. This picture shows Abe Springer, Professor of Geology at Northern Arizona University and a graduate of The College of Wooster, who often serves as our Geologist.



Vasey's Paradise, named by John Wesley Powell, the first explorer of the Grand Canyon.



Redwall Cavern, carved by the Colorado out of the Canyon wall.



Favorite Daughter Meredith in the sand at Redwall Cavern, on a short break from Frisbee game.




Kids do the craziest things...............



Meredith and I at the source of Thunder River, where a loud rush of a subterranean spring shoots out of the Canyon Wall and feeds into Tapeats Creek. At the end of a long but wonderful hike.




Frequent sitings of wild life, include Big Horn Sheep seen here. We have seen Condors, a massive bird just recovering from the edge of extinction.



To learn more about our trips, go to: http://www.eecanyon.com/






As we like to say, hope to "See You Down the River".