James D. Hogan

We Came for Salvation

On September 2, 2020

Who would have thought watching a concert on top of a minivan in a speedway infield would be so cathartic?

I didn’t see a professional concert—as in a big, touring band—until I was in high school. We saw Billy Joel in Greenville, South Carolina. Kelly and I, who were high school sweethearts at that point, made the hour-and-a-half trip to city neither of us had ever been to. We had lucked into seats in the fourteenth row (still the best seats at a show I’ve ever gotten), so close Billy Joel could spit on us if he wanted to. It was amazing.

My kids, on the other hand, got to experience their first big concert in the midst of a pandemic that has cancelled almost every major touring schedule nationwide.

Nothing about a concert, either indoors or out, seems like a wise thing to do as we grapple with a virus that’s best spread through close contact. But when the Avett Brothers, as local of a big-time band as we probably have, decided they needed to play in front of actual, live people, they figured out a creative way to do it.

*The kiddos check out the pre-show film from the back hatch.*

Fever Dreams

By James D. Hogan

On August 17, 2020

In diary

Another day in the pandemic, this time with cicadas.

The cicadas sing in waves, one chorus rising from across the yard diminishing for another to rise with insect harmony. At times it can feel deafening, this persistent tree-hum; other times it is like white noise, useful for sitting out on the deck, the mobile phone put away, low music on the speakers, dim patio lights aglow.

My brain needs rest.

There is nothing new in this observation, but it’s worth mentioning nevertheless. Right now every sense we have is awash in a hyper-stimulated flood, the kind that wears you down and erodes what little measures of grace you might have in reserve.

For the Historians

By James D. Hogan

On July 28, 2020

In writing

What would the Greatest Generation think of us?

I had to write a paper for a doc class this summer that examined the history of community colleges in a national, state, and local context, an assignment that gave me the opportunity to revisit Bill Moose’s very good history of Mitchell Community College. The college’s narrative is one of institutional persistence, of the gut-borne determination to survive.

In the fall of 1918, as the first World War was drawing to a close, the flu pandemic forced Mitchell to close its doors and send its students home. The town mostly shuttered and folks stayed put. The college’s women returned in December; they attended classes six days a week to make up for lost time, taking only Sundays and Christmas Day off.

In the spring of 1919, the flu returned, but this time the college stayed open. Women’s colleges of the day were unapologetically strict about letting their fragile charges wander outside the buildings anyway, so this version of a “stay-at-home” order fit in naturally with the college’s normal operations.