After Dinner with RC and the Family

 

RJ Miller, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, 1963

(One might note that RJ’S depiction of these three worthies is the only one that shows them debating)

 

Life after Dinner, with Grandpa Richard Miller and our family 

 

 When you are young and in a tight-knit family, you naturally feel that other families are just like yours. Then one goes out in the world and finds things are usually quite different.

  I thought it was normal for one’s parents and grandparents to sit around, after a hearty dinner, and spend the evening arguing about ideas and politics. They didn’t drink or listen to music or even watch TV (unless the Buckeyes playing football). Instead, they truly enjoyed working out thoughts, debating history, and commenting on everything from local politics to farm policy. Grandpa Richard Miller was a professor of Agricultural Engineering at Ohio State University, and was famous among students for his unique manner of teaching. Not at all interested in rote learning, his approach was to constantly challenge his students and help them learn to solve problems, mainly by addressing the “Big Ideas” that were often behind such issues.

 

 As an example, his course on “Farm Buildings” tended to focus not on the details of construction, but on questions such as, “How do you decide when to construct yourself a building? How can one discern the best, most efficient structure? How does one span old and new theories? How will this affect your family? How do you evaluate costs long term? When is it important to focus on the expenses, and when is it less so?”

  His approach to agriculture was what would today would be called “holistic”. He liked to say that “Farming is farming”, which to him meant that farming was more than a job or a career. Issues of work, family, job roles, income and spending, were all intertwined because one’s workplace was also home and family. Farming was not just their method of income---it was their LIFE. 

 These students were mostly quiet Ohio farm boys, and Richard saw his job as drawing them out and getting them to think outside of any boxes. On the first day of class he would announce that any student who attended all sessions would be graded with a “B”. Anyone who attended all classes and participated fully in discussions would get an “A”. Everybody else would get a “C”.

 

 Richard didn’t care about grades. He felt that, for farmers, Grade Point Averages were completely useless. High grades in an Ag Dept were unrelated to good farming. Richard sent his own kids to the Ohio State University High, a progressive school with no grades or even textbooks---just an emphasis on hands-on learning. Thus was in the 1930’s. 

 

Richard had been raised as a farmer, so he trusted their native intelligence. His was a time of incredible change in American farming, as Agribusiness was just taking hold of the entire industry—and the Universities. However, Richard was a healthy skeptic. Already in the 1960s he was questioning the safety of the powerful herbicides and insecticides that were being introduced everywhere. He questioned whether “Hybrid Corn”, a new development that had totally changed production, was anything more than smoke and mirrors. He even went after the near universal worship of heavy machinery in the fields, arguing that the Amish did quite well with horses and pointing out that tractors had nothing to do with increasing production—they only saved time. In other words, 40 acres farmed by an Amishman with horses, and 40 acres farmed by heavy machinery, would produce the same amount of food. 2 And the horses didn’t compact the soil like heavy tractors did, didn’t cost anything in terms of expensive gas, produced valuable manure, and would even reproduce themselves. “You never saw a tractor pull a horse out of the mud”, he loved to point out.

  He was called a heretic and a throwback, by his fellow Ag professors. They wanted to get rid of him, of course, but luckily he had earned tenure. Instead, they assigned him a series of courses to teach that were considered tedious and boring. In response, using his techniques, he made them challenging and fun. Even his “Mechanical Drawing” course became popular for its free-wheeling, wide-ranging discussions about all kinds of farm problems and solutions.

  Richard also was aware, even though many of his colleagues wanted him fired for questioning Agribusiness, that he really had an ideal job. It was divided into equal thirds, each of which utilized a different one of his talents. Teaching at the University was only one of his tasks. He also worked as a County Agent aiding local growers, and did his own independent research into making small farming more affordable. 

 One of his ideas, for example, was to figure out a way for small farmers to acquire Army surplus propellors (this was just after WW2) and use them for crop drying. Safely drying crops is a big issue on farms, and here was his way to make it more efficient by utilizing a cheap propellor and simple duct work the farmer could build himself.

 

So it’s no surprise that Richard would lead these lively discussions with his sons after a big meal. The women of the family were welcomed, but were mostly drowned out by the big mouths of the men. However, I certainly remember how Richard’s wife Elizabeth, a farmer’s daughter from Norway, Iowa, and an intense independent thinker, could draw all discussion to a halt with one of her withering observations. 

 I was a young man who loved all these folks and so I just listened. When I turned early teenager I was able to get a line in once in a while, but mostly it was place for the adults to have their debates, which they truly seemed to enjoy. 

 The comments could be sharp, but they were never, ever personal. I truly never heard a personal insult beyond “you don’t know what you’re talking about”. There were lots of “who sez?” questions, and much consulting of the Unabridged Dictionary that was always close by. To say “That’s a crazy idea” could be seen as a compliment! “Please be specific, how is this actually going to work” was another common line.

  And what was the hoped for goal? To box someone into a corner they could no longer defend, and hope they would “see the error of their ways”. It didn’t happen very often, but I did witness it. And immediately afterwards? On to another topic!

  Andrew and Dick were my grandpa’s two sons, and they always rose to the bait. They loved to mix it up with their dad and anyone else who came along, because that was the way they were raised. It also something they looked forward to, as Grandpa Richard resided in central Columbus and the sons lived at either end of the state of Ohio. In their normal lives, there was much going on but little chance for intense mental discussion. That usually had to wait until holidays around the dining room table. 

 Andrew was my father, and a fascinating guy. He studied politics and economics at Ohio State, then graduated Law School there. He started and ran small businesses and became the 3 liberal Republican mayor of our steel city---a job he really loved as they had a “Strong Mayor” system of government.

  His older brother was Dick, a Cincinnati artist who rebelliously created figure sculptures while the entire artworld had shifted to abstraction. As an Army Air Corps bombardier, he had survived 35 combat missions over Europe and the best American book about the war, “Catch 22”, could have been written about him. He was easily as unique, as independent, as overwhelmed by the total extremes of war as the hero of that book, Yossarian. He also flew the same planes (B24s) in the same theater (Italy) at the very same time (the last years of the war). When I asked him about the famous book, he said “It was pretty good, but the reality was crazier”. He worked alone every day in his studio, read the NY Times every morning (it came two days late—but who cares?), and was always ready to take on his brother and dad in lively discussions of the things he’d been thinking about for months.

 These men did not take prisoners! If an argument had a weakness, they would bore in until the perpetrator of “such nonsense” admitted his mistake. Indeed, it could get loud and no one was spared. An argument that was not thought out could crash on the shoals and be brought to complete disaster.

My mother always liked to tell a story from the first family get together in their home, soon after marriage. Once dinner was cleared away the men soon engaged in furious arguments that went into the night after everyone else went to bed. She lay there, listening to the almost shouting, getting more and more upset at the angry outbursts. Having never heard anything like this, she broke into tears and cried herself to sleep, worried that the seeming rancor meant she’d never see these relatives again.

The next morning she tentatively came downstairs to the kitchen, and to her complete surprise found everyone enjoying a big breakfast and seriously laughing it up. Eventually, she worked up the courage to ask about the outcome to the previous night’s arguments: “I don’t remember” was the first reply. “But you were all so angry about it” Mom said. “Were we? Sorry if we made too much noise.” “What were you arguing about so late?” she wondered. “I remember one of our disagreement was about the rights of slave in Rome? Right? Pass the pancakes.” 

And that was it. Mom quickly rebounded and realized these Millers had such respect for each other that they found these debates entertaining and normal. They were surprised that she thought they’d feel any residual ill will towards each other. Instead, they looked ahead to the next time. Mom learned to take all future battles in stride. She didn’t particularly like the back-and-forth, but was also never afraid to speak her own mind. And dad always liked to point out to us clueless kids (four boys), “Never forget it--your Mom is really smart”.

 These experiences formed my world-view as I went out to college and then joined the workforce. They taught me to be a maverick in my ideas, to research and inquire to the many things I was told. I learned to toss provocative questions at people espousing “the conventional wisdom”, mainly to see if they’d thought their ideas through. If my bosses were promoting something I clearly knew would be a disaster, I would tell them. When co-workers would 4 excitedly spread the latest gossip, or outrage at some political anecdotes, I would usually reply, “Is that really true? Who Says?”

 

 Unfortunately, this turned out to be a terrible way to approach the world and work. What I didn’t know, and what it took me decades to realize, is that most people hate provocative questions, hate having to think things out, and don’t like to be challenged about anything. Bosses particularly. Pointing out, even tactfully, that a pet project would soon come up against serious problems usually put me in the doghouse. I got no reward for helping the company if that meant contradicting a boss. It took me decades to learn that’s how bureaucracies work, whether they are in government or industry. And the bigger the organization the worse this is. It’s been a hard lesson to realize how, in most of these organizations, loyalty is more important than efficiency, or even good work.

 

 In retrospect, I see this how interest in challenging the conventional made professional life difficult for me and my ancestors. Grandpa Richard was only saved by his tenure, which made it hard to fire him for his heretical view that farmers themselves were most important, not Agribusiness. My father Andrew had trouble in politics because his views became an amalgam of both parties—so he was home in neither. His independence kept him sharp in the political predictions he loved to make (“The Party in power in Washington is always the pro-war Party, and the Party out of power is always the anti-war Party), but it didn’t help make friends.

 

 Dick, Andy’s older brother, was an artist who lived his life in almost total isolation from the art world, since not a single art “critic” or museum in America was willing to even consider modern figure sculpture as an art. Now it can be seen that these people were dead wrong in their extreme conformity and prejudices, but that didn’t help him. He never received, in his entire artistic life, even the slightest encouragement from the established “art world”. Only his close friends, family, and his art students believed in him---though he was not afraid to alienate even them with a cutting statement if he felt was necessary. 

 

But they were all heroes to me! They had tough lives career wise, as I’ve had, but they had made the decision early to follow the truth and not money. They paid the price, and they reaped the rewards of that decision. They’re all gone now, and I miss them terribly. 

 Douglas Miller, 2023

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Your story from Janet about asking, the next morning, what they were debating is revealing. Mostly, they could not remember - because content was not the issue. It was just a game of gotcha. That's probably why I tuned it out and can't remember any content myself.

 My dear brother frequently remarks that it also took him many years to break the habit , picked up from our father, of making an interlocutor appear to be a fool. Positive outcomes do not usually follow this kind of interaction. Unfortunately -- I am still challenged in that regard.   

 

    Chris Miller

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 I have to say that I totally disagree. There were all kinds of real topics and ideas. Gotcha was sort of part of it, but I don't remember anyone actually claiming a triumph or loss. Though they did sometimes bring up previous disagreements and how things turned out. 

 I remember talks about all kinds of farming ideas from hybrid corn to modern inefficiencies and changing government policies. I remember them talking about Ohio State and about the Ohio State High School that Dick and Andy had gone to. They would sometimes talk about Ohio State football, though Dick was always less interested in that subject than Andy and Richard.

 I also remember talking about Vietnam, which at that time was mostly a "forbidden" topic. I was surprised that they were not at all excited about the war and even questioned it---something no one else I knew did. Being all veterans, they were quite suspicious of the military in ways that surprised me, since all the mainstream media back then supported the war from "My Weekly Reader" in school to the NYTimes. 

Hashing out these ideas was interesting to me. Andy was still a Liberal Republican (hard to believe that was even a thing back then), Dick was a Democrat basically (though he would never admit it), and Grandpa Richard was more of a mix. 

 And Grandma was to the left of them all and though she didn't participate in the debates, she was always ready to tell me her version of events, and that also would surprise me. I remember her telling me that, in the past, she had voted for the Socialist Eugene Debs---but that when she went to the local little precinct after the election the tally would list "0" votes for Debs. 

 I remember Goldwater being argued. Andy was for him at one point, though that didn't last long. (Speaking of which---do you remember that record album "I'd Rather Be Far Right Than President", a comedy spoof of Goldwater? I remember them discussing it and that Dick gave us a copy we took home. I might still have it somewhere.) 

 And then there was always Helen, sitting and silently smoking in the kitchen while the men roared and we kids ran around. I feel this after-dinner-debates tradition came from Richard's family, since he grew up on the farm before even radio. That's what people did between dinner and bed, especially if they weren't religious. 

 It's another discussion, but I remember Andy saying (and I still agree with him) that Richard C. experienced more profound change in his life than anyone before or since. Going, as he did, from a house built of sod to seeing men land on the moon. From being pre-electricity to living in the age of media, appliances, computers, cars, highways, airplanes, and nuclear energy.) 

 So I disagree. we could have big family argument about it!! 

 

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Your memory is so much better than mine! Though it's also true that as a young man with no idea of myself as an adult, there was little else that really concerned me back in those days.

 More than just "gotcha", perhaps these discussions are better understood as contests of masculine prowess -- as in the nature videos that Beth and I watch every night. Moose lock antlers, giraffes swing necks, and humans joust with their minds -- because, after all, that is what our species has used to overwhelm the planet. Didn't these conversations bounce around from one thing to another - as if topics didn't really matter? And weren't the participants exclusively male? I'm doubting that wives and sisters ever felt excluded. It was just one of many foolish things that men do to entertain themselves. 

 Like Doug, I also wonder where RC picked up this behavior - and wonder, in addition, whether it changed from the 1930's to the 1970's. As I recall, he was mostly playing defense against my father. I never saw him one-on-one with Andy. How did that go? The topic was always politics/history wasn’t it ? Nothing about family members, literature, psychology, religion, spirituality, ethics. (you heard debates about farming - but I have difficulty imagining Dick addressing that topic). And it’s not as if either one were reading books - just newspapers. I was surprised when you wrote that Dick read “Catch 22”. I can’t remember anything other than Shakespeare, Cervantes, and the Bible. Andy was the one who read and collected a variety of books -- mostly memoirs, often military, and popular history if I recall. And he would attend lectures in Chautauqua - possibly an incentive to buy a house there. 

 That discussion of slavery in ancient Rome probably did digress from a broader discussion of race relations in America - since this was the Civil Rights era. . I will never forget one Thanksgiving dinner in Steubenville when Andy threatened to throw RC out of the house if he continued to share racist comments in front of the boys. I was stunned that he took it so seriously. (Note: I had already left the table - so I have no idea what RC had said. I’m afraid that I had quickly transitioned from not being able to understand these discussions - to not caring to understand them) BTW - I do remember a comment made the morning after a discussion about the Vietnam War. Andy speculated that RJ was becoming less hawkish as his son (me) got closer to being drafted to fight it.

 We can only speculate about after dinner activities in the farmhouse where RC grew up. As Doug mentioned - no radio, TV, internet, or Netflix. They were probably literate - thanks to German public education - but probably not familiar with anyone who read many serious books other than the Bible and associated commentary. We know so little about RC’s father. He was a farmer from what was then Prussia - and now may be Poland. Peasants are not necessarily less thoughtful than their well educated superiors - and if thoughtful, they are likely to be suspicious of anything produced for a social order that needs them to work fields and fight wars. At least that’s how I imagine our German ancestors to be: smart, surly, suspicious peasants. Just like me (well - I cultivate a record store, not a wheat field - but I did once successfully dodge military conscription) 

 I wish I knew more about RC’s siblings. I met his brother, Lawrence, once, in SanFrancisco, 1967. He had retired from a career in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He offered to take me to visit Haight-Ashbury so I could see some filthy hippies. (At that time I was on a cruise in NROTC - so I was cleaner cut than I have ever been). His  son worked as an attorney for the army. RJ made Christian art before 1970, and Andy taught the occasional Sunday school class. RC attended the local Congregational Church when absolutely necessary (Easter). It would be a stretch to call any of them religious - but that defiant, individualistic idealism of Protestant Christianity did seem to run through their veins. Each were ministers for a congregation of one. Things were to be debated - not believed. Hence - the lively after dinner discussions. Chris 

 Dear Chris, That is an amazing story about Dad threatening to throw RC out of the house over his racism. I personally don’t remember race being discussed at those sessions, but I‘m sure it was on occasion. I remember RC having the “mild” racism that was so common then– and still is now. RC probably had almost no contact with Black people at Ohio State, teaching Ag Engineering as he did. I know dad considered him ignorant on the subject, and that’s how he described RC to me. At the same time, RC’s beloved wife Elizabeth (and she was not only beloved but respected) was a fierce proponent of civil rights. Remember that she had been raised a Quaker, a group way ahead of their time on most social issues. And dad agreed with her. Andy truly lived his civil rights convictions. As Mayor, he not only tried to pass civil rights legislation, he also hired Black workers within city hall (a first) including his own secretary. This was highly controversial in those even-more-polarized-politics of the 60’s than we have today. Remember also that the leaders of the Republican Party then, such as Goldwater and William Buckley, were firmly opposed to one the most important pieces of legislation in American history: the Civil Rights Act of 1963. They thought it discriminated against white people to say they couldn’t couldn’t put up signs saying “no niggers allowed” or redline their own neighborhoods to prevent Black people from moving in. We used to get death threats over the phone, and sometimes in the mail. As a young teen, I particularly remember answering our phone (this was long before answering machines) and being totally stunned to hear an intense racist tirade. I hung up. I was so shaken. Then a little later I was proud! Dad would say the same thing he did when we got death threats from the mafia: “don’t worry about it. They wouldn’t talk about if they were actually going to do it”. He sure never backed down to those right wingers, who he regularly described as “the type of cowards who live under rocks”! I think he would be sad, though probably not surprised, to find out how these same racist are more powerful today than ever in his own Republican Party. Back in the 60’s, Republicans saw themselves as a diverse party that wanted Blacks and even liberals in their ranks—how different from today! I particularly remember Andy talking to me (who was just a teenager at the time) about his problems with his own police department repeatedly beating the shit out of people they arrested. It bothered him tremendously that he found it almost impossible to stop. Indeed, a decade after Andy left office, the Federal Government finally stepped in. Having heard so many complaints from the Black community, they investigated. Ultimately, the small city of Steubenville, Ohio, was slapped with one of America’s first “consent decrees”, wherein the city had to agree to a whole list of reforms within their police department. I only hope it is better today there, but I don’t know. 

 

 Doug June 11,

 

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Through most of my childhood, when the adults would collect at the dining room table in Grandview, I remember being too intimidated to even consider joining in the discussions. It wasn’t the volume of the voices, the aggressiveness of the arguers, or the vociferousness of the opinions that kept me quiet. I was used to all of that from growing up on Lovers Lane in a household where discussion and debate were not only accepted as normal behavior, but also even consciously and unconsciously provoked by Dad. The root of my reticence was that these were learned, well read adults who knew what they were talking about and had the knowledge to back it up. (As I grew older, I realized that well – perhaps - there wasn’t always a set of solid facts backing up one or another adult’s attempts to score a win.)


I inherited the same tendency to engage in debate at the drop of a hat. And though I always prided myself on being an honest person, I would on occasion find myself carrying forth an argument that found me treading on thin ice and spewing some hot air of my own in order get that win. Since no one ever admitted to losing these debates, I don’t know that anyone could ever claim to have actually won either.


Over the years I have lost interest in the debate for debate’s sake or winning for winning’s sake. But I don’t shy away from the debate. Because I usually cannot let a statement that I consider farfetched, malicious or just plain wrong to stand unchallenged. Do not walk into a room, make your inaccurate, questionable and/or incendiary proclamation, and expect to walk out unchallenged. You do not have that right. You do not get to establish your truth as the Truth of that moment and beyond simply because you ambushed the room by belching it out first.

* * * * * *

One impression that’s burned into my mind from those old Glenn Avenue days stems from something that was often occurring concurrently with the post dinner discussions in the dining room. I can recall on occasion wandering into the kitchen, maybe to steal an extra piece of Grandma’s otherworldly chocolate cake, while the big people were yakking out in the other room.


There in the darkness I would see the tiny red glow of a cigarette and detect the scent of spent tobacco. Surrounding the glow was Helen’s silhouette, opaque before what little light might be emanating from the portable dishwasher that was hosed up to the kitchen sink and humming lightly in the background. She’d just be sitting atop a stool silently sifting through whatever rational and irrational thoughts passed through her mind at the moment. It was almost ghostly at the time, and to this day; especially since at that age I didn’t know that Helen was certifiably off-kilter. I just thought she was Dad’s odd sister who lived at home, smoked cigarettes in her room and periodically said or did something that seemed peculiar and quite mystifying to my unsophisticated mind.

* * * * * *

My memories of the many trips to Columbus are almost all warm and positive. I very well might have long ago filtered out most negative recollections. At sixty-eight I’m fine with that. Life will always replenish our supplies of newly negative realizations or confrontations. So I’m happy that, if there were significant bad experiences that occurred during those visits, my brain has subconsciously filtered them out and has chosen to shine the spotlight almost exclusively on the good stuff from those family assemblies.


I cherish memories of Grandma, Grandpa, Helen, my Cincinnati cousins, aunt and uncle, and of course my own mom, dad and brothers all collected at Glenn Ave. And, last but not least, memories of the aforementioned chocolate cake that hold such fabled, mythic, Olympic proportions in my mind’s taste buds that I realize it’s just possible that it was not as good as I remember it. But I don’t truly accept that possibility. The thick, firm, chocolate fudgey icing atop a moist, deep chocolate cake earned the legendary status I have bestowed upon it by never failing to live up to my ever higher expectations for it on each visit. The one exception was the time Grandma dared to try to vary it by putting walnuts in it. She quickly learned her lesson as she faced the horrified backlash from us Steubenville Miller boys – particularly, me. That was a one-time-only transgression on her part. By the hoary hair of Hogarth didst she ne’re again venture into those uncharted, nutty realms.

 

 ----   Greg, June 12,2023

( not to be picky ... but by the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, this post is about our grandfather's debates, not our grandmother's chocolate cake ! ...... nuff said. Editor )

 

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