ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
with
PROFESSOR WILLIAM W. SEWARD, JR.

September 26, 1974
by Dr. James R. Sweeney, Old Dominion University

Listen to Interview

Sweeney: Today I am pleased to be speaking with Professor William W. Seward of the English Department at Old Dominion University. Bill, could you give me some information on your own background and your early academic interests?

Seward: Well, Jim, I went to the University of Richmond as an undergraduate majoring in English, and I took my Master’s there with a concentration in the 18th century, and did my thesis in Pope, and that thesis was later produced as a monograph by the University Press. I taught a couple of years and then I received a teaching fellowship at Duke University, I think it was 1938 and I was there for two and a half years as what was then called a graduate fellow. The war came along just before I got my doctorate and that was it. At the time my concentration was in 18th century during those graduate and undergraduate years.

Sweeney: Before you came here to the Norfolk Division of William and Mary, you taught at the University of Richmond, at Greenbrier Military School, and Tift College. Could you tell me something about these positions and how you came to decide on college teaching as a career?

Seward: Let me answer the last question first, Jim. When I went to the University of Richmond in 1930 as a freshman, I had every intention of going into science. I thought I would be a scientist. I came under the influence of a marvelous teacher of English in the freshman course and I think I had been in his class three months and then I concluded there is nothing except for me to teach English. And that really is how I got into the profession. My one year at

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the University of Richmond came about like this. This same man who was chairman of the department was taken extremely ill, and he asked Dr. Boatwright, who was then president of the university, to contact me to fill in, not as department chairman or even as professor I was simply listed as instructor but to take up the slack for one person. And it was purely a temporary appointment, but it gave a youngster a lot of very good experience. And so that was an interruption of my graduate work at Duke, and so at the end of that year I went back to this graduate fellowship in, I think 1940 it was. Then the war came along and I blush to say that I was rejected for active service because of an eye deficiency. And in those days people, you know, felt that it was their job to go into the military service or get in uniform. And so the best thing that I could come up with at the time was to get on the staff at Greenbrier, which was a private military junior college. They had a high school department. I was in the college division. It had been taken over by the government or was under government contract, and I think we turned out 2nd lieutenants about every two or three months. And that was my basic connection there. Then I went to Tift College in Georgia almost sight unseen. Frankly, I had never heard of the place and the president of the college called me up and offered me a job without an interview, based on the recommendation and suggestion by Professor Gould, this man who’s responsible for my going into the teaching of English. They had taught together at Mercer and Dr. McGinney had then become president of Tift College, and it came about in that fashion. The department chairman had been put into uniform, and they needed somebody at the last minute. So I went down, surprisingly without an interview, and I had never seen the place or seen him and he had never seen me. It was purely on the recommendation of a mutual friend. It was a very pleasant experience, I might say, Jim. I was just a young chap in those days. It was a women’s college, and they had some very bright girls and very fine young women. And except for freshman and sophomore classes, all of my advanced classes were extremely small. And I remember teaching writing classes there--creative writing classes-- with three and four people, seniors--three and four people. On the market today with the expenses or prices the way they are and the way we have to operate institutions, this is almost unheard of. It was very pleasant. And I think probably that takes care of this part of it, Jim, I suspect.

Sweeney: Then you left Tift College and joined the faculty of the Norfolk Division in 1945. Why did you choose to leave?

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Seward: Well, what happened was this. My father died in May of 45. I happen to be an only child. My mother was left in the little town of Surry which is about 50 miles from Norfolk, and I was in the position that I had to leave. I guess I could have taken a leave of absence, but I didn’t because I didn’t see myself staying in Georgia permanently. So I resigned. I came back to Virginia. My wife is from Virginia Beach, so we had roots in Virginia, but I came back mainly to get my mother situated because she did not want to leave home, and she was a very active woman. So I came back. I was executor for the estate. I had to be close enough to settle the estate, and my main purpose was to get her situated, if not happily, at least comfortably and agreeably. And so my thought was to stay in these parts maybe a year or two years and perhaps move on. But I came here really out of expediency. I had had an application in with what then was the Norfolk Division and, fortunately for me, at least, a position did materialize, I think very late. I think it was mid-summer or early summer when the position materialized. But I came here really out of expediency.

Sweeney: Bill, could you describe your first impressions of the junior college when you came in 45--I mean the kind of students, the kind of faculty, and what the intellectual climate was like?

Seward: I can indeed, and I am very happy to because my first impressions were extremely pleasant ones. We had an extremely, I thought, good student body and the students were--they weren’t all brilliant, of course —- but if you took them across the board I think that for the first two years of college that these students, as of 1945, the fall of 1945, would have done well in any place that they might have gone in the state. The faculty was an excellent faculty. They were a very interested faculty and they were an extremely interesting faculty, and they were for the most part all relatively young men and women and as a group they were very congenial. And in those days we had time to have some intellectual sessions, sort of combined social— intellectual sessions, and I was most pleasantly surprised with that first, happily so, on that first fall and throughout the year when I came. And this question here dealing with the intellectual climate--it was, I thought, a noticeably intellectual climate. We had, of the group of faculty then, I would guess probably 30 people on the faculty, maybe 40, 30 to 40 people on the faculty. And a number of those went on to much larger places and some went on even to prestigious places. Some of us stayed on here for one reason or another. But the group to me was a very intellectual group, in the best sense of the word, I might add.

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Sweeney: An article in the High Hat, the student newspaper, in November, 1945, described your correspondence with prominent novelists to gain insights into their work habits and methods. Could you tell me more about this?

Seward: Well, I haven’t read that article since I received your slip here, Jim. I remember it vaguely and I remember an article being published, but the way it is worded here probably is a little less than accurate. What I was doing in those days was corresponding with a number of prominent novelists, some of whom later came to be friends, a few of them, and I did write to gain certain insights firsthand from them about habits, work habits and so on, but I had a motive. I was planning to do a large comprehensive book which I have worked on, off and on, for many years, and that book I have never yet had a chance to produce in manuscript form. Now, I’ve made use of some of that material in other books, books of another nature or a few articles here and there, but I just have not had a chance to put that together. But if I live long enough maybe some day I will come up with it. But that was the ulterior motive. But basically I did try to find out firsthand about their habits and their methods and their purposes and so forth. Because after I had, I think it was, gotten to Tift College, after my first two or three years of teaching, then my interest decidedly went towards 20th century literature and it has been ever since then and it still is primarily connected with 20th century literature.

Sweeney: Was this a book of criticism that you were going to write?

Seward: Well, yes, it would be a sort of analytical critical book and I suppose if we had to choose one word I would say it would have been, will be, if I ever finish it, a critical book, yes.

Sweeney: I wondered if this was how your association with Ernest Hemingway began? I would like some information about that friendship and how you came to be chosen in 1952 as one of the four men to edit a Hemingway reader?

Seward: Well, Jim, basically I would say so. It seems to me, I wrote a letter to him perhaps in 1939, I would guess 1939. And generally speaking it was in line with some of the other correspondence I had had, though I had always admired his works perhaps more than the others. And surprisingly he replied, he seemed rather pleased. The letter that I wrote struck him right in the midst of his composition of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and he volunteered to send me an inscribed copy when it came out, which he did.

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And that’s the way the acquaintance at least began. The friendship developed over a long period of time, but that basically was the beginning. You said the highlights of the relationship in many ways that’s a long story which... The highlights I have recorded in a book that was published, as you may or may not know, in 1969 called My Friend Ernest Hemingway. The 1952 editorship of the Hemingway reader frankly, how that came about I’m not sure. All that I recall is that I had a letter from him just before the book came out and he said that he had nominated four men to Scribner to choose from and he mentioned Malcolm Cowley, he mentioned Joseph Warren Beech, and he mentioned--golly who was he--Charlie Poor of the New York Times and myself. And I do remember that he said in no particular order and all are mentioned, the four of you, because I thought that each of you knew pretty well what I was trying to do. And then I remember that he said in this letter that perhaps you will be glad to know that you were not chosen and that you didn’t have to serve. Perhaps you feel the same way that Adlai Stevenson did. You see, this was 1952, and the editors of Scribner chose Charles Poor, whom Hemingway thought was a good choice and I think was a good choice. And as it turned out he did an excellent job in putting this book together and he had a marvelous introduction to the book. And I think he was a very good choice, but it was flattering to be among those four, actually.

Sweeney: I was wondering if the volume that you wrote about Hemingway proved a difficult one to write and whether you were pleased by the reception that it received?

Seward: Jim, it was difficult. I look back at the few books that I have published. I think this was the hardest. It was by far the shortest book, but I did that on purpose. Originally, I think, the manuscript ran about 250 to 275 pages and I knew that it was wrong. It was just another book on Hemingway and I was thoroughly dissatisfied with it, and I would not even send it to the publisher. My own publisher had an option on it, and I would not even send it to him. And I did not know what was wrong with it, so I just put it aside. And about a year later it just struck me like this the thought came to me it’s got to be different. The structure, the whole thing, has got to be different and it’s got to be a short book. And I think I got the idea from a Tom Wicker's book on Kennedy which is an extremely short book and all told one of the finest comments I have ever read on Jack Kennedy. But I think it was that, I think, probably I was thinking of the brevity and, say, The Old Man and the Sea as a work of fiction. And so the thought occurred to me very spontaneously to rewrite it, to cut out everything--anything that had ever seen print before, anything that had ever

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seen print by other people who had written about Hemingway. So I spent the next year just, not revising, but rewriting, and I was trying to do something new technically and the upshot was a book in printed form that ran less than 100 pages. And, frankly, I think it was a much better book than the original that was two or three times or three or four times as long. And surprisingly the book was quite well received, and I don’t recall any outright pan. We had some extremely favorable reviews. I got a frontpage review in the literary supplement of the Los Angeles Times and a very favorable review, I might add and it was reviewed quite favorably around the state and throughout the country and, whereas it was nothing like a best seller or anything of this sort, but sales wise it did very well, and with the whole business I was quite pleased with the reception.

Sweeney: Bill, in 1946 you were elected a member of the Poetry Society of Virginia and I noticed from reading over the scrapbooks that you’ve been quite active in that over the years. I would like for you to talk about the society and the role that you have played in it.

Seward: Well, I often said I must be the only non poet that really has been active in that organization. That’s the one thing I have never written. I’ve written a lot of different sorts of things both as an amateur and professional, but I’ve never written poetry. But I got involved, I think, if my memory serves me correctly, through a friend who was a marvelous poet here in Norfolk back about 1950. And she was president and she talked me into taking an office. And I tried to beg off on the grounds that I was not a practicing poet, but she insisted. And I believe it was perhaps corresponding secretary or something of this sort. And then about two or three years later, I got myself elected president, and I was president for three years, I think it was ‘52 probably to ‘55 were the years. And the one comment I might make, Jim, concerning my tenure as president and take a little —— I can’t take the total credit for it but I had something that I had in mind to do and we did accomplish it —— the slate of officers are responsible for this. But prior to that time the poetry society of Virginia, which is a state organization, really, basically, functionally was a local organization. They had members from all over the state, but the slate of officers is--and I’m almost positive I am correct on this up until my tenure as president the slate of officers comprised 90% at least of people who lived in one of the two major cities, either Richmond or Norfolk. Now, the society, I think, was founded in Williamsburg but soon after its founding then it moved to Norfolk, and the best practicing poets in the state during those early years I think it was founded probably in 1923, right in

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that area, right around 1925. And so it was basically located in Norfolk because these poets that were the officers and the meetings were held in Norfolk. It was still called the Poetry Society of Virginia, but it functioned basically in Norfolk. Then a few years later the officers or group of poets somehow were elected from Richmond. So the Society really, functionally shifted from Norfolk to Richmond and the meetings were held almost exclusively in Richmond so that the members from the other parts of the state, if they went to the meetings, then they drove to Richmond, just as the people in Richmond and Roanoke prior would drive to Norfolk when the Society was located there. What my administration tried to do was to make this really a state organization and for the first time we designated, well, for one thing, we suggested that the slate of officers be distributed all through the state. So we had vice presidents, I think, seems to me, there were three of them from the three major areas in Virginia. Since then we’ve expanded, we’ve included Northern Virginia up in the Washington area but at that time we included the Lynchburg/Roanoke area, the Richmond area and the Tidewater area. And so we had a good representation of officers from those geographical districts, and we scheduled meetings around the state. So we would have a meeting either in Roanoke or in Lynchburg. We would have a meeting in Richmond. We had a meeting in Charlottesville, and we had one or two meetings in Norfolk. The fall meeting, one of the big meetings during those three years ‘52 to ‘55 were meetings, they were Norfolk meetings, but they were held down at the Cavalier, the Cavalier Ballroom in Virginia Beach. And then a few years later, the people in Lynchburg got so interested that the Women’s Club, combined with the Poetry Society of Virginia, began putting on what they called the Poetry Festival, and that has continued to the present time. And the Poetry Festival runs from Wednesday or Thursday through the weekend, and speakers or poets are brought in and readings and social events and so on in October. It’s always been in October and it’s held in Lynchburg combined for the two. So that’s one thing I would like to think that our administration at least paved the way for so that since the mid-50’s that this society has been truly a state society, and is that way today. The annual meeting has always been held in May in Williamsburg. It is always held in the Phi Beta Kappa Hall in Williamsburg the third Saturday in May. That has been going on for years. And this is a long story but it seems to me these are the basics.

Sweeney: Do you remember the name of the woman who brought you into the Society?

Seward: Her name was Barbara Whitney. She lived in Norfolk, she lived over on Rockbridge Avenue and her husband was a retired Captain, I guess it was, or either retired military official who for years had been

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in charge of the geodetic service in the Norfolk area. But he was much older than she and they lived over here on Rockbridge. She developed cancer when she was about 52 and I had the very sad honor of being a pallbearer at her funeral.

Sweeney: Over the years, Bill, you served as faculty advisor to several campus publications, including the Gadfly and Opus. Could you describe any of the problems you might have encountered when working with the students on these publications?

Seward: Offhand, I don’t remember any major problems, and this might be faulty memory. I don’t think it is, Jim, but I just don’t recall any major issues that we had either among ourselves, faculty— student, or I can’t think of any difficulties that we ever had with the administration or with the Board or with the public. It seems a little strange considering the restrictions of those days. But if this is actually the way it was and my memory because I don't recall any outstanding thing then I would attribute it to the fact that we had some excellent editors and we had some excellent reporters and we tried to take care and to be accurate and to be discriminating and to be honest and to be truthful in ferreting things out and to use some common judgment before we rushed them to print. And that is my basic recollection of that period. I can’t think of any major, in fact, offhand, I can’t think of any problem that has stuck with me over the years. Obviously, we had little spats here or there, little matters of trying to keep some of these youngsters in line, but I can’t think of anything involving what you can call here tighter restrictions on the content and so forth and so on. Now, I do remember that some years later, perhaps in the 60’s maybe, in the late 50’s and the 60’s, that some problems did occur; but I had at the time, I had no connection with any of the publications. But at the time that I was faculty advisor or faculty sponsor or whatever it may have been called in those days that I never had any major problem. I have no recollection, frankly, of any kind of problem in those days. We had some good people. I think back, I don’t know whether this is the kind of thing you want or not but we had several people who went on to some very fine connections. I remember a chap by the name of Clayton Edwards. And after he left the college here, he got his degree somewhere, probably in Williamsburg, I don’t remember, maybe Virginia. But anyhow he was here the two years and he was the editor of one of the papers. And he came back to Norfolk and for several years he was the chief of news for WTAR and ultimately WTAR—TV. Then he was so good that he was offered a position in the news area well, I think it was the space program. It was some very prestigious governmental news agency, and he has gone on and has done extremely well there and has a

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very responsible position. Now I remember another student I don’t think he was editor but if my memory serves me correctly he, did serve on the staff of one of these Dick McCoy who is the local commentator, the news analyst, I guess you would call him, that comes on WTAR probably Sunday nights. I don’t know whether you have seen him or not, but he is a former student and, if I am not mistaken, he served in some capacity, at least as a reporter. And he has been connected with the news WTAR for years and years and years. And I think he is the head, I think I am right here, the head newsman for WTAR—Radio, and he does have this commentary program. I think it is on Sunday nights. But be that as it may, he’s done quite well. Then we have another student who again my memory is a little fuzzy with respect to specific years, but I am sure I am talking about these same years here when I was sponsor a chap named Wayne Woodlief, who went with the Ledger—Dispatch, what today is the Ledger—Star, and he is doing extremely well because they have put him in complete charge of all of the political news out of Washington. So he lives in Washington and does all of our Washington reports. And he is an excellent writer and he is a fine newsman. And just off the top of my head these are three that I think of that have gone on and done extremely well in the news business that were young chaps during this period here. And I believe all three of them were connected with the publications; that is my recollection.

Sweeney: I wondered about the question of restrictions on the content of student publications. There’s no question that there was a rather tighter supervision in the 1950’s about obscenity and things of this nature. And today in some college publications anything goes, and, while it’s not that much here, certainly there are a lot of things appearing in the publications today that never would have been permitted in the 1950’s or even in the mid-1960’s. I wonder what your thinking is on the question of guidelines or supervision for student publications?

Seward: Jim, that’s a tough one. First, I would say that I am a great advocate of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. You’ve got to have it, it seems to me. If you don’t, then countries such as ours can’t function, at least I don’t think. On the other hand, when youngsters have the freedom that they have now, I think ultimately it really boils down to a matter of judgment. And it’s hard for me to talk about this, really. It’s a subject that bothers me. It bothers me even with the professional press because with the freedom that we have, whether it’s the newspaper downtown, whether it’s the television news people, or whether it’s a student publication, if the editors, the publishers and, in the

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case of student publications, if there is a faculty advisor ——and I don’t know even that we have a faculty advisor any more. Do we? Probably so, I don’t know. But be that as it may, it’s a matter of judgment, a matter of common sense and, frankly, a matter, to me, of common decency and a matter of responsibility. I really don’t know how to talk about this because I feel strongly about freedom of the press, extremely strongly. And yet there have been so many instances and perhaps that has happened right here on our campus. I don’t recall offhand instances but surely it must have happened in recent years in which there was a lack of responsibility. And I think if you have responsible people then I think it is a fine thing. If you have people who are not responsible, then I don’t know what you are going to get in print or what you are going to get on the air, for that matter. But I’m certainly for freedom of speech and for freedom of the press. We have got to have it. It sounds like I am talking in circles, but really I am not. But it’s a difficult subject for me to talk on because I do feel so strongly concerning freedom of press. But I think that that freedom demands responsibility —— it doesn’t make any sense to you but that’s my own feeling.

Sweeney: You were an early advocate of the idea of an honor council, Bill, but I wonder if you feel that the concept of honor has been generally maintained here at Old Dominion during your career and especially in recent years?

Seward: I was and I am. Again I feel equally as strong, Jim, about the honor council as I do about freedom of speech or freedom of the press. And I know this is a touchy subject. It is touchy with students and I know some of the reactions and so forth have in a general way have happened in the past two or three years. And every once in a while you have people bringing up the issue ——let’s do away with the honor system and so forth and so on. Frankly, I can’t see that. Every time I meet a class in the fall semester or in the spring, one of the first things that I tell them is that I am not going to stand here and look over your shoulder when you take a test. If I can’t trust you to be honest, then we don’t need to associate. And that’s the way I feel. Now, I am not naive either on that point. I know the honor system doesn’t work perfectly; that it had problems. I’ve had no problems with it. I don’t recall ever having had a student of mine brought up before the honor council. Now, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had students who had violated the honor council. I try to keep a watch on them without becoming a hawk, without looking over their shoulders, but I think I know pretty well what has gone on in my own classes. And it does not function 100%, but I don’t know any kind of performance that we have in this sort of

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world that we live in which is foolproof, which works perfectly and that sort of thing. But because it doesn’t function 100% or because you have students now and then who are going to cheat or who are going to infringe on the honor, it seems to me is no reason to debunk it. I think that we need to keep vigilance. I think we need to try to reinstitute new life in it. If I remember there was something this spring. I had one student of mine, a very fine chap — I think he was a psychology major, if I remember correctly —- who was very interested in it. He got elected to the honor council and he's come in and talked to me any number of times since last spring, and, from what he tells me, they are making some progress. At least they are working on publicizing, trying to indulge in what I would call preventive sort of measures. And to what extent they are going to be successful, I don’t know. But I would think one of the worst steps backward that we could take would be to debunk the honor system and come in with a proctor system. And that’s my very, very almost urgent feeling toward the honor system which I know does not work perfectly. But I don’t know anything else around here that works perfectly, for that matter.

Sweeney: In 1957 you were made chairman of the faculty committee responsible for the radio station WMTI—FM. I was wondering how the faculty committee related to the operation of the station and to what extent the English department contributed to the content of the programs? Well, there were a couple of other questions, but let’s address first those two about the faculty committee and the English department.

Seward: Yes. Again, 1957 is not too far back and yet the phrase "chairman of the faculty committee" —— I don’t remember having that title; maybe I did. If it was a title, it was really not a functional position. I can explain the basic questions you have about the station, however. If my memory serves my correctly, Conrad Wilson, who was still on our English department, was designated as the ——I forget his title, but what would ordinarily be called the manager. He was in charge of programing, in charge of seeing that the station operated —- other than the mechanical end of it, the electronic end of it —— but he did the programing, he did the selection of tapes that were used and the general programing, the live approach and so on. My direct connection with it was a book editor. I did serve for two years as, officially, what was called the book editor for station WMTI—FM. And I took on a job that when I look back now I don’t know how did it, and that is that. I conducted and put into operation a weekly program of book reviews. And this stayed on the air every week for approximately two years. As I remember, I think it was a fifteen minute program, obviously with no advertisements. And I edited it. I did probably better

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than 75% of the reviews and I called upon members of the English department and other departments, notably history, for books in their field. So that when a book was sent in that was a book dealing with a historical subject, biography of some political figure or famous historical figure, then I would get some competent person in the history department or sometimes a book of psychology; we’d go into the various fields. But, generally speaking, we handled mostly poetry, literary biography, fiction, books of criticism, and so members of my own department and I did the bulk of the reviews. And basically I would say over the period of just about two years I must have handled at least 75% of the books that were reviewed once a week. And I set the programs up, we timed them, we taped them, and I don’t know how I did that on top of trying to run a department and teach 12 hours at that time.

Sweeney: Do you remember any of the other kinds of programs that were broadcast on the station?

Seward: Well, there were some good musical programs. I remember that particularly. There were recorded programs, I am thinking now particularly of classical programs. I think there were a few live programs that we somehow put together or had the music department staff, one of the instructional people, either tape a 15 or 30 minute program or something of the sort. And we had students and so forth. But, Jim, the fine thing about the musical programs in those days was that we had a very mature student who knew music. He was a musician but he knew music history, he was familiar in almost an incredible way with a tremendous repertoire. And this chap was capable —— and we let him do it —— capable of putting whole programs together. I would say at that time that WMTI—FM was broadcasting the best, over a course, let’s say, of a week, the best available music in the Norfolk area. Now since the station closed, there have come into existence several, well, two or three probably, classical stations that are doing things that WMTI at that time was not equipped to do because we were operating on a very tight budget, as you can imagine. But in those days, on a weekl those days, on a weekly basis, I think I am very conservative in saying the Norfolk public was exposed to the best classical music by radio given by any other station in the area at that time.

Sweeney: Do you remember how the station died?

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Seward: I don’t remember the details, no, Jim. Vaguely I can say this, and I think I can say it with authority, but it is a very general statement. I think it died simply from lack of funds. There were two things involved. The main studio we had, which obviously was fairly small —— we had several rooms but as studios go it was fairly small, really —— as I recall, the main studio was in a little wooden building, parts of the leftovers from one of the temporary buildings left from the Second World War. And it was located just —— what would that be —— east, was parallel with Hampton Boulevard, off Hampton Boulevard. No, it would be south, I guess, south. This would be south, perhaps 50 yards from the end of the New Administration Building, just off Hampton Boulevard in a relatively small wooden building. We had the antenna, a very noticeable antenna, right over the station itself. You could see it from all around any of the streets provided you could get a view through the trees and so forth. But I think there were two things involved, as I remember, that in the planning for the expansion of the physical plant, this building had to go. And then the budget which became less and less until it reached a point that it was just not feasible to try to operate a radio station on what the college was getting from the legislature or wherever the money came from. And when the building was demolished or when the plans for the building to be demolished occurred, there were no funds to move the station even into other quarters. So that, to my knowledge, is the vague explanation to what happened. The details I do not know.

Sweeney: Bill, you have been a book reviewer for the Virginian—Pilot since 1947. Could you tell me what you believe are the elements of a good newspaper book review?

Seward: Let me qualify that if I might. I started reviewing books for the Virginian—Pilot at the request of Bob Mason, who is now editor. I think I began in either 1949 or 50, and I’ll say roughly 1950 to use round figures. And so I reviewed books regularly for 20 years, and when 1970 arrived I made a pact with myself that I would never review another book for the Virginian—Pilot because I think 20 years for the same reading public to be exposed to one reviewer is enough. And so I still do some reviewing. I review books fairly regularly, among others, for the Richmond Times— Dispatch, but I purposely called a halt in 1970 because I thought 20 years was enough of the public being exposed to the views of one person. So I was a regular reviewer; in fact, I had the official title among the people down there as being what they called the anchor man. But I no longer review for that publication. Frankly, I think that a good newspaper book review probably, first

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of all, ought to tell the reader who apparently had not read the book something of what the book is, that is, the general nature of the book. Then I think it is the reviewer’s duty to inform the reader, as best he can get at this, what the author’s purpose is in writing the book. And whatever criticism he’s able to get into the review, it seems to me, should be based in terms of the extent to which the author accomplishes what he sets out to do. I don’t think it is the job of the book reviewer to tell an author, well, you should have written this kind of book rather than the sort of book that you wrote —— that you judge a book on its own merits and in terms of what the author is trying to do. And he succeeds or he fails. If he does what he sets out to do, then the book to me would be a success. If he fails, then it is a failure. Primarily, I can’t see that it is my job or any other reviewer’s job to condemn a novelist, for example, because he is not setting his aim as high as Hemingway did or as high as Faulkner did. If he sets his aim low and he succeeds and he produces a convincing novel in which he says something and he has his reader participate in vicarious experience, and if it’s put together well and it’s articulate, then in terms of what he has tried to do it would seem to me that the novel would be a success. And it may not be the great American novel, but so what?

Sweeney: You were chairman of the English department in the late 1940’s. I wondered if you could tell me if you had a difficult time recruiting faculty in those days and retaining them here?

Seward: Jim, the answer to that, I suppose, is yes and no. At times we did have difficulty. You’re too young to know these things. But back in the late 40’s and even into the early 50’s we were in a situation in which the graduate schools had not picked up the slack from the war. And we went through a period of, I would say, approximately, just in round figures, of approximately 10 years, let’s say, roughly speaking, ‘45 to ‘55, right in there, or more precisely, say, from the late 40’s up into the early 50’s —— ‘52 or ‘53 perhaps —— in which the graduate schools, that had been almost thoroughly disrupted by the war.. .Frankly, their faculties had been put in uniform and there were, frankly, I would think exceptional instances in which even the large graduate schools were functioning properly on a doctorate level during those years immediately following the war. And it took them awhile to sort of recoup, to get their faculties and get their students, and then begin to give degrees. So we did have a period —— I would say this period you mention here, the very late 40’s -— in which it was something of a problem. It never became too acute with us for some reason, probably because we had

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the name "William and Mary" attached to the college. And I think that the letterhead which bore the names "William and Mary" did for us things that some other colleges did not have done for them. And whereas we had difficulty, we didn’t have times, I don’t recall times in which we had acute difficulties. I don’t recall any time in which I became desperate. There was a time I had to scout around. I remember I used to make trips to Duke and Chapel Hill and some other places. But I did that probably three years at the most, and that was at the very toughest times when we were trying to track the people down. But I was never desperate and we never, in the worst of those times, we never had a September come that we did not have a full staff. And we had good people, too. For the most part we were able to get good people, and furthermore we have kept a lot of those people. Of our staff now, of the older men on the staff, I would say probably better than 50% of the older staff are people that I appointed years ago. Now among the younger people, the non—degree people and so on, we have had a lot of turnover. That is true everywhere. But my recollection is over the years I suspect that we have had as little turnover in our staff as probably any other English staff in the state of Virginia with the possible exception of the University of Virginia. That’s a guess; I think it’s pretty close to the truth. I am speaking now of state institutions. I can’t talk with any degree of authority concerning the private institutions because I don’t know how their pay scale runs and so forth and so on. But I think that’s pretty close to the truth, Jim.

Sweeney: Bill, what courses did you personally teach in the early years, and I wonder how your course offerings have changed over the years?

Seward: Well, in the first years that I came here, this was a junior college. We had an arrangement with William and Mary so that they would accept credits on courses, specialized courses. We had no degree. These specialized courses had little actual value for, I think, we used to call it the AA, the AA diploma for the junior graduate. But these were courses that were offered for people who were trying to get a degree, say, at William and May, and they didn’t stay there consecutively. They would go a semester then they would come back to Norfolk and they would work. And they would take one or two courses with us. And so we had this arrangement. We gave, I remember, the first few years I was here I used to teach a course in Shakespeare. And not infrequently we gave that course at night because we had more to draw from, the people on that level. I hadn’t been here too many years, as I remember, before I started giving a course in 20th century British and/or American fiction. And I think when I first started

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teaching that in Norfolk that the first two years that I taught it that I taught it for the University of Virginia in some extension work that they had here. And then we, I don’t know what the arrangement was but they slacked off giving those courses and we began to take them up. So my offerings were in, well, I’d always taught creative writing. I think I had always taught creative writing after my second year here. By 1947 I had started teaching English 209 and, if I remember correctly, I have taught at least one course in creative writing every semester since 1947, unless I am mistaken. Well, then, when we became a four—year college -— if you want to talk about that —— we first went into that, speaking of course offerings. I would guess maybe it was in the late 50’s perhaps, I forget the year. But we had started thinking in terms of senior college work by the mid—5O’s. And we had started giving, if I remember correctly, I think as far back as the early 50’s we had started giving work on a junior level even in English. And, I believe, it seems to me that the first A.B. degree given at this institution was somewhere in the neighborhood of around 1955 or 6, in there. You probably have the dates on that; it slips my mind. I think it is right around the mid-50’s. Well, once we began giving degree work, then my offerings, since our staff was much smaller than it is now, that I taught —— aside from a course all along from the routine freshman English and sophomore course, the survey lit. course, you know, English lit. primarily. Then we went into degree work and my own offerings, I taught courses in the field that I had had in graduate school, 18th century English lit., particularly the poetry. And then I began to teach the 20th century course and then we actually divided that. I think we weren’t into the degree program very long before we made two courses of it, one semester of 20th century American fiction and then a semester of 20th century British fiction. And then by, I would say, the late 1950’s I started offering sporadically the senior seminar in Hemingway which I would assume from roughly about 1959 maybe —— I’m guessing here —— I probably offered it first 1959 and subsequent to that I have given that seminar maybe six times. I gave it a couple of years ago. And I am hoping maybe to give it again next year. But it’s the kind of course I don’t like to get overexposure on; it’s not good. So every three to four years is a good deal on that.

Sweeney: I was wondering, Bill, if any of the students in your creative writing course went on to become published authors?

Seward: Jim, I’m happy to say that I can answer that in the affirmative, and I believe this is the only question that I wracked my brain to make sure that I had something on paper here, and I do have.

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And I think frankly that, considering the numbers and the qualities, not the fame, but the numbers and qualities, it is a very respectable list. And now I won’t get into all the names but I would give you some little idea of some of the people who have taken creative writing with me and who have gone on to become professionals. And I don’t take any part in their careers, I might add. The most famous one, I guess, was Paul Newman, the movie star. As I recall he was in the Navy back in the late 40’s. He was stationed down here at the base. And he took my creative writing class, I would suspect, in 1947. I think it was 1947 or 1948. And of course in those days he’d never been in the movies and I had no idea that he would become anybody. But subsequently I believe people tell me that he has gone into directing and I think even some script writing. And so on that basis maybe I can say, well, he’s at least connected with writing as well as with theater. Now I mentioned....

Sweeney: Did his writing strike you at all in class?

Seward: Looking back I don’t recall that it did, no, and he did not. As a matter of fact, it had never occurred to me that he had been in that class until several years ago Ben Clymer over in the library asked me one day if I had... No, he started it this way. "I saw somebody in New York last week that asked to be remembered to you, asked if you were still at the college." And I said, "Who was that?" and he said, "Paul Newman." Ben said that he had gone to a play that Newman had been starring in in New York. This was, I would say, eight years ago. And he said, "Is this same man teaching that was teaching creative writing in 1947 ——I think it was 1947?" And I said, "Well, who was it?" And he said, "Paul Newman." And Clymer did not know because he hadn’t been there that long. He said, "Well, Mr. Seward is teaching" and apparently then he picked the name up. And then he sent his regards, and I had forgotten it. That shows how much impression Paul Newman had made when he was a student. And I have no recollection except I remember seeing him in class. I remember, you know how you remember where people sit and so forth and so on —— but his work, I do not recall anything outstanding one way of the other, good, poor, indifferent. It’s rather interesting; the times it seems that he had appeared in movies and so on, I had never recalled that he had been a student of mine until Ben Clymer had mentioned that he had asked if I was still here and asked to be remembered. So he was one. Now I mentioned by name, I mentioned, what was it ——the three others, Woodlief, Dick McCoy, and Clayton Edwards. And then there was another one I forgot of the news people, Charles Whitehurst, Chuck Whitehurst. And he was a regular newscaster for several years while he was a student, I might add, part of

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the time while he was a student, for WTAR—TV. And he, right after he graduated, as I recall it, a few years ago, right after he graduated, was sent to either Winston—Salem or Goldsboro or Greensboro, one of those North Carolina cities, to take over the entire news department of the radio station that was owned by Landmark Communications, the same people that operate WTAR. So far as I know he’s still head newsman for the station in —— I forget which of the three cities it is. I believe, on second thought, I believe it’s Greensboro. So he has done very well. Now I had a chap many years ago in English 209 who did extremely well in drama. His name was Ed DeVany. I think his father was an attorney in Norfolk, if I am not mistaken. And I remember one thing about DeVany, whom I’ve lost track of in the intervening years, but I do remember that he did not get his degree here or he did not get his undergraduate degree anywhere, to my knowledge. But he was admitted into the graduate school of drama at Yale on the basis of a play that he wrote in my English 209 class. And I think, if I am not mistaken, I think that Ed did write a few, probably one—act plays, that were produced off Broadway. It seems to me that I heard that was the case, but I do know for a fact that he was admitted into the graduate drama school at Yale on the basis of this play that he wrote for my class here. Then coming down, let me see this list that I have. There is a chap who is in the sports department at the Virginian—Pilot. I think his name is Charles Maddry. They had a photographer by the name of Maddry. I think he’s no longer there. But this chap’s name is Charles and he’s one of the head sports writers and has been for many years. And he was in one of these classes. I might add, incidentally, that the lady, Mrs. Thomas, who teaches creative writing in the ——what would it be, the Rainbow Program, I guess it is, Bounty or Rainbow, I get them mixed up; I think it is Rainbow Program —— is a former student of mine in English 209. And for several years she has been teaching, I think, all of the creative writing given in this, I think it’s the Rainbow Programs. And she has published pretty consistently in periodicals and newspapers since the days that she was in my class. Now more recently, and I’ll make this short, Jim, more recently I had a boy, a chap, I say a boy-- he’s a grown man —- who wrote a story for me perhaps three years ago, I would guess three years ago this past spring, that was accepted by Odyssey and published subsequently. That story was written in my English 330, the advanced fiction writing class. Frankly, I didn’t think it was a very good story when he handed it to me, but it was salable. He sold it the summer after he had the class in the spring and subsequently the story was published. And his name was, I think he pronounced it "Ussery," Joseph Ussery. Then there was a young man who probably got his degree here, I am not sure, by the name of David Dooling. And he

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was doing professional writing while he took English 209. In fact, one of the projects that I let him do in that class was an article covering one of the space lift—offs at Cape Kennedy or Cape Canaveral, whatever they called it. He went down primarily as a photographer. I think he was a professional photographer, but he had gotten interested in writing, and this account of the lift—off accompanied with the photographs that he took and so forth was published in some reputable place, I forget what it was. So he has broken in. I have, right now I have six students or six former students, all of whom are still at ODU either as seniors or graduate students who have manuscripts. Five of the six have completed a novel each that I would not be ashamed for them to submit to publishers. In fact, I am trying to help them place these manuscripts. And the sixth one was a young man who wrote a full—length play, completed it last January, got his degree last January, and he left here and went to Germany. And he married a German woman, incidentally. So what’s happened to that play I don’t know. I have a notion probably that it would not land on the stage. In English 209, perhaps a year before he took the advanced course with me, he wrote a one—act play which was produced by Norfolk Little Theater the summer after he submitted it to me as his examination paper, his term paper, his final paper. Then I have to my knowledge one young woman who with her husband is editing, the two of them are editing a literary publication, the title of which I forget at the moment, but a literary publication in the area. I think probably it’s coming out of Virginia Beach. It seems to me they live in Virginia Beach and their last name is Coward. Her name is Linda Coward and she did some good writing for me, too, but she and her husband are publishing this periodical, probably a quarterly. It’s entirely literary, short stories, concentration on poetry. And I remember she sent me the first volume of the first issue perhaps last summer, I think it was. And aside from some amateur poets or poets who have not been published before, I presume, she did have poems, she had two poems by Richard Eberhart and two poems by the young man who is writer—in—residence out here at Virginia Wesleyan; I forget his name at the moment. He’s been writer—in—residence out there for two or three years, and he’s a professional poet. So that was hitting pretty high, especially two poems that Eberhart would permit them to include in that publication. And then I think of two people that I managed to remember. One of them was a business man who lives at Virginia Beach and has been very prosperous. His name is Charles Burlage, the Democrat who ran against Bill Whitehurst last time. Years ago he was in my 209 class and then he got his degree, as I recall, first in business administration.

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And about two years after he graduated he sent me through the mail, just completely to my astonishment, a small book of his that had been published. I think he called it The Small Businessman or something of this sort. But it was a very small book published. And then I’ll save for last really one of the best, writers that I’ve ever had anywhere, and that’s Alf Mapp, who is on our own staff. Alf was one of the first students that I had when I started teaching creative writing, and he doesn’t like for me to mention that chronology, but we are none of us are young as we used to be. But I think he was writing professionally when he was a student then. He was a brilliant, brilliant student and, of course, he has done pretty consistent writing since then. And I might add that one of the, last duties that I performed as chairman of the department was to appoint him on the staff, I think the year that I left the chairmanship, appointed him on the staff. I think the year that I left the chairmanship, I appointed him on the staff. He had just graduated with an AB degree here, but he had all of these publications behind him. And I made a special effort to get him because I had every reason to believe that if I did not get him in the English department that your department was going to grab him. I mean because he’s a marvelous historian also. And I don’t know whether you know this or not, but the initial arrangement that we had with him was that he was brought here in the English department but there was a stipulation that for several years after he came that he always taught one course in history. And for some several years after he first came with us he taught the course in Virginia history. But, you know, the history department, like ours and all the others, has expanded so that you’ve got a department filled with specialists. And so he’s doing full—time teaching of English and, of course, you’ve got all your full—time history people. There must be some others, but these are the ones that occurred to me, and if you look back, really, and I’m not trying to brag but this is a nice feeling to see these names here. There must be —— I counted them but I forgot —— I think there is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 16 published writers in this group which over a period of approximately 25 years, right around, approximately 25 years, in which I have been teaching creative writing classes. That would give us one and a fraction every two years, something of this sort. And with the writing racket what it is, and I use that word "racket" advisedly, frankly, that’s not a bad list.

Sweeney: Bill, I read in the scrapbooks that you worked with Professor John Foster West and Kit Larson of the Virginian—Pilot in setting up journalism courses in 1959. Could you describe the origins of that program and how it has fared over the years or whether it is still in existence at all?

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Seward: Yes, I did. I worked with them and, frankly, we worked hard and that was a program that I had high hopes for. And at the time that we instituted it I thought it was a very sound program. It did not over the years fare as I had hoped that it would. And, frankly, I don’t know what the explanation is. I might have some thoughts, but they would be pure thoughts. I, frankly, would just as leave not discuss them. I have been disappointed in it, really. You want me to tell you just a little of how we...? Well, we got the idea; I forget whether the idea originated with me or whether it originated with Kit Larson. It must have originated with me because he’s a newspaper man and he offered almost complete cooperation all along. But looking back I don’t know why he would have initiated this, though he may have. It seems to me that I got together with him one day and we started talking about this and I felt him out to see what his views would be toward maybe using Norfolk newspaper facilities as a lab program. Also if students who would serve a kind of student apprenticeship there would have a foot in the door with respect to jobs once they got their degrees. Anyhow, we saw pretty much eye to eye —— our theories of what a program should be and what kind of training the students should have and even the matter of news, how news should be handled and so forth. Well, about that time we appointed John West on the staff, not primarily for the teaching of journalism but as a teacher of English. He did have qualifications in journalism and he was interested in journalism. So what we did, and this might be worth going in the record, what we did, we sat down and we put our heads together and we, the three of us, pretty well agreed on what we thought should be done, the way a program should be set up for an area like Norfolk. Then we went down and we had a meeting with some of the officers of what now is called Landmark Communications or what I called Norfolk Newspapers. Frank Batten, who was then publisher and still is publisher, was in on this conference, and he was interested. I don’t know whether he was as interested as Kit Larson, but as a publisher he was interested, and he was very willing to listen, and he was agreeable to the use of some of the facilities down there and so forth and so on. Anyhow, to make a long story short, we thought, well, maybe we ought to investigate to see how some of these programs operate. So we took off the better part of a week, as I remember, and we drove down to North Carolina and we went to Chapel Hill and we spent a couple of days in the School of Journalism there. And we had a long conference with the Dean of the School of Journalism in which he was quite candid and put the cards on the table and told us exactly how they operated things and so forth and so on. Then we went over to Wake Forest. And we got to Wake Forest and we found, what I knew and what of

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course Kit knew, that the Wake Forest program was a one—man operation. They had this wonderful gentleman who had headed the program. It was not a degree. You see, they did not give a degree in journalism but it was a one—man operation within the English department. And he was apparently an excellent teacher, a very successful teacher of journalism. And I learned something on that trip that impressed me a lot and it impressed Kit Larson and something I did not know. We discovered that over the years, that is, the last few years, I would say probably five or six years prior to our visit there, that the graduates of this man, a one—man operation at Wake Forest, were getting jobs with the North Carolina press over graduates from the School of Journalism in Chapel Hill. We discovered when we investigated for the big city newspapers, Charlotte, Winston—Salem, Raleigh, Durham, the major cities in North Carolina, that this one man had been placing regularly for five or six years more graduates than the whole School of Journalism at Chapel Hill. That’s an amazing thing, when you stop to think of it. So this, I think, is what was the deciding factor. Our thinking had been in that direction before. We had really never thought of trying to put in a school of journalism or even give a degree in journalism. We had cast that aside. We had discussed everything pro and con. And so my feeling was, and I still think this is the proper thing, and Kit Larson felt the same thing and I think John West felt the same way, too. He might have preferred a department, particularly if he had a department of several people and had been made chairman of the department, but that’s unofficial —— I don’t know, I am guessing there. But we decided that the strongest way to get at journalism at that time was to have, not a degree in journalism or not even a major in journalism, but to have several basic courses within the course of a few years, maybe a few sort of luxury courses, in journalism and let English majors or history majors or any other majors who could ‘work this into’ their program get a strong fundamental background, because the newspapers are there to tutor Norfolk newspapers. Frankly, it was that "we would rather have somebody with a liberal arts degree with just the fundamentals of journalism rather than to have somebody come in highly specialized because we’re going to train them to write the way we want anyhow. We are going to tell them how we want it done." So that was our thinking, and I still think it is sound. I think it’s a sound principle, but something went wrong. I don’t know what it was. The program did not develop as I had hoped it would develop. For one thing, and this is not to place any blame, this is just a statement of fact, it was just a very few years after we instituted this that I stepped down as department chairman, and I don’t recall ever discussing, being questioned or asked by Stevenson, who came in, anything of any consequence about the journalism

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program. I would assume looking back now that really he didn’t have much interest in journalism. He was more interested in academic things of other sorts and he was interested in trying to work on a Master’s program that we had done the ground work for, I might add, and so forth. Then not too many years later, John West went back to North Carolina, unfortunately. I don’t think that John was the strongest teacher that we had. That could be part of it. I don’t like to say this, but I don’t think really that we had the spark in the classroom that I would like to have seen during those initial years. But in the subsequent years, I take it that we offer some of these courses, but there, is little or no stress put upon them as far as I know. I am not in a position to be familiar very much with it beyond the point at which I had something to do with it.

Sweeney: It would seem that it might be revived as one of the interdisciplinary things under the new stress on interdisciplinary courses, say between the history department and the English department or something like that?

Seward: I would think so. I would very much like to see it myself. I think it’s a very important thing we ought to do and frankly, Jim, if you —— and I am sure you will have some thoughts in this direction and a real interest in it. I wish that you would mention it to the history people some time in your meetings, either your committee meetings or your department meetings. And I would be glad, in fact I think probably I ought to do it and I will do, is to have a talk with Don Hammond some afternoon in terms of seeing if we can’t put some life in this. We could do a tremendous amount of good for students here because we’ve got talent. I see it every semester in my writing classes or creative writing classes. And these students have got a marvelous situation here in being able to do some of the apprentice lab work right here and then step into a job if they prove themselves as students and go right into work here with Norfolk newspapers. And I am quite sure that the newspaper people are still willing to do anything within reason that they can do to cooperate with us because it is to their advantage. If they can get good people here, then they don’t have to go off down to North Carolina or go up into Maryland or Delaware, places like that, looking for people. You’ve got good writers coming right out here and youngsters who have at least given some proof of what they can do during their, at least, junior or senior years here. I think it’s something that we ought to do. As I say, officially I’m in no position to do, but I’ll be glad to talk and exert any influence that I might have.

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Sweeney: The next question is an interesting thing that I found in the scrapbooks. In 1960 you served on the Scholars for Nixon Committee chaired by Lon L. Fuller, professor at the Harvard Law School. I was wondering how this association came about and whether you would have ever gotten involved in local politics here in Norfolk?

Seward: This is the one question I wish I didn’t have to discuss. Let me say, Jim, that I am, I don’t know what you could call it, non-political, apolitical; rightly or wrongly, I have no interest in politics as such. If I answer the last question first, I have never gotten involved in local politics. I have no interest in local politics, and I doubt I ever will. As a matter of fact, when my former colleague, Bill Whitehurst, first ran for Congress and I told Bill, whom I had known for many, many years —— I guess I knew him 18 or 20 years before he went into politics —— and when he first announced himself and he knew that I had been on this Nixon committee in 1960 and I told him this. I said, "Bill, I’m going to vote for you. I’ll do anything I can to get some votes for you, but," I said, "I won’t work for you. I learned my lesson, and," I said, "furthermore, if I got out and worked for you actively, which I have no interest in doing and I am not going to do, I will probably be a jinx." I said, "I think politically I will be a jinx for anybody that I worked for actively." You see that happened to Nixon in 1960; of course, that was child’s play to what happened to him later. But the background I can tell you very briefly, the background of that, and I don’t know how I ever got involved, to tell you the truth. It was just one of those things, I guess. If you recall the dates that I mentioned concerning my graduate days at Duke, I entered Duke Graduate School the year that Richard Nixon was a senior in law school. And so I knew him slightly. I was never a friend; I never knew him even on a first-name basis, but our paths did cross enough so that he recognized me, knew who I was, and I recognized him, and that was it. He was a senior; I was entering my doctorate work that year. That was 1938, I think it was. So it was just a very casual acquaintance. Let’s put it at that. Well, over subsequent years during his days in the Senate, particularly, and the days after he became Vice President, I had some occasion to have a little correspondence with him of a very general nature, and I think bumped into him once or twice when I was in Washington. And so, when he was put up as candidate, the Republican candidate in 1960, there was a group of scholars, so-called scholars who got together to form this committee. And I forget the initial men. I know that Fuller did come to chair it. In fact, he probably chaired it from the beginning. But I also remember that one of

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the head, most active man on the group was the man who then was president of, what was it, University of California Robert Sproul, one of the big California state universities, I think it was the University of California. And these were two of the real initiators, and I knew nothing about this. Except one day, out of a clear sky, I had a short letter from Nixon telling me that this committee was in the making, that there was to be a formation of what was to be called "Scholars for Nixon" made up of academic people. And he said, "I have taken the liberty to give your name to..." —— I don’t know whether he said to Fuller or to Sproul, one of these; these were the two men. And he said, "I hope you don't mind," and that was all of that. Well, a short time afterwards I had a letter from one of those gentlemen saying, "Would you meet with us and be one of the founding members of this group?" Originally it was a committee and then it came to be just called the, the thing was later simply called "Scholars for Nixon" because they had thousands of people that, I guess, got in on it. But this was the initial committee, I guess made up, probably, certainly not more than 25 people, somewhere between 15 and 25 people. So I’d never been, you know, connected with politics and it seemed rather interesting. And I thought, "Well, here’s a chance to get in on something to see how politics operates." And so, having no more backbone than that, I simply replied, "Yes, I would do it." So, really, that’s it and that’s the only time I have ever been active in politics, and I am sure it is the last. I just have no interest in politics. And I found, and I might add, as it went along I found it a most disturbing chore. It was the least interesting work that I have ever indulged in in my life, and I was so glad when that election was over that I thanked my lucky stars and said that if I ever got out of something like this that I would never again get involved actively in politics. I know that seems strange to young people nowadays, but that’s it. That’s part of past history, and I am glad it is over.

Sweeney: The next question is somewhat general, but to try to get it down to specifics, in the early years did the students who came to college seem on the whole able to express themselves well in the verbal sense?

Seward: You mean in writing. I suppose you are talking primarily in writing. And I would answer this best probably in referring to the introductory rather than the creative writing —— but the general student who comes in, the English 101 student. Well, frankly, I have always found that there have been many students who have not been able to express themselves well; this is true even today. I met with a group of students this afternoon before I met with you to go over some themes with them, some freshmen.

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They had certain deficiencies. This group I met today here didn’t have any. There were six of them. I divided them into groups; it is a large class; we meet six at a time once a week. I would say on the whole that these students are expressing themselves better than the average group of six people that I might have chosen in 1945 or 1950. But I have found that if you work with them, which I have tried to do, and spend a lot of time with the students, if you work with them and if the student is interested and if he has normal intelligence, which most of the students who get here have and who have always gotten here have had, that they can make progress. And I, looking back over the years, I can recall very few students who have tried that we haven’t been able to get them even in a semester’s time so that they were expressing themselves much more articulately than they were when they came in. But the case has always been true to a more or less degree. I think that one seeming deficiency in particularly the public school system has been that of stressing writing, stressing the fundamentals of proper expression on paper, of articulation with the written word. I believe we’re getting a bit better. I think on the whole that the students that I’m getting now are all expressing themselves, not meticulously necessarily or always articulately, but they are doing better than students did years ago, yes.

Sweeney: Now the next question goes over to the next page about early writings and your career in writing. I was wondering, Bill, your early interest seemed to be in the area of literary criticism because of these two volumes —— in 1935 The Quarrels of Alexander Pope and Literature and War in 1943 seem to fit into that category.

Seward: Yes, that’s right, Jim. And I suppose ultimately that is my main interest because it ties in with my training. I was trained as a literary person. I was trained in the analysis of literature and the critiques of literature. That is my interest and that’s where I started. I’ve tried to do different kinds of works. The novel that came in 1950, for example, and then the contrast that came in ‘63; there it was back to either analyses and book reviews and lectures and some were outright essays of criticism and so forth. Of course, later the Hemingway book was primarily, not criticism, but reminiscence; that was a personalized type book. But I suppose basically that my, as the evidence indicates here, that my primary interest in writing has been that in the field of criticism. And I will tell you, on the face of it, it makes sense because I have always considered myself primarily a teacher. I always put teaching first. I think that’s one reason why that

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I have published here probably what, five or six books, whereas if I had put writing first and teaching second, then I might have doubled that or might have tripled it. But I have always put teaching first, and I still do. And next to teaching then I prefer writing. And I think that the fact that aside from teaching writing, when teaching lit, courses that’s what you’re doing. You are involved in analysis, you’re involved in criticism and you’re involved in judgments and so forth. And I think it came over initially in these first two books and then came back certainly in the book that was published in 1963, and is going to come back in the thing that I am working on now, which is the editing of a novel that certainly needs to be reissued and has never been reissued. But I am going to do a critical introduction to it. And I am hoping to be able to get some publisher interested in it, but that's what I’m working on now. So, really, that gets us back to, really, back to criticism because the introductory essay is going to be kind of an analytical critical introduction to a novel that has been neglected over the years.

Sweeney: In respect to teaching and writing at the same time, I was wondering, were you able to write during the school year or only during the summers when you were writing the novel Skirts of the Dead Night while teaching at the Norfolk Division?

Seward: Well, what I did was this, Jim. I did work on it the first summer, the first summer that I was here —— well, not the first summer either. But one of the early summers —— I’m getting my chronology mixed —— one of the early summers after I had gotten the idea. I devoted the entire summer to working on a first draft to this novel. And if I can think that far back, and that is a long time ago because this takes us back to the late 40’s, I don’t think I completed the first draft during the summer, but I did work one solid summer on it. And if I didn’t complete it, and I don’t think I did that summer, then I continued on. But I do remember this, that in the revisions and the later drafts, the other drafts and the revisions that I, because this is very vivid, that I did all of that writing after midnight, nights, after I had taught and I had graded papers and I had prepared classes and so forth. And in essence other than at the most the first draft that entire novel was written or the revisions and the drafts, the other drafts were done after midnight, which is no time to write, after you have done a day’s work. But it was interesting; it was a lot, of fun but it was a lot of hard work.

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Sweeney: So it might have something to do with the subject which you wrote after midnight since it was a horror story. I was wondering if your living in southern Virginia provided any inspiration for the book?

Seward: Well, my boyhood did, Jim. This novel was something that I felt I had to write. It was a novel that came from two things. It came from a place. It came from an actual place, an old haunted house that I had grown up with. It was about seven miles out of my home town. And so what I did, I started with a place or I started with a set of superstitions, I forget which. This really was a ghost story which I hoped made some sense. Ever since I can remember as a young boy I heard all kinds of legends and stories about strange things that happened in and around this old house, which is a beautiful old, actually, supposedly the only authentic example of Jacobean architecture in this country. It remains so today. The house was built, I think, in 1655, completed in 1655 and it’s still standing. It’s a wonderful old place, but it is supposedly haunted and there are all kinds of stories. So I guess really what I started with was a set of superstitions that these country people believed. And these people would swear, "I have seen this" or "I’ve heard this." And that made an impression on me when I was a boy and it just sort of kept nagging. And then by the 40’s or by the time I started working on this, I guess I had concluded that somebody ought to record these. These are a part, really, of the history of Tidewater, but how do you write about superstitions? So, even as young as I was at the time, I had concluded that it wasn’t much point in trying to collect a group of superstitions and put them into a book and just pass them off as superstitions per se. So right or wrongly I took these and of course I tampered with them a little bit in fictional form but decided that I could reach a wider audience by taking these and put them into a narrative and set them at this place than just writing a straight book of superstition. But that’s how it began, superstitions and a specific place, a haunted house, really.

Sweeney: That was your last novel, was it?

Seward: Last published one. I have done some others, but I. haven’t had the nerve, I haven’t gotten them in form that I’m willing to submit them. And I’ve got some manuscripts

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stashed away. And some day I may go back and revise and get one or two of these in form that I wouldn’t be ashamed to submit. As of now I have never submitted another.

Sweeney: We’ve talked some about the Contrast in Modern Writers. I would just like to address one question there. What basis did you use for selecting authors and works to be studied in that volume of literary criticism?

Seward: Well, Jim, that's an interesting question, and I may have an interesting answer to that, I don’t know. This, basically, this book is a collection of, primarily, not exclusively, primarily of book reviews that had already been printed in one publication or another. I think the bulk of them were printed in the Virginian—Pilot. Some of these were book reviews taken from scripts that I had used over Station WMTI—FM right here. One or two of them were re—hashed lectures, and I don’t mean that I changed the content but I compressed them — were re—hashed as lectures that I had given down at the museum in the Irene Leeche series some years before. And so actually what this is is simply a collection of essays or book reviews, lectures and some criticism that might seem, on the face of it, a kind of hodge—podge that were written over a period of 12 years. And they were written obviously in different moods and some of them in different places and so forth. The collection, to answer your question, what basis did I use for selecting, actually what I did, the basis for selection was simply the accidents in book reviewing or the books one is asked to review. But what I did was to go through and cull out, I think it was approximately 110 essays, if I remember, at least in that neighborhood, 110 essays, most of which were book reviews, not all but the bulk of them. Perhaps 95 of the 110 were book reviews. And so I did select what I considered the most relevant and obviously what I thought qualitatively were the best from a group of published book reviews that must have been ——and broadcasts —— that must have included at least 500 reviews. But other than that the individual essays were simply a matter of the accidents of book reviewing. You’re asked to review this book rather than that book and so forth. However, I did try to put the book together in, I think, five or perhaps six different sections. And so I did try to incorporate a certain unity, but for a book of this sort you can’t solve really successfully the technical problem. I mean, how do you take, say, 95 pieces written at different times and different places and

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different moods and put them together and have them really come of f so that they appear to be more than just a collection of disparate pieces. It can’t be done. Even Malcolm Cowley never solved that problem. But the book is still selling, I might add. I am happy to say this. Just two or three years ago the publishers informed me that there was a new English edition and it’s after, what, this is going on 12 years now —— 1963 —- going on 12 years, but the book is still selling. It’s not setting the world on fire, but it’s still selling.

Sweeney: You’ve mentioned several times in lectures and reviews during the last two decades your disapproval of much that has become fashionable in modern literature. I was wondering if you could comment on some of the modern trends in fiction?

Seward: Well, that’s very difficult, Jim, as you know, to handle in a few minutes time. But the thing that bothers me particularly among the younger writers is this evidence of almost thorough lack of discipline, and that’s what bothers me. The trend, the fashionable trend generally speaking nowadays is that trend toward that which is negative, the non—hero, the non—novel, that which isn’t, to use the suffix of "a—," the a—hero or the anti—hero and that has gotten over into the styles. So that it’s not the common fashion but it’s not uncommon, as you know, to find a novelist ——we’re speaking of fiction now —— who operates on the principle that the finest thing he can do is present the chaos of modern mechanistic technological society in the most chaotic fashion. And even in such a good writer as Beckett, Samuel Beckett, who won a Nobel Prize, incidentally, would you read his novels? The same is true of his plays. And what you get there is almost utter chaos and for a man of his talent I get a bit upset because I think if he directed the talent in a different fashion then he could produce some literature that really would be lasting. But to write novels that are chaotic, that are purposely written chaotically, the content, the style, everything, I think we’re going to have a reaction to it. I mean, I’m not pessimistic about this. I think we are in a very bad state right now because I do not know of a single really, potentially important novelist in this country under the age of 30. And this is the first time that this has happened in my lifetime. This is the first generation that I can think of in which, if somebody asked me, I could not name them a really, potentially important novelist under the age of 30. Generations before we’ve always had at least

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one or two; usually we would have a whole handful, even the generation prior to this group. I think a lot of it comes from the lack of discipline and I think also probably the rapidity of change, and that may be it. It may be the rapidity of change in our society is so pronounced that the author simply is not capable of transposing these things into universals. I mean we go to bed tonight and wonder when we wake up tomorrow morning and, well, it’s time to change it. They can’t keep up. This is the first time it’s ever happened. So the fault may be really with the way things are rather than with the writers. But I think that I’m optimistic. I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight. I don’t think it’s going to happen next year, but I think that fiction and I think other types of writing —— of course, fiction is in an extremely bad way, but biography is, I think, is in a very fine state. We have some excellent biographers, even young ones, as you know. And so, in the field of biography, ——I think in the field of history you’re much better qualified on that than I am. Well, I think that we have some excellent young historians that are writing now. But in the purely poetic field and the field of fiction and I think even in the field of drama that things are pretty dull. But we’re going to come out all right.

Sweeney: I was wondering, Bill, if you played any role in bringing William Styron to the campus in 1972? And whether you’ve tried to bring contemporary authors into your creative writing class?

Seward: Well, the answer to both of those is yes. The story on Bill Styron is this. I have known Bill since he was a chap. You know, he was brought up over in Newport News and my father, who was a physician, was a very close friend of the Buckstons, who founded and operated the hospital in Newport News. And, of course, Bill Styron's stepmother was a Buckston, and so I knew him long before he ever published anything. And so when the, what was it, political science or maybe it was the history department that brought him here, one or the other. Somebody told, I think it was Harold Wilson who was in charge there, that I knew Bill. And so he contacted me and asked me if that was true and that they were interested in bringing him here and if I would make any suggestions. And I said, "Well, I’ll call him up and see. I doubt that he would come, but I’ll be glad to call him up and see." So I telephoned him and he immediately wasn’t anxious to come, but he said he would think about it. So he did call back and informed me that he would come. And so really that was the extent. I just

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did the communications job and contacted him but the history, I think it was the history department really sponsored it and were responsible for it. So they were kind enough to ask me to introduce him, which I was glad to do, and he was a house guest while he was in town, but that was the extent of that. And as far as bringing contemporary authors to creative writing classes, I do that whenever I can. I’ve always done that, which hasn’t been too often, incidentally, but I have done it. I’ve had several writers down. I’ve had Malcolm Cowley down one year. We brought James Caine in many years ago, back in the 50’s. And I have hopes that I am going to have Styron down here some time this year, just to meet with my creative writing classes. The last time I talked with him he said that he thought that he was going to be at VPI for a lecture some time this year. And he was going to make every effort to stop off in Norfolk and sit in on classes. So I hope that’s going to take place. Over the years I’ve had a few. I’ve had not a few people who are not particularly well known but who are professional writers. Over the years I’ve managed to bring a few really top—notch people in for a sit—in, so to speak, with the class or classes.

Sweeney: Do you believe, Bill, that the recent changes in the curriculum and curricular requirements have improved the education at Old Dominion, or did the students receive a more substantial program say ten years ago?

Seward: Jim, that is probably the most difficult question that you have down here, unless it’s the last one. I’m just trying to glance at that. And I’m quite honest here because I don’t know that there is any really clear—cut answer to that because I think, really, that we are involved in this business of change I mentioned a moment ago in a very different way from the way the writer is involved. So I think what we are talking about here is what the students needed l5 years ago, what was best for them; and I think we’ve tried to do that for them at that time. And I think we did a decent job. Now what things were 15 years ago are very different from what they are now. And regardless of what I might think concerning what things were then and what they are now is really beside the point because the fact is we live in 1974. And what’s good for students in 1974 probably is not the same thing that was really good for them in 1960, let’s say, late 1950’s. So I just don’t have the answer. I think this, I think that we did, as far as I can tell, as far as my contacts

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and my knowledge of the university and what was at one time the college, I think that of the entire time I’ve been connected with this institution since 1945, I think this institution has done extremely well by students. And so far as I can tell in terms of what we are under obligation by the people in the higher education division, what we’ve been designated to do and so forth, as far as I can tell, I think that we are doing well by our students. I think we’ve always done it and that would be really my answer which may not be very satisfactory, but I think that the biggest problem facing all of us is this eternal rapidity of change and how can we keep up and do the best for students at any given time. I think we’ve always done a remarkably effective job with students and I think we are still doing it.

Sweeney: Bill, I read about your involvement in a summer workshop for gifted students in Henrico County in 1969. I wonder if you might give me some information on that?

Seward: Yes, that was a very interesting experience. What happened was, as I understand it, that there was a foundation, I believe financed by Sears or some one of the big companies. If I’m not mistaken this was the second year that this foundation had put up money to do something to help to get the gifted students. In 1968 they indulged in a fairly conventional sort of a workshop program. I forget the nature because I was not involved, but I do remember the director of that had mentioned that it was a very routine, traditional sort of thing. And everybody involved, the educators, the superintendent of schools and the principals felt that it really had not been too effective. So in 1969 they — I don’t know whether it was a committee — but the workshop group, the foundation was put in charge of Harry Meecham who was one of the men, as you may remember, instrumental in helping get Ezra Pound out of St. Elizabeth Hospital. And actually, when he was released, I’ll just give you a little background here, when he was released he came down and stayed with Harry and his wife in Richmond for two or three days before he left the country. Because you know he had to get out of the country pretty shortly after he was released. But Harry is a fair poet and he’s got, he had connections. He’s a very intelligent man. He is very interested in young people and education and particularly in literature. So, heading up this workshop, what he decided to do in agreement with the superintendent of the Henrico schools, was to conduct a workshop, not necessarily for students with the

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highest grades, academic grades, but the students on the basis of their performance that had been selected by their teachers as having some potential in creativity, gifted in that sense of creativity, particularly in the field of writing, in some of the other fields, too. So what he did, what Harry did was to set this thing up in conjunction with the principals and the superintendent, a five-day workshop in which he had one person to come in and take charge on each of the five days. One day was devoted to, I think, journalism, and he had one of the outstanding columnists from the Washington Post come down. I think it was the Washington Post, one of the Washington papers to come down and talk in terms of creativity in the field of journalism. I remember that one day was devoted to music, and he had Edgar Shinkman, the conductor of the Richmond Symphony. He used to conduct Norfolk Symphony, but I think he was conducting the Richmond Symphony at the time. I remember that he had one day devoted, I think, to poetry. So he had some outstanding Richmond poet to come in and conduct that. They asked me to come in and talk in terms of the creative aspects particularly of fiction and criticism, creative criticism. And then the fifth day I forget who it was, but that basically was the way it was set up. And it was something new. They had never tried that and I had never gotten involved in anything like that and to be frank it’s an aspect of the creative business that I had never even gotten into in my classes in all of these years. In other words, what he told me point blank is, "Bill, we don’t want to talk about techniques, we don’t want to talk about theory, we don’t want to talk about the mechanics of fiction and so forth. What we want to do is give over this day —— we started with a lecture, then questions, you know. In other words, where does a poem come from, what sparks it, what sparks a novel or what sparks a short story; and that, of course, is the kind of thing that you can’t answer because you’ve got as many answers to that as you have to poems or to.... But there were some interesting things that we could talk about. For example, I mentioned to them in connection with the English Romantic poets —— for instance, back in those days nearly all of those men put great stock in dreams. And then some of them felt the poems that they had started with dreams—— Coleridge, for example —— and then tied in how some of them came to feel that various kinds of drugs, and I tried to tie that in with the modern situation, you know, playing it down and reminding them that that was long ago and we learned better than that now and so on.

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But that was one attitude, and there had been various other attitudes. There had been plenty of people who felt, as Freud did, for example, that any kind of a stimulant, any artificially induced stimulus or what—not was highly disastrous to the creative process. And so we had a good session, but it was something new to me and it was something new to the students. And I don’t know what they got out of it, but we all had a big time of it, and I hope something came of it. But this was devoted entirely to the matter of creativity, where did it come from, where did the spark come from. And, of course, you can’t answer it but we had a lot of fun playing around with it, and I hope these kids learned a little something.

Sweeney: Over the last five years, has any involvement stood out in your mind or any event on the campus in connection with the English department over the last, say, three or four years?

Seward: What do you mean, any development, any program? Well, now, you catch me sort of off guard here. I would say probably the one thing that I have been connected with that I think is an advancement, and I think it’s a fine thing and it’s to me perhaps the best thing we’ve done in the last five or six years. And this is unofficial and this is just my own thoughts. This was not down here, I don’t believe, and so this is off the top of my head. But that is the program, it was not a program but the courses, this involves a number; I forget the number of the courses where a student is qualified, either because of his intelligence or his talent, if you want to call it that, or his facility and his interest. And that he is individually assigned to some instructor of his choice and he is given three hours credit for work that is agreed upon with this particular instructor. And I think in the last perhaps two years, either the last year and a half or two years, I have had three of these and all three of them are people that were in the writing classes. And so they had taken the three writing classes that I give, the 209, the English 330 and the English 331 and they had completed those. And then these three students at different times because this was individual, you know —- what did we call it, 258 or something like that. And then we have another one that is in the honors program. I’ve had one of these students who, with the honor student and the other, all three of these were top—notch students and two of the three because of this arrangement of giving them three hours credit for this,

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really, what it amounts to is a tutorial type course, a guidance type course. Two of these three were able to complete these novels I mentioned earlier. They hadn’t quite finished them in the other courses but they were able to finish them. And frankly they got a lot more work done in this individual arrangement than they did when they were in a class. And I just off the top of my head I would say probably that is the outstanding thing that occurs to me that we have done in our probing into different sorts of things. Now the courses that are being given currently which I am not teaching this —- what do they call it -— group B students. These students we let in, of course, they are not just restricted to English but in some of the other courses, code B students. But I wouldn’t comment on that for two reasons. One is we are just into the first month of that and, secondly, I’m not teaching one of those. But now I think that’s something to watch, I think, to see what we are going to be able to do there. And we are probably going to make some mistakes and learn from our errors and so forth. But,I think that is something to be watched and I could see if it’s done properly that all kinds of things might come from it. But I don’t think we can talk about it yet because we are only, what, a month into it. Now I have not told any of these.

Sweeney: Finally, reflecting on the 29 years at the Norfolk Division and then Old Dominion College and University, I wonder if you could compare and/or contrast the students of the late 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and the contemporary group and just basically what you feel that you have as your fondest memories of 29 years at the school?

Seward: Well, you know, parts of this I’ve already answered in another context, Jim. My initial reaction is when I look at this sheet in my hand here and I see the words "29 years," that’s a long time. That’s a long time to stay at one place, and I see it in another light and think these people, the administration as well as the students, very patient in putting up with me for 29 years. The fact is when I came here —— I don’t want to re—hash all of this —— but when I came here in 1945 I expected to stay two years at the most. I had set two years to settle the estate, to get my mother situated, to get over a rather trying time in many ways. And so I thought, well, with luck I can settle the estate maybe in a year, 15 months or so, and get my mother straight. And actually

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having lived so many years in Richmond and having taught there I thought when I had come to Norfolk that I had probably come to the jumping off place because at least in those years there was a tremendous feeling between people. If you lived in Richmond, you know, then you said, well, "Norfolk — you don’t even go there." So by reputation Norfolk was the last place that I had ever given any thought to settling in. And I repeat, when I came here I expected to stay at the most two years. Well, we had been here a little over a year and our older daughter was born. And at the end of the second year, right towards the end of the second year I was offered the chairmanship, which seemed a good thing at the time, and I think for me was a good thing and I hope it was a good thing for the university or what then was the college. And so one thing led to another and I have been here 29 years, and I would say on the whole 29 very pleasant years, and I have never regretted a day of staying here. Now, we’ve had problems and the going hasn’t always been smooth, but looking back I could not think of a situation, taken all in all, in which I believe I could have been any pleasanter situated, and I’m not just talking out of my hat. And there have been a lot of dark spots and there have been problems, no major problems but ups and downs and so forth. But it has been a pleasant 29 years, and I would like to think it has been a profitable 29 years. And I think it has been, from my point of view, it’s been a very fine intellectual experience in the better sense of the word. And though I have worked hard much of the time, especially in the earlier days when we were teaching a normal load of 15 hours. Department heads were teaching 12 hours and operating a department with no secretary. And then those years in which I was conducting the book reviews, weekly book reviews on top of that and writing book reviews and making time to publish a book once in awhile and so forth. It’s been a very pleasant experience. Now so far as the students are concerned, I think maybe I’ve generally, vaguely, generally answered that. I have always by freakish good luck or whether it was, what it was, but I have always had good students. Looking back 29 years I could name on the fingers of one hand and have, I think, at least two or three fingers left over students that I have had major difficulty with. Now that’s a big mouthful. I’m talking about 29 years and I could honestly say that the major problems with students I could do this on one hand and have fingers left over. Now that’s saying a lot. Really, I think it’s saying a lot for the kind of students we have been letting in here, actually. Obviously, I think everything told that the student coming in now

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probably is better equipped than he was 25 years ago. Of course, we’ve still got problems in the public school system, as you know, and a lot needs to be desired there. But the students are still going to come in here, some of them unable to articulate. They’ve still got spelling problems and they’ve still got problems of expression and so forth and so on. But taken by and large I do see a difference and I think that, again, I don’t know whether that has to do with admissions policies, probably not too much because we don't have an open admissions policy. But a student who has a decent academic background and gives some evidence that he wants to go through with a college experience we tend to let in, don't we, generally speaking. So I mean it’s not to say that these students I’m talking about are students who are screened the way that somebody might be screened at Yale. I don’t know how they screened them at Yale but probably the standards there are fairly high. We’ve got a good crop of students. The students that I am teaching right now is the finest set of students as I have ever taught. The three classes I have right now are as fine a group of students as I’ve ever taught. I’ve got the running classes; of course, they would advance. I’ve got one section of 101. I've got 26 people in there and of those 26 people there’s only one that at this point it seems is really going to fail the course. I doubt that he’s going to stay there. He’s just lost. That’s not to say he couldn’t do it, but I don’t think that he’s going to be able to discipline himself to the extent to get through this course and pass it. Now, I don’t have a single A in there up to this point. I’ve got several B’s. I’ve got mostly C’s. I've got a few D’s, but there is nobody in that group, now I’m talking about 25 students, that, it seems to me, can’t pass that course the way that they are going now. If they will work I believe that I can get them through and I don’t believe that anybody around here, if he’s honest, will say that my standards are particularly low. I’ve always prided myself on trying to keep standards pretty high. And, in fact, sometimes because again a change in times and you have to adapt because we are doing different things. Sometimes I get a little put out with myself, feeling, well, maybe I’m letting my standards down, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. How are you going to tell whether you are letting standards down or not? I don’t know, but I’ve got three

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good classes, not brilliant people but people that I think for the most part are going to be able to make it. But they are decent kids. That’s what I am trying to say. I’m not talking about academics now. These kids I’ve got, they’re a set of decent kids that I am proud to be associated with. And I guess that’s probably about all that one could say on that particular score, Jim.

Sweeney: Thank you very much.