‘Oh, would you?'
‘I find an interest in your purpose... and I feel sure that we can assemble a committee sympathetic to that purpose. Hmm -
‘ "Old age hath yet hls honour and his toil.
Death doses all; but something ere the end
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods." ‘
I picked it up:
‘"The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world." ‘
He smiled widely, and answered:
‘"Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die." ‘
He stood up. ‘Tennyson wears well, does he not? And if Odysseus can challenge age, so can we. Come in tomorrow and let's start planning a course of study toward your doctorate. Most of it will have to be independent study but we will look over the prospectus and see what courses could be useful to you.'
In June 1950 I was awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy in metaphysics, my dissertation being tided ‘A Comparison of the World Pictures of Aristocles, Arouet, and Dzhugashvili considered through interaction of epistemology, teleology, and eschatology.' The actual content was zero, as honest metaphysics must be, but I loaded it with Boolean algebra, which (if solved) proved that Dzhugashvili was a murdering scoundrel... as the kulaks of the Ukraine knew too well.
I gave a copy of my dissertation to Father McCaw and invited him to my convocation. He accepted, then glanced at the dissertation and smiled. ‘I think Plato would be pleased to be in the company of Voltaire... but each of them would shun the company of Stalin.'
Over the course of many years the only person to translate correctly at first glance all three of those names was Father MeCaw... except Dr Bannister, who thought up the joke.
The dissertation was not important. But the rides required that I submit enough pounds of scholarly manuscript to justify the degree. And for four years I had a wonderfully good time, both there and across the boulevard.
The same week I got my Ph.D. I registered at KU Medical School and at Kansas City School of Law - little conflict as most lectures at the Law School were at night, whereas the courses I took at the Medical School were during the day. I was not a candidate for MD but for a master's degree in biochemistry. I had to register for a couple of upper division courses, but was allowed to do so while being accepted as a candidate for MS (I think I would have been turned down had I not walked in with a still-damp doctorate). I did not really care whether or not I received the master's degree; I simply wanted to treat an excellent applied-science school as an intellectual smorgasbord. Father would have loved it.
I could have had that degree in one year; I stayed longer because there were still more courses I wanted to attend. In the meantime the KC School of Law was supposed to require four years... but I had been there before, having attended several of their courses while Brian was getting his law degree, 1934-38. The dean was willing to credit me with courses simply by examination as long as I paid full-fees for each course - it was a proprietary school; fees were a prime consideration.
I took the bar examinations in the spring of 1952 - and passed, to the surprise of my classmates and professors. It may have helped that my papers read: ‘M. J. Johnson' rather than ‘Maureen Johnson'. Once I was admitted to the bar there was no fuss about my law degree; the school boasted about the percentage of its students that made it all the way into the bar - a much tougher hurdle than the degree.
That is how I legitimately got four academic degrees in six years. But I honestly think that I learned the most at the tiny little Catholic college at which I was only a listener, never a candidate for a degree.
Especially from a Japanese-American Jesuit priest, Father Tezuka.
For the first time in my life had an opportunity to learn an oriental language and I jumped at the chance. This class was for prospective missionaries to replace those liquidated in the war; it had both priests and seminarians. I was welcome for just one reason, I think: Japanese language structure and idiom and Japanese culture make even greater differences between male and female than does American culture and American language. I was an instructional tool'.
In 194=, the summer we spent in Chicago, I took advantage of the opportunity to study semantics under Count Alfred Korzybski and Dr S. I. Hayakawa, as the Institute for General Semantics was dose to where we lived - across the Mall and east a couple of blocks at 1234 East 56th. One thing that stuck in my mind was the emphasis both scholars placed on the fact that a culture was reflected in its language, that indeed the two were so interwoven that another language of a different structure (a ‘metalanguage') was needed to discuss the matter adequately.
Now consider the dates. President Patton was elected in November 1948 and succeeded President Barkley in January 1949.
The Osaka Incident took place in December 1948, Between President Patton's election and his inauguration. So President Patton was faced with what amounted to open rebellion in the Far Eastern Possessions formerly known as the Japanese Empire. The secret society, The Divine Wind, seemed willing to exchange ten of their number for one of ours indefinitely.
In his inauguration address President Patton informed the Japanese and the world that this exchange was not acceptable. Starting at once, it was one American dead, one Shintoist shrine destroyed and defiled, with the price going up with each incident.
Chapter 18 - Bachelorhood
I am not an expert on how to role a conquered country, so I will refrain from criticising President Patton's policies concerning our Far Eastern Possessions. My dear friend and husband, Dr Jubal Harshaw, tells me (and the histories at Boondock confirm) that on his time line (code Neil Armstrong) the policies were utterly different - supportive rather than harsh to the conquered foe.
But both policies (both time lines) were disastrous for the United States.
In the years from 1952 to 1982 I never had any real occasion to use my study of Japanese language and writing. But twenty-four centuries later my knowledge of Japanese caused Jubal to ask me to accept an odd assignment, after I had shifted from rejuvenation apprentice to the Time Corps. The outcome of the long and bitter war between the United States and the Japanese Empire had been disastrous for both sides on all time lines supervised by the Circle of Ouroboros, both those in which the United States ‘won' and those in which the Japanese Empire ‘won' - such as time Tine seven (code Fairacres) in which the Emperor and the Reichsführer split the continent down the middle along the Mississippi River.
The Time Corps mathematicians, headed by Libby Long, and their bank of computer simulators, supervised by Mycroft Holmes (the computer who led the Lunar Revolution on time line three) attempted to determine whether or not a revised history could be created in which the Japanese-American war of 1941-45 never took place. If so, would that avoid the steady deterioration of planet Earth that had occurred after that war on all explored time lines?
To this end the Corps needed agents before 1941 in Japan and in the United States. Agents for the United States were no problem, as there were lavish records in Boondock of American language, history, and culture in the twentieth century Gregorian as well as residents of Tertius who had actually experienced that culture at or near the target dates: Lazarus Long, Maureen Johnson, Jubal Harshaw, Richard Campbell, Hazel Stone, Zeb Carter, Hilda Mae Burroughs, Deety Carter, Jake Burroughs, and others - most especially Anne, a Fair Witness. I know that she was sent. And probably others.