Being Eric D. Lehman
Me be Eric D. Lehman?
I wish!
Eric D. Lehman has written a million books, many of which are commonly available at your local CVS (if you live in Connecticut, which you probably do if you are reading this).
Have you ever been waiting for your prescriptions in a CVS and idly rotated the display carousel of books about Connecticut? Many of them were written by Eric D. Lehman. Wineries of Connecticut, a whole book about the town of Hamden, Famous people from Connecticut. All written by Eric D. Lehman.
What a career! And he’s not even very old!
He’s also written novels, memoirs, literary criticism, biographies, magazine articles. The man is the dictionary definition of prolific.
I can only dream of having that kind of motivation and discipline.
Regretfully, I am not Eric D. Lehman, nor was meant to be.
Except for on this one magic occasion.
Except for today.
Today, I was Eric D. Lehman.
What was it, some kind of Being John Malkovich thing with a magic portal?
Well, kind of. See, Eric had graciously agreed to give a pair of talks about one of the many things he is the world’s foremost expert in (alongside Tom Thumb and the video game version of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (no really, for real!)), namely, the history of the University of Bridgeport.
UB is celebrating its 100th birthday next year, and we all agreed months ago that it would be a great idea to share the rich and eventful history of UB with the students who were now a part of that history. We scheduled two talks to make sure that the powerful story of UB’s glorious century of existence would be able to reach the maximum number of ears.
But, in addition to Eric’s success as a writer, he is also an in-demand public speaker, media personality, and teacher, and a scheduling conflict prevented him from being able to give the second talk.
We needed a clone of Eric, a doppelganger, a copycat aspirant, to give the second talk.
As one of the foremost Eric D. Lehman fans in the world, I felt the call to step into those formidable loafers, and, with fear and trembling, I proposed a plan whereby I would incarnate the absent writer/historian/teacher/bon vivant, at least to the extent that my feeble abilities permitted.
I mean, how hard can it be? I watch Eric give the talk on Wednesday, and then I just give the same talk on Thursday.
Sounds easy, right?
But then I saw Eric’s actual talk.
Eric blithely summarized the colonial history of southern Connecticut, talked about PT Barnum as if he and the fabled impresario were drinking buddies, easily rattled off the dates and histories of the historic buildings on the UB campus, identified the street addresses of where buildings had been that are not there anymore, summarized the text and subtext of private memos and public statements that former UB presidents had made about their decisions to bring controversial civil rights leaders to campus, evinced the glory of the 1970s UB football program, and eloquently encapsulated the many ways that UB has invented and reinvented itself, framing it as an inspirational model for all human reality, which is always in the process of making and re-making itself out of its own imagination.
And then there was a question-and-answer period, where Eric knew all of the answers. What was I going to do about that?
Well, I can’t say that I exactly nailed it with the professionalism and poise that Eric so effortlessly exudes. My public speaking style gravitates toward the neurotic and discursive. My hands tend to have minds of their own, and those minds are themselves divided between impulses toward wringing and flailing, with nary a thought to relaxed casual hanging-down-at-the-sides or whatever normal people do with their hands when they publicly speak. Sometimes in the middle of saying something, I find myself distracted by the word-sounds and fail to attend with due acuity to the meaning and purpose of the words.
So I was intimidated by Eric’s professionalism, but also inspired by it, as I suspect many of the students in attendance were.
If Eric can achieve such a suave and graceful degree of aplomb, then maybe I could too.
So I embraced the fearful thrill of becoming Eric.
I really had no choice. I had to do it. For the students. For UB. And maybe even for myself.
I stepped onto the stage, looked up at the purple-tinted glow of Eric’s PowerPoint slides projected on the ten-foot-tall screen behind me, and took the plunge.
How did it go? How did I do?
When UB turns 200, archivists will likely be perusing the available information about how UB celebrated its centennial moment, and they may be more qualified than we to answer these questions.
But for a moment, however fleeting, however falteringly, I occupied that space of Eric’s having-been-there.
I opened my mouth and talked.
See my version of Eric’s presentation here: History of the University of Bridgeport: A Necessary Voices lecture
Necessary Voices is a long-running lecture series at the University of Bridgeport. The series is coordinated by UB's English Department, and its mission is to provide UB students with opportunities to hear from thought-leaders and scholars representing a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and perspectives.
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