Lunches with Louis

Publishing a book requires, as they say in the writing world, the killing off some of your darlings. In the name of shorter attention spans, so shorter books, I have to let this one go. Still, Louis Kampf, a mensch amongst mensches, will make a few appearances in my book, Chomsky and Me.  Louis brought progressive movements to life.  The Cambridge hospice where he decided to live out his life closed its doors to visitors the morning of my planned visit in late April of 2020, weeks before he passed away. I had been lucky enough to share lunch with him every two months during his last few years.

His time at MIT began in 1959, and mine in 1979. Louis audited Noam’s Philosophy of Mind course in the late 1960s, after which they became friends. In the 1970s they ran two undergrad courses independent of MIT’s conservative Political Science Department: “Intellectuals and Social Change,” and “Contemporary Issues in Politics and Ideology.” Louis was one of the founders, a decade later, of MIT’s Women’s Studies Program, later renamed The Program in Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS). The Louis Kampf Writing Prize was offered each year to “reward high-quality undergraduate writing in women’s and gender studies.” Since its inception, MIT, like many universities, had discriminated against hiring female faculty and admitting female students. Louis and Professor Jean Jackson, his life partner, worked to level MIT’s male/female playing field. I had been supporting struggling female students since my first MIT job, not fully realizing how and why this support was so necessary.

Our lunch topics ran the gamut from Alan Turing to artificial intelligence, from funny to serious to absurd. We sang Piaf’s songs, country westerns, musicals, popular commercial jingles. When I mentioned to Louis seeing Lily Tomlin at a 1994 Kresge event, he recalled the full details of the affair. As it turned out, “An Evening with Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner” was part of a Tenth Anniversary celebration of MIT’s Women’s Studies Program. So, yes, Louis was there.

Louis called Morris daily. At one lunch, he shared his concern about Morris’s accelerating mental decline. To lighten up, we shared stories of the perils of driving with Morris in the car. The first time I drove him to his assisted living unit was nerve-wracking. At the last minute he would yell, jarringly, “Go left NOW! You missed it! OK, take the next one—Here!! WAIT! You almost ran that woman over!” 

Louis looked down at Catalyst’s “Specials” menu. I figured he was feeling sad about Morris. Then he looked up at me with an expression warning of an approaching proclamation. “Avoid any item on a menu that says ‘Special,’ or ‘Award Winning.’ It’s probably something they’re trying to get rid of.” His serious expression punched up his delivery. He taught me to love sorbet, our frequent dessert. As he scraped his bowl, he said, each time, “We should have split one.”

My unofficial Yiddish lessons extended to our lunches. “Look, your dessert is so fancy-schmancy. ‘Fancy,’ of course, is an American word.” He had a funny, dry humor.

Me: “Schmancy is made-up, right? Schm, or Shm?”  Louis twirled his hands in the air. “Nobody commits to the spelling of a Yiddish word. It seems there are many.” 

He paused, “So what are your plans when you retire in August? My advice, not that you asked, is to have some things set up.”

 

“I’ll be writing, of course. I’ll see some old friends, maybe get back to yoga.”

“I took Tai Chi classes after retirement. I stopped going because I got into the correct posture but didn’t know how I’d gotten there,” he confessed. 

When the topic turned to languages, I told him I had studied French for four years and Spanish for two, but was most proficient in three others: talking backwards, shorthand, and sign language.

“Sign language, huh? I know one sign, the sign for applause.” He demonstrated. I applauded him right back. His was the kind of “Special” you could trust, just as I trusted sharing with him my sadness as my last day with Noam approached.