To celebrate Mary Wood’s life is to celebrate a life worth emulation: for her friendship, her wit, her gifts to the culture of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, her vision, her political savvy, and her présence.

At the beginning she was my student, then my friend, and far from the end she became my teacher: Her sense of balance and judgment always exceeded mine, but it was my pleasure (as it might have been for you) to try to keep pace. In her own difficult times I never saw her grimace — in fact, I doubt that any of us in the orbit of her life ever saw that expression, and it was only after Donald Trump became President that I saw it at all, and then it was usually followed by understated contempt and derision.

Long before either of us understood the terms of our mortality, we would swap final words by various authors, which we would repeat in edited forms by way of saying à bientôt (meaning “See you later”; Mary eschewed au revoir as goodbye, not what she had in mind).

Mary’s favorite quotation was Oscar Wilde’s quip as he lay dying in a Paris hotel; “Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.” Mine was W.B. Yeats in the south of France when he heard that his malady was arteriosclerosis in an antique frame. “My god it scans,” Yeats said. And died.

My habit over the years was to take Mary my copies of the New Yorker with something dog-eared I thought she might enjoy. To visit her a few days later was to visit a reader who had not only two or three books to recommend, but to have finished the New Yorkers should I want to pass them on. In her later years, she’d remark that she was at the mercy of an active brain being hauled around by a decrepit body. I said my problem was an active body on top of which was a disheveled mind.

Among her gifts to the college is the endowment of the room in which this event is being held: The Mary Wood Readers Room. Douglass Cater, the president when the room was dedicated, worried aloud what Betty Casey might think about having room named for Mary inside a house named by Betty. It was my task to ask Betty, who thought it was just fine. Which has me observe how much our literary culture at Washington College owes to women: Sophie Kerr, Betty Casey, Maureen Jacoby, and Mary Wood. Among them, they have given Washington College students many rooms of their own.

A few days before Mary died, I called to ask how she felt. “Medium,” she said. And we both laughed.

Mary, now in your spirit world, be careful about rooms with ugly wall paper, and I will take what care I can of my antique frame.. à bientôt.

Robert Day was founder and first director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House. Along with Meredith Davies Hadaway, Richard Harwood, and Mike Kaylor, he founded the Literary House Press. He is the author of twelve books, including “The ABCs of Enlightenment: A Memoir of Learning and Teaching” that features Washington College.

Casa Botin, Madrid, 2016 – We are four at a Holy Week dinner at Ernest Hemingway’s favorite Spanish restaurant and, over bread and wine, we have consecrated ourselves as saviors of the Republican Party. None of us are now, nor have ever been, Republicans; but our parents were in the days of a lot of Ike and a bit of Taft–as the writer among us put it. We believe in the two party system. Beyond the writer, one of us is a painter, another a psychologist, and the fourth a medical doctor.

The psychologist proposes a bolt of Electroconvulsive Therapy for the Republican Party and be done with it: Remember the scene in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” she says. Randle McMurphy is an amusing version of Donald Trump. Think of Hillary as Nurse Ratched. They deserve her.

We could, says the painter, gesso over the Republican’s recent past. Cover up the canvas of Billy Graham, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon’ s Southern Strategy; Reagan’s speech at Philadelphia, Mississippi; Lee Atwater bragging about the success of the racist code in “state’s rights”; Willy Horton; Fox News; Russ Limbaugh; Glenn Beck–and make for the Republicans a better painting of themselves. Or at least give them a blank canvas to see what they can do on their own. So long, see you never again: Karl Rove, George Bush, Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz et al. The painter is the only one among us who is also clairvoyant.

Over Casa Botin’s famous suckling pig and with more than a bottle of Rioja Alta, we talk about these ideas and wonder among ourselves if it is worth it to save the Republicans from themselves. Why not just let them slice and dice themselves into the garbage disposal of history: Think of the Whig Party. But then the doctor has an idea:

All disease is either self-limiting or fatal, he says. And even if it is potentially fatal, you can sometimes cure it by treating the symptoms. Rabies is a rare example. If the patient survives the treatment, the body is purged of the disease and it can recover. But the cure has to run its course.

Then is it true, I say, that in this case the Republican Party is the patient and Donald Trump is rabies? And if that is true, and if we can cure the Party of the disease by treating the symptoms so that it is purged of Donald Trump, it might recover to its former, non-religious, non-racist self after the fever has broken.

There is some talk about writers making metaphors in excess, but after we get a third bottle of Rioja Alta we toast the idea and start on making it work.

Station one: to convince all the Republicans from Brownback in Kansas to Kasich in Ohio, to William Kristol on television and everyone in between, to not only stop bashing Trump, but in a moment of televised unity on the Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show declare themselves in full and active support of Donald Trump: Pan to Trump smiling. Continue to “The Morning Joe”: Pan to Joe Scarborough smiling—not that it would be new. For 24/7 on the split and half split and full screens all over America with lines of text scudding across the bottom we see and hear the likes of Peggy Noonan opine thatTrump is tres tweet. And Anne Coulter says: Hair we are, at last, at last.

Station two: The Republican editorial writers and Talking Heads stop nattering on about the party of Lincoln and Reagan and Goldwater (a oxymoron in last two cases) and get with the program. No more speeches about how Trump doesn’t have the temperament to be President like nuke em Henry!- Nixon. No more pious lectures from New York Times writers about Trump, No, Never with quotations from the Bible to make the point. Or the resurrection of the Lincoln Battalion to ride to the non-communist rescue. Stop the mantra of Conservative Values (whatever they are). No more Third Party plots (Trump is his own Third Party). “Get over it,” as Justice Scalia sneered.

Station Three: The liberal press needs to deep-six its grin. No chortling about how the Republican Party is so worthless it could not even defeat a presidential candidate who was a Black Socialist Muslim born in Kenya. Like foxes with a mad dog on the loose: go to ground. Write columns and editorials about sunshine and rain, clouds parting, patches of blue sky and the benefits of a liberal arts education. Do not (DO NOT) go on talk shows either in person or by phone.

But, we wonder, what will the cure-in-progress look like? How will we know the fever of Rabid Trump is infecting the Republican Party, and when will we know the fever has broken?

There will be six signs, says the painter.

Like the red calf, says the writer. If she is the psychic among us I am the cynic. Meanwhile the Doctor is getting concerned that our systemic metaphor is making a mess of medical science. I don’t want the AMA to know about this, he says.

The first sign is that Jeb! drops out after spending x to y $$$$$ per vote. The second sign is that Trump says Japan and South Korea should have their own Atomic bombs; the third sign is that Ted Cruz chooses Carly Fiorina as his running mate; the fourth sign is that William Kristol goes on national television where he claims Trump must be stopped and is told by the program’s host that he needs to move on from “denial,” “anger”, “bargaining” and past “depression” straight to “acceptance”. The fifth sign is people burning their Republican Party Membership cards. The sixth sign is that Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House, observes that Donald Trump exemplified a “textbook definition of racism” and then Ryan endorsed Trump to be President of the United States.

Three of us shake our heads in disbelief.

There will also be an apparition, the painter continues.

Jung writes about signs, dreams, and apparitions, says the psychologist who still thinks a bolt of Electroconvulsive Therapy is the best bet. Just let the Republicans have that dead stare in their eyes like Jack Nicholson while Political Science Professors take their students on field trips to have a look-see at recent American History.

So, I ask, in the end, Hillary wins two elections in a row, the fever breaks and the Republican Party is cured and resurrected?

I’m glad I’m retired, says the Doctor.

What about the apparition? The psychologist asks. There is some excitement among the waiters near the front door not far from our table. A young woman will appear before us, the painter says. She will be wearing a black beret over her blond hair. It is as if she has been studying Spanish for a semester in Madrid and sometimes comes into Casa Botin to cheers of ‘Rubia!,’Rubia!’ ‘Blond! blond!’ We will make of her what we want her to be.

‘Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so,’ says the doctor, as into Casa Botin arrives a vision of youth, health and well-being.

Robert Day is the author of ten books, including novels, works of literary non-fiction,, collections of short stories, novellas, and poetry. His most recent book is Robert Day for President: An Embellished Campaign Autobiography

It was 1970, and more than half way through an early autumn night when I first met Mike Forney. Rebel, a Labrador retriever of mine, had been missing for two days and returned home in bad shape. Rebel was a male and probably in rut, Mike said later.

I was new in Chestertown, having just taken a teaching job “up to the college,” as my landlord Charlie Stokes at Fair Hope Farm put it. The yellow pages listed the Chestertown Animal Hospital, with an emergency number that turned out to be Mike’s home on Quaker Neck Road—not far from where I lived off Wilkins Lane. I had caught him just as he’d been awakened by another call: a barn near Still Pond had fallen on a horse; Mike said he’d stop by after looking at the horse.

All of you who knew him can see Mike now: He has driven his white vet truck to the Still Pond farm, getting out to greet the farmer and taking stock of the matter. Indeed, the barn has collapsed on the horse that is trapped under it. The farmer has a flashlight. Mike peers into the wreck, spots the horse, and then goes back to his truck for supplies. Making his way through the timbers and splinters of I-beams and broken trusses, he crawls up close. He is a man gentle with horses, lame or strong. Gentle with dogs in rut.

Watching Mike, as the farmer might have been doing that night, we see him go to the horse’s head. He lays his hand on its neck, talks to it and, as the farmer passes the light along the flanks and belly and haunches, sees what scrapes and wounds need tending. My guess is he gave the horse a shot to tranquilize it. The farmer has his tractor ready to clear away the rubble. Be careful, says Mike, backing out to help pull away the debris.

In the dark the two men wait for the tranquilizer to wear off. Finally, the horse lifts and shakes his head, then pulling itself together with Mike holding the halter, stands up, front legs first as they do. Mike uses a can of yellow spray antiseptic (that he would later use on Rebel) to treat the wounds, checking the condition of the legs and hoofs as well. He should be fine, says Mike. I’ve got to go on another call. I’ll stop back by.

Mike Forney was to me what he was to most of you who knew him only, with a few exceptions, maybe more so. Maybe not. He was learned (not only in veterinarian medicine, but in matters of music, literature, and general science). He was quick-witted, curious, had an affection for words, and told jokes and stories with glee. Along with Buddy Moffett (the three of us shared a blind in Morgnec Creek), we’d laugh our way through an afternoon’s shoot. Our jokes—even to the last years of Mike’s life—would now land us in a Political Correct Rehab Clinic. Yet he was neither a racist nor a chauvinist.

I remember his story of an African American couple who had returned late one summer night from Atlantic City to find Baby, their pet rabbit, dead. But maybe not. They drove to Mike’s home off Big Woods Road and, turning their headlights off and on, finally brought Mike to the window, asking what was the matter: I think Baby is dead, says the woman. But she still twitches, says the man.

Mike gets dressed and comes down to examine the rabbit. It is indeed dead, its twitching means that it has not been dead very long. Mike is sorry. Would you like me to dispose of her for you? He asks.   No, but thank you, says the man.   We want to bury her at the house, says the woman, taking Baby from Mike. But we don’t have a shovel, says the man to the woman. Mike lends them a shovel and off they go. We’ll bring the shovel to the office tomorrow, says the woman. No hurry, says Mike. What beautiful folks, Mike would say as a coda every time I’d hear him tell that story.

And so it was, and so Mike Forney was, for nearly fifty years of taking care of what he called “his people”—white or black or Hispanic, rich or poor, or somewhere in between. “His people” were any and all of us who had cats or dogs or horses or milk cows (or once I knew of a pet snake, and of many more than once, badly shot deer or geese or ducks brought in by non-hunters) that needed care. Because he understood his clients were human as well as the broken-legged 18-year old cat that my wife took to him to be put down, he treated both with respect. It was the kind of compassion that calls for emulation.

How we became friends (how any of us become friends) is part luck, part coincidence, part who we are, each of us, to the other. Thus in this combination, Mike and I became friends that first night with a tailgate examination of Rebel. I found a blanket and a flashlight. Mike got medical supplies, a stethoscope, bandage wraps, sutures. Rebel was bruised and battered, but no bones were broken. Mike put the dog under with a shot so he could work. Two gashes, one on the neck, the other on hip, needed cleaning, and then stitches (Mike could tie a surgeon’s knot with one hand.). I brought the flashlight to bear on the procedures.   An hour later, Mike was finished and I took Rebel into the house. He slept through dawn and then twenty-four hours more.

A few days later, Mike stopped to check on Rebel (he was doing fine) and to bring me a bag of fresh “calf fries” from working bull calves that morning. He had somehow learned I came from Kansas and so thought (as anyone naturally would) that a man from Kansas likes “calf fries.” I did indeed, saying that in my country they were called Prairie Oysters, and that further west in Colorado they were Mountain Oysters. In trade, Mike would, over the next few years, teach me the language of the Eastern Shore: “Neck,” “cove,” “bite,” “line” (not “rope),” “… get up and down with you.” He was William Warner before Beautiful Swimmers. “Bob, you need to know the lexicon of the Shore,” he told me: “Bug-eye,” “sook,” “doublers,” “trout lining,” “she-crab,” “bateaux.”

My lessons of Eastern Shore life and language were “peripatetic” (yes, Mike knew the word), but instead of me walking behind Aristotle, I rode in his truck while he drove from one farm to another. In those days, he didn’t much like the office so he took every outdoor call that came. If I was free (especially at night), I could ride along. On one trip I met a dairyman with a 19th-century chandelier in his milking parlor to give it… a touch of class, he said. He milked his twenty cows by hand; I had in Kansas milked one and when I bragged on it, the dairyman asked if I might like to do the afternoon milking: The dog will bring them up, he said. It was the dog that needed care; a cow had kicked it bad. Mike said it would live.

On other trips I got to know a treasured crab-picking woman in Rock Hall (sick parrot), who taught me the Crisfield-crab-ladies method. Also in Rock Hall, I was introduced to Paddles Orr; and later to Termite Coleman who, as folklore would have it, could eat a bushel of crabs at one sitting. Mike pointed out a hut at the end of a pier where I could get up and down with a man who sold soft shell crabs: Ask for the hotel size, Mike advised.

In this way we drove off and on, for years.   Fixing dogs, tending to lame horses, putting cats under, and once pulling a calf (I had done that in Kansas and was of decent help with the calf puller, tying it to a gate post in proper style.)

One night as we were driving Mike asked what English Professors do. He wasn’t being coy, just curious. I said I taught my students the lexicon of literature, using examples: Poetry, novels, short stories, drama. These were genres, and they had their general definitions. More precise definitions came as my students advanced: English sonnets, Italian sonnets. Then into the interiors of these forms: dramatic irony, first person narration (and the rules), point of view, the language of prosody. Monologue as opposed to dramatic monologue. Villanelles as a form of poetry.

What’s the difference between an elegy and a eulogy? Mike asked. We had just put down a horse for a man who, knowing I was an English teacher, wanted something to say as it was dying. Go gentle into that good night, I said. Go gentle into that good night, the man said. Thank you.

An elegy is a poem that honors the memory of the dead, I said. A eulogy honors that memory in prose.

Bob Day