Footnotes on a Friendship, February 2005

Sometime in February of 1985 I took my first public transportation in Chicago. For a native of the little village of Mahnomen, Minnesota, it was a hellish day. I knew the train I boarded was supposed to take me within walking distance of the Chicago Circle campus, but it could have left me in Skokie, or Greenland for that matter, and I would not have been the wiser. I had been warned—repeatedly—not to talk to anyone. This talking to, smiling at, acknowledging people had already gotten me into several uncomfortable spots. The thrill of my city sojourn at the Newberry Library had begun to wear off. The all-night traffic beneath my Chestnut Street apartment, my inability to keep "wheels" handy because of the astronomical parking fees, the anonymity of all the faces, and my hunger for open spaces all left me feeling tense, stranded, homesick.

But the gnawing in my stomach on this particular day came mostly from nervousness. I was this little imposter nobody, presuming the role of an academic. I had taken the audacious and irretrievable step of announcing that I was going to write my dissertation on the work of Gerald Vizenor. Now here I was on my way to meet the woman who was the Vizenor expert, the scholar who had read all his work, had compiled a long, detailed bibliography, and had written an analysis of everything from his haiku to his trickster fiction. I don't remember what reassuring chant I must have repeated under my breath to keep myself moving toward her office that day. Maybe it was rent stipend, rent stipend, rent stipend.

I do remember that any intelligent conversation I had planned dissolved the minute her door opened. There she was, Professor A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, at least a neck and head taller than me and dressed like, well so dressed. Maybe she wore some richly colored scarf or a lush fabric. I don't remember, except it all said something sophisticated. Meanwhile, I stood there in my dripping black snow boots, praying I wouldn't begin to just weep with the hopelessness of it all.

Flash forward to June of 1997. Today I am taking a short cruise on the Thames, visiting the street markets and famous art galleries of Paris. My companion, a tall, dark-haired woman buys a basket of ripe cherries, so large and sweet I am still looking for their equal. We spend a wonderful relaxed day, the conversation interspersed with laughter and stories of our literary and academic friends, our writing projects, our teaching. Would you be surprised to learn it is the same woman I met on that fateful day in 1985?

Perhaps, you think, I was attacked on my return trip that afternoon and am now pleasantly delusional from the head injury. But wait, if you eavesdrop just a little, you will understand what has taken place. Today she is talking to me about presses and my working with the board for the American Indian Lives series at Nebraska. For years she has offered me precise and practical tidbits of advice, introduced me to a long list of the "who's who" of native studies, and presented me with a myriad of opportunities. As a mentor, this woman is what the French might call formidable.

I don't claim that LaVonne Ruoff single-handedly transformed little Pygmalion me or any of the many others who have happily been gathered under her wing. But she certainly sparked the process. She helped establish much of the SAIL and MLA infrastructure that is part of today's native literary studies. She has published, compiled, edited, sponsored, organized, coerced, presented, defended, and she has mentored tirelessly over the years. But all this might not have had the fruitful outcome it has if she did not also tease, story, indulge, host, shop, travel, advise, argue, comfort, and connect so humanly and humorously with us her grateful friends and colleagues.

As indebted as I am to her scholarly work, I leave it to someone else to list her academic accomplishments and honors. Instead I...