Pamela Jean Owens off-line

What am I doing here anyway?

I had not intended my blog to be about dead people.

I had expected to record my intellectual wanderings, my political brainstorms, and maybe a bit of old-fashioned story telling, for posterity, or whatever passes for posterity these days.

I hoped, probably vainly, that my blog might interest some people and get popular. I’ve always wanted to be one of the popular crowd, even though I know they are usually pretty shallow and even rather boring sometimes.

But I couldn’t be part of that crowd anyway, because I was just never willing to permanently move to the other side of the tracks. I get uncomfortable there and come back as fast as I can. Here in Omaha, the other side of the tracks for me is west of about 102nd street, or even west of 90th or so. I’m even a bit uneasy west of 82nd and Dodge. And I think it looks like Mars out Radial Highway past 90th. Or at least what I imagine Mars looking like once we colonize it. I know for sure west of 680 is the other side of the tracks, the popular side. I practically have an anxiety attack when I have to drive that far west. People drive like maniacs over there. And there are just way too many scarey white people west of 680 for me.

No, I finally have gotten comfortable that I belong on my side of the tracks and the popular crowd belongs on their side. For me, east of Saddle Creek and north of Cuming is my territory. South of Cuming is ok too, as long as it isn’t past the city limits line. I should have realized long ago that whenever I moved to the other side of the tracks, they would just move the tracks.

To be part of the popular crowd, a person has to recognize the unwritten rules and follow them. I never even figured out what they were. For a long time I didn’t know they existed. I don’t read between the lines well at all. I’m a what-you-see-is-what-you-get person, and I automatically assume the rest of the world is the same way too.

It isn’t.

That’s why I laughed so hard when I read the tenure denial comments by the UNO Religion faculty members, or by Dale Stover (I’m not sure who wrote them but Stover chaired the committee). They said they realized “Dr. Owens is very popular in some circles, but tenure is not about popularity.” What I knew, and what everyone outside that group and the administrators who have accepted their view knows, is that tenure in my college is about nothing but popularity.

The problem is simply being popular in the right place. Apparently I am popular with all the wrong people — my students, lots of students who only know me by reputation or in campus and community activities, the urban native American community, people at my church and in my neighborhood, and at least 9 out of 10, if not more, of all the faculty, staff, and administrators at UNO who know me. I’m just despised by the five people who think they had the final vote on my tenure application, and by their ex officio leader. They think that is enough; they are absolutely convinced that they somehow know more than everyone else put together. I guess the verdict isn’t in on that yet.

And so this blog has turned out so far to be about dead people. I hope I’m not soon to be one of them. I’m going to put this post up by itself, and then write about another dead person. Let me know, anyone, if you read this. I’d like to know who you are, or at least that you exist.

4:44 pm cdt