Willaim F. Buckley and my friend Jim

This one has a bunch of stored memories in it and some of them may be incorrect. They will not change the story, but times and places may be confused over time.


Jim Striby, who I wrote about on March 16, 2009 (you can go back and read this one on line) in a post called “Jim Striby was my Friend”, was a colleague of mine at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). We were both in the Art Teacher Education Program, and he was the Department Chair, while I was the Director of Student Teaching.

We were often chosen to be on visiting teams to do assessment of similar programs or called in to visit campuses to review various aspects of someone’s programs.

Jim had taken a consultant job at (here’s the real problem, I am not sure where he was but I think I remember) the Art Education Department at the Penn State University (maybe). It will not matter as I said, since Jim is “gone”, there’s no way to recover the information.

In any case, he was on campus somewhere, and at the end of his day or two, he was to be delivered back to the airport by a cab or a limo, but in some conveyance, and he was dropped off at the Presidents reception area to wait for the ride. It was heading toward evening and he went in and sat down.

Visiting the campus the same day, unbeknownst to Jim was famous writer, columnist, TV personality and arch conservative William F. Buckley. Mr. Buckley was also left at the Presidents reception area to wait for his ride, the same one of course. When Jim arrived, Bill Buckley was seated and waiting.

Jim was taken aback, clearly in the presence of “American royalty”, and not necessarily in a good way. He immediately recognized that they would be together for a while. They introduced themselves, and they had the next 30 minutes together.

“What did you talk about?” I queried, given the situation. He told me they sat and told each other why they were there, Mr. Buckley having made a speech that day. After that Jim, who was an avid reader, knew Bill Buckley had written several mystery novels, as he had read a few, spent the next 30 minutes discussing mystery writing.

Oh what joy, to be with William F. Buckley for 30 minutes and not having to discuss politics!