My Life and Dr. Charlie Rose

When I was an undergraduate at Auburn University, one of the senior faculty was Dr. Charles Rose. I first heard of him when I was in an advanced prose writing class as a freshman. I evinced some interest in creative writing, and Ms. Layton suggested that I take Dr. Rose’s class; she said, “He writes, occasionally for publication.”

For what other reason would you write, I wondered.

I took Dr. Rose’s class in due course. He told me, honestly and fairly, I think, that he couldn’t tell if I had “any feel for the language.” I dropped the course, figuring that I wasn’t ready for it.

Later I took his courses in the short story and the European novel, during the latter of which I realized that I had a vocation as a teacher (see the post dated September 15, 2019). Charlie was, well, quirky. One day in class, he took out a cigarette (that’s how long ago this was), and lit the filter, which flared alarmingly. He glanced at it, smiled, and said, “Absent-minded professor.” Then he shoved his lank black hair off of his forehead.

He was always shoving his hair back or, when walking across campus, pointing an umbrella here and there and talking to himself. He made for quite a character, but I don’t think he meant it.

Charlie was a southerner, had studied at Vanderbilt and took his Ph.D. at Florida, and must have been as sharp as a panther’s tooth. But he downplayed it. Anyway, he’d get into a pattern where he only spoke about one out of every four sentences that he thought. One day, after a long silence, he said, “Some short stories are longer than others. Some are better,” nodding away as though asking us to accept this novel claim. Some days the bewilderment outdid the charm.

At some point, the noted novelist John Hawkes came to speak, including to our class. They were having a discussion, and Hawkes would say, in an ironic voice, “Can we all agree now that Charlie thinks….?” John Hawkes can fuck right off; Charlie wasn’t as quick on his feet and was low-hanging fruit, and Hawkes was just a bully. I think I fell in love with Charlie that day.

Then I graduated, went away and got an MFA, and then came back to Auburn as an instructor, and suddenly Charlie and I were colleagues. One day he said, “I don’t even like to go down to the office to check my mail because I know they’re all laughing at me.” Auburn’s tenured English faculty was jammed full of men in their 60’s who hadn’t done much for 30 years, and, to make up for it, they snickered at his eccentricity.

He did bring a little on himself. We formed a Sunday morning at 9 tennis foursome, Dan and Alex in comparative lit, Charlie, and I. One morning Charlie was really late. We three hit for a bit, then gathered at the net to gossip and wait for Charlie. Eventually he arrived, grinning: his look was both embarrassed and triumphant. “There was too much scotch,” he announced.

He played good tennis. We played singles, and once, to my surprise, he said, “You know, you don’t have to run me all over the court. You’re good enough to beat me just hitting at me.” But I think he was better; I was just younger, a cruel distinction for an athlete as talented as Charlie. He was a grand mixture of confusion and insight.

As I did with all professors, I thought of Charlie as a cardboard character with no personal life. It turns out that he had a wife. I hope this story isn’t apocryphal. Apparently he had never learned how to drive, and his wife taught him. As they were driving down some slow Auburn city street, his wife said, “Look out Charlie, this guy is turning right, he’s slowing down.” Charlie glanced at her, annoyed. Then in another block: “Charlie, slow DOWN, this guy is turning left.” Maybe she reported yet another turn. As the story goes, Charlie turned onto the shoulder, parked the car, got out, and walked around to her window: “How the hell do you know that these people are turning?”

He always seemed mild, but he could get his back up. One day I was at a party with Charlie and a lot of other people, including an English grad student, Kenny. Also there was a professor with a joint appointment in history and engineering; I truly can’t recall his name, so let’s call him Stewart. Years later, after I’d long left Auburn, I spotted him in a bookstore in Atlanta wearing a beret, a dress shirt, and Bermuda shorts; to say that he was affected would be kind. He and some other guy in engineering were collaborating on a book. He announced, “We’re nearly done. We just have to homogenize our prose.”

That set Charlie off, as much as anything ever did: “Homogenize your prose? HoMOgenize your PROSE?” Charlie’s chuckle made clear how ludicrous he found the concept. The history/engineering guy, who had an enormous ego, paid no attention as Charlie shook his head.

I was dropping Charlie and Kenny on the way home. Charlie kept muttering, “Homogenize their prose. Guess I told him.” Charlie hadn’t himself published anything in ages. Kenny said, “Yeah, Charlie, you told him, all right, he knows how you set him right.” The rest of the ride took place in silence.

Charlie died in 2011 at age 80. His obituary told us that he actually published 28 stories, including a book long after I left. In the army, he served as a Russian linguist. He fenced in college, and he played jazz piano in a band and at his nursing home. He wrote a memoir of his time volunteering at a hospice. He had four children and twelve grandchildren. All of this came as a complete surprise.

But it was his second career that really surprised me and is evidence of his intellectual curiosity. In the year before I left for law school, 1981, Charlie found a new profession: selling life insurance on the side. I’d never seen him so worked up. As a financial naif, I had no idea what he was talking about, but later I realized that it was whole life insurance.

As a lawyer for AIG ten years later, I had some involvement with the life insurance business, and I learned the story: in the late ‘70’s, when interest rates were high, insurance agents like Charlie would tell you this: you buy this whole life policy with a premium of say $1,000 a year. We will credit to that amount the interest earned on it. In those days, when Paul Volcker was trying to beat inflation, interest rates were quite high, well north of 10%. Eventually, the agents said, the interest would mount up so much that you wouldn’t have to pay any premium. Then, in the end, you could either die and collect the death benefit OR, OR, OR, cash it in and reap this enormous basket of cash in the account. The policies were even sold as “retirement plans.”

Unfortunately for the policy holders, Mr. Volcker did tame inflation, and interest rates came down. Eventually, some policy holders received notices that, oops, interest rates had gone so low and earnings on the policy had dropped so far that now they had to pay premium after all. Mom and Pop Farmer didn’t have the ready cash, and quite often the policies lapsed, and they lost everything.

This was a Bad Thing. People began suing, alleging fraud, misrepresentation, stupidity (which = negligence), you name it. People brought class actions, and the industry had to fall on its sword, and the judgments were suitably large. Insurance agents not named Charlie Rose were quite often indeed lying. Charlie, I’m sure, in his enthusiasm didn’t know any better.

The ultimate irony is that the biggest lawsuits were brought in a state known for its sympathy for plaintiffs against insurance companies: Alabama. I don’t think Charlie ever got sued, and good thing for the insurance companies. I can see him having his deposition taken and, grinning sheepishly and shoving his hair off of his forehead, saying “Absent-minded professor.”

Dr. Charles S. Rose