My Friend PK: A Final Good-Bye

When PK Smith left Eastern Michigan University, deciding to retire and return to Ohio after being diagnosed with cancer, I was more than a little shaken up. I was shocked and heartbroken at the diagnosis, and suddenly without my closest friend just around the corner or down the hall. Not having her there to just pop my head in her office or plop down in her big white rocking chair and laugh or gripe about something or other left me brooding alone at my desk, to say nothing of missing Sunday afternoon dinners with our spouses and our dogs. We spent a lot of time together, working on this journal, but also just hanging out and laughing. When she left EMU, a huge hole opened in my personal life, our Social Foundations program, and our department, but even then (knowing that her remaining time was short) I could not have predicted how much her eventual death would crush me. I am grateful for this opportunity to share how much she meant to me, and how much she contributed to a whole range of people's lives.

PK Smith was about as good hearted as they come—kind, generous, and funny as hell. And, well, let's just say she was also one of the most stubborn people I've ever met! I say that latter bit with a great deal of love and respect because, although it drove me crazy sometimes, it's also what gave her the kind of determination and strength needed to fight the good fight when it was most needed, especially as a teacher and administrator. A first generation college graduate, PK was not initially planning to become a teacher, but a series of unplanned events landed her in a position as a language arts teacher at Manchester Junior High School in 1979. She later taught English at Middletown High School and at Garfield Alternative Education Center also in Middletown, Ohio. She was particularly proud of this later position. She loved literature, poetry, and Shakespeare, so what better place to spend her working life? There, more importantly, she found her calling to work with marginalized students. She worked for 30 years as a high school teacher and administrator in southwest Ohio. She was tough, she was kind, she loved her students, and she knew how to go the extra mile to stand up for what they needed.

Even after she was at Eastern Michigan University, she was constantly advocating for students with special needs by making sure their parents knew how to use educational policy and school law to ensure they were properly served. I heard so many stories from her about the difficult situations she fought through for students in the schools where she worked. And then, after her passing, those former students and families wrote beautiful powerful memories about all she gave them. They and her former colleagues and friends filled the church at her service. It was powerful for me, who knew her primarily as an academic, to witness such an outpouring. She was greatly respected and loved for her work in and for public schools.

It's not surprising, then, that when she came to EMU, her teaching, scholarship and service continued along these lines. Students and her colleagues at EMU also loved her; she was one of the worker bees in our department. She was hired into a tenure track position in the Curriculum and Instruction program area and I remember clearly hearing my colleagues in that program good naturedly gloating to us in Social Foundations that they had hired a Giroux student (PK studied with Henry Giroux at Miami University of Ohio, receiving her PhD in 1989)! In the first 2 years at EMU, she taught at least nine different courses for that program area, designing some of the first hybrid online courses, and creating two new graduate courses for them. She was also immediately engaged in all sorts of scholarly and service activities, including Project Backpack, which she organized with other faculty members to serve children who were refugees from Hurricane Katrina. Faculty members raised money and stuffed backpacks with all sorts of school supplies and then took a bus to Natchez, Mississippi to deliver them face-to-face, as well as working to clean up a school space for them. This is just the sort of thing that made her tick. She was at her best when she was working to help kids who needed it most.

PK moved into Social Foundations, her true academic home, in 2007, much to our delight, and immediately filled some significant teaching needs. She taught an undergrad course, Schools in a Diverse and Democratic Society, as well as several graduate courses, including Philosophy of Education, Gender and Education, and History of Education and Literacy. And I know how happy it made her to come into her own among us. It made us happy, too! We needed her teaching skills, her tenacity, and her sense of humor as we worked to strengthen our program in light of challenges to the foundations nationwide. Like I said, the woman could be tough when situations called for it, and, lord, she made us laugh! Oh boy, I miss her so much.

PK and I talked social theory a lot, often over a glass of wine and a good meal or a beer at the Corner Brewery. She was steeped in critical theory and especially loved the Frankfurt School, and, as we got to know each other, began to work within an EcoJustice framework, using our book to teach (Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2015). For both of us, theory was always grounded in the lives of real people and places, and for her often focused on LGBT youth and the challenges they face in schools and more generally. In fact, much of her scholarship, as well as her community activism, was oriented by this particular commitment (see Smith 2006, 2009, 2011). She wrote a great piece on high school proms and LGBT youth for a book edited by Dennis Carlson (Smith, 2011), and presented several years in a row at the Shepard Symposium for Social Justice in Laramie, Wyoming. She and her wife Jen were also active supporters of Ozone House, an emergency shelter and counseling organization for homeless and runaway youth and their families in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, MI.

PK also loved films, using that interest as a primary teaching tool and focus for other scholarly work. Especially fond of Clint Eastwood, she wrote a piece called “Move ‘em to the end of the drive” (2007) analyzing the themes in his films from the 1950s forward as a sort of analogical backdrop for a study of the history of schools. She had what some might see as a quirky analytic style within a strong interest in cultural studies, putting things together in ways that most of us might not initially see as related. Looking back, I see now how quintessentially PK this style was. She found a lot of diverse aspects of life interesting!

So, for example, following the Eastwood essay she wrote a piece called “Cattle drives, bus rides, penal systems, and public schools” (2008), again using each piece to situate public schooling in the early 2000s within the history of dominant ideologies, politics, and practices. Another project included a collaborative study called “Baptism by fire: Where is Shakespeare in the Bible?” with her good friend Dianne Smith (University of Missouri, Kansas City) and her colleague Loyce Caruthers (Smith, Smith, & Caruthers, 2007). That work analyzed the Bible Literacy Project that had been adopted in nearly 30 states by that time for its influences on public education.

In 2009, I asked PK to come onboard as the coeditor of Educational Studies, when I received a grant to create the Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition. I needed help and she stepped up. It meant a steep learning curve as she learned to review submissions, assign appropriate reviewers, edit accepted manuscripts, and put together two issues a year, including an Editor's Corner essay for each. Not an easy task, but I must say, she was a great partner. I could not have continued in that position as Editor in Chief without her help. And, working closely together deepened our friendship, even through some challenging situations.

It's really impossible to summarize all that she did professionally while at EMU or before. She was a great colleague, period. But more than that, for me, PK was my friend. She was a good neighbor, loved all sorts of people and they loved her. She ran marathons, and kept right on even while her knees gave out. She enjoyed and collected all sorts of art and was a talented photographer in her own right. She loved dogs and horses, and she was a huge fan of the Kentucky Derby and Woodford Bourbon. She worshipped her dad, and was an ardent supporter of the Texas Longhorns and University of Michigan Wolverines. She was a devout Catholic. And, one of the funniest, most endearing memories I have of her is when she dressed up in a footed pink bunny costume (ears and all) and went to a Krampus party with her Red Ryder bb-gun as Ralphie from A Christmas Story.

Well ok, that's not the funniest. The funniest is when my husband Gary and I were out walking our dogs during a first snow one December day. We had gotten about an inch of fluffy light snow and we were coming along the street, enjoying the day when we noticed PK with her wool plaid earflap hat pulled snuggly down on her head, all bundled up, pushing a roaring snow-blower down her driveway. We stopped and said, “Hey PK! What's up?” She said, “I've got to clear this driveway!” Seriously, I cannot get that scene out of my head, and it remains quintessential PK. It would have been much faster to use a push broom, but she was just too excited to try out the new machine. Later we laughed long and hard with her as she told us that she had totally screwed up the thing when she ran over a snow-covered rubber mat by mistake. Jen was not amused. I suppose she still isn’t, but PK's plaid earflap cap is now iconic for all of us. Oh, I miss her so much.

To put it mildly, life in Ypsilanti, or at EMU is just not the same without PK and Jen. Gary and I have been lonely without them there. I say them because as everyone who knew them understands, Jen and PK were absolutely everything to each other for 24 years. In the fall of 2013, they drove to Jamestown, NY and got married, an event we all celebrated whether present or not.

Visiting the two of them at their Hamilton, OH, home has been like a personal retreat for me. We’d spend most of the day lazing around in our PJs drinking coffee, watching movies, eating junk food, and talking. The last time I saw PK, in fact, was last June when I spent a couple days just hanging with them. PK had had a second surgery and I knew then that I might not see her again. I was right. I have been in Finland all fall, and in September word came to me here from Jen that they had had a disappointing oncology report. They now knew that she was in her last phase. And, as was so typical of PK, she responded with amazing courage and frankness, saying that she was relieved, and that the news was liberating. And within weeks, she was gone. I fell apart. Being alone in Finland and knowing that I would not be able to run to Ohio and spend one more time lounging in our PJs, talking politics, and eating Skyline Chili Dogs just about killed me.

I write this to you all now, knowing that I’m probably crossing some kind of line between a memorial to a colleague and a personal diary of joy and grief. But, PK was more than a colleague. I loved her with all my heart, and my memories of who she was (who she’ll always be) are so much more than our work together, a list of her scholarly achievements, or her contributions to AESA. I suspect those in our organization who knew her well know exactly what I mean. I am grateful for our time together; she touched my life and inspired me in ways I could never have imagined alone. And so I guess it's time:

Bye PK. Can I have the fart machine?