The Fredösphere

The public radio station at the University of Michigan is WUOM.  It's been in the news lately, not in a good way:  Donovan Reynolds, the station manager, revealed evidence of suspicious business practices.  He has subsequently resigned, not in an admission of guilt, but to "take responsibility" for what happened on his watch. 

(And what is the deal with Ann Arbor's non-profits?  Just a few years ago the public library was rocked when the money guy was caught in a half-baked attempt at book-cooking.)

Those of you with disturbingly loyal reading histories with The Fredösphere will recall a guest posting from the early days written by my friend Alan.  I referred to him as "Wobegon Boy," after the Garrison Keillor novel about a public radio station manager under pressure to dump a classical music format in favor of politically correct talk shows.  You can read Alan's story of working at WUOM here.

At the time, I promised more from Alan, but nothing the the intervening months has materialized.  Now I'm prepared to claim that promise will not go unfulfilled, since the news report has prompted Alan to write at least one more post.  (You will finish it this time, won't you, Alan?) 

In my tardiness and defensiveness, I remind myself of the Traveller in Walter de la Mere's poem, The Listeners:

'Is anybody there?' said the Traveller,
    Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
    Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
    Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door a second time;
    'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
    No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
    Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
    That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
    To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
    That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
    By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
    Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
    'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote the door, even
    Louder, and lifted his head: -
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
    That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
    Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
    From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
    And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
    When the plunging hoofs were gone.