Eric the Red: A Tribute to a Life, a Soul
My tribute to the person and artist, teacher and analyst, husband, father, son, uncle, (grandparent?) friend, critic, fan, church member, priest, home town hero, Eric Samuelsen
I found out by two electronic means that the old friend and professor Eric Samuelsen was not much more for our mortal journey we recognize as life. (Weekend of September 21st, 2019). But it was a good ride, I would say. Most would agree. Much too young to leave, yes, but remarkably crafted.
I read through Facebook, the social media giant of its age, our 21st century time linked together as a global community, that Eric was in very bad condition. This came from his brother Rob; it was a heartfelt tribute to Eric and his life and battles, touching and sweet. I made a comment on it (Friday evening?) that hopefully reciprocates the feelings of respect and love for this person, so unique and valiant.
Then I received an email from my father, age 82, the next day (yesterday), that Eric had passed. All this in the last 48 hours. All in one warm weekend of September. The end of the baseball season, one where Eric's beloved Giants were out of the race anyway. Who cares about that? I would bet that Eric did. But there are bigger things than baseball, of course.
My father and Eric's father, Roy, were friends since the late 1960s, in Bloomington, Indiana, where Eric and I hail from, and where we have a few things in common. That makes Eric and I similar in a few ways. So perhaps I might possess a little more insight into who he is, and how that identity has affected me.
That said, however, Eric displayed some unique qualities that I do not, and for this I hail him, and must recount and postulate about him.
To me, Eric was a modern day strident Viking. Viking? Does that capture it? No, not really... not a literal Viking of yore, the ravager and pillager. Eric was a gentle soul, a large man, you might say gentle giant, very kind. Not a marauder or raider, but rather the opposite, the antithesis of the old legends of those Scandinavian voyagers. This Viking description, albeit genetic, is merely a convenient or cliched analogy to a mythical epic warrior who intrepidly forages across the earth. Like the namesake who discovered North America, this Eric of Indiana and Utah discovered some new grand territories and pastures, significant to me and others. In the 20th century version, this allusion to an ancient Viking explorer of continents, he is the modern day warrior (see Rush, progressive rock group) of an artist, a battler, an advocate for ideas and faith and art. Wow, he inspires me thus.
Eric was this. And of Norwegian stock, for sure. Norwegian blood made much of his life and character, I would argue. I think you will agree.
I thank God and the gods for Norway. We need more of it.
We could use more of Eric's type, undoubtedly.
I could ramble on, and will, but perhaps numbering things will take us to the necessary points.
1. Eric Samuelsen, first son of Roy Samuelsen, son of Norway, was a member, a dedicated follower, thinker, and leader, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that is notable. He did things, he said things, he wrote things, he lived these things, to embody this faith, passion, and life long service. He has left a legacy, which can be documented, but other traces are more difficult to measure...
Eric grew up among his two younger brothers and parents and faith community in Bloomington, as mentioned. He was so many years ahead of me and them, Rob and Rolf. And thank goodness! He lead the way in many aspects for me and others. It had effects upon me, at least.
1a. Bloomington is a funny place. It is small and tranquil, in many respects, which leads to, many say, a better atmosphere for music and art of the like that his father was immersed in. Roy, Eric's eminent father, was able to establish himself as a formidable artist and performer in Bloomington, also a teacher and mentor to many. I, like so many others, and his sons, and on and on in the faith and secular community, looked up to this great operatic singer with the rich booming voice and presence. There was sublime majesty in his work and life. Roy passed away some short year or so ago, at a more appropriate age and with considerably less suffering than his son Eric. I think they are in Valhalla now, together, among the pantheon of the giants and saints of our mortal plain, redoubled in glory and power and majesty. What a sight they are! Eric is with his father, Thor is with Odin, as it were. And Mary is there, too.
Oh, yes! Bloomington. B-town. Let us step back from the heaven and re-alight upon the Hoosier grounds of the heartland. This town in Monroe County, southern Indiana, has these opera types, like Roy, and more musicians and performers and legends, many with instruments and ledgers and bands and tools and productions, and there are ever more academic professorial types, with their books and symposiums and lofty ideas and teachings and legacies, floating and roaming through the campus and the downtown and adjoining neighborhoods and subdivisions spread across the city and the country side. The rest of us, bumping around among the heady ones, ride our bikes, walk our dogs, drive our cars and bang our hammers to the beat of the rhythms of the rest of the world. We go to baseball practices, or swimming pools, we attend our classes, watch our television and movies, attend the occasional theatre production or opera or grand stage performance.
Eric saw all of it. Bloomington venues brought us the world. And he would engage those worlds and add to them.
Bloomington also has its share of rednecks and country sorts, very earthy and crude, but sweet and noble in their own way. We went to school with them, and to church and scouting activities. But we, the suburban youth, were townies, as Angelo Pizzo of the seminal basketball film and the creators of Breaking Away, Oscar winning picture, were gifted at showing the greater world in their movies of 1979 and 1986. We were not the cocky fraternity guys of Third Street or Jordan Avenue. Townies, or "cutters" (children of limestone stone cutters) a term that was invented by the writers of the aforementioned biking film, have their own status; we spoke with "normal" American accents, not the southern Indiana twang of Larry Bird and my other fellow dye in the wool Hoosiers. But we were definitely natives sons and daughters, loyal and animated for the games and times of the Bob Knight era, and proud of Indiana roots.
Eric needed to move on from Indiana for different reasons, but Bloomington was with him, repeatedly, as he did his graduate degree there later as a young married man, in order to be a full fledged professor, or as he lead the Maumee Scout camp in the middle of no where for a long hot Indiana summer, with his young bride Annette. He was a Boy Scout, yet a cerebral artist as well. He was a deejay on the local National Public Radio affiliate, WFIU; to my pride and satisfaction he was a favorite of some of my respected childhood classmates. He was a smart-artist-nerd and savant of sorts. He did brainy radio, and he was a vaunted San Francisco Giants fan! He played basketball, volleyball, but he wrote plays and songs, one of which I was able to perform my senior year in high school. He was constantly creating and engaging in the theatre arts. You can look it up. Some of it will not be recorded, but memorable among the rest of us.
He worked at Garcia's Pizza downtown; he would animatedly remark that youth of our church were different. He wanted to share this with others. He made me feel different, in a choice way. I don't know if my sisters had the same experience with him, perhaps not. I hope that they think of him as a good man of a curious disposition: a believer in things that are not always politically correct, but a person convicted of the goodness of God and his heritage, the heritage of a church movement that has its foibles. His father, Roy, a European emigre with two Mormon grandmothers back in northern Europe, was our bishop for a time in the 1980s. Eric had left town and returned in those times.
Take it from me, he was a presence. Maybe some did not appreciate it; perhaps I myself overlooked it a lot. I am glad that at least now, in this sad time of his eventual death, his impact has at least brought it to remembrance.
2. Teacher, preacher, writer, researcher, translator, interpreter, director. Eric taught Sunday school lessons, and seminary in the 1980s, that my older sisters were more privy to. I sat in on a couple, and what he shared stayed with me. He spoke of Hollywood and worse, the pernicious actors and factors that mixed in the milieus of good and noble art; influences that made the industries of entertainment a place of darkness and disturbing turmoil. Beware of the scion songs of the art world! But there was so much good to seek and withhold, that was very worthwhile. He, unlike my young family that listened to its music on a long play album, was no fan of Saturday's Warrior, a Latter-day Saint pop hit musical of the 1970s that exists in latent iterations till today. I learned of his encounter with this work and debut from later recountings of his freshman year in Provo. Other musicals have overtaken a lot of that public attention when it comes to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which are more of the mocking variety (see Parker and Stone, of vulgar/gross animation art, among others).
Eric was forever searching for the great stories. He would write and produce his own, he would direct and teach others. He inspired and directed them though out his years, more so in Provo, Utah, where he lived out his career as a professor and playwright, director and family man.
I took his theatre class my first semester at BYU in 1993. I took notes, physical and mental. I ended up earning a minor in theatre and film, based largely on his counsel; taking his advice to study those classes while aiming for the film arts, I could not sustain the interest or gumption enough to stay closely with the craft. The aspirations were there, to some degree off and on, but now at almost 49 years old, decades later I see myself back then as more of Steinbeck character, a bumbler and a wanderer of sorts. Think of the silly vagrant characters of Tortilla Flat, or Of Mice and Men ; I feel as though I have been an itinerant journeyman day-laborer in some of those stories, guys a bit lost who work to live but don't necessarily live to work, with jobs and careers that meander and sometimes lead to frustration and painful recognition of futility and fate.
But enough about me! Eric was a more focused laborer, for sure. He entrenched himself in a faculty and arts community where he could assert his impact. And he did. I cannot tell you all of it, only a few parts.
He wrote some plays, some of which I watched, observed. He did an amazing job with the "Seating of Senator Smoot". I was completely impressed by the amount of research and historical background that he did for the play. This was a landmark time in the United States history for the queer folks of Utah and the Inter-Mountain West, a post-polygamous lot who made their debut in the halls of Washtington D.C. in interesting fashion. Perhaps like Muslim Congresspersons today?
Interesting, us American minorities. All of us are minorties, to some degree or fashion.
Thanks for that, Eric. I saw "Accomodations", a play dealing with the elderly and how we interact with them.
And, I know there is much more that I have yet to see: I am positive Eric has worked out many fine productions in the years since.
Heddagabler. Translator. Eric was the modern day translator and voice of Henrik Ibsen, illustrious Norwegian playwright, for his skills and sensitivities to that language and culture.
Eric served his two year mission in his father's home country. What a blessing.
Eric proclaimed a love for the Spanish language and a supreme respect for Garcia Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude". His appreciation for my second tongue was well received by me, and helped feel reaffirmed in my pursuits as would-be artist and writer.
Spanish, Latin America, a world beyond the American context. Eric was fascinated by it. Did he ever make it Colombia, land of the mysterious fake-but-real Macondo? I don't know. He certainly went there in his literary imagination, as he said he would read this tale yearly for inspiration.
The artistic and tragic world: Eric was part of that and more, much more that I do not know of.
Family man, man of the community, his impact in the last 25 years are more than what I can tell you of. But I know it is solid, and vast.
I know that Eric suffered a lot; my dad was Roy's home teacher much of the twenty-first century and I would gather indirect reports of it, at times being able to visit in person on trips back to Indiana from my parts of East Coast. I learned of his wife and children across the country, through reports of Roy and Mary. Mary, incidentally, read the tribute I wrote for my own mother's passing in 2014.
Eric, now marked by 2019, so shortly after the passing of his own dear parents.
I also always admired the two younger brothers, fraternal survivors now, who I knew as a youth as temporary caretakers in my home, counselors, Scout leaders, church authorities, friends.
Perhaps, as I have said, this makes little difference to some, but it has had its influences on me.
Eric was the eldest and perhaps wisest of them all. And yes, the biggest. The biggest heart? The biggest voice? The grandest soul?
3. Singer.
As I mentioned in FaceBook, learning of Eric's soon demise, physically, I recalled a scene that will forever be imprinted upon me and will live beyond the years.
In our small chapel on Second Street in Bloomington, where mine and other families were raised in our brand of faith and fervor, (or sometimes lack thererof?), Roy would belt the hymns of our faith, and when Eric was present the volume was raised. I basked in the joy of attempting to literally raise my own voice in amens and hosannas.
Gird up your loins...
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we'll have this tale to tell--
All is well! All is well!
Those utterances, voice swells and communing as a congregation were our souls reaching up and out to God Himself. Prayers emitted, summoned, received, in power and grace.
No rock concert or other earthly incantation can touch me or leave the way that I would feel these emanations of our voices, our souls.
Thank you, Eric! Your booming voice, son of the opera tenor, was duly noted. It joined with your father's, with your family, with Suzette Gilchrist, with her husband and choir directo and organist, Kent, now passed these many years.. All of us, in God, from God, back to God.
Eric was a living embodiment to me of the power and grace and sublime beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and in that the Christ persona Himself.
Eric was a Christ-figure, a pro-Christ, in contrast to the anti-Christs famously featured in the Book of Mormon, to the modern Anti-Christs like Hitler, who subjected the great-grandparents of Eric in occupied Norway during the dark days of World War II, or anti-Christs that certainly have their sway in Hollywood and modern media.
Long live the influence and impact of Eric Samuelsen, mentor and friend, pioneer of explorer, inheritor of the Viking line of brave explorers, who dared to see new lands and bring with them the consequent visions of grandeur and Godliness.
Long live this Eric, Brigham Young University's Eric, Indiana and Bloomington's Eric, our home Bloomington Ward's Eric, Camp Maumee's and Boy Scout's Eric, church seminary's Eric, downtown Garcia Pizza's Eric, public radio WFIU's Eric, yea-- the Eric of the Norway Oslo Mission and the Eric of the stage and screen and play script.
The voice of Eric and all his family will be enjoined by thousands upon thousands today and forever, with God the Father, and the Mother, and Their Chosen Son:
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we'll make this chorus swell--
All is well! All is well!
Text: William Clayton, 1814-1879 Music: English folk song
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