[The following is excerpted/adapted from the author’s The Old Dog Growls blog post from 11-4-2019]
When I reflect on my years at Michigan State University, the English faculty member who first comes to mind is Richard Benvenuto, a newly minted PhD from Ohio State who became an Assistant Professor at MSU in 1968. His specialty was nineteenth century literature, and he was passionately enthusiastic about it. I, on the other hand, considered myself a twentieth century man, and found the nineteenth century works to be mind-boggling long, difficult to comprehend, and, well, dull. My first class with Dr. Benvenuto would have been in 1969, probably fall term of my junior year. Our classes by that point were relatively small, many under twenty students, which gave more opportunity for personal attention from and interaction with the professor. Benvenuto’s appearance clearly reflected his Italian heritage. Relatively short, dark wavy brown hair, a pronounced nose and a moustache that could have been lifted from any of the old photographs of my own Italian forebears I had seen as a child. He spoke with a decidedly nasal timbre that still rings in my ears fifty years after I last heard it. He was warm and friendly with his students, befitting of someone who had not so long ago been an undergraduate student himself. I remember the discussions of Dickens, Hardy, and Eliot were lively, although I cannot point to any particular conversations of note. He displayed a genuine enthusiasm for the subjects—Bleak House, Jude the Obscure, Middlemarch. More importantly, he took the time to get to know each of us, rather than simply lecturing. Interaction was important to him.
I don’t recall how many classes I took with Dr. Benvenuto, but along the way I got to know him better, more so than any other professor during my college years. One of my graduation requirements was to write what was characterized as a Senior Honors Essay. At the end of my junior year, I asked him if he would be my faculty advisor, and he readily agreed. I had decided to use a “multi-media” approach to a “history of rock ’n roll” as literature. Bear with me, this was 1969-70: there was preciously little serious writing on the subject at the time. Dr. Benvenuto showed genuine interest, thought it was an interesting topic and approach, and readily agreed to take me on. He allowed that he was himself a jazz aficionado and had played acoustic bass in groups from time to time. We spent hours talking about the subject of music, and along the way our conversations morphed into “what are you going to do after you graduate?” When I told him I planned to go to law school, he was fascinated. We spent even more hours discussing the law and what it might entail, often over beers at the local East Lansing Lum’s restaurant. He came at the law from the perspective of a long-time follower of Perry Mason, and admittedly that was my only point of reference as well. We talked about truth and justice, lofty social goals, and all the other ideals one could attach to the profession at that time in history. I am certain it never occurred to either of us that I would end up being a corporate lawyer in a large civil law firm, for neither of us really knew enough about the law profession to conjure that image.
Dr. Benvenuto became a friend as well as a mentor, and at some point he invited me to have dinner with him and his wife at their home in Haslett, an area East of campus where many faculty lived. It turned out to be an auspicious evening. Richard and Joyce Benvenuto proved to be gracious hosts, and their home had a comforting and comfortable ambience. When dinner was served, I smiled, look down, and froze. Before me lay a dish even my Italian heritage had spared me those many years…. pasta with olive oil, garlic and…. ANCHOVIES. Looking like huge versions of those tiny paramecia we had studied under microscopes in high school, they were flat, elongated, and covered with little hairs. “Looks great!” I exclaimed, while frantically cataloguing my next move. With polite resignation, I dug in. I was able to get past the texture, but the saltiness was overwhelming. Still, I persevered and even managed to carry on a witty conversation whilst consuming my most feared feast of all time. In the end, I survived and I don’t think I missed a beat. Wonderful and caring conversationalists, the Benvenutos kept me smiling and laughing all evening. Mrs. Benvenuto pointed out that their stove was a relic, and indeed it was. Looking every bit the prewar leftover, a somewhat dulled white porcelain monster bearing signs of years of active use, it was an impressive presence in their kitchen. Joyce pointed out that it was her very own version of a self-cleaning over: “You see, I just let the grease accumulate over time until, at some point, it catches fire! When the fire is out, it is clean and ready to be used all over again.” She also regaled us with stories of their cats, and their endearing habit of bringing in dead mice as presents. For the first time in my college career, I felt treated as an adult equal, a peer rather than merely another student passing through yet one more class.
When the movie Woodstock, the three-screen extravaganza, was released, my friends and I immediately went to see it. Afterward, I strongly encouraged Dr. Benvenuto to go, so that he could get a better sense of what was going on in rock music (the topic of that Senior Essay). Not long after, he told me “We went to see the movie!”. I asked him what he thought after seeing it. His answer: “I didn’t get a lot of what was going on, but I do know that there was this one guy who was intent on ‘Going Home’”. [Alvin Lee, Ten Years After, “I’m Going Home” (with Blue Suede Shoes), an epic performance. If you do not recall it, you may see from YouTube the sardonic humor in his comment.]
Several years ago, when I started to explore the concept of doing some regular writing, it occurred to me that I should look up Dr. Benvenuto, with the hope that he would still be at or around MSU. It would be a great time to reconnect, and to let him know what it had really meant to be a lawyer, but more importantly to thank him for his contribution to my education and to my growth as a person. To my dismay, I found that he had passed away suddenly in 1989, at the age of just 49. I also found out that he had become a treasured member of the MSU academic community, and that there is an annual high school poetry prize named in his honor, through the MSU Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, Center for Poetry. The website for the competition has this apt description of the man I knew so many years ago:
"Richard Ercole Benvenuto taught in the English Department at Michigan State University for 20 years. From his office in Morrill Hall he conducted grad student seminars and advised students on the best paths for their lives. He loved teaching and was a published scholar of Victorian Literature. At the time of his death, Indiana University dedicated an issue of Victorian Studies in his honor. He published two biographies, one on Emily Bronte and the other on Amy Lowell. His next book would have been on Oscar Wilde. As a young grad student he was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which he used to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at Hollins College, Virginia. At Hollins College, he worked under William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies. Richard played music and wrote poetry throughout his life. He was married for 27 years to his wife, Joyce and has three children and four grandchildren."
[2024 Footnote: I learned that Joyce Benvenuto has in recent years gone on to write several books of poetry, which seems so very fitting. Very recently, I made contact with her, and found her to be just as charming as ever, completing the circle that had been left open so many years ago.]