Jerome P. Barta (1922-2004)

October 15, 2004

When I arrived at Reed in the fall of 1984, I fully expected to meet professors who would challenge me to grow academically and philosophically – an expectation that certainly came true.  But I never dreamed that when I graduated four years later, the professor I would feel most grateful for, the one to whom I would feel most indebted, would be the director of P. E., Jerry Barta. 

It certainly was not Jerry’s way with a referee’s whistle that endeared him to me.  Nor, I must confess, did he win my everlasting gratitude with all those “stories” he regaled everyone with.  What really stood out, and what I will forever remember when I think of Jerry, was his remarkable combination of exemplary tact and unstinting generosity.  Long before I took up residence in the Bartas’ spare bedroom for my final year at Reed, Jerry had taken me out to more meals than I could keep track of, not only picking up the check every single time, but ignoring the topic of payment altogether, sparing me the embarrassment of even pretending that I could have covered the bill.  When a group of students occupied Eliot Hall at the beginning of one spring semester, preventing me from cashing the check I was going to use to pay for course books, I went rather sheepishly to Jerry’s office, but before I could even finish explaining my request, Jerry raised a hand to stop me, reached into his wallet, and pulled out a $50 bill, even offering more if I needed it.  Jerry never once made me feel guilty or beholden about that gift, never made any subtle references to it – an instinctive gesture of compassion that I could never adequately thank him for. 

It would have been easy to miss these qualities in Jerry, because he wore them so lightly, so instinctively.  At Reed, where the unofficial motto is “Be an individual like everyone else,” Jerry quietly stood out precisely because he didn’t feel a need to make waves, to advertise his special uniqueness, to guard any territory jealously.  It wasn’t so much that Jerry was “normal,” but rather that he was, in a very real and rare way, truly happy, someone for whom the day-to-day business of life was a bona fide joy.  We Reedies tend to be suspicious of happiness, sure that a person can be happy only if he’s lying to himself, only if he’s ignoring some harsh little truth that we are all too willing to hit him over the head with.  But to know Jerry, to appreciate his sense of honor, his instinctive compassion, and his sheer zest for life, was to realize that happiness and honesty not only are not enemies, but can in fact be the best of friends.  In his innate sunniness and in his ability to take genuine pleasure in simple human company, Jerry had a bit of Shakespeare’s Falstaff in him, a sensibility attuned to and expressing primal harmonies:

A goodly portly man, i’ faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by ‘r lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks.  If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily, I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff.

                                                            (I Henry IV II.iv.416-25)

Virtue indeed, subtle and compelling virtue, in Reed’s answer to Falstaff.  Thank you, Jerry Barta, for giving me so many opportunities to share in and learn from it.