Author: Tess Langan
Most of us know the library as more than the stacks, computers, quiet floor and occasional errant Cheetos wrappers that constitute it. There are scribbles etched into desks as urgent and existential as those a high-security prisoner might write. Kisses and farts wedge between the stacks, silent as unopened books.
Anyone who has heard of the tunnels or climbed up into the dusty stacks knows that the library houses not only secrets, but also secret people.
The third floor is frequented by four Russian-speaking, suitcase-rolling studiers, one of who sprays and wipes down her cubicle before working. There are often two inveterate young video-gaming visitors on the first floor: the son and daughter of two Occidental employees.
Then there is Omar Paxson.
A ninety year-old Emeritus Professor of Theatre, Paxson hooks his cane over the side of his cubicle when he works. He wears a checkered jumpsuit, a felt train conductor’s hat, a belt embellished with roses and a cavernous smile that does not know the limits of his age.
Paxson first came to Occidental at the conclusion of his duty in World War II. Having completed his first two years of college before the war at Fullerton Junior College, he started as a junior at Occidental in 1946.
Paxson arrived with more than two years of college under his belt. He had fought in the Battle of the Bulge, crossed the Rhine River into Germany, got into British Parliament to hear Winston Churchill speak and saw Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson perform Shakespeare’s Henry IV during a 10-day leave in London in 1945.
Paxson worked in the cafeteria during his two years at Occidental and after he graduated, he attended Northwestern University to get his masters in theatre.
He was subsequently offered a job as the theatre professor at another university, but sad circumstances—the suicide of the then Occidental theatre professor—brought him back to the school he loves so well.
When he arrived as a professor in 1950, the theatre department was called the department of speech and a course in the basic training of speech was a general requirement. Students would memorize and recite speeches in front of the class while Paxson would mark them based on their articulation, enunciation and projection.
Paxson’s future wife was in one of his classes.
“In those days you could not fraternize with students, but we managed,” he said cryptically. “The way she tells it: The second she graduated we got married.”
A playwright and director, on top of being a professor, Paxson has directed more than 100 plays in Thorne Hall. Many of his original plays were produced at Occidental, five of which won the Regional American College Theatre Festival. One went all the way to Washington where it was produced at the Kennedy Center. He led seven Occidental theatre tours for alumni to Edinborough and London, five to New York City, three to the Santa Fe opera and three to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. Then, each summer in the Greek Bowl, he used to help put on five plays in repertoire.
More than 60 years of marriage, 35 years of teaching and 28 years of retirement later, Paxson is still on campus reading his kindle in the third floor quiet section and meeting former theatre professor Alan Freeman for lunch in the Cooler on Wednesdays.
Paxson is an anachronism, a walking time capsule who contains within him a history that Millenniums would otherwise only see in black and white.
His carrel is full of typewriters and thick sepia photos of stony-faced relatives he is working to organize into albums. He pulls pictures from his drawer dating back to 1912 and talks about a world where students would jam in the library doing research in the stacks—with books.
Nowadays, he said knowingly, “There is no reason to be in the library and look at all the books.”
2013 seems to be both captivating and confounding for Paxson.
On one hand, in many ways, he thinks the college has never been more impressive.
”Instead of an old fogey library, it’s an Academic Commons!” he said triumphantly. “Even during the exam periods, they have big bowls of munchies and food! It’s become what a library should be.”
But there is more to modernity than the marvel of munchies. Paxson used to enjoy greeting students on the quad.
“Nowadays half of the students are on cellphones! They don’t even hear you say hello!”
While remaining in the same house two blocks from campus, the pace of modernity and change must make life seem like a tilt-a-whirl ride. Even if you remain in place, the world still shifts under foot.
“Modern days just baffle me. What would it be like if Abraham Lincoln appeared today? Wouldn’t that be marvelous?” Paxson said. “Imagine when you’re 40—Good night!”
While he may be baffled, Paxson has not backed down from life. Most of the time he comes to the library to work on the plays he is writing. This past year he wrote an anti-war play, a pro-gun control play and a play about marriage (“Let’s All be Married”). His latest play is called “Terror Knows no Time.”
“It is an exploration of terrorism through the eyes of four graduate students,” he said.
Currently, however, Paxson is reading and vetting plays for the Edgerton Foundation. He tries to get through two plays per day.
In spite of vision cloudy with cataracts, Paxson persists in reading, writing—and dreaming.
“When you get older you can’t hear, you can’t see, but you can dream. I’m a good dreamer.”
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
