An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 8
I was at the library the other day when I saw Warren sitting at a table. I knew he might talk when he didn’t throw his bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper at me as I sat down across from him. Our conservation wasn’t long, but he did have a few interesting things to say.
RTNM: So, you have never been married, right? No kids. What’s up with that?
WAS: Um, I forgot.
RTNM: What?
WAS: Yeah, I forgot about that stuff. I was preoccupied with other things, and no one was around to remind me. So, yeah, I forgot to get married and have kids. Anything else you want to know?
RTNM: I am a little taken aback. What you just said is astonishing.
WAS: To you, maybe. There are lots of people in my situation. They have lots of work to deal with, important things to get done, and time slips away. It is as simple as that.
RTNM: I can’t believe it is as simple as that.
WAS: Sure it is. If no one else on earth cares if you are married, then time does its work. I am sure time does not care about much of anything.
RTNM: If I understand correctly, that means that you never met a woman who nudged you to get married.
WAS: False. You are proving to be as insightful as ever. In other words, you still don’t have a clue. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me because I have had enough of this topic?
RTNM: All right. I hear you are trying to cook up something in South Africa. Is this correct, or am I way off base again?
WAS: I don’t know where you heard that, but I am hoping to work on a project in The Republic of South Africa. I was working on getting my credentials verified when you rudely interrupted me.
At this point, Warren turned his laptop toward me, and I could see the SAQA logo. He wasn’t kidding; he was trying to get his academic credentials verified by the official South African evaluation authority, SAQA. I immediately assumed this was an archaeological project of some sort. I was a little apprehensive about asking him about it, but I went ahead and tried to see if he would engage further in the discussion.
RTNM: Interesting; what do you have going on in South Africa?
WAS: None of your business. If I felt you needed to know, I would have informed you long ago. Since I said nothing, you can be sure it does not concern you. You tend to only get involved in fictional accounts of this and that, right? An archaeological project would be ostensibly nonfiction, correct?
RTNM: Ah, so it is an archaeological project. That’s what I thought. I couldn’t think of any other reason for you to be studying all that South African material.
WAS: Sigh… Please stop. I am tired, and I slipped up. Forget you ever heard me say anything about South Africa. Trust me, if I need you to know anything about it, I’ll tell you.
RTNM: OK. I’ll sit on the edge of my seat, waiting for that information. If you can, why South Africa? The kind of archaeology you are interested in can be done anywhere in the world. Why choose a place so far away?
WAS: Not that you need to know, but I have long been fascinated with South Africa. Since I was a child, I have been interested in that part of the world.
RTNM: How does a hillbilly in Ohio become interested in South Africa?
WAS: First of all, be careful when using the term hillbilly. I can call anyone a hillbilly because my mom was a coal miner’s daughter. Both sides of my family come from the hills of West Virginia. My dad was the first person on either side of the family to attend high school. Even with my Harvard degrees, my hillbilly bona fides are beyond question. If you are not a hillbilly, some might take offense to you using the term. I can throw the term around; others can’t.
RTNM: Apologies. So, how did a Harvard-educated man like yourself become interested in South Africa?
WAS: I am not sure where the story begins, but I remember being very confused when I heard about apartheid. I couldn’t understand how such a system was allowed to exist. I knew it was wrong, and I couldn’t understand how everyone else didn’t see it the way I did. It was clearly a corrupt system that should never be allowed to be implemented. Of course, as I grew older and more educated, I realized that systematic racism was endemic to much of the world.
RTNM: Do you remember the first time you were made aware of apartheid?
WAS: I remember being an undergraduate at an unnamed university. I went to an administrative office to see a young woman I was interested in, and I ran into some other people I knew. A black student, I can not remember her name, was having a discussion with a group of people. She mentioned apartheid, and that was the first time I ever heard the word uttered in conversation. I knew what it meant, and all I could say to her was, “Apartheid is wrong.” She nodded in agreement, and that was the end of that. As the years went by and I read thousands more books, I realized that the history of human beings is largely written from the perspective of those who have the technology to beat the crap out of others. The people with the best ideas have not historically won; it has been those with the bigger guns.
RTNM: Yes. Concerning South Africa, how have you been approaching your studies?
WAS: Currently, I am a student of Nelson Mandela. That means that I am reading everything I can find about him. All the biographies, his autobiography, and anything else I can find.
RTNM: Why are you spending so much time on Mandela when you are preparing for an archaeological project? I can’t imagine he has anything to do with that.
WAS: I was taught at Harvard that if you are ever going to put a shovel in the ground, you must first read everything ever written about the area. That means if things are written in other languages, you better learn them. Of course, learning about Mandela is not required to do archaeology in South Africa; learning about Mandela is something everyone should do.
I will say I have long admired Mandela. He held himself with grace not typically found in the human experience. I could never forgive the people who had unfairly imprisoned me for 27 years. I would have looked for a machine gun when I got out, but Mandela did not. He was not Gandhi, that is for sure, but he was an unusual man. He exhibited traits we should all strive to emulate.
With a wave of his hand, I was gone. I didn’t look back, but I could hear him pounding on the keyboard of his laptop. Hope springs, right?
