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Remembrance of Things Present

Visiting the AIDS Memorial Quilt display at Roane State Community College last week (October 28-19, 1999) in Harriman was a mixed pleasure that's hard to describe. Having worked on last year's Knoxville display, it was satisfying to see many of the 40 local panels dedicated then already incorporated into the larger fabric of the Quilt. In many ways it was like visiting old friends, some reassurance that these folks have achieved a new life beyond their former existence, and an exotic after-life at that, traveling potentially all over the world.

But it was also a sobering reminder of great loss. I volunteered to read names, as I always do, and while I was waiting for my turn, I sat and made a list of names I wanted to add to my reading. Some had panels still waiting in San Francisco to be added to the Quilt; others have had no panels made to commemorate them yet. All were people I had known here in Knoxville. I had no idea until I made that list just how many people I could name.

Public interest in AIDS has dried up in recent years, and even the reminders that "it's not over yet" have grown old and ineffective it seems. Just a few weeks ago, for example, the Ryan White Foundation closed its doors due to lack of resources and public apathy. But the newer drugs and treatments have not only caused people to assume the medical threat is waning, they have also overshadowed the social issues that continue to plague our supposedly enlightened age here at the turn of the millennium.

I had a nice visit with Dr. Jeannie Gillian, founder and director of the Hope Center in Knoxville, sitting in the Roane State gym watching the display below us. At one point she jumped up and said, "Oh, have you met Mark yet?" With that, she reached into a cardboard box and pulled out a plastic bag full of ashes. She cradled them in her lap as if they were a small child, and told me the story of how he came to be where he is today.

When Mark (not his real name) died from AIDS complications recently, there was no one who would claim him. The out-of-town family refused to deal with the situation, and he had no one else. When the funeral director came to take his body from the hospital, Dr. Gillian was the only one who would sign for him. She said the director broke into tears as he wheeled Mark away.

At present, Mark still doesn't have a final resting place, and his family is still offering no help. After the cremation, Dr. Gillian has kept his ashes near her, even taking him to various lectures she's given lately. It's been especially effective in illustrating the damage done through lack of tolerance and understanding about AIDS. When the students in her classroom lectures get bored and restless, all she has to do is introduce Mark and his story, and from then on she has everyone's full attention.

Through Mark's lecture appearances, some progress has been made: Central Baptist Church of Bearden, the Smith Foundation, and Carson-Newman's Division of Student Affairs have chipped in on the cost of the cremation. There is also an idea in the works for Roane State perhaps to plant a memorial tree using his ashes, with a plaque to commemorate him. When the bonds of kinship fall through, we are all left to the kindness of strangers.

This abandonment is not new, though you mostly read about it in stories from the 1980s. As Randy Shilts, author of And the Band Played On, once said, AIDS has brought out the best as well as the worst in people. Only last year there was another young man with AIDS abandoned in death right here in Knoxville. No, the AIDS epidemic is not over. And neither are the ignorance and intolerance, hallmarks which still mark AIDS as an epic human catastrophe.

Ed White
Knoxville

Hail to the Losers

Three cheers to always reputable Jack Neely. His "Bad Times" (Vol. 9, No. 44) cast an illuminating glow on Knoxville's inglorious and infamous. May I now add what should surely be a major embarrassment to those who oversee the University of Tennessee's athletic department? A recent NCAA survey on graduation rates among football players put the Vols at 11 percent and the Irish at 87 percent. Notwithstanding Tennessee's recent 38-14 victory over Notre Dame, which university's players are the real winners?

Steve Friedlander
Knoxville