Ten years later, on May 6, 2008, Dave discovered the ISAD online conference which renewed our correspondence and started an on-going friendship. His emails were consistently demonstrated a positive outlook and a fun-loving person. Excerpts from that letter included:
I'm no longer active in any stuttering self help/mutual aid organization, though I receive the German monthly publication "Der Kieselstein" (The Pebble), the organ of the German consolidated self-help groups (Bundesvereinigung Stotterer Selbsthilfe e.V). My German is pretty shaky, but I try to stagger through it as well as I can. . . . As for my own stuttering, I am constantly amazed at how much my total 'stuttering problem' has decreased. I still have very minor, fleeting instances of stuttering now and then, but there is absolutely no anxiety, no conscious expectation of difficulty, no avoidance simply because I don't feel there is anything I need to avoid.
I kept a diary from my last year in high school (1939) to my first year in grad school at the U. of Iowa (1947). It was quite detailed, and of course included comments on my experiences as a stutterer and my emotional reactions and self-analysis. Several years ago I dug out those diaries, re-read them, and copied out every single reference I had made about my stuttering. I was surprised at the result---I ended up with forty single-spaced typed pages. What I said in those pages remains a good measure of how I felt about my stuttering--the anxiety, abject fear, self-loathing, desperation, frustration, anger. (ed. note - excerpts from his diary from 1940-1947 is now online).
Apart from my stuttering, I was a pretty normal guy, I enjoyed life, had fun, liked girls (unless I had to call one on the phone), had hobbies, did pretty well in school (unless I had to speak in class)...and so on. But stuttering always loomed in the background, ready to strike. I seldom said anything that wasn't colored, shaped, somehow influenced by the anticipation or experience of stuttering. When I became a college/university professor, I still stuttered, but over the years I gained more self-confidence and control. In my teaching and clinical work, my stuttering never caused any perceivable problem, and I always enjoyed my work.
For the past several years, my stuttering has ceased being any problem at all. I use the telephone every day, arranging transportation (neither of us drives any more), calling about medical appointments, ordering catalog items. . . . . social calls, and so on. The phone used to be a great problem in my life, now it's nothing.
I'm highly aware of my lack of negative emotion and my fluency, and it's wonderful. I revel in it, When I think about how I used to be, I am chagrined and a bit sad. I feel sorry for that poor jerk who wasted so much time and energy being victimized by his stuttering and hating himself as he struggled against his personal demons. It makes me angry thinking about all that waste.
I have no feeling of 'giant in chains.' My stuttering did not keep me from being or doing many, many things except as I let it. I've been reasonably successful in life, and I've learned what my assets and limitations are. I think if I had never stuttered, I would have turned out to be pretty much what I am, except that I would have had an easier and perhaps happier time getting there.
Well, I didn't mean to ramble on this much, but perhaps I'm just having a bit of that old stutterer's complaint, verbal diarrhea.
Email dated 7/3/08
Email dated August 26, 2008
I wrote the paper "Some Thoughts on Stuttering Therapy" in 1991 to put in our NCOS Journal (a grandiose term for 'Newsletter'). NCOS meant National Council on Stuttering. Being editor meant that I practically wrote the newsletter. The article came out in the Spring 1991 issue.
To round out this information for you, I should quote a subsequent letter I got from Bill Perkins, dated April 15, 1991:
You understand that if you say "no," I'll be forced to say what I would have said anyway, which will appear to be a paraphrase of what you've said. I'd much rather give credit where credit's due.
Cordially,
Bill
He became a very active participant, as part of The Prof is In, contributing a paper, and reading and responding to every paper written by others for each conference he participated in. On October 5, 2008 he wrote:
Dave copied me on a note he wrote to Oliver Bloodstein about the ISAD online conference paper he had written Some Thoughts on Stuttering Therapy and Bloodstein's response on October 12, 2008
-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: Oliver Bloodstein
Subject: Re: ISAD conference update
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008
Everything you said in your article deserves to be said and said again. One of you comments that particularly struck me was that stuttering therapy often has a delayed effect. I found that time and again in the years that I was working with students who stuttered. A student who I thought had accomplished nothing would call me up years later to thank me for all the help I had given him.
Oliver
Dave did not like computers. He much preferred his Royal typewriter.
Email dated 7/12/08
Several times during the conference I would receive good-natured requests such as
Dave agreed to share interesting historical information with me
I attended the 1966 International Seminar in Stuttering and Behavior Therapy in Monterey, CA, and in my pack-ratty way I've kept a lot of stuff on it, including a list of all participants (I think there were 47), abstracts of all papers, a group photo of participants, a copy of the 4-day program, and miscellaneous items. Also, I taped the entire proceeding on small audio cassettes, with permission of the conference staff and the federal Vocational Rehabilitation Administration which was footing the bill for the whole clambake (those were the happy days when there was money for this sort of thing). I had to promise not to copy or sell the tapes. I still have them, mixed in with a gazillion other tapes of stuff on stuttering, mostly speakers at our Nat. Council on Stuttering that I shepherded here at NIU and our home from 1982 through 1989.
Anyway, I've toyed with the idea of writing an article on that meeting, listing the participants and summarizing the proceedings, etc. It was held at the Highlands Inn in Monterey, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, so the surroundings were not exactly drab.
I've also toyed (I do considerable toying) with the notion of doing an article summarizing our eight years of hosting the NCOS. I got some good speakers, like Joe Sheehan, Oliver Bloodstein, Peter Ramig, Ted Peters, etc. The typical procedure would be to have a wine and cheese party at our home on Friday evening, then a full day of presentations and discussion at NIU (which was only three blocks from our house) followed by a banquet at a downtown restaurant, then on Sunday morning there was perhaps a meeting or two , or a discussion group, and the whole thing would end around noon on Sunday. We had a lot of fun and enjoyment, and happy memories.
DJ and I will never forget our first convention in the fall of 1982. We had the 'banquet' at our home, and DJ made chicken cacciatore for forty people. We had several chickens cut up in a huge pot, and had difficulty lifting it off the stove. It was served buffet style, and people could choose spaghetti or rice. We had glorious fun, but after that first time, we had the banquet in a restaurant!!
Well, enough for now. When I actually get something written, I'll send it to you, and you may consider it for the Stuttering Home Page.
We're keeping a bleary and bloodshot eye on Hurricane Ike. If he blows us away, I'll try to wave to you as we sail past.
In another email he shared some of his personal history:
We didn't have to contend with the language problem that you faced. I know the Cyrillic alphabet and I have a smattering of Russian, but it would be a serious problem without translators. In the Philippines, English is a second language, or rather a lingua franca, because without English a great many Filipinos would have trouble communicating among themselves since they have eight major`languages and 87 dialects. The late Pres. Marcos came from Ilocos Province and spoke Ilocano (plus English) and his wife Imelda (she of the 3000 pairs of shoes) came from Leyte Province and spoke Waray-Waray (plus English) so they couldn't talk to each other unless they spoke English. Command of English varies varies greatly, depending on level of education and other factors, which leads to some frustrating and/or hilarious incidents when Americans talk with Filipinos. Many Filipinois have Spanish-sounding names, but almost no Filipinos know any Spanish. They just use the corrupted Spanish words that have been integrated into Philippine languages. in Tagalog (Manila area), "How are you?" ("Kumusta kayo") is modified Spanish "Como esta usted?". The helter-skelter mixture of English and Tagalog is often called Engalog or Taglish.
I got interested in Philippine culture, language and history, and published a few articles on these subjects. All in all, it was a great experience, and I'm still interested in Philippine events.
Dave's last correspondence with me was on Christmas Day, 2009. His note included the following: