Gratitude: Tucker Childs

My friend Tucker Childs died this week. 

Tucker interviewed me for my first real academic job. I applied as 'practice', a year before I planned to finish my PhD. I was shocked to be offered the position. I can think of nothing that affected my life as absolutely as the decision to move to South Africa, sight unseen, to be a linguist. And I can't think how I would have survived it without Tucker. I had a wonderful Head of Department in Tony Traill, who was a bit of a father figure, but Tucker was the person who could tell me what's what. There's a lot you need to know when you move to a new university and a new educational system, and Tucker knew what I, as a product of the US system, would need to know. There's a lot more that you need to be taught when you're a 20-something American with a newly minted passport living in a very different society than the only one you've ever known. I needed someone to tell me when I was being an ugly American. In a way, I needed for it to be an American to tell me that. I can remember those situations and those conversations vividly—both because they embarrass me and because I am so so so grateful that I had someone around who could point out something so unflattering in such a helpful way.

Tucker left ZA well before I did, but we kept up a correspondence that saw me through that loneliest four years. He was one of those friends who left a big cultural dent. I read James Joyce (among other writers) so that I could pick up on Tucker's allusions. He introduced me to the joy of a twist of lemon with one's Johnny Walker. I also got his car—an old Nissan that scared me, but which afforded me a little more safety as a woman alone in what was then the rape, murder and carjacking [but let's not mention the carjacking] capital of the world. He instructed me in the etiquette of overpaying the janitor who would offer to wash it.

When he lived in Toronto and later when he was in the northwest, we'd from time to time get to hang out again, usually at LSA meetings. Later, when I lived in England, we managed a couple of visits when he was on his way to or from west Africa. Both the meet-ups and the correspondence got more occasional over the years, as these things do, but never any less fun. There was never small talk, only big talk.

I'd recently been thinking that it would be nice to cross paths again. That maybe after the world got back to normal, we could pay him a visit in Portland (I've never been there; I'd still like to go). This is not to be. I don't think we corresponded in 2020. Our last email flurry happened when The Prodigal Tongue was having a lot of press. He jokingly congratulating himself for congratulating me in spite of the fact that I'd not congratulated him on something else. (He hadn't realized that I had—but on Facebook, which he had quit.) He asked me "When did you stop being shy?" and "Do you think hanging out with Brits sharpened your wit?" and told me about an English friend from long ago whom he held responsible for sharpening his.

Tucker definitely sharpened my wit. He was my first real friend who was (already) a grown-up.  

I've had a look for a photo, and this is the only one. I'm terrible at taking photos of people. A kind of shyness. The picture includes the four members of the Department of Linguistics at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1993–94, of whom I am now the only survivor. 

I am thankful for Tucker's life and his part in mine. My thoughts are with those who mourn him.