CAMWS 2013

The 109th annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Iowa City, April 17-20, was probably the most surreal professional meeting I've ever attended, although that was not the fault of the organizers. Let me begin by mentioning that we were flying home from Rome on Monday, April 15 and were waiting in the Atlanta airport for our flight to Tucson when I happened to walk past a monitor tuned to CNN on my way to the restroom. This was just after 3:00 p.m., so we learned of the Boston bombings while they were still breaking news and watched the initial reports as we ate an early dinner in an airport restaurant. After getting home, I had just one day to unpack, pack another suitcase (borrowed from Ron, as my cheap Italian suitcase fell apart after enduring the final flight--thank goodness for the cintura!) and put my presentation and materials in order before leaving for the conference on Wednesday. I had the weather report on while I picked out my meeting outfits, and that was how I found out that a huge snowstorm was bearing down on Denver, where I had to change planes for Cedar Rapids. So I scrapped my raincoat in favor of my Lands End winter jacket--good thing, as it was raining and cold in Iowa too. But I get ahead of myself. As the plane touched down in Denver, the snow started falling--lightly at first, but by the time I arrived at the next gate, thicker and faster. There was a whole gaggle of classicists at that gate, including the governing structure of CAMWS--Peter Knox, the current President, and Monica Cyrino, the President-Elect. It soon became clear that our plane was not going to leave on schedule. In fact, planes were being cancelled right and left, including the next flight to Cedar Rapids after ours. We kept being told, however, that first the plane was still on its way in and second that a crew had to be found--upshot was that two hours later we were the ONLY flight scheduled to leave from that terminal. Maybe the airline felt it could not get away with stranding the key members of the CAMWS executive committee. Be that as it may, we did finally get off the ground after waiting more than a half hour for de-icing. Miracle on top of that, the limo service was informed of the delay and picked us up without a problem. Arrived in Iowa City just in time for dinner and the welcoming reception to follow, so I didn't miss anything. Others were not so lucky. All through the meeting we kept hearing of people stuck in Chicago and unable to preside or deliver their papers. I myself had to stand in for a presider who could not make it and also read a presentation for an absent presenter. The paper was not e-mailed to me until a half hour before the session began, and I had to spend the break between sessions printing it out. The author crammed in all the references she had originally included on the handout, so the presentation ran a good twenty minutes--luckily, it was the last one in the session, but the audience was squirming by the time I finished reading it. Meanwhile back in Boston the hunt for the bombers was going on, and on Thursday night the climactic series of events began to unfold. I came back to my hotel room after the WCC reception, turned on the TV before going back down to dinner, and was mesmerized. Kept the television on and finally ordered room service. Friday, while Boston was closed down, conference attendees were following the news on their smartphones--as soon as a session ended, the electronic devices came on. Including mine. After lunch with Lily Panoussi, the sessions on the Iowa campus and the reception afterward, and even just before the banquet, I was checking whenever I could find Wi-Fi. I will say that I managed to forget about everything during the banquet itself, which was lively and stimulating, with Jim McKeown delighting the audience as master of ceremonies and Peter Knox giving an utterly deadpan riff on the APA's decision to change its name because "philological" no longer made sense to the general public. Since the banquet was now included for the first time in the registration fee, many more younger scholars were present: the energy in the room was palpable. When I finally decided to call it a night, I learned that the surviving suspect had been captured and the Boston nightmare was over. My own paper, delivered the next day, went well enough, and Jim May told me at the Consulares Luncheon that he agreed with it, which is good to hear if you're doing Cicero. In the afternoon I took advantage of a sunny day--the only one during my stay there--to walk around and see a bit of Iowa City. A local crafts store tempted me because they had some very unusual and clever pieces, but I really did not want to pack anything else home after bringing so much stuff back from Rome. In the evening I decided once again, after more television, to stay in and rest up for the flight back to Tucson, since the combination of conference and real-life drama had been unusually draining. It's not very often that reality becomes gripping enough to intrude on the closed world of an academic meeting, and I hope it doesn't happen again.