His name is Joe, and he has worked at a family-owned supermarket in our city -- a near-in suburb of Detroit -- for at least the 27 years we have shopped there.
Mostly we have encountered him in the produce, dairy and frozen food sections. Also in our local library at occasional used book sales.
One can inquire of him about the state of the rutabagas or the availability of a particular brand of yogurt. Also he will be glad to talk with you about philosophy or literature as well.
Yes, I said "philosophy or literature." He and I have had our own little post-graduate seminar going for years now.
On a recent trip to the market, I encountered Joe in the dairy section where we paused in the day's occupations to debate the controversial works of Martin Heidegger, in particular his Sein und Zeit, though our conversation was carried on in English. He followed me to the cashier's queue, where the subject of our exchange switched from philosophy to poetry.
Another shopper was standing nearby. I could tell that she was altogether curious about the earnest back-and-forth between this aging male shopper and the man in a store uniform. She edged closer -- close enough to hear Joe saying:
You, alone, alone, O imaginary song,
Are unable to say an existence is wrong,
And pour out your forgiveness like a wine.*
Then she heard me reply, "But listen to this." And I go on:
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly odoured ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.**
All the while, Joe was arranging merchandise whilst I placed my groceries on the moving belt.
Finally, my fellow shopper shook her head in bemused wonderment and walked away, perhaps to find another, less talky checkout lane. She stopped just for a moment, though, and turned to see us still in conversation about whatever the hell it was she thought she'd heard.
She likely did not realize that we were reciting our own favorite passages of W.H. Auden's poetry. If she had known the poet and his verse, she no doubt would have thought it strange indeed that such a colloquy should occur among the ordinary purchase of ordinary groceries on an ordinary day.
Joe is usually at work when I stop at the market. He is, as a friend of mine would say, "a happy presence." We might hail one another with names of philosophers. I: "Hegel." He: "Kant." And so it goes as shoppers among us scratch their heads.
In an embarrassing senior moment during one discourse with Joe some months ago, I blanked in trying to recall the name of a Schoolman along with the proper term for his famous rule. I invoked the rule anyway in an altogether friendly argument over what I took to be Joe's far too complicated answer to a philosophical inquiry.
Eventually, I took my groceries and left. After I had put several blocks between the market and my car, it came to me: "Ockham's Razor!" being the philosophical principle that when choosing among among different hypotheses to attempt explanation of a phenomenon, the one requiring the fewest assumptions should be selected.
I pulled over -- yes, I did, dear -- unpocketed my cell phone and dialed the number of the market. An assistant manager whom I happened to know answered. I asked if he would be so kind as to page Joe Pahl and tell him it's Ockham's Razor. "Hold on," he said with an audible sigh. Pretty soon I heard him announce over the store's speaker system, "Joe Pahl, Joe Pahl: Harry Cook wants you to know that it's somebody's razor."
The prices are sometimes a bit higher at that market than at some of the bigger stores around, but knowing Joe Pahl and counting him as a friend and fellow inquirer in the world of philosophy and literature is more than reason enough to pay them.
I like knowing that the intellectual life is not confined to book clubs and academe. I like knowing that learned persons can be found anywhere doing anything. It gives me hope that the netherworld of daytime television and talk radio will not necessarily define our age.
* from The Composer
** from For the Time Being