Leonard Cain and life course and age cohort and portland state university

Leonard Cain will celebrate his 80th birthday in June 2005. We first met each other about 20 years ago, when I was a professor of religion and humanities at Reed College and he was a sociology professor at Portland State University. We met, however, not at a professional conference or a meeting of politically-active people in Portland but at another venue--an adult education class at First Presbyterian Church in Portland. Over the course of three or four years in the late 1980s Leonard was in every class I offered, whether it was on the history of American religion, the parables of Jesus, or 20th century theologians. In each class he made some of the most interesting and provocative comments about the way that sociological analysis might provide insight into a problem I was describing. I liked him because his mind overflowed with insights; he seemed to take to me because of what he called an "aesthetic tingle" he felt whenever I tried to relate Christian faith to the realities of twentieth century life.

Reconnecting in 2005

Our paths separated in 1990 when I moved to Kansas to teach. They remained separate upon my return to Oregon in 1996 because I lived in Salem and rarely got up to Portland. We shared a lunch when I began my lawyering career at Stoel Rives in Portland in 2000, but it was not until the past month that we reconnected in the way we had first met--through an adult education class (this time on the Book of Job) that I offered at First Presbyterian Church, Portland.

What was striking to me in the fifteen years between our education encounters was the way that I had changed in my perception of Leonard. This might seem strange because arguably his life had changed more than mine in 15 years. He lost his wife of 56 years, Virginia, in October 2003. He has gone through the process of "breadwinner" to "retirement" in that period (2 terms he used in his seminal 1964 contribution to "Life Course" sociological analysis) while I am still a "breadwinner," though sometimes I wonder if I will ever make much "bread" in life.

But when I began speaking about the Book of Job and limned topics of importance in it, such as the problem of friendship, the role of grief in life, the need for hope in human relationships, Leonard was at the ready, with references, insights and pungent and sometimes contrarian comments about everything I mentioned. After the first class he came up to me and shook his finger. "Shame on you, Bill," he said. "My kids wanted me to retire from my sociological work, and I managed to do so for several years, but here you are, and you make me a sociologist again!" He then broke into a coy smile, and his mind began to click on all cylinders as he effortlessly recalled dissertations of former students which would shed light on what I was describing.

But if Leonard tried to give me the impression that it was he who was benefitting from my return, I must respond by saying that it is I who have been enriched by our mutual reconnection. For the first time in my life I am beginning to appreciate Leonard's contribution to life-course and age-cohort analysis in sociology. For the first time I am seeing him as a shaper of the vocabulary we have adopted about retirement and aging. For example, his 1975 co-authored article in the Willamette Law Review criticizing the law of mandatory retirement helped recognise issues that only would become more fully developed when the field of "Elder Law" emerged about a decade later. Leonard is a master of coining new phrases and of seeing trends even before they become trends.

Seeing Life Backwards

As we mused together about life, theology, Job and sociology today after class, I asked Leonard about the loss of his wife, to whom he was utterly devoted not simply in the years of good health but when Virginia became a paraplegic in the late 1980s. Of the many things he mentioned, one stands out. They became aware, because of the nature of her cancer, that she would die in the Fall of 2003. Knowing that death was imminent, they planned a "Celebration of Life" service, in which 70 friends and family members from around the country joined in giving testimony to the way her life touched theirs. After telling me about that memorable event, Leonard looked at me with a calm wistfulness and said, "Bill, we ought to be doing more about living life in reverse. We ought not to number our days from when they began but from when they probably will end and do our living and planning accordingly. Actuaries do it. Hospice patients and terminally ill people do it. Why shouldn't all of us? If we could assume that we had 20 years to live, what do we want to do 20 years from that event? 10 years? 5? 3? 10 days?" It was vintage Leonard Cain--taking an insight that is true in the way that some people look at life, and has a great deal of truth in it, and trying to apply it to our whole life course.

Leonard's Reach

Later this week Leonard's biography of his former mentor at TCU, the distinguished sociologist Austin Porterfield, will be published. Leonard stressed to me that what characterized Porterfield was the fact that he "grasped" the Kingdom of God, but only was able to work with rather primitive sociological data, and therefore couldn't "reach" it with his work. Thus, he was a man "whose grasp exceeded his reach." A nice twist on a common cliche.

And then, Leonard reached one other place in my connection with him. Early in 1988, when my son was baptized at First Presbyterian Church in Portland, the "elder of the day," who would remove the cover from the baptismal font and otherwise assist in the baptism, was Leonard Cain. Because we left Portland shortly thereafter, my son's and Leonard's life have never intersected. But, the last question Leonard unfailingly asks me as we end our conversations, is "how is your son?" Leonard would be proud to know that my son, who just turned 18, is already committed to the social sciences. I wonder if that might not be another example of someone's grasp exceeding his reach--this time Leonard's. Happy Birthday, my friend, and know that your spirit and your insight have brightened my way and my son's way, in ways we will never fully reach, or grasp.