MacKenzie interview [Begin Tape 2, Side 1] Warren: This is Mame Warren. It's May 20, 1996, and I'm still with Niall MacKenzie. We're talking about Washington and Rockbridge County. So what does Niall think? Forget the Washington and Lee Student. What does Niall think about your experiences in Washington? 26 MacKenzie: My favorite line about Rockbridge County, minted by-I never heard of whom, I don't think, is that half the people here have written a book and other half can't read one, which, while being a generalization, does sort of capture this juxtaposition of the kind of moonshine-swilling, marijuana-growing, shotgun- toting, redneck lair of the community, if such colorful and largely decent people can be labeled with such a dismissive term as "redneck," and among whom, unfortunately, are members of what we in the fraternity dining hall would jocularly refer to as the Tri Cap Fraternity. The juxtaposition of that whole world with a strata of the population here, more vibrant culturally and more packed with interesting and sophisticated people than is any stratum of the population of any demographically comparable, any part of the country that has a population along the lines of this, a social organization sort of along the lines of Rockbridge County's. Rockbridge County is unique in the critical mass of sophisticated and interesting people that persist here, very little of which people have anything to do, I'm pleased to say, with any of the universities in Rockbridge County. At least very few of these people are mixed up in the faculty of any of these universities. A good many of them are Washington and Lee graduates of the confused years of the Vietnam War, don't seem to have found it necessary to leave. I had the good fortune to have my eyes opened to this most interesting dimension, possible dimension of the Washington and Lee experience, and it became the dimension in which I chose to make the primary one. I moved in. That's what I think about Rockbridge County. Topographically, climatically, geologically, geographically, in all those regards, it is the most beautiful and compelling patch of ground in the United States, I'm convinced, and in human terms it is probably the most compelling area in the United States as well, I strongly suspect. Warren: That's why I'm here. Why do you think that is? 27 MacKenzie: Perhaps an Indian medicine man long ago cast a spell on the place and endowed it with an eternal charm and eternal appeal to interesting people. That's as good a guess as I can hazard. I mean, scientists in various disciplines can explain to us why it happens to be as beautiful. Scientists in various disciplines can explain to us the reasons behind the physical characteristics of the place, and specialists in esthetics and semiotics can explain to us why we as humans find these physical conditions so very appealing, but the beauty of the landscape doesn't go the distance in terms of explaining what is so compelling about this place. I can't say. I would draw attention to something about the landscapes that slide by one's window when one is getting lost in these sort of spider's web of roads that lose themselves among the hills here, these pictures that slide past one's window. In this respect, this area is not unique, but this is certainly an assertive, one of the defining features of this locality. There is this sort of easy-going negotiation between history and nature going on all around-the woodpiles that are kind of slumping just into overgrown mounds; and ancient haystacks and old barns that are sort of half-collapsed; moldering fences that are beginning to merge into the hillsides which they were built upon; telephone poles which are now hung with moss. The things that man has done to this setting and which man has done to himself in this setting have been absorbed by the setting in very intriguing ways visually. A point which brings us within spyglass range of the historical dimension, the history here, which is fascinating, and even if one is not saturated consciously with information about the stream of history which one is standing in when one is standing on Main Street, in subtle ways one cannot escape the qualities that this place has been endowed with by its history. I was once writing a piece in which I came up, I dare say, with a very good line about the embarrassment of Civil War heroes that this county and a few adjacent 28 counties can lay claim to. Selfishly, I will not share my line with you, because I intend to use it one day. I don't want to let loose in the culture before- Warren: You did sign away on this. [Laughter] MacKenzie: I know that. Before I open fire in my own good time. I'm sorry. I could tell you off the record. Warren: I wait with bated breath 'til we turn off the machine. You mentioned a sense of history. The reason we're sitting here is that Washington and Lee is looking its 250th anniversary in the eye. What can we do to properly celebrate this place in such a moment in history? MacKenzie: We can raise our hats to it as-no pun-honorable example of civilization struggling to assert itself in midst of poverty and defeat and materialism, war, and many other unpleasant things bound up in the frontier experience of the United States and, indeed, many unpleasant things implicated at the heart of the American experience. Washington and Lee, at its best, is an outpost of civilization on this pretty barren shore, and what we can do to pay homage to it, other than recognize it as being that and dipping it an admiring bow, is to steel ourselves in the defense of civilization in the United States in our lifetime, a cause for which the prospects are not good, I'm sorry to say. Warren: I think this is an extraordinary place, in an extraordinary place, and I want to make sure we do it right. Two hundred years doesn't happen but once every two hundred and fifty years. As I have said to my friends from whence I came, this is the job of a lifetime. I'm not going to get to do this again. Nobody's going to get to do this again in my lifetime. I really appreciate your point of view. I've really enjoyed spending the time with you. 29 So I want to turn it over to you. Is there anything more you'd like to say, and is there anything you'd like to see us do, and in particular in this book I'm putting together, that I, as an outsider, might not think about? MacKenzie: Outsider, no. I have perfect confidence that this acknowledgeably formidable task has been set in a correct pair of hands. Warren: Thank you. MacKenzie: And that your hands will manage it gracefully. So no advice from me. Warren: Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to? MacKenzie: I think you've drawn me out pretty fully, Mame. Warren: It's been a pleasure and an honor to do so. MacKenzie: The pleasure's been mine. Thank you. Warren: Thank you. [End of interview] 30