Professor David Gosdeck serves here at MLC primarily as our library
director, but he also teaches a couple of SPaM electives, Patristic
Readings in Context (church fathers) and Intro to Logic. He used to teach
two required courses for pastor track, Symbolics and Philosophy. These
were taken over by Prof. Sellnow when MLC realized the library director
needed to be full-time. Without Prof. Gosdeck teaching these required
courses, pastor track students suffer the possibility of not experiencing
the legend.
From the SPaM-tracker point of view, there are plenty of faculty
celebrities. Part of our training here is learning how to impersonate them.
They all have their famous quirks: Prof. Cherney used to teach out the
window and blow a lot through his nose and mouth; Prof. Deutchslander had
his pet phrases and boyish giggle. We wouldn’t want to spoil the fun by
letting any current professors know what their mannerisms are, now would we?
But Professor Gosdeck is one straight-up dude, and you have to search
hard to find someone just as kind and humble. I imagine no one can nail an
impersonation down on him. He was born and raised in Kaukaunah, WI, in the
Fox River Valley. He is the father of five children and two grand-children,
and one of his daughters currently provides foster care for two. He comes
from a Seminary class that revolutionized the synod with big-wigs like
Pastor John Braun, who is the executive editor of Forward in Christ, not
to mention MLC Professors Lenz and Lange. Professor Gosdeck has served at
DMLC, Lake City, MN, Stillwater, MN, and old Northwestern College in
Watertown, WI.
Knight’s Page: What sort of amazing things happened at Northwestern and the Seminary
when you went to school?
Professor Gosdeck: The tendency of the mind is to put out of mind what you
don’t need immediately. If it’s out long enough…
KP: It disappears.
PG: Yeah. Some people seem to remember things better than I do, which puts
me at a great disadvantage (we share a laugh). I remember lots of things
clearly but there are some things I don’t remember.
KP: How did you meet your wife?
PG: At a wedding. My cousin married her cousin, and then they had us
both stand up at the wedding. And that’s how I met her, the summer after
the year I graduated from Northwestern (he chuckles). So I don’t know if
they did it on purpose or not, but that’s the way it worked out, anyway.
It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever danced. Well, I danced at my
daughter’s wedding very briefly, cause they forced me to. Otherwise we
didn’t dance in those days. But they had a wedding dance, and since I was
quite drawn to her I thought, “Well I better dance with her. Who knows
where this thing could take us?” (We share another laugh.)
KP: What kind of hobbies do you have?
PG: Well, I don’t have a lot of hobbies. I do have hobbies. Well,
obviously, (he points to his wall, shelved completely with books) reading.
And we like to garden. And the other thing I’ve got; I’m setting up for
myself up a nice, modest woodworking shop. I do a little bit of that kind
of stuff. I’m not very good at it but I do it.
KP: Have you done that for a while?
PG: Nah, it started a couple years ago, but now that I have a three-car
garage, one bay is totally devoted to handle the tools. Not all of them,
but a good share of the tools that I need—four saws: a band-saw, a
table-saw, and a chop-saw, a scroll-saw.
(We talk at length about his wood-working, taking note of various
pieces of furniture and charms around his office rendered at the skillful
tooth of Professor Gosdeck’s saw. As interesting as it all is, there
are some other matters we need to turn to.)
KP: I wanted to ask about the People’s Bible you wrote, Jeremiah-Lamentations.
PG: That’s right.
KP: What does it take to do that on Jeremiah, such a big book of the Bible, and Lamentations?
PG: Well, I took it in 1982 . . . And I really never got at it in a
significant way until 1985 when I got to Northwestern, because there,
in the summer, the library pretty much closed down and you didn’t
have anything going on. But even then it took a lot of time. First of
all I tried to read it all, or the vast majority of it, in the original,
which was no small task. Finally, one summer I wrote it in about six or
eight weeks . . . Basically, the bulk was written in one summer. Yes, it
hung over me like a great weight—trying to get it done—cause it is—
KP: It’s a lengthy work. It’s one of the thickest ones they have. Did you write any other
projects like that?
PG: I wrote a Bible study for it, but it never has been published. . .
KP: I’ve heard that in past classes you’ve talked about Star Trek at length.
PG: I used it for illustration purposes.
KP: Did you used to watch that a lot?
PG: Yeah. No, when it was on I guess I watched it. Then I found that
it’s a marvelous… I think a lot of philosophical concepts are illustrated
in it, and that was very useful for that purpose. Not recently, I don’t
get to see the original series and the new one didn’t do it for me.
I guess I watch some of it but I don’t get much cable. I’m not going
to say I don’t watch TV. I’m a great fan of mysteries and detective
stories, and that goes for my non-scholarly reading, too.
KP: How fast do you blow by, say, a 200-page book?
PG: It depends on what I’m reading. There was a time I could really
blow by them, but it’s not quite as fast anymore. A good share of the
stuff I read you can’t read fast. For example, (he holds up a book)
A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: the Pragma-Dialectical Approach.
You cannot blow through something like that. Or, I’m reading
The Modern Culture by a man named Roger Scruton. He’s looking at
Modern Culture. My biggest reading of course is in the area of Patristics,
and I do a lot of reading, but you can’t blow through
Augustine’s Trinity.
KP: Have you ever seen the Notebook?
PG: No, if I can’t see it for free I don’t go. I can’t remember being
at a movie in thirty years. . . [Professor Gosdeck and I discuss dating
for some time until music comes up.] I like Classical music. I’ve been
listening to Minnesota Public Radio since 1967.
KP: You know they say that more intelligent people listen to Classical
music?
PG: I wouldn’t say that.
KP: It’s a proven fact. I read it in “Psychology Today.”
PG: Well, it may be a proven fact but I’m not going to say it.
KP: Okay. Who dresses you in the morning?
PG: Me. It’s that bad, eh?
KP: No! Not at all, I was just remarking--
PG: . . . I got all my suit coats laid out, and I sorta go in a
rotation. No, my wife doesn’t do much. And I’m cheap; I don’t like to
spend a lot of money on clothes, because I don’t see the point of it.
KP: You definitely get by, though.
PG: Well, I got enough suit coats of varying qualities. I could go
three weeks without wearing the same one.
KP: Whoa!
PG: I see you used to watch that show that you’ve got painted on your
front. (He points to Gilligan and the Skipper on my t-shirt and chuckles.)
And Hogan’s Heroes?
KP: Hogan’s Heroes was a good one, too. SCHULTZ!
PG: Sergeant Schultz, Colonel Klink—you almost gotta feel sorry for those
guys because once they played that role, they could never play another
role. Of course their estates are probably still collecting the money
from the reruns.
KP: Possibly…
PG: I was listening to a guy, I don’t know which music it was, this was a
guy who wrote a big song in 1973. It was a popular hit. He still brings
in $2,000 a day for that song. He gets $700,000 a year for a song he
wrote thirty years ago.
KP: So how much money do you still bring in for the People’s Bible?
PG: Nothing.
KP: Really?
PG: Actually we got more than I thought. But you don’t get rich writing
for a publishing house. If you start figuring per hour, you probably barely
made the minimum wage, because of the time it took, you know. My biggest
disappointment with Jeremiah is, I figured, “Well, Luther certainly wrote
on Jeremiah; I could just tap in on it.” Mm-m.
KP: Really?
PG: No, he didn’t write on Jeremiah at all. It was a cruel blow, I’ll
tell you. I figured you can count on him for some choice remarks. It
didn’t work out.
KP: Do you have Leonard Nimoy memorabilia?
PG: No, I got a few Packer things. I’m not hung up on that kinda stuff.
KP: Do you watch football?
PG: Oh yeah, I’m a big fan. Well, I like to watch football. Actually I
prefer now to watch college rather than pros. Basketball isn’t for me. I
used to watch soccer. I used to go to all the soccer games at Northwestern,
but since I got here I haven’t been as faithful.
KP: It figures. What did you think of the Super Bowl?
PG: Didn’t watch it. I figured—I watched a good chunk of the first
half—then I was afraid that Seattle would probably lose. They made too
many mistakes. At first it was little things, but when you’re playing a
huge game, you can’t make those or you pay. Besides, I didn’t want
Pittsburgh to win, so I figured why torture myself by watching.
I mean, I didn’t have strong feelings, but I figured Seattle has never won.
KP: That’s what I thought.
PG: So I decided to watch something else. I watched a Catholic priest
lecture. It was quite a lecture; he was lecturing to a Catholic audience,
Roman Catholic. I think he must have been a monk or something.
(We continue conversing on Catholicism until more intriguing subject
matter comes up.)
KP: Have you ever done anything crazy like skydive, or go cliff-jumping?
PG: Well, when I was young! No, then a friend and I—you don’t know the
area—but there’s a place called High Cliff. It used to be like the quarry
out here, a limestone quarry. Before they made it there was a park
there and you could climb the cliffs. So, a friend and I—I wouldn’t
think of doing it today—we’d climb the cliffs. There was no safety net.
I don’t know how high we went, but… (he chuckles) That was fun.
KP: Did you used to play football?
PG: No I wasn’t an athletic person. Let’s be honest about it.
(he laughs) That wasn’t my cup of tea. I loved to fly kites for awhile.
I went to my uncle’s farm one time and had it up to a thousand feet of
string. That was fun. The kite wasn’t that big, but it was blowing
pretty good that day. We used to fly kites around home. Not a lot—I don’t
know if we flew them as much as I think. We had to make sure we didn’t
get them in the electrical wires by our house. . . .
So there you have it—a taste of the legend himself. We continued to
talk about the cafeteria and desserts at length, but you had to be there
for that. Then we wrestled. He touched my hip, but I wouldn’t let him go
until he blessed me. I’m still limping, and this was weeks ago. But I
got my blessing; the privilege to write his interview. Thank you,
Professor Gosdeck!
