One of the greatest things about moving to Connecticut...@sonyahuber

...has been becoming a part of Sonya Huber's community. Last night she read from her hard cover, Opa Nobody (or as her husband, Cliff, dubbed it, Oprah Nobody) to celebrate the soft cover release of the book. Interestingly, the university book store only had the hard cover, but this was part of the humor.

The photo to the left doesn't show it, but the crowd was abundant (much larger than I'm used to seeing at a Bookstore event). Opa Nobody features her search to know her grandfather more, a man who lived in Germany and took part in political activity to fight against the Nazi party. What I loved about her reading (and the book), however, is the way she blends her own political activism during the 90s as a punk, radical rebel (I've always bonded with such folk). It is obvious that her shaved head and tattoo'd spirit remains with her, even though the love of a son and family has redirected some of the spunk of fighting the systems that need to be fought. The tensions of being political and practical, simultaneously, resonated with me - what was I to do with the inner hippie, postmodern redneck literature major that I was after I graduated?

I know Sonya as a comrade who was hired the same year as me and I have grown fond of her laughter, sense of humor, her husband Cliff, and the way they both do the world. They have become my Stratford inspiration and muses. I'm thankful to have them both in my local community.

There's not much that makes me happier than when one of my students makes a connection to one of Sonya's classes and they say, "Bryan, that's almost like was Sonya Huber was saying the other day in [fill in the name of a class here]....do you know her?"  The words make me feel I'm doing something right at least some of the time. "Yes, I know her," I respond. "We used to be Siamese twins but were separated at birth, both physically and spiritually. We're somewhat uncomfortable around each other because it is strange to have a twin enter your life at age 40. It's like we know each other, but we're complete strangers."

One of my favorite parts of the evening last night was when Sonya shared her mother's memory about "Opa" moving anti-Nazi literature through Germany in a baby carriage. Upon investigation, she explained she learned that it wasn't her grandfather but her great-grandmother who was moving workers' literature, fighting for the rights of local men who worked in mines.

Memory, either way, demonstrates the 'call for action' that flows through the bloodlines of Huber's unique heritage. "Nobody," Sonya explained, was a way her mother referred to her father, but as she kept asking questions, her grandfather became much more than a nobody. This is what writing does, it "gives" mothers their "father back." We arrive from lives lived before us, but piecing together the stories of exactly what make us who we are is complicated, piecemeal, and emotional. This is the power of memoir and memory, and what I love about Sonya Huber. From her, I learn.