He was the leading expert on china.
It had been over 10 years since I had taken his history course as a freshman at the University of Scranton. I was channel surfing when I came across “60 Minutes” and there he was, my old professor. Dr. Feller was in the federal penitentiary and being interviewed on “60 Minutes” because they like to find unusual people with unbelievable stores and Dr. Feller was unusual and his story was unbelievable.
The first thing about his class that I found unusual was that I was the only freshman in the class. Being the only freshman was a little intimidating. No one talked to me. So I just went on taking notes and reading the book like it was a normal class. I found the professor a little strange, but most of the professors had a few quirks so I didn’t think anything of it.
One incident stuck out. A few weeks into the class there was a visiting lecturer giving a talk on a Friday night. The talk was on the furniture in the White House through the years. Dr Feller made attendance mandatory. That was a problem for the upperclassmen because it was the night of a big concert in the athletic center. The University of Scranton was not very large so not many big bands came through town, but the Charlie Daniels band was on campus that night.
After some complaining the class went to the lecture. Dr. Feller took attendance. We were the only ones there which explains why he had to make it mandatory just to get an audience. We could hear the concert going on across the street. The lecture was, as you might expect, terrible. Dry as dust and meaningless.
Then came the mid-term exam. I studied the notes, and the book extensively. I was totally prepared. He handed out the exam and I was faced with 10 fill-in-the-blank questions. They were not from anything I had studied. Nothing from the book. Almost nothing from the notes. The questions were about the obscure trivia he threw into class that I had mostly ignored, assuming that the actual history was the point of the class.
An example was “This man ______ succeeded William Seward as Secretary of State”. The answer was E.B. Washburne. I had studied Seward, he was an important figure in history having, among other things, led the purchase of Alaska. Washburne served 10 days. He was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant because they were friends and being Secretary of State meant that he would be forever known as “The Honorable E.B. Washburne”.
I got 5 out of 10 correct. Not my proudest moment. When I spoke to Dr Feller after class and complained that he had taught a lot of important material and then made the exam about trivia he looked down his nose at me and told me that everything he said was important. Clearly, he was in his right mind.
The next day in the cafeteria one of the upperclassmen sat down and explained that he and everyone else took the class because it was so easy. You didn’t have to buy the book or study the actual notes. Just listen for trivia and you get an ‘A’. Thanks. That information would have been good at the begining of the semester. I took his advice and got 10 out of 10 correct on the final good for a “C+”. My parents were not proud. I tried explaining that the teacher was a crazy person, but they didn’t believe me.
But he ended up in the federal penitentiary and I did not (at least not yet).
As I said, Dr Feller was the leading expert on china in the United States. Not China, but china. Note the lowercase “c”. He was arrested because he had spent over 20 years going to museums and archives around the country studying china. Yes, the dishes, in case that wasn’t clear. After studying it, he would slip a couple of pieces into his backpack. No one noticed because, unsurprisingly, no one else was studying china. Finally, a security guard caught him. That’s how he ended up in the federal penitentiary and on “60 Minutes”.
I called up my mother and told her to turn on the television. She saw the segment. I told her “That’s why I got a C+ in history freshman year, the teacher was nuts!”. She of course was hearing none of it and told me I should have studied harder. No justice.
I’d like to say there was a lesson in all this. Maybe it’s “Don’t be a thief”, or “Don’t study dishes”. But in reality, maybe the only lesson is: “Sometimes, crazy stuff happens”.
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