Jerold Apps

Tuesday Night (April 30, 2013) at Barnes & Noble, West Town Mall, Madison, Wisconsin, Paul Rux, Ph.D.

Tuesday night April 30, 2013, was a dream come true for your humble servant here.  He had the chance to meet face-to-face with Jerold Apps, one of the greatest names in field of adult education.  Apps gave a book talk on his latest publication Limping Through Life, his autobiography, in which he explains how his having polio at age 12 shaped his entire life – down to this day.  It was a stunning sharing.

At the end, he asked for questions.  Your humble servant stood up.  Apps told how his parents took him to the Wild Rose, Wisconsin hospital when polio struck him down.  He talked about the iron lungs with children in them in the hallways and how many of them died.  Wild Rose, Wisconsin triggered a powerful memory in this writer.  He stood up and said, “My cousin Dick died of polio in the Wild Rose hospital in 1995 (the year Apps was there).  He was age 12, two years older than me.”   What are the chances of meeting somebody in 2013 who was in the same hospital for the same reason as Dick was?

As we left, Apps signed copies of his book.  He signed mine; after he signed, he reached for my hand and comforted me.  Clearly he saw in me the painful memory of so many years ago.  He is a class “act.”

After his words and gesture of comfort, I mentioned how I use his 1994 class on philosophy for adult education leaders as the core text for my online doctoral course on this topic, which I designed, for Jones International University.  He said he wanted to discuss this with me at a later time, place.  I look forward to our visit for trend forecasts for management and leadership in 1994 are unfolding today.

I also told Apps how I first heard his name from my deceased friend John Ohliger, an important adult educator who lived in Madison, Wisconsin when I met him.  John mentored me and introduced me to the field of adult education.  Apps replied, “Yes, I knew John.  I was the one who got him to Madison.”  I met John in 1976; he died in 2004.  At last, in 2013 I was meeting Apps, for whom John had great regard.  After meeting and hearing him in persons, this writer’s admiration for Apps went to a new “level.”

Like this writer, Apps earned his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  Like this writer, Apps grew up in rural, small town Wisconsin.  Like this writer, Apps loves the human spirit and nurtures it.  Having the chance to meet an icon of adult education in person was one of my “great moments.”