He would stand perched at the front of his
class, sometimes offering up his starkly realistic pigeon cooing in
class. His long hair pulled back from his rugged beard, he spoke with a
curious tone that kept his students waiting and wondering what he would
say next.
Even when he was young, Richard Botkin,
aware of his curiosity, knew he should have stuck to pennies. That
didn't stop him, though, from throwing a 2x4 onto the tracks of an
oncoming train, whose conductor stopped to reprimand him.
"What if," he would wonder as he threw the boards onto the tracks.
"What if," as he ignited the outhouse on his parents' Farmington, Kan., farm.
"What if," when he shot at a church window with his BB gun.
"Everyone knew who did it. It's all about cause and effect," he said of
the unusual incidents that filled his childhood. "It was really sort of
an experiment really."
When he was 7, his
mother asked him what would happen if an unstoppable force collided
with an unmovable object, a time he considers as a catalyst to his
childhood experiments. His friends and family have described Richard
Botkin as "ornery," "off-colored and "rather different."
Botkin, now a lecturer of philosophy and western civilization, would
tell his students of the benefits of firsthand learning. Thomas Tuzzo,
chairperson of the philosophy department, said the department had
record enrollment this year. To some, Botkin had something to do with
that.
"I understand his teaching style," Valerie
Skubal, Shawnee junior, said. She said she had intentionally chosen
Botkin for two semesters of her western civilization class.
Not learning to read until the third grade, Botkin said that although
he was troublesome, he always admired knowledgeable people.
Acting apart from authority, it would seem that Botkin, an atheist, was
fearless, even as a child. He didn't have many friends, and when he
wasn't conducting one of his destructive experiments or working in his
father's auto shop, he was bird-watching.
According to his brother, Tom Botkin, when he was in
grade school, he studied bird books, memorizing the scientific name of
each one. His favorite though, is the pigeon. He said he first saw one
on top of a barn, shining in hues of purple, blue and maroon. He has
since kept several birds, including an owl, a pigeon (for 17 years) and
a chicken named Friend.
But he admitted that he is afraid of something we all know is inevitable.
"Death doesn't both me, but the dying part does." Botkin's father and
grandfather have both died of cancer. His brother, Russell, suddenly
died from a rare form of leukemia in 1995. He said he was afraid of
discovering he has cancer.
He remembered when he
picked up phone and listened to the "party line," a shared phone line
among other Farmington, Kan., residents, and heard his teacher speaking
candidly about his less than stellar academic standing when he was a
kid.
It wasn't that he wasn't smart or didn't
like to learn, but rather because he didn't like to be told to. And
teachers weren't the only instance--he moved in with Russell, only to
be kicked out to the streets for almost two weeks, which he said was
partly by choice.
"No one was gonna tell me, I
had to experience it myself," he said. Fending off spiders, raccoons
and the cold, he lived under a bridge instead of his brother's rules.
During that time, passerby's looked at him as though he were "the scum
of the earth." He said at that time he felt like Jesus, and
reconsidering said, "I'm not like Jesus, it's just that I was lowly and
dirty."
His wife, Janet, said they share similar
outlooks that are more realistic, and also darker. But that hasn't
stopped him from wondering about the possibilities. Because they do not
have kids, she said, they have retained their playful, child-like
nature, still curious about the world and its possibilities.
Botkin said he goes to the soup kitchen and still goes bird-watching a
few times a week, a passion he has clung to throughout his life. He
said he liked birds simply because they could leave the ground.
"Angels have wings, so are closer to God. When you can fly, you can't be caught."
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