| Abstract | In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: We gathered together at the Ball State University Alumni Center for a reception to honor our Ph.D. graduate Stephen K. George, who directed, with singular brilliance, dedication, and unprecedented success, the "Steinbeck and His Contemporaries" Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in March 2006. On this occasion, Dr. John Michael Ditsky's congratulatory letter was read, with difficulty, by Mr. John M. Straw, Director of the Archives and Special Collections Research Center, the host of this reception. All in tears, we were profoundly moved by John's gallantry. His lovely wife, Suzette Ditsky, must have typed this letter shortly before his untimely death. With our colleagues in Japan, who were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary at the meeting of their national Steinbeck Society of Japan in Nagoya, we offered a silent prayer—in unbelievably shocked sorrow—in John's memory and honor. John had wanted to come with Dr. Luchen Li of Kettering University, one of the three distinguished editors of the Kyoto Congress Proceedings, to join us in honoring Dr. Stephen K. George, despite his own compromised medical condition. I had shared with John his nickname, Bungo, with which I had teased him playfully in our personal and professional communiqués. Dr. Ditsky, an avid collector of Japanese seals, found a special seal that enchanted him, one which he used in his letter to me. It was the Bungo seal. He asked me what it meant, and I told him it was an awesome title given to someone like him—a giant in Steinbeck studies—or to Soseki Natsumeda, the Father of Modem Japanese Fiction. He loved these identities so much that he used the seal often, and I addressed him as "Dear Bungo." He had always been a seriously dedicated scholar of American literature and of Steinbeck studies and a valued member of the editorial board of the Steinbeck Quarterly from the beginning. Also, he became one of our finest Chairs of this editorial board and rose later to become Vice President of the International Steinbeck Society. More recently, he served as President of the New Steinbeck Society of America and as one of the keynote speakers at the "Steinbeck and His Contemporaries" Conference. John and Suzette Ditsky, a charming, brilliant, vivacious, self-effacing lady, whom I introduced along with her husband to the Hawaii Steinbeck Congress as "the First Lady of Steinbeck Congresses," were constant influences. Sue had indeed been with John, our Bungo, and with us whenever and wherever John appeared as an invited speaker or keynoter at congresses, conferences, MLA Steinbeck meetings, the Salinas Steinbeck Festival Lecture Series, and many other Steinbeck-related scholarly gatherings. A seriously committed Steinbeck scholar, he had long been a beloved and admired figure in the world, a genuine gentleman-scholar with self-effacing sense of humor, unique good will, and a shy, mysterious but magnanimous smile. What a welcome presence he was to Steinbeck aficionados, students, and scholars! For over forty years, he was always kind, patient, and helpful toward emerging and struggling Steinbeck and American literature scholars. No Steinbeck scholar of prominence had ever served as an invited keynote speaker at various Steinbeck conferences and congresses as frequently as John had done. John's achievements as a Steinbeck scholar would take a large book even just to summarize, and no memorial tributes I could write would ever be sufficient to represent his Bungo-class quality and scope of publications. We have a saying in Japan: "The greater you become, the more humble you become." I am talking precisely about John, great and humble. While teaching and serving administratively in Japan as founder, executor, and as one of the major donors, I tried to recommend John Ditsky to the Ball State University Foundation for the John J. and Angeline R. Pruis Award for the Outstanding Steinbeck Educator and Leader in 2000; I did not know that he was also planning to honor me confidentially by including a chapter on "Tetsumaro Hayashi and the Steinbeck Society" in his latest and finest scholarly book, John Steinbeck and the Critics (2000), a historical and critical survey of our Steinbeck studies. His message for the younger, emerging, or struggling Steinbeck scholars was to grow...
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