Go Westies, Before the Beginning

July 18, 2006

As promised yesterday, a little bit about West Haven High School in the early 1970s.

I learned a lot there. I learned, for example, how to hold it in. I do not mean my emotions (though that was also true, certainly). The fact is that the bathrooms in West Haven High School were dangerous places to be for people like me. By people like me, I mean that portion of the student population that wasn't beating up on the rest of the student population (including me) in the lavatories. (And have you noticed how rarely anyone refers to lavatories, after high school? I begin to doubt that was ever the right word. But I'm sure I remember the little pink pieces of paper that entitled you to rove the halls were called "lav passes." And, in any case, it is the word that immediately came to mind when thinking about my high school's bathrooms, which is something I rarely do these days.)

There really was a Wild West element to High School in West Haven (picture the bathrooms as Dead Man's Bluff, the hallways as Main Street in Ol' Dodge, and the grassy area outside the school as the O.K. Corral -- for those of you who may not know the reference, I suggest you try to see the movie titled Gunfight at the OK Corral, with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster)

It's not like I walked around most of the time numb with fear. Just numb. And just most of the time. And learning to hold it in has been an important life skill. For example, sometimes you find yourself in a meeting with a number of other people, and you're intent on making sure that you get your way in some form or fashion. It is very good to not go to the bathroom all day, because that way you're never out of the room.

[Which brings to mind a story, that I'll share. But readers have to promise (non-verbally, or someone might think you have gotten betrothed to your computer screen) not to think I'm name dropping here, even though I sort of am.]

When I was in college I did an indepndent study about American humorists. This gave me an excuse to find Helen Thurber, widow of James Thurber and arrange to meet her. She suggested we meet at the Algonquin Hotel. To me, at that time, this was just like having a chat with Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House (except that Eleanor Roosevelt was dead at the time, and I was much more interested in reading Thurber than FDR). We met, she was lovely, and it was great. Now fast forward to my asking Katherine to marry me.

Of course, after getting engaged, we made the rounds of all the relatives and close friends. And then I decided that it was only right to introduce Katherine to Mrs. Thurber. In retrospect, I don't know where I got the gall. But I did. And Mrs. Thurber took the two of us out to dinner (Name dropping, on the way: the next table over was occupied by failed Presidential nominee McGovern). It was a memorable dinner, in which stories of the maladies afflicting her were intermingled with comfortable chat about The New Yorker, Bob Benchley, S.J. Perelman, etc. And the highlight (and this is what I've been building towards) was when she told us that she was always frightened to leave the table when Dorothy Parker was there, because she was certain that Dorothy Parker would tear her to shreds the moment she left the room.

This is my only genuinely unique story about the Algonquin Round Table, Thurber and the rest. All the other stories I've read some place. And I'm sharing it with you. No wonder people like blogs.