Janice and Charlie got home last night, which means that Christmas has started early.
Janice took me to my always-fun CT-SCAN appointment today, while Charlie, her 110-pound Old English Sheepdog, stayed in the car, which is what he loves doing more than anything else.
Then his mistress and I took a crack at moving my memoirs forward, which have been stuck on my prep-school years for a while.
I think I live in the wrong era. Writing is easiest for me when I can dictate it, in part to get an immediate reaction. My experience with my memoirs so far as been if Ellen or Janice thinks a story is good, then it's usually worth including. The converse is also true.
There is also something liberating about writing things that happened so long ago. For example, I can now tell the truth that the biggest influence on my going to Colby College was a trip our prep-school football team took there (our coach was an athletically prominent alum) the fall before. Our alert team noticed two main things as we strolled around campus: it seemed to be overpopulated with pretty girls and the beer-delivery trucks were swarming around the fraternity houses.
I can now admit that when I tried to explain to my mother why I didn't want to go to Holy Cross ("He's a boy and he's going to Holy Cross!" she exclaimed at almost the moment I was born) those factors didn't come up. I think I talked about the strength of the Colby's Government Department and the study-abroad program, or some such fabrications. (To her everlasting credit, despite her strong opposition, she devoted about half of her teaching salary for four years to paying for me to go to Colby, despite the presence of co-eds and the absence of a requirement to attend Mass daily.)
An old college roommate called today while I was in the middle of dictating a passage about this decision to Janice. He asked, in a wise-guy way he has that hasn't changed much in more than 40 years, if I wanted him to edit the Colby parts, so that there might be a little truth in some of what I write.
But what fun would that be?
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Oh Jay! It makes me smile when I read your posts. I went to Colby because I didn't get into Smith and because I had read it was a good party school. Now I wish I had studied more while I was there. Nonetheless, it was a great time. Enjoy your time with your daughters and with Charlie. I had an O.E.S. What a lot of maintenance!
ReplyDeleteALBANY, N.Y. _ News reporters drank single-malt scotch out of little glasses and heaped bullshit by big shovelfuls as Jay Gallager, Journalist, regaled them with tales of a life well led.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, on television more or less ending his political career, droned on through TVs in the Capitol press room and went mostly ignored.
The day's story was clearly Gallagher's return to the Legislative Correspondents Association in the Capitol's third floor.
Jay received gifts, good wishes and insults equally well.
Many more visits are threatened.