{"id":110960,"date":"2022-08-15T11:57:40","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T15:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=110960"},"modified":"2022-09-29T08:45:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T12:45:19","slug":"miss-stewart-didnt-appreciate-damon-runyon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=110960","title":{"rendered":"Miss Stewart Didn’t Appreciate Damon Runyon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let\u2019s get this small detail out of the way.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like school. {Well\u2026 thinking back on it, I was OK with recess, gym & art.}\u00a0 From my earliest memory, anything remotely close to the\u00a0academic<\/em>\u00a0side of school filled me with anxiety. Two examples: \u00a0I had trouble with cursive\u2026 particularly with the upper case letters.\u00a0 And the times table terrified me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I ascended the ladder of education did I outgrow this revulsion to learning?  In a brief word.  No. More to the point, my anxiety \u2013 heaps of worry & fear of failure \u2013 would only be magnified and multiplied as I moved from the lower grades to high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

{For years I have tried unsuccessfully to cast my school boy days in a positive light:  blue skies, puffy white clouds, humming birds speeding between hedges of honeysuckle, the smell of thick burgers with a decent fat content getting a good char on a grill\u2026}<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, I have been unable to escape the dread of school that grips my soul.  Why\u2026 why<\/em> fifty years plus since I walked down the aisle to receive my diploma from Hamden Hall Country Day School in 1967, and then four years later my B.A. from Union, am I still haunted by horrific dreams (nay, nightmares) about school?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are horrible, horrible night time visions.  I am in a classroom and I know that I am ill-prepared for the day\u2019s class assignment, and I sit there scared shitless that I will be called on to answer a question.  OR<\/u><\/em>, I\u2019m late and heading for class and I forget which class I am supposed to go to, nor where the classroom is!  OR<\/u><\/em>, I forget my combination to my school P.O. Box! OR<\/u><\/em>, {and I\u2019ve saved the best for last} I have blown off two of my three classes of the spring trimester at Union, and there is no way that I will be graduating with my class! What am I going to say to my parents?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

{Do you lose weight if you sweat profusely at night while sleeping?  Another brief word.  No.}<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there I am at 2:00am during a random night, bathed in sweat because my parents just learned that I wouldn\u2019t be graduating with Union\u2019s Class of \u201971. First, I did graduate.  And, second, even if I hadn\u2019t graduated without my parents knowing, and even if I had spent the night in perspiration, I could find joy in spending a brief interlude with my parents who watched this unfortunate tragedy from \u201cabove\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of my inherent distaste for any form of study, by my Senior year at Hamden Hall I discovered the writing of Damon Runyon (1880 \u2013 1946).  I\u2019m guessing my Dad introduced his short stories to me (he, who had also taught me how to play gin*<\/strong>).  There was a rustic authenticity to Runyon\u2019s tales that were set in Prohibition New York City.  There were hilarious episodes with wonderful characters, and even more important, Runyon had a casual disregard for grammar.  Among his literary quirks, he shunned the use of contractions, he avoided past and future tenses using the present for both.  He also dodged using the conditional by replacing it with the future indicative, \u201cNow most any doll on Broadway will be very glad indeed to have Handsome Jack Madigan give her a tumble.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How could you not love stories populated by folks with the names like: Nathan Detroit, Sky Masterson, Nicely-Nicely, Harry the Horse, Benny Southstreet, Big Jule and Miss Adelaide.  And then the period, off-beat vocabulary: a handgun referred to as a \u201cJohn Roscoe\u201d or an \u201cequalizer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he was an expert in crafting the perfect, yet understated, punchline.\u00a0 Here is some advice from Sky Masterson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of these days in your travels, a guy shows you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken.  Then this guy offers to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you are ending up with an ear full of cider.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These stories, frequented by con-artists, bootleggers, gamblers, mild thugs & ladies of questionable virtue, were so far removed from the 25 Alston Ave of my home in New Haven.  But these extraordinary short stories captured me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I adored Runyon.  Miss Stewart, my English teacher in 12th<\/sup> Grade, not so much.  But when the assignment to write a major paper on an American Author, I chose Damon Runyon.  And poor Miss Stewart of lace collar and cardigan sweater sensibility had to square Silas Marner,  Hester Prynne and Captain Ahab with Nathan Detroit?  What could I \u2013 interested in a solid grade \u2013 hope for? I must have been nuts! Runyon, a perfect mirror of time and place, possessing an astute ear for spoken texture and dialogue, and <\/em>who routinely flushed syntax down the toilet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe Miss Stewart had to swallow hard to give me a decent grade on that paper.\u00a0 Although I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that she had never read a word of Runyon before I put him before her.\u00a0 Nor would she have been enamored of his writing as I was.\u00a0 So be it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I consider Damon Runyon a small light of happiness in an otherwise gloomy experience in High School English Lit.  Other than Runyon, I never read a single book of any stripe that wasn\u2019t assigned in course work (and that included College).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Union I would learn to love reading.  First, the 19th<\/sup> Century Russian novelists that I took to reading during my days at Ft. Gordon, GA.  Then, on to the works of John Irving, Wm. Styron, Anthony Burgess and a superb collection of writers who contributed to the New Yorker<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But looking back, I have to peevishly giggle at the thought of Miss Stewart rolling her eyes as she read a selection of Runyon\u2019s prose that I would have included in my paper: \u201cI am not putting the knock on dolls.  It\u2019s just that they are something to have around only when they come in handy.  Like cough drops.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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n.b. In my day we didn\u2019t have \u201cLanguage Arts\u201d in school.  We had \u201cEnglish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* <\/strong>I passed on my gin playing skills to my Daughter Shaina when she attained the age of 10 (maybe less).  And I have just had the pleasure of teaching her Daughter Olivia (aged 10) the game during an extended family trip.  Instruction included seminars on \u201cThe Tactical Use of Knocking\u201d, \u201cThe Defensive Hand\u201d, and \u201cThe Essentials of Distracting Gab\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let\u2019s get this small detail out of the way.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like school. {Well\u2026 thinking back on it, I was OK with recess, gym & art.}\u00a0 From my earliest memory, anything remotely close to the\u00a0academic\u00a0side of school filled me with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110960"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111029,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110960\/revisions\/111029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}