1. I took a day off from being Mr. Green Jeans in the back yard today. I returned to reading James Joyce's Dubliners. One of the stories I read, "Counterparts" made me wonder what kinds of discussion my students and I had about this story in the Intro to Literature courses I taught at Whitworth in the fall of 1982 and the spring of 1984. The story is a searing examination of an alcoholic named Farrington.
Farrington suffers humiliation and emasculation, both in his soul deadening job as a clerk in a Dublin law firm (where he writes out copies of contracts, letters, and cases -- these copies are called counterparts) and in the pub. Being humiliated angers him. He lashes out in the story's horrifying conclusion. Was I as sickened by this story's conclusion thirty-six years ago as a very young instructor as I was today? I know I had forgotten the ending. It came as a terrible shock to me today. And, again, how did my students and I talk about this story back then? What did we know about oppressive bureaucratic work, alcoholism, humiliation, emasculation, and violence? I cannot, for the life of me, remember.
2. I made a quick trip up to the Inland Lounge shortly after Cas opened up at three o'clock. Cas and I have talked a lot over the last months about the 1960 World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates. A little while ago, I was doing some research online about that team and some of its players when I came across a book, Sweet '60. I ordered it for Cas and took it up to him today. Cas is a lifelong fan of the Pirates. Forty-four writers and editors collaborated to assemble Sweet '60, a collection of deeply researched articles, published by the Society for American Baseball Research, about each member of that 1960 Pirates team and will help deepen and enrich Cas' life as fan of the Pirates.
3. Meanwhile, the Deke made a delicious dinner of roasted chicken breast slices and roasted radishes and a green salad. All day, our plan was to go to the Inland Lounge after dinner and find friends to yak it up with. We succeeded, in a big way. Mike Grebil told me great stories about trips to go bowling and golfing in Orofino. Grebe didn't know that Mom was born and raised there and that I had bowled a few lines myself at the Riverside Lanes and played that gorgeous and tricky little golf course on the hill near Orofino when the course first opened. I was happy to learn that Grebe had had so much fun traveling to Orofino and that he enjoyed hosting the Orofino guys when they came to bowl in Kellogg tournaments.
Later Harley came in and Mike Pierce came over to where we were and yakked with us for a while. We had a lot of fun talkin' about Boy Scouts. Harley was in the Smelterville troop out at Silver King school and Mike and I were both in Troop 300 at the United Church and it was a blast remembering all kinds of stuff, including the Freezorees at Camp Easton and up at Pottsville near Mullan. My mind swirled with more memories of great times at Camp Easton than I could even begin to tell Harley and Mike -- summer camp, capture the flag, nighttime campfires on Lake CdA, Order of the Arrow camps, several nights of camping in preparation for the 1969 National Jamboree at Farragut, and days of volunteer cleanup at Camp Easton. I almost ordered myself a gin so that I could smell pine needles while we were talking about Easton -- that smell is my strongest and best sensory memory of the place. Trails at Camp Easton were blanketed with pine needles and they baked on summer days, releasing the most pleasant smell imaginable. We had it made as Boy Scouts and it was fun tonight to relive a lot of cherished memories.
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