***The Intellectuals Or The Jocks?
For Fredda Cohen, North Adamsville High, Class Of 1964
From The Pen Of Phil Larkin
Click on the headline to link to a
letter written by the late American writer, Norman Mailer, and printed in The
New York Review Of Books, detailing his choices for "must reads"
in the American literary canon. What would your ten choices be? See below.
Phil Larkin guest comment:
I did not then, nor do I now, know
Fredda Cohen, a fellow classmate at North Adamsville High, Class of 1964. I
don’t remember if old track buddy Markin, Peter Paul Markin, who prompted me to
write some teary-eyed thing for him knew her or not, but it was with her in
mind that I wrote the following. I, today, strongly believe that I could have
learned a lot from her and maybe Markin believes that too but you will have to ask him that
yourself. No way, no way on god’s good green earth in the year 2013 and while I
am still breathing, old time “jock” buddies or not, am I going to vouch for
that maniac. Here goes:
Every September, like clockwork, I
am transported to a place called the beginning of the year. No, not New Year’s
Day like any real person would expect, but the school year for most students,
younger or older. That is a frame of reference that I have not changed in all
these years. And every year, or many years anyway, my thoughts come back to the
road not taken, or really not taken then, when I ask myself the following
question that I am posing in such a way here so that you can ask it to yourself
as well: What group(s) did you hang around with in high school?
This question is meant to be generic
and more expansive that the two categories listed in the headline. These were
hardly the only social groupings that existed at our high school (or any public
high school, then or now, for that matter) but the ones that I am interested in
personally for the purpose of this thing. Corner boy devotees and wanna-be
gangster hoods, social butterflies, teases (actually that is covered that under
social butterflies, girl social butterflies), school administration “brown
noses,” science nuts, auto mechanics grease monkeys, Bolsheviks, hippies,
beats, hip-hop nation devotees, could-care-if-school-kept-or-not-ers, school
skippers, drop-outs, and religious nuts can speak your own piece for your
“community.”
You, fellow alumni from Anyway
U.S.A. High, can also feel free to present your own extra categories in case I
missed anything above like S&M or B&D devotees or stamp club members or
both intertwined, if your you were aware of such types. However, for this
writer, and perhaps some of you, here were my choices. The intellectuals,
formerly known as the "smart kids.” You know, the ones that your mother
was always, usually unfavorably, comparing you to come report card time in
order to embarrass you or get you to buckle down in the great getting out from
under the graying nowhere working class night and make something of yourself that
she (and dad) could be proud of. Yes, those kids at the library after school,
and even on Saturday, Saturdays if you can believe that, and endlessly
trudging, trudging like some Promethean wanderers about forty- six pounds of
books, books large and small, books in all colors, mainly, and here is the
kicker, well-thumbed, very well-thumbed. Or, on the other hand the jocks, the
guys and in those days it was almost exclusively guys (girls came in as
cheer-leaders or, well, girlfriends-sometimes the same thing). You know,
mainly, the Goliaths of the gridiron, their hangers-on, wannabes and
"slaves." The guys who were not carrying any forty-six pounds of
books, although maybe were wearing that much poundage in sports gear. And any
books that needed carrying was done by either girlfriends or the previously
mentioned slaves. Other sports may have had some shine but the “big men” on
campus were the fall classic guys. Some sports such as the old buddies, Markin
and Larkin’s, track and field events didn’t usually rate even honorable mention
compared to say a senior bake sale or high school confidential school dance.
Frankly, although I was drawn to
both groupings in high school I was mainly a "loner" for reasons that
are beyond what I want to discuss here except it very definitely had to do with
confusion about the way to get out from under that graying working class
nowhere night. And about “fitting” in somewhere in the school social order that
had little room for guys (or girls for that matter) who didn’t fit into some classifiable
niche. And for guys, 1960s shorts-wearing track guys, running the streets of
old North Adamsville to the honks of automobiles trying to scare us off the
road (no share the road with a runner then) and jeers, the awful jeers of
girls, that space was very small. The most one could hope for was a “nod” from
the football guys (or basketball in winter) in recognition that you were a
fellow athlete, of sorts. Yah, times were tough but we survived.
But now I can come out of the
closet, at last. I read books. Yes, I read them, no devoured them endlessly
(and still do), and as frequently as I could (can). Did you see me though carrying
tons of books over my shoulder in public? Be serious, please. Here is the long
held secret (even from Markin). I used to go over to the library on the other
side of town, the Adamsville side where no one, no one who counted anyway
(meaning no jock, of course), would know me. One summer I did that almost every
day. So there you have it. Well, not quite.
In recent perusals of my class
yearbook I have been drawn continually to the page where the description of the
Great Books Club is presented. I believe that I was hardly aware of this club
at the time but, apparently, it met after school and discussed Plato, John
Stuart Mill, Max Weber, Karl Marx and others. Fredda Cohen ran that operation.
Hell, that club sounded like great fun. One of the defining characteristics of
my life has been, not always to my benefit, an overweening attachment to books
and ideas. So what was the problem? What didn't I hang with that group?
Well, uh..., you know, they were,
uh, nerds, dweebs, squares, not cool (although we did not use those exact terms
in those days). That, at least, was the public reason, but here are some other
more valid possibilities. Coming from my 'shanty' background, where the corner
boys had a certain cachet, I was somewhat afraid of mixing with the "smart
kids." The corner boys counted, after school anyway, and if they didn’t
count then it was better to keep a wide, down low berth from anything that
looked like a book reader in their eyes. I, moreover, feared that I wouldn't
measure up, that the intellectuals seemed more virtuous somehow. I might also
add that a little religiously-driven plebeian Irish Catholic
anti-intellectualism (you know, be 'street' smart but not too 'book' smart in
order to get ahead in one version of that graying working class nowhere night)
might have entered into the mix as well.
But, damn, I sure could have used
the discussions and fighting for ideas that such groups like that book club would
have provided. I had to do it the hard way later. As for the jocks one should
notice, by the way, that in the last few paragraphs that I have not mentioned a
thing about their virtues. And, in the scheme of things, that is about right.
So now you know my choice, except to steal a phrase from something that madman
Markin wrote honoring his senior English teacher, Ms. Lenora Sonos-
"Literature matters. Words matter." (I wish now that I had had her as
well). I would only add here that ideas matter, as well. Hats Off to the
North Adamsville Class of 1964 intellectuals!
*****
Norman Mailer
Ten Favorite American Novels
U.S.A. John Dos Passos
Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
Studs Lonigan James T. Farrell
Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby F. Scott
Fitzgerald-1st P.L.
The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
The Postman Always Rings Twice James
M. Cain
Moby-Dick Herman Melville
This would be my list, as well, except instead of Moby
Dick I would put Jack Kerouac's On The Road
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