Many years ago, when I was a fresh-faced freshman at university my very first English class during that first quarter, ENG 114, was held at night (my first night class). We had a basketball player in class, a tall and witty white kid, who started each class by asking our teacher, Karen Widemann, about the rumor he'd heard that class would be let out early. We'd all have a laugh, and get to it.
Karen Widemann, I learned later, was one of Poly's English grad students, and like me and the college Algebra classes, they gave their grad students the frosh classes. I remember the moment when I realized that the silly-hot blond chick was the teacher and not an overdressed classmate: "I'm supposed to pay attention to class now?"
Fully engaged as I was with the class, I did my best on my assignments, and as the partying started to rear up, I still made sure I stayed on top of my work for ENG 114. I figured out how to put feeling into my assignments, and even got a written note on one of my papers from Ms Widemann that said: "When you write a book one day, I will proudly tell people I was your teacher." Pretty inspiring stuff for a rarely sober and horny kid. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if she had ulterior motives with some of those comments. She talked about her Navy SEAL fiancee enough, though, that none of us fellas were bold enough even make insinuative jokes.
This was the class where we were assigned as the final project ANYthing we wanted. It was a pretty silly assignment from someone who had just learned her thesis had been accepted and she'd be graduating with her MA--she was kinda checked out.
Our group did a literary analysis of Dr. Seuss projects. It turned out we were the only group that actually aspired to do something class-work-like. I have a funny story about that as well for some day.
One of the books that Ms. Widemann assigned to us to read was Conroy's The Great Santini.
Still have the copy...
I remember being maybe twenty pages in and thinking, "This doesn't seem like a book you'd read for school," and I think that's still a fair assessment. It certainly didn't, at the time, have a literary fiction feel, or timbre, and it was easy to read and kinda melodramatic. But I didn't know that Karen was a grad student with pretty much free reign over what to teach and how to teach it---that she got away with it makes much more sense after my own understanding of how Cal Poly's Teaching Associate program works.
Anyway, the picture of Bull Meecham that comes out during the course of the seems familiar, although only from stories. This guy sounds very similar to the stories I've heard of my own grandfather. I remembered to make a note of it and bring it up whenever I saw the fam again and ask if they'd heard of this book.
Months go by, projects go by, I had a few drinks in the interim, and eventually I found myself at my Auntie Peg's in Santa Monica for Christmas, with very little recollection of discussion topics beyond, "Yes please, more wine would be great," and, "No I'm not drunk...you should see drunk..."
On a bookshelf I noticed a dogeared copy of The Great Santini. I made a surprised sound effect and pulled it out. "We read this for class this past quarter..." and before I could elaborate on the similarity between Bull Meecham and Grandpa Tom, I heard my mom from behind me:
"Yeah, we all have a copy of it. Recognize anyone?"
It was then I realized the full power of writing---the ability to tap in to something real, to be able to project that real-ness out and possibly do good for others. I imagined all the household's around the country that had their own Bull Meechams, their own looming specters that for whom nothing is ever good enough, their own perpetually angry and disappointed patriarchs, and about how those household's could find some solace in this "Bull Meecham" character, maybe find some peace in knowing they are not alone.
It was a realization that I recognize now is an infant writer's first steps. Pat Conroy's The Great Santini will always, for me, represent a point in my writerly development: a point where I recognized that there is a line between literary fiction and genre fiction, AND that even genre fiction has the power of Art (with the capital A) and what that Art can resemble.
**
We decided to end our Dr. Seuss project with a discussion of "The Butter Battle Book" and it's obvious connection to the Cold War. Whatever awesome weapon one side developed, upon deployment it was realized that the enemy had likewise developed the exact same awesome weapon. Eventually they realized that the differences that started the fight were ridiculous in the first place and make peace.
But once we heard that they had made a "Butter Battle Book" cartoon, and it was available at the local video store, we were sold. I remember asking the dude (initials RW) if we could borrow his car: we had to get to the video store and rent a Dr. Seuss tape.
I'm not even sure how we found out about the cassette. This was the days before you would assume the Internet could help with this kind of thing. Besides, very few of us had it in our rooms. It was also before DVDs, and way before YouTube, so the cassette was all we could get our hands on.
We watched it in someone's room while we attended to the festivities of the evening. We were able to take notes and prepare the ending of our project, showing the clip at the end of the cassette.
The next night, the last night of class before finals (when we were to perform a perfunctory assignment), our group was the last to go. We discussed our parameters and theses. Most students were interested, if only because we were taking the assignment far more seriously than anyone else (I thought we were going too far in a non-serious direction. Silly me.).
Eventually the time was right to hit Play on the VCR. The scene unfolded...the dialogue crept on, and the conclusion phrasing we thought would be there was slow to unpack itself. I whispered to one of my groupmates, Leslie (also a pal from The Steps), "Do you remember this part of the cartoon?"
But before I even finished my whisper question, the characters in the cartoon started singing and dancing, and our group all started to make raised-eye-brow eye-contact with each other: nobody remembered there being a song; the previous night's festivities had seen a more concise version of "The Butter Battle Book" video. We swear.
**
Thanks Pat Conroy. A slice of my life was effected by him in a fashion unlike many other authors along my development line. The memories connected to "Pat Conroy" and his Marine fighter-pilot book occupy a very sacred place in my memory banks.
They've been revived are kept alive by his passing.
Also: Love Robert Duval, but he's not massive enough to play Bull Meecham. Am I right?
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