Maxwell Perkins and Huey Long

 He gave me a copy of his as yet unfinished novel - it was in manuscript form - double-spaced, front only of each page.

I read it, and liked it, and got it back to him, with comments / observations.

We exchanged a few letters the first couple of years I was in Boston, going to school.

(All these memories came back to me, as I remembered other parts of it - some things I had not thought of in quite a while.)

        There was a new book out, a biography of Maxwell Perkins, who was editor of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and other major authors from the early part of the 20th Century.  I remember I recommended it to him, and maybe I even sent him my copy of it when I was finished reading it - I'm not sure....

And I sent him a paper I had written for American History class - would have been my sophomore year, I think.  The paper was about Huey Long, governor of Louisiana from 1928 - 1932, and U.S. Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935.

        He wrote back to me - the paper had a "B" grade on it, and he took a firm stand, saying it was "an 'A' paper."  He was a little ticked at the professor!  LOL.

I didn't send it to him to get his judgment on what the grade should have been - I only wanted to share it because I had fun writing it, and I guess I was proud of it, and just wanted him to see it.

Did not expect him to take umbrage about the grade!

It was funny.

Next time I wrote to him, I said I was glad he thought it was an A paper, but not to be concerned, because I wasn't worried about getting a "B."

357 Beacon Street, apartment building where I lived, sophomore year at B.U.

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trouble already

 Yeah, let's split.  He's got enough trouble already.

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I only heard him say that in the movie many years later.

At the time, you couldn't stream it or watch it on DVD or on a VCR tape.

If you didn't see it in the theater, or on television if they showed it, then - you missed it.

        You couldn't get it.

It was a crazy world when you didn't have movies at your fingertips.

But we didn't know it was crazy.

It was just - Wednesday. ...

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        That summer, in 1977, the writer asked me to take a copy of his manuscript so far and read it, and put comments in the margins, & - I did.

I was very honored to be asked to do that.

        Remembering it now makes me smile.  Again.

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enough trouble

 The scene in Play Misty For Me where the guy I knew is in it, is at 31:00 into the movie.  This woman has grabbed his car keys out of the ignition and got out of the car.

He's saying, "Come on, gimme the keys."  And she kind of starts running away from him, laughing like a maniac.

At 31:10, there he is, up at the top of the stairs.

Then another guy comes out.

Clint Eastwood and Jessica Walter are struggling over the keys.  

"Damn it, give me the keys!"

The top-of-the-stairs guy on the left says, "Havin' some trouble, lady?"

"Get lost!" Clint advises him.

The crazy lady:  "Yeah!  Get lost, asshole!"

Her voice is really, really angry, and scary.

Clint looks at her, surprised.

And top-of-the-stairs guy on the right, the Writer, says, "Yeah, let's split, he's got enough trouble already."

other guy:  "Yeah, excuse me."

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Carmel-by-the-sea

 

        It turned out this writer I met during the summer of '77 was originally from South Dakota, but he lived in Carmel, California most of the time, and was part-owner of a restaurant there, with Clint Eastwood.

        I didn't have a lot of knowledge about Clint Eastwood back then - I knew he was in a movie called Dirty Harry.

        He had majored in English literature in college (the writer, not Mr. Eastwood) and worked as sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner.

        He told  me stories about an apartment building he lived in, in San Fran - the interesting and eccentric people who lived there, and I think he wrote a story about it - can't remember for sure...

We hung out and talked, several times that summer - lunch one day, pizza one night, and I can't even recall most of what we talked about, now, but it was nice.  Hassle-free; controversy-free, no "drama," and never boring.

I guess he was a good story-teller.

        I talked, too, but I didn't know much, at that age, compared to him!

When I told him something about experiences I had and the impressions they left, he responded by giving his perspective on it compared to other ways the events could have gone, and his point was always positive - encouraging.

He was a serious person, and also simply a joy to be around.

Oh, and he was in a movie that Clint Eastwood directed and starred in, called Play Misty For Me (made in 1971, same year as Dirty Harry).

        Writer-friend was in it for only a few seconds, small part - he and another guy are in front of a restaurant, and nearby on the sidewalk Clint Eastwood and actress Jessica Walter are having kind of an altercation.  The two men observing them assume for a moment that the woman needs saving from Eastwood, but it's the opposite, she's tormenting him.

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pink dress

 After we met the writer (and rather interrupted his writing, I guess) - we went back to the resort where we worked and lived.

Later that week, the writer called me and asked if I would like to go out to dinner - on, like, Saturday night, or Friday night, or something.

        I had this pink dress I had bought for some reason - I had a job, I had some money, and I got it because it fit and I liked it.

I said yes to dinner, and wore that dress.

I had never really had a real date, before.

And this man was handsome, interesting, and 27 years older than me.

        45, and I was 18.

I didn't hesitate to say yes when he called me, but then later I thought about it - am I "allowed" to go out with a man who is that much older than me?

        I decided I was allowed.  I was allowing myself.

Lovely evening.  Conversation was fun and easy.  He was not a negative person.  He didn't complain, or scoff, or try to manipulate me.

        And after dinner we went to a nightclub in Keystone and danced!

He told me the music they were playing was "disco," & that it was going to be the next big trend.

        (He was right - a month and a half later when I got to B.U., it was a close guess which music was coming out of the most dorm rooms - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album, or the songs from Saturday Night Fever....

Well you can tell by the way I use my walk,

I'm a woman's man, no time to talk...)

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1977

 

        In the summer of 1977, between high school graduation and starting college on the East Coast in the fall, I had a summer job as a waitress in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I met a man there who was a writer.  He lived in California full time, but was temporarily in the Black Hills, staying in a cabin on family property near Hill City, and  writing a novel.

        I was introduced to him in the cabin's kitchen where he was seated at a table, turning out pages on a classic manual typewriter, and smoking cigarettes.

He put out his current cigarette and talked with my friends and me.

Playing those Neil Diamond songs recently made me think of him, because one time he was driving me back to where I lived and he turned on some music in the car, and it was Neil Diamond.

He said something like, "I enjoy music like this, it inspires you and gives you energy."

        We were on one of those roads in the hills that curves this way and then that way, you're looping back and forth, getting where you're going, but not in a straight line.

The sun was shining; the sky was blue - which song was it?

"Cracklin' Rosie"?

"Cherry, Cherry"? - - She got the way to move me... we got things we gotta catch up on... you, you you know what I'm sayin'...

His car was a sort of light gold color.

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"play it now! play it now!"

 you tube video titled:

Neil Diamond - Cracklin' Rosie (Audio)

uploader /channel - Neil Diamond

Play and Listen, and here are some audience comments:

*  One of the most uplifting songs ever

*  I don't remember my dad singing out loud in the car but while on a vacation road-trip in the 70s it's the only song I ever recall him singing.  That memory is there forever.

*  ...The way he melds the words together is like honey. ...

*  Ese recuerdo es inolvidable!

*  DAT is MUZIEK !!!  Wordt je vrolijk

*  I never will forget the day the country was shut due to Covid and Neil came on Facebook playing songs to cheer us up.  So kind of him.  I have always loved his music, now I love him too for that.

*  this man knew how to write a great song

Neil Diamond; Bob Dylan

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