[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September 18, 2019] ©2019
Astonishingly, I am approaching the 10th anniversary of writing Let
Inga Tell You, a gig I thought might last three months. But here we are.
And that is why, having written about everything I could think about writing
about in my non-life, I am going to mine my high school years at Pleasantville
(NY) High School and my famous classmate, whom I confess I barely know, Dave
Barry. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Other than the Reader’s Digest, which wasn’t actually in Pleasantville
but used the address, Dave truly is Pleasantville’s claim to fame. In fact,
probably the one enduring question of all of the alumni of PHS’s class of ’65
was, “Why wasn’t I better friends with Dave Barry?”
One possibility is that Dave wasn’t actually from Pleasantville. He
grew up in nearby Armonk that had no high school of its own at the time, so
starting in 10th grade, the Armonk kids were bused to Pleasantville.
Two alien populations with long established social orders who had each been
together since kindergarten were suddenly inflicted upon each other. They never
really entirely meshed.
I actually remember Dave Barry as being really kind and really funny
even then. These were not qualities that were often ascribed to high school
students.
I know I was in Monsieur Bombardier’s French class with him, and
especially Mr. Wittern’s junior year Honors English. Mr. Wittern was a major
positive influence in my writing life. I remember him telling me that he had
several students, including me, for whom he was saving room on his bookshelf
for our future work. Dave Barry was another. Of course, he would have needed
an entire bookcase for Dave’s.
I’ve probably read all of Dave’s work, including his brand new book,
“Lessons from Lucy,” not only because they’re hilarious but because he often
writes about people and places I know well including his years at PHS. The
depressing part is that while I try to write a column with two really good
lines, every word he writes is hilarious. I have no idea how he does
that.
I’m pretty sure I recall that homerooms were alphabetical so we would
have been in the same one. In that era, the homeroom teacher read the morning
bulletin. I wasn’t a cheerleader-popular kind of teenager, but I was very
social and a good student. As a high school sophomore, however, my only elected
office was secretary of the Organ Club (music, not donors). I think it will be
obvious that there was not a lot of cachet in this.
When club meetings were read, the creepo who sat next to me (definitely
not Dave) would lean over and leer. “Hey, Inga, wanna play MY organ?” My
husband, Olof, was fascinated by this story. “You
should have said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t play lesser instruments,’” Olof opined.
There is one Armonkian I’m still close with to this day. I had been
active in the school paper, The Green Lantern (green and white being our school
colors) and was thrilled to be named Chief Editor my senior year. So imagine
my surprise at the paper’s first fall meeting when this guy I’ll call “Tom,”
who had never worked a nano-second on the paper, shows up and announces he is
co-Chief Editor. Turns out he was applying to Yale and his guidance counselor
thought he needed at least one extracurricular activity. Preferably a
prestigious one. So she arranged with the paper’s faculty advisor for Tom to be
Co-Chief Editor. My first experience with graft and corruption.
Tom and I ended up bonding over my doing absolutely everything and him
doing absolutely nothing. We are in regular contact to this day. He still
sends me affectionate messages alluding to our time together on the yearbook.
“Tom, you effing moron,” I always reply, “it was the newspaper!”
BTW, admissions crime does pay. Tom did go to Yale and on to a
highly prestigious career. Presumably all based on his faux credential of being
Co-Chief Editor of the Green Lantern.
But back to Dave. What I really want to thank him for is my
colonoscopy. Some years back, my gastro guy recommended one to me and, noting
my lack of enthusiasm, proceeded to hand me Dave’s hilarious column on the
subject from a stack on his desk. So in awe was the gastro that I had actually
gone to high school with the guy who had written the Definitively Funny
Essay on Colonoscopies that he lost all interest in discussing my large
intestine, as astonishing as that may seem. Still, I like to think that on the
day of the procedure, my colon got deferential, if not reverential, treatment
because of Dave.
Interesting, my next colonoscopy eight years later, when I didn’t
mention Dave, was a disaster. I therefore recommend that people tell their
gastroenterologist that they went to high school with Dave Barry whether they
did or not.
OK, just warming up! Coming weeks: More Pleasantville memories!
Pleasantville High School, June, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment