It started with Norman
Nov. 12th, 2007 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisThat is, this train of thought started with remembering Norman Mailer...
Back in my college years (1967-1971) most schools had two semesters with a couple of weeks off in January to separate them. My school had two semesters but the first ended in December and the second did not start until February. In January they offered a mini semester. My freshman year, I did the mini semester and took Contemporary American Literature.
There were 8 of us in the class. All men (the draft ruled our lives and the deferment for student status was still in effect - this made accidental students out of many guys who would ordinarily probably not be.) and me and my best friend, Heather. The professor was young and hip (it was 1968 - hip was still hip). The class met in his living room which was unusual and very cool.
We met 3 days a week for 2 hours. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In between, we were to have read the book du jour. The first book was The Naked and The Dead. Now, this book is not a quick pithy tome. It's a giant motherfucker and we had a weekend to get 'er done. It was a decent story with lots of dialogue and not the kind you hear in Sunday School. We would read, go to lunch, read, go to dinner, read, etc. We were page turning fools. And when we looked up from the pages we talked like filthy tongued WWII soldiers. "Pass the salt, asshole." "Here, motherfucker." It was pretty funny.
But not nearly as funny as when we read John Updike's Rabbit Run.
Now, remember, I grew up in the South. It was the 60's but the counter culture had not been there yet. I was as naive as they come and... still a virgin (not by choice particularly, more by happenstance or lack thereof). Heather grew up in rural West Virginia and so was equally unequipped.
Rabbit Run included a passage about midway through the book where the wife gives the husband a blow job. BUT because this was lit-er-a-ture, it was not spelled out graphically as in 'he inserted a into b' but more fuzzily. To the point that neither Heather nor I could make out exactly what was happening. We discussed it with each other and got nowhere. So, at lunch, with our good friend, Tim, we asked him.
Tim was the sweetest guy. He had red hair and freckles and was really kind of shy. We had adopted him. And he was not sure why. But, he was happy to have the two chicks from class to eat meals with.
Until the Rabbit Run day. We asked him what exactly they were doing in the book and the look on his face is burned into my memory cells. He would have been so much happier if we had just shot him on the spot. His freckles disappeared when the blood rushed to his face and we thought he might explode.
I know we did not learn about blow jobs from him and I don't even remember how we got the details but oh what a memory Norman Mailer evokes!
Back in my college years (1967-1971) most schools had two semesters with a couple of weeks off in January to separate them. My school had two semesters but the first ended in December and the second did not start until February. In January they offered a mini semester. My freshman year, I did the mini semester and took Contemporary American Literature.
There were 8 of us in the class. All men (the draft ruled our lives and the deferment for student status was still in effect - this made accidental students out of many guys who would ordinarily probably not be.) and me and my best friend, Heather. The professor was young and hip (it was 1968 - hip was still hip). The class met in his living room which was unusual and very cool.
We met 3 days a week for 2 hours. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In between, we were to have read the book du jour. The first book was The Naked and The Dead. Now, this book is not a quick pithy tome. It's a giant motherfucker and we had a weekend to get 'er done. It was a decent story with lots of dialogue and not the kind you hear in Sunday School. We would read, go to lunch, read, go to dinner, read, etc. We were page turning fools. And when we looked up from the pages we talked like filthy tongued WWII soldiers. "Pass the salt, asshole." "Here, motherfucker." It was pretty funny.
But not nearly as funny as when we read John Updike's Rabbit Run.
Now, remember, I grew up in the South. It was the 60's but the counter culture had not been there yet. I was as naive as they come and... still a virgin (not by choice particularly, more by happenstance or lack thereof). Heather grew up in rural West Virginia and so was equally unequipped.
Rabbit Run included a passage about midway through the book where the wife gives the husband a blow job. BUT because this was lit-er-a-ture, it was not spelled out graphically as in 'he inserted a into b' but more fuzzily. To the point that neither Heather nor I could make out exactly what was happening. We discussed it with each other and got nowhere. So, at lunch, with our good friend, Tim, we asked him.
Tim was the sweetest guy. He had red hair and freckles and was really kind of shy. We had adopted him. And he was not sure why. But, he was happy to have the two chicks from class to eat meals with.
Until the Rabbit Run day. We asked him what exactly they were doing in the book and the look on his face is burned into my memory cells. He would have been so much happier if we had just shot him on the spot. His freckles disappeared when the blood rushed to his face and we thought he might explode.
I know we did not learn about blow jobs from him and I don't even remember how we got the details but oh what a memory Norman Mailer evokes!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-12 05:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-12 05:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-12 06:26 pm (UTC)