John and Mary
Chris, you asked me to write an “essay on John and Mary.” Since essays, like sonnets, have a standard form, I fear, benighted as I am, that should I attempt an essay I would produce a defective work to the scorn of the literati, so let us call this merely a piece.
As an historian I cannot escape the imperative to start with a brief account of our relationship with John and Mary. I will follow with some thoughts on my perceptions of them.
As an inveterate pedestrian, I walked to work daily past your house on Hillside Circle. After observing a little girl solitarily at play and since we had a little boy often solitarily at play, it occurred to me that together they might enhance the fun of their play time.
One day I boldly knocked on your door to be greeted by your sister and then your mother. Visits were arranged and I took pleasure in seeing you two doing things that kids best do together. I particularly noted the zeal which you both displayed in placing a number of coat hangers on bushes throughout the adjacent woodlands.
The social interaction of the children was soon followed by that of the parents. The foundation of this relationship was the first of a lengthy series of “birthday dinners” designed to celebrate the birthdays of Mary and Grace. This primal event was held at the Public House in Sturbridge and proved a most enjoyable evening as did all subsequent ones. As for paying the tab for these dinners, you acute father proposed that each of us would be responsible in alternate years, thus eliminating any unseemly altercations to end the meal. He even kept a record in his ever present pocket notebook. So I was never able to welch.
In the mid-60s, your family moved to Washington (Rockville), and we acquired the humble sea-green cottage at Quonochontaug. The geographical separation did not end our friendship. Indeed, it grew in closeness and mutual affection in subsequent years. We frequently visited you and spent a number of Thanksgivings at your house. Each summer during many years, “your growing up years,” you and your folks were with us at Quonochontaug.
My memories of our times together there are many, none more vivid than the picnics on the long lonely stretch of beach west of the breachway which we reached by my little sloop. My recollection is particularly sharp of the day John and I got on the outgoing current of the breachway and capsized. Fortunately, we were rescued and the “Irish Navy,” as your father called it, survived for another day.
During these years, we scrupulously attended each others family functions. You were all present at both Lorraine and Bobby’s weddings. (At Bobby’s wedding John arrived with a bag of garbage in his car. He assured me he could not find a place to deposit it, and that he did not mean to use it at the reception.) You came also to our 50th wedding anniversary celebration, and we were present at your graduation from Mt. Holyoke. I had the honor to serve as head usher at your wedding and to propose the toast at your reception. (I proposed the toast in French, probably so badly pronounced that only the English speaking people there could understand it.)
On a sad note we visited your mother during her last days and took comfort that she managed a smile when we arrived. Several years later we visited your grievously ill father at the Washington nursing home. He bravely got out of bed to greet us but soon weakened, and my farewell to John was to help him back into his bed.
On a brighter note, I must not neglect to express the joy that was ours to observe as you matured through the years, to sense the enthusiasm you felt for the beach and the waves, and to appreciate the kindness and affection you showed us.
Now, as for my perceptions of John and Mary, I believe succinctness rather than prolixity may best convey them.
John had a directness in his approach to persons and things. Thus, Sartre-like he saw “existence before essence” and let the essence, i.e., his view, derive from the existence of the subject under discussion. His ranging interest of “how things are going,” in politics, in higher education, in contemporary culture, or in the pharmaceutical industry, and his comments on them were critical but without petulance or cynicism. His ethical judgments were not as a moralist drawing on principle, but as an appraiser assigning a value. Endless hours of conversations I had with him made these and other characteristics evident, but most of all revealed a conscientious man, not always at peace with the world, but very much a part of it.
Mary, with her immersion in literature, her keen and penetrating grasp of the people whom she encountered, her subdued sense of humor, and appreciation of irony (even mine), and with her need to unburden herself (as indeed she did with Grace in their late nocturnal sessions) was a woman delightfully pleasant and engaging, but not completely knowable. It has been said of “War and Peace” that no thought or experience or human situation is left out. That Mary could find fascination and perhaps solace in her reiterated reading of this rich and variegated work helps us to know her better, I think, than anything else.
My piece on “John and Mary” may not touch on all you wish me to write. However, I hope it does reflect the sincere and deep friendship which it was our good fortune to have with them through many years.
Robert W. Lougee
Storrs, Connecticut
November 2008
Chris, you asked me to write an “essay on John and Mary.” Since essays, like sonnets, have a standard form, I fear, benighted as I am, that should I attempt an essay I would produce a defective work to the scorn of the literati, so let us call this merely a piece.
As an historian I cannot escape the imperative to start with a brief account of our relationship with John and Mary. I will follow with some thoughts on my perceptions of them.
As an inveterate pedestrian, I walked to work daily past your house on Hillside Circle. After observing a little girl solitarily at play and since we had a little boy often solitarily at play, it occurred to me that together they might enhance the fun of their play time.
One day I boldly knocked on your door to be greeted by your sister and then your mother. Visits were arranged and I took pleasure in seeing you two doing things that kids best do together. I particularly noted the zeal which you both displayed in placing a number of coat hangers on bushes throughout the adjacent woodlands.
The social interaction of the children was soon followed by that of the parents. The foundation of this relationship was the first of a lengthy series of “birthday dinners” designed to celebrate the birthdays of Mary and Grace. This primal event was held at the Public House in Sturbridge and proved a most enjoyable evening as did all subsequent ones. As for paying the tab for these dinners, you acute father proposed that each of us would be responsible in alternate years, thus eliminating any unseemly altercations to end the meal. He even kept a record in his ever present pocket notebook. So I was never able to welch.
In the mid-60s, your family moved to Washington (Rockville), and we acquired the humble sea-green cottage at Quonochontaug. The geographical separation did not end our friendship. Indeed, it grew in closeness and mutual affection in subsequent years. We frequently visited you and spent a number of Thanksgivings at your house. Each summer during many years, “your growing up years,” you and your folks were with us at Quonochontaug.
My memories of our times together there are many, none more vivid than the picnics on the long lonely stretch of beach west of the breachway which we reached by my little sloop. My recollection is particularly sharp of the day John and I got on the outgoing current of the breachway and capsized. Fortunately, we were rescued and the “Irish Navy,” as your father called it, survived for another day.
During these years, we scrupulously attended each others family functions. You were all present at both Lorraine and Bobby’s weddings. (At Bobby’s wedding John arrived with a bag of garbage in his car. He assured me he could not find a place to deposit it, and that he did not mean to use it at the reception.) You came also to our 50th wedding anniversary celebration, and we were present at your graduation from Mt. Holyoke. I had the honor to serve as head usher at your wedding and to propose the toast at your reception. (I proposed the toast in French, probably so badly pronounced that only the English speaking people there could understand it.)
On a sad note we visited your mother during her last days and took comfort that she managed a smile when we arrived. Several years later we visited your grievously ill father at the Washington nursing home. He bravely got out of bed to greet us but soon weakened, and my farewell to John was to help him back into his bed.
On a brighter note, I must not neglect to express the joy that was ours to observe as you matured through the years, to sense the enthusiasm you felt for the beach and the waves, and to appreciate the kindness and affection you showed us.
Now, as for my perceptions of John and Mary, I believe succinctness rather than prolixity may best convey them.
John had a directness in his approach to persons and things. Thus, Sartre-like he saw “existence before essence” and let the essence, i.e., his view, derive from the existence of the subject under discussion. His ranging interest of “how things are going,” in politics, in higher education, in contemporary culture, or in the pharmaceutical industry, and his comments on them were critical but without petulance or cynicism. His ethical judgments were not as a moralist drawing on principle, but as an appraiser assigning a value. Endless hours of conversations I had with him made these and other characteristics evident, but most of all revealed a conscientious man, not always at peace with the world, but very much a part of it.
Mary, with her immersion in literature, her keen and penetrating grasp of the people whom she encountered, her subdued sense of humor, and appreciation of irony (even mine), and with her need to unburden herself (as indeed she did with Grace in their late nocturnal sessions) was a woman delightfully pleasant and engaging, but not completely knowable. It has been said of “War and Peace” that no thought or experience or human situation is left out. That Mary could find fascination and perhaps solace in her reiterated reading of this rich and variegated work helps us to know her better, I think, than anything else.
My piece on “John and Mary” may not touch on all you wish me to write. However, I hope it does reflect the sincere and deep friendship which it was our good fortune to have with them through many years.
Robert W. Lougee
Storrs, Connecticut
November 2008
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