I didn’t have time to get a reply letter to Fudd before Book Report II showed up in my mailbox. He was prompt in delivering his self-assigned homework, and got the project back to me before I had a chance to send him a letter about whatever dumb thing I had noticed recently.
When we read something that resonates, we take the author’s experiences and lay them on top of our own. Most people don’t write because they think they don’t have anything unique to offer—but focusing on the differences between our life and those around us is a mistake. We read to feel like we have something in common. Good writing reminds us of those things in common. Sure, a memoir about someone getting trapped in a boulder and cutting off his own arm with a pocket knife is interesting—but if that’s the whole story, if all it is is a guy who chops off his own arm, it’ll only be interesting. It’ll be like watching one of those SAW movies and thinking, “holy fuck that would suck.” And then we would intentionally force ourselves NOT to think about that story anymore. We wouldn’t have a reason to. We wouldn’t want to.
We remember the familiar. Because it is ppthe familiar that makes us feel less alone. It is the familiar that makes us feel seen. It is the familiar that makes sense of our world.
We don’t want to be the only guy who sees things the way we do. We want someone who gets us. We want someone who sees the same things even when they look different.
So when Haywood Fudd responded with his second book report and it contained a dozen anecdotes about things he thought of while reading my essays—things that he felt we had in common, things that we could relate to, things that I reminded him of—I felt less alone.
I knew I had something in common with someone, even if those things were absurd. Even if it was a mysterious pen pal who I had never met in person.
But we had met on the page.
Book Report II: Things I’ve Been Thinking About
Probably like your sister, Denise, I grew up in the 1970s.
Memory: I, too, was a member of the Boy Scouts, which during the 1970s was analogous to giving teenage kids sticks of dynamite in a book of matches. It was divine intervention that one of us wasn’t killed or disfigured. None of the juvenile lunatics I was in the Scouts with achieved any merit badges because there wasn’t a merit badge for trying to set the woods on fire, throwing Spears at each other, and running amok like the teenage savages in Lord of the Flies.
Memory: My buddies and I crowded around the television when Evel Knievel was leaping his Harley over buses, cars, and fountains. We prayed Evel would suffer a fantastic crash. When the God of Crashes granted our wish, we shuddered with glee as Evel tumbled like a rag doll down the landing ramp. Excited at Evel’s “cool” crash, we would race outside and build ramps out of purloined plywood. We then leaped our banana-seat bicycles over this and that. In one dazzling crash I broke seven fingers that also turned my bike into a heap of scrap. So Evel. I own an Evel Knievel pinball machine.
Fact: My hearing is wrecked because during the late 1970s I fired at least 100,000 rounds of various calibers without wearing ear protection. None of my buddies wore hearing protection either because there wasn’t any high quality hearing protection to be had like what I now wear, and even if there was we wouldn’t have wasted money on hearing protection when we could have used the money to buy more ammo. My ears rang and rang due to glorious gunfire and loud rock music.
Some musings about where I’m at in your book:
· Never taken a polar plunge but I did leap off a bridge into a spring-fed river on March 1st, 1981. Not smart. Not smart at all
· Haven’t spent much time in Minnesota though Northfield is on my list
· Saw Blue Öyster Cult three times
· Own a t-shirt with the word “SPAM” on the front of it; I own Spam socks, too
· Gay jokes are still funny
· One of my all-time favorite books is Breakfast of Champions. Kurt Vonnegut gave birth to it
· Costco is my first choice for buying hooch
· Spend a lot of time and money in firework stands. I’m setting off 1,000,000 firecrackers this year period last year I set off 100,000. Go big or go home
· When our kids were small, my wife and I purchased a trampoline for them. They survived. I was terrified the entire time
· God bless you and your wife for adopting
Haywood
