A Pilgrim’s Digression

This morning, I went to the ATM at our local Wachovia, and I noticed that the ATM fee has gone up. It used to be $2.00; now it is $2.50. This must be a trend because in Washington last week, I used a Bank of America ATM and the fee was $3.00.

The slap in the face comes when you look at the receipt. That $2.50 or $3.00 is called a “convenience fee.” Whose convenience? Mine I suppose. It is “convenient” for me to have an ATM where I can withdraw money. And by implication, it is “inconvenient” for the bank. So they charge me a fee for my “convenience.”

The whole reason why I withdrew cash only points to more bank stupidity.

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Last night as I was watching the ABC evening news with my elderly landlady, she commented that the commercial breaks seemed longer than ever. I agreed, of course, and her off-hand remark really prompted me to pay attention to what was being advertised.

In one commercial break alone, I counted four advertisements for prescription medication, one advertisement for Toyota, one advertisement for an upcoming TV show, something luridly titled “Dirty Sexy Money.”

I know I have commented on this before, but it bears further analysis. Why all the commercials for prescription drugs, especially drugs for Erectile Dysfunction?

Of the latter, the latest and (in my opinion) the funniest is for Cialis. “I never realized that my high blood pressure medication could be causing my ED,” the man says. He’s middle aged, very prosperous looking. In between his talking, shots of him playing tennis, picking flowers with his wife (also a carefully groomed, young-looking middle aged woman), always laughing, laughing, laughing.

“I didn’t feel like a man anymore,” another man says, a handsome, older black man with close-cropped gray hair (cut to him and his wife, both laughing of course, as they stroll along a beach).

The intimate laughter seems to signify that the two are quietly enjoying their secret: they are having the best sex of their lives. Thank you, Cialis!

It sort of reminds me of those commercials for “feminine pads” or “feminine napkins” as they were euphemistically called, when I was a kid. I used to think a feminine napkin was a special toilet paper a woman used to wipe her bum. Heck, there were even commercials for douches.

Remember this? “Mom, did you ever feel…not so fresh?”

Apparently, women always talk about that “not so fresh feeling” with their mom, and the conversation usually happens on the beach.  Just once, I’d like to see a commercial for a douche kit that dropped all pretense of euphemism: “Mom, my snatch really reeks. Is there something I can do about it?” “Why yes, Dear, try a Massengill Douche™.”

But remembering those commercials triggered the following thought: why don’t we see those commercials anymore? When I was a kid–and even up into the nineties–I remember commercials for soft drinks (when was the last time you saw a Coke or Pepsi commercial on TV?), chewing gum, household cleaners, toothpaste, cereal (remember all the ads for Fruit Loops and Trix and Captain Crunch?) …

Where have all these ads gone? And why have they been replaced with ads for Requip ? Requip is a drug that treats Restless Legs Syndrome. Speaking of which, maybe Larry Craig should ask his doctor about Requip, as the commercial suggests.

Requip, Cialis, Levitra, Lipitor…sometimes I see ads for all four in one block of commercials. And let’s not even start about the adult diaper advertisements. That tells you right there the age bracket to which Charlie Gibson’s news program is targeted.

I know that if I paid attention to Nickelodeon when my son is watching, I’d see commercials for toys. Advertisements are broadcast at particular times during the day, and during particular programs, according to the demographic of the audience supposed to be watching. But you know what? I find myself missing Pepsi advertising. Double Mint gum…stupid as it was, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Double Mint twins, again. At least there was some element of sexual fantasy to that. Even Peppermint Patty commercials had a sort of campy humor. “I feel like I’m slalloming down Mt. Everest with the wind in my face and…”

Ah, those were the days.

All day, I am reminded of it. As I dressed this morning, I listened to WMAL on the AM radio, and every five or ten minutes I heard the date: “And here’s the news for Tuesday October 16, 2007.” And later, “And here’s your weather for Tuesday October 16, 2007.”

It’s going to be partly cloudy today in Washington, by the way. High near 78 degrees.

When I arrived at work, I checked my messages. “New message, on, Tuesday, October 16, 2007…” the woman’s pre-recorded voice said in the halting, punctuated syntax of machines.

My wife called me at work to say good morning, and she mentioned the date, as well. What day is it? Well, they say it’s my birthday.

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I can’t remember when I first became fascinated by the story of the American author Ross Lockridge, Jr. Perhaps a professor told me about him, long ago; or perhaps I read about him in the biography of another writer. My problem is that many of the titles and authors of books I read years ago are slipping away from me as I age.

At first, as I sat here preparing to write a little about this man whose life and suicide has always haunted me, I thought that perhaps I had read about him in a book titled The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer, yet it occurs to me that this is probably not the case, since Lockridge himself was famously abstemious.

Who knows, at this point. I write at length about my own faulty recall only to point out the fragility of human memory. There have been times over the years since Lockridge’s death when even the memory of him has been on the verge of dying, except amongst his close family members. His one novel was out of print for many years, and if it was recalled at all as an artifact of American culture, it was remembered not as a novel but as a rather rotten film starring the young Elizabeth Taylor and Monty Clift.

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Earlier this morning, I went into the bathroom at work and walked in on a homeless man bathing himself in the sink.

He was not wearing a shirt, and his pants were unfastened and hanging very loosely on his hips. He was rubbing his face and substantial belly with wet paper towels. A rather tubby man, he looked as if he had no trouble finding the shelter kitchen, but for whatever reason he had decided to choose a government building open to the public for his sink bath.

I went to the urinal, and as I stood there, he continued his morning ablutions. Soon I heard the distinctive scraping sound of a razor on barely damp skin. I zipped up, and as I turned to wash my hands and leave, I glanced at him and saw that he was shaving without shaving cream.

I washed and dried my hands and as I passed him, I noted with growing distaste the dirty water and the grime around the sink basin and the little curly hairs on the edge of the sink. Returning to my desk, I sat there and began to think. Should I tell someone? There are plenty of police officers on every floor. I could go right into the hallway and find one. What should I do? Nothing?

Why would I even consider turning him in? A homeless man taking a bath in the sink of a bathroom in a government building…is that a crime?

Finally, my priggishness getting the better of my compassion, I went out and spoke to a policeman. He placed a call on his radio telling whoever monitors such things where he was going and what he was doing.

“These homeless people,” he said, a look of vague disgust on his face (probably mirroring the look on my face). “They do this all the time. All the time.” Then after a pause, the policeman said, “Well, I’ll roust him out.”

I walked with him to the bathroom, but did not go in. The policeman entered, a staticky voice on his radio announcing his presence just as he hit the door. From outside, I heard the policeman say, “Alright Sir, what’s going on in here?”

“Nothing,” I heard a man answer in a gruff voice.

“Why do you have your shirt off?”

“I was hot. I was just splashing some cool water on me.”

“Alright, you know that ain’t allowed. I got to escort you outta here. Put your shirt back on and get your things there.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” the other man said.

“Yeah, come on. Time for you to go.”

At this point, I hurriedly slipped back to my office. My question is, if I did the right thing, why do I feel guilty?

I have a soft spot for forgotten writers and forgotten works of literature. It always seems unbearably sad that someone, even a hack, can manage to write a complete novel–maybe even a complete set of novels–yet nonetheless slowly find their redoubt eroded by time, like Shelley’s “colossal wreck,” Ozymandias.

Today, while reading the unpublished memoirs of a World War II Navy veteran, Everette Johnson, the author mentioned that he served under Lieutenant Commander Marcus Aurelius Goodrich aboard the U.S.S. Pitt. The veteran further commented that Goodrich was a best-selling novelist, author of Delilah, a novel published just prior to the war about life aboard a U.S. Navy ship. The novel received good reviews, and following the war Goodrich went to work as a script writer in Hollywood. He married Olivia De Havilland in 1946 and divorced her in 1952. Despite high expectations of literary success, he was never able to finish another novel.

More on Goodrich, including excerpts from his novel, can be found here at this interesting blog: The Neglected Books Page. Goodrich died in 1991 while living in a nursing home in Richmond, Virginia, shortly after his only son by De Havilland died of Hodgkinsons Disease.

One has to wonder if the nurses who attended him in his last days knew that the man they cared for was a veteran Navy officer from World War I and World War II, as well as a one-time best-selling novelist, a Hollywood screenwriter, and former husband of one of the most beautiful actresses of the 1930’s and ’40’s.

Sad to say, but none of that probably mattered much, either to him or to the people caring for him. What could anyone have done about it? Neither his one novel, nor any of his achievements, helped preserve him from a fate all too common to the elderly. He died alone, in the care of strangers.

What I find most fascinating is that the sailor who wrote about Lt. Commander Goodrich in his memoir remembers only the fussiness of his CO. Goodrich once called the young man, a Chief Quartermaster, and two other sailors into his cabin and lectured them for 15 minutes on properly syncing his (Goodrich’s) clock with the ship’s chronometer. In the words of the veteran, Goodrich was “universally disliked,” and “a confirmed nitpicker.” Rather in the tradition of Captain Queeg, of Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny, Goodrich was eccentric to the point of mental instability. In one example Johnson provides, Goodrich strolled around the decks of his ship clad only in his officer’s cap, tennis shoes, and a jock strap.

It’s odd the things that people will remember about us when we’re gone. If people remember us at all, it will probably be incidents such as that which stick in the mind. Innocuous pranks, random comments or grandiose speeches made without thought, the throwaway detritus of an ordinary life that last but a moment in our short term memory…these are the stuff of other people’s unpublished memoirs, the stories engraved, in some way or another, upon our monument.