Whistling in the Dark: True Stories and Other Fables

George Garrett was my freshman English prof at Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) eons ago in 1957-8, so when he came to Washington, DC for a talk and book signing I had to go. And buy a book; this was the one he was promoting. He did not remember me or (in the book) the name of the football coach at Wesleyan, for whom he had been an on-field assistant. But I do; he was Norm Daniels. But I was glad to see George Garrett again and learn that he had enjoyed some success as a writer, which I recalled had been his career goal. He was one of my favorite profs, since he was more "down-to-earth" than most of the academic stuffed shirts that comprised the faculty and this comes through in his writing, at least in this book. Why should you read it? It provides a pleasant, comfortable journey though parts of the 20th century that were often difficult, but not nearly as frenzied as the present. It was a time when there were steam locomotives, no TV, radios with tubes, clumsy black sedans, and large cities were not huge, squalid ghettoes. It was Norman Rockwell's America and where is now? Forever gone. I feel like an immigrant, but at least a legal one, I think. So when I want to reminisce about my native land, about all I can do is crack open "Whistling in the Dark" and read.