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"WITH AN EXPERIENCE OF THIS KIND,"
remarked
Cecil Harley-Smith, the Englishman from the Tavistock Institute,
during the discussions at the Fool's Gold Colloquium of 1954, "a
full measure of despair . . ."
He was referring to that peculiar national trauma we all lived
through those Eisenhower years.
"With an experience of this kind it is sometimes possible to
develop a reflowering of hope of a more realistic and creative brand,
of a less anxious and defensive character so that in the end the
unconvincing and broad smile may be replaced with one which is
certainly a little sadder but more direct and genuine."
It is with that "reflowering of hope"--if there be such a
thing--that I would like to concern myself now.
My name: Robert Jointer.
My profession: Teacher, at the Municipal University of
Gateway City where I headed the English department up until about a
year ago, but now Director of the Fool's Gold Academy of
Extended Research.
My condition: Divorcing.
Very crudely put--which was the way it was put at home in
Gateway City--I had run away from my wife with my brother's
wife and rather brazenly carried on the affair out there in Fool's
Gold. The story went on; I had been no more successful in my
affair than I had been in anything else. The whole business had
ended tragically in an automobile crash in one of those road races
they used to have out there, a crash after which it was uncertain
for a while whether my brother would live but which served to
bring his wife to her senses....
Reprinted with permission
from The Observatory
Copyright © 1966
by Carl Jonas
W.W. Norton
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