Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Friday, September 10, 1999

9 PM. It’s Rosh Hashanah 5760, not that I observe the Jewish New Year in any way except writing this sentence. Until yesterday, I wasn’t even sure when the holiday began. But it’s kind of neat that Mom and Jonathan got to Apache Junction today.

Dad called me at the office at 3:30 PM to say they’d been there for an hour, since about 11:30 AM Mountain Standard Time. Dad remarked that they looked like they’d survived a concentration camp-like ordeal, and Jonathan told me that he and Mom had indeed lost weight on the long cross-country trip.

Anyway, I’m glad they’re safe. I’ve been looking at Christmas airfares on the Net and I’ll probably make a reservation and stay for part of the vacation, though I could save lots of money if I remained here in Florida.

But by now I’m so much in debt that another $1,200 or so hardly matters as long as I keep my credit card chassis going.

This morning when I called NationsBank, my balance reflected a direct payroll deposit of over $1,700. I think that this time Nova actually overpaid me, but I’m not going to complain. My regular biweekly net pay should be more like $1,100.

I got up early after a great night’s sleep, yet I was too tired to exercise before breakfast and postpone my workout till just before lunch.

I decided I wanted to look better than usual today, so I left off my cast, put on the forest green pants I got at the TJ Maxx in Greenvale this summer and a new polo shirt I picked up on sale at Kmart, and I wore lenses instead of glasses.

I barely got to New York Times v. Sullivan in class this morning, but we had a good discussion on R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul and hate speech and hate crimes and group libel in Beauharnais.

This afternoon I made-up a drastically revised syllabus for the rest of the semester, cutting the cases in half by eliminating whole chapters and areas of the law. I have no choice, given a term of only eight weeks. Even a law professor couldn’t do what I set out to do.

Next week I hope to cover defamation, commercial advertising and the conflict between freedom of the press and a fair trial.

I’ve got to come up with essay questions for the take-home midterm this weekend, though I think I have two alternatives for one of the questions I plan to ask.

From the way students have been talking to me about their case analysis assignment, I wonder how bad they will be.

But I really love my job as a Legal Studies professor and feel it’s a privilege to be teaching subjects like Constitutional History and Political and Civil Rights. I expect that I will learn more than my students this year.

Teresa’s email contained news from New York. Her mother is now walking with a cane, and because of her improvement, the state took away her home health care aide. But in Mattituck there are enough able-bodied hands around to help.

An environmental inspection is probably the only hurdle for the sale of Paul’s lumber yard, which could come as early as next week.

Teresa’s sister and brother-in-law came back from London, and her niece loves college at Binghamton so much that she’s not returning home on weekends although Jade is still coming back from Purchase every Friday.

Teresa discovered a $100 bill for porn on her Fire Island satellite TV, and the culprit was Barbara’s son Matthew. Barbara has put him in therapy so he can better deal with Stewart’s death.

Pam passed her teachers’ exam, and her principal, who still had uncovered classes for this year, gave her a second grade class.

Unlike in her days as a substitute, Pam needs to do lesson plans and so is working quite hard. Norton, though, “is behaving like an asshole, wondering why she stays after 3 PM since she’s not getting paid overtime.”

I miss Teresa and Paul and the rest of my New York “family” and friends.

I’d written Jaime about how I felt so old that if you put me in a guayabera and gave me a cigar, I’d be an instant abuelo. He replied that he didn’t know about that and thinks I’m still “pretty frisky.”

I told Jaime I was going to New York for the weekend. Why? Because it’s a fantasy of mine, of course, but also because I didn’t want him to think I’m alone all the time – which I am, of course. “Mazel tov,” Jaime replied.

I still haven’t shaken my crush on him, but that merely maybe because there’s nobody else around. Still, I can see myself not wanting to make the time for her relationship while I’m here in South Florida.

In other email, Alice was kind enough to inquire about my foot. After I wrote back to Chauncey Mabe, I was surprised and touched by the heartfelt email he wrote in reply.

Chauncey wrote about our 1990 interview, how he’d get my new book reviewed in the Sun–Sentinel, and how, after a trip to Portland, Oregon, where everyone was so much more friendly and healthy than they are here in South Florida, he fantasized about moving there.

Kevin said he’s tired of his long night treks to Sierra Madre for rehearsals of the play he’s in. It’s such a hard thing to try to make it in the business in L.A.

After lunch, I returned to my office and stayed there till 4 PM. In the evening I went out to Barnes & Noble to finish the Times, drink blackberry-sage iced tea and listen to an old man on crutches talk to himself about the Sulzberger family and about World War II.

I also eavesdropped on punkish teen skateboarders with garishly dyed and wildly styled hair. I hope that when I’m 78 I’ll still be rooting for rebellious young people and admiring their style the way I do now at 48.

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Saturday, September 11, 1999

8:30 PM. I’ve just returned from my office at Nova. I was there for 90 minutes this morning, another couple of hours after lunch, and almost two hours just now.

I wish I’d accomplished more today, but I guess I did all right. Writing my take-home midterm was harder than I thought.

I needed four questions: a choice of two based on philosophical or legal principles, and another choice of two dealing with the constitutionality of proposed federal legislation, an Internet anti-hate speech law and a bill banning the sale of “obscenely violent” material to minors.

I also wrote a letter of purpose to the M.S. program in journalism at FAMU after getting a letter from the admissions office that they forwarded my application to the department. I also tailored my shorter (six-page) résumé for them.

After many failed attempts – so much for the ease of Internet commerce – I bought tickets online for a Christmas trip to Phoenix. I’ll be leaving on December 15 and returning two weeks later so I can avoid any Y2K problems.

The lowest fare wasn’t the $425 I paid for this America West flight, but my flights are direct and nonstop so I can avoid the hassles and extra time involved in changing planes.

I have to go back to the Travelocity website to see if my tickets were processed and to print out a receipt that will take the place of a ticket.

I also emailed various people: Kevin, that guy Jim in Atlanta (who’s spending his vacation visiting his family in Valdosta), Chauncey Mabe and other friends.

Nate, that kid from the Rush-Ins, said he’d read some of the stories in with Hitler in New York and “they were OK but after I read them, I said what more?” Then in the very next sentence, he asked me if I could get him a job as a tutor at Nova.

He really is a stupid kid. After I went to the trouble of giving my book to him, no matter what he thought of it, he shouldn’t have criticized it and then immediately asked me to find him a job. Oh, the naïveté of youth. Well, I’m not going to write him back.

I just noticed how dry and itchy my hands are, and parts of them are red and scaly, like eczema. Dr. Bellomio keeps saying that my gums might indicate a serious systemic illness.

My feet, both of them now, still hurt. I wonder if these are all symptoms of cancer or some grave illness. Well, I’ll watch and wait. I’m a fatalist at heart, so if I’m going to die, I’ll die.

I’d like to live longer, but hey, dying within the next year would solve the problems of figuring out where I’ll live and what I’ll be doing – and I won’t need to worry about paying off my student loans or credit card debts.

There’s absolutely no reason to believe I am immortal, and I feel like I’ve managed to cram a lifetime in already.

Am I a hypochondriac? Probably, but I truly believe I could cope with dying, as traumatic as it would be. What choice would I have except to cope?

My elderly neighbor, the avid walker, greeted me when I went out at 10:30 AM after reading the paper and exercising. He seemed quite concerned about the latest powerful hurricane in the Caribbean.

I’m a fatalist about that, too. There’s no sense worrying, and aside from sensible preparation, there’s nothing I can do to stop a hurricane from heading our way.

At 3:30 PM, I went to the Coral Springs Barnes & Noble, but I saved myself $4.24 because the Sunday Times wasn’t in. So I had iced tea and read the new issue of Poets & Writers, taking down information about publications and awards I might try for.

I see that Pete Cherches got a $7,000 fellowship in creative nonfiction from the New York State Council on the Arts. He never mentioned that when we spoke. I hope the grant will give him enough of an ego boost to get back to writing.

Red Hen Press had ads for several contests – to make money from entry fees, no doubt – so I guess they’re not going out of business. I’ll contact Kate Gale by October if I don’t hear from her before then.

Poets & Writers published letters by Sybil Kollar in Brooklyn – I knew her from VCCA in 1981 and 1982 – and Napoleon St. Cyr, the editor of The Small Pond, a little magazine still publishing about 22 years after he printed a story of mine. (His letter bragged that he’d never taken an NEA grant.)

I didn’t do any reading in the textbook today, so I’ll have to spend a good deal of time doing that tomorrow.

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Wednesday, September 15, 1999

7 PM. Last evening’s class went all right, though I didn’t have any tapes and spent the last half hour mostly lecturing on a subject I’m not all that familiar with, the conflict between freedom of the press and the right to a fair trial.

Earlier, I spent about 75 minutes on defamation and about an hour on commercial speech before that.

I also collected the students’ case analyses and gave the ones who didn’t have theirs until Friday afternoon to turn them in. Before class ended, I handed out the questions for the midterm.

Some people have evacuated their homes near the beach and weren’t able to come back from the Gulf Coast in time for class. One woman showed up two hours late after missing the last two sessions and was clueless about the case analysis assignment.

Peggy Swank told me the Phi Alpha Delta induction is at 8 PM on Saturday at the law school, and there’s an organizing meeting tomorrow at 6 PM for a mock trial team which I also agreed to go to.

Home at 9:45 PM last night, I was too wired to get to sleep, so I watched TV, read and did some chores.

This morning I left the house after breakfast, and just as I did last Thursday, I went shopping at Albertsons, again riding by the old house to see if the cats were still there.

I didn’t see Baby, but Mommy was in the same spot where I saw her last week, in front of the garage. I’m going to tell my family that I saw both cats today.

I’d put up a load of laundry before I left for the supermarket, and after putting away all my groceries, I shifted the clothes from the washer to the dryer. Then I exercised, showered and dressed.

My tendon felt somewhat sore, so I decided to wear the Camwalker today.

My neighbor and one of the Cameron Cove workers asked if I would like the gigantic desk in the vacant apartment next door. It was heavy, but we got it in here, and now I have a real desk to work at and a place to keep papers and supplies. It also helps to fill up the living room.

At the office by 10 AM, I got on the computer, reading and answering email. Jim, the guy in Georgia, sent me a story he wrote in 1993. It was obviously autobiographical from his days as a reporter in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Although the story had problems – mostly dullness – there were also some very good things in it. At least Jim is not a terrible writer.

Because I wasn’t really attracted to his photo, I’d sort of put him out of my mind, but he does seem like a nice guy.

As much as I still fantasize about Jaime, I’m certain will never be anything but pals who tease each other, and I’m okay with that.

Tom brought a long letter and forwarded something about the NOCCA fiasco.

The state and the parish school board are still fighting while the new building remains closed due to demands for state control and racial quotas. (They want fewer whites, Tom said.) Eustace calls it a battle between the stupids and the carpetbaggers.

While I was xeroxing Reno v. ACLU, I began talking to Steven and he asked me to go to the Roadhouse Grill with him. Figuring I had to do lunch with him some time, I decided to get it over with.

Boy, he can chatter away. So can I, of course, but I restrained myself and got an earful. He’s a rich (his mother has $10 million) Jewish kid from Toronto, who after law school and a year at the London School of Economics, got the job at Nova because his grandparents lived here (and presumably were big donors to the college).

He’s been at Nova for eight years, it’s the only academic job he ever had – he practiced law for three years – and he’s really into it.

Of course, I feel differently about work.

When one of Tom’s Stuttgart students remarked that it must be awful for Tom to leave NOCCA, an institution he gave so much to, Tom replied, “There are better things to get sentimental about than one’s job.”

Steven spent part of our lunch trying to enlist me as an ally in a big academic politics dispute that he has with Charles, Ben and David, all of whom teach Legal Studies courses without law training.

Now I understand why Steven misses Les so much. Les was his ally, who, despite his history Ph.D., agreed with Steve’s desire to have the courses emphasize the law more than the social sciences.

Steven has a point: that’s what our students who are Legal Studies majors want and need.

He urged me to apply for the permanent position, and when I said it was clear that they wanted someone with a Ph.D. in history, he said that’s exactly why he wants me: “You’re the only one on the faculty with American legal training, not to mention experience working at a law school.” (Steven went to law school in Canada.)

Anyway, for a while I was flattered and felt myself being suckered in, but I’m not an organization man. Unlike Steven, I don’t care about Nova’s Legal Studies Program any more than I cared about UF’s Center for Governmental Responsibility.

I prefer staying aloof from petty academic politics. I’m not interested in being part of a choky little world where I know too much about the people I work with. More importantly, I don’t like people knowing about me, and I dislike the thought of other speculating about my life.

So I doubt I’ll apply for the permanent position. Even if I got it, I wouldn’t stay more than a few years.

Steven is a nice guy, a dedicated teacher, but he can’t deal with change. After lunch, he took me to his office and showed me the syllabi and his papers for undergraduate courses he’d taken going back to 1979. He had saved every essay and research paper he’d ever written.

I was flabbergasted. Of course I don’t save anything except copies of my publications from magazines and newspapers: my writing that has gotten through an editorial gatekeeper. And I’d still like to get rid of as many of them as I could.

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Sunday, September 19, 1999

9 PM. I guess it’s been Yom Kippur since the sun went down, but all that means to me is that tomorrow’s a holiday so I can begin grading the case analyses I’ve avoided looking at all weekend.

Last night’s dinner Phi Alpha Delta wasn’t that dreadful, though I felt weird in a suit and tie and my leg cast (which I wore all day today even though my foot felt better).

Peggy Swank, one of my night students, needed to print out facsimiles of certificates, which never came because of the hurricane, so I had a security guard open the Parker Building for us.

But Peggy’s document wouldn’t come out on the Liberal Arts Division printer (whose name, for some reason, is Rudolph) so all we did was waste half an hour.

Peggy is the vice-president of PAD, and Keith, an older (36) guy in my night class who works as a private investigator for a law firm, is president, with Catherine as secretary and Diego as treasurer.

Once all the seven applicants went before them and answered questions, we all moved to the courtroom where, dressed in judicial robes, they performed a tedious ceremony in which I heard more than I wanted to about the legal fraternity’s colors, symbols and history.

Several of my students – Ann, a woman my age; Jesse, a hunky Jewish jock; and Iris, an attractive and intelligent girl – were among the new PAD members.

After the ceremony – which reminded me of one of those dull seders of my childhood where some great-uncle insisted on going through the entire Haggadah – we had food and drinks (I stuck to water) in a nearby classroom.

It was okay to chat with students; I can talk to them about football and boxing and professional wrestling if I have to. Sometimes I am amazed that I can come off like a regular guy.

Perhaps I flatter myself, but I think my ability to blend in with different kinds of people has been a tremendous asset. Even though I prize my status as an outsider, I can fit in pretty much anywhere.

Home before 10 PM, I slept well and again woke up relatively late at 7:30 AM. After having breakfast and exercising, I went out in mid-morning to Barnes & Noble, where I spent two hours reading the Sunday Times and drinking iced tea.

It seems as if there are new baristas every time I go to the bookstore café; the turnover among the twentysomethings who work there is rapid, probably because the work is so hard and the pay so meager.

After lunch, I went to the office for an hour, going online and emailing Jaime and Patrick, who I plan to see tomorrow.

Kate Gale usually answered my emails right away, so I’m concerned that something’s amiss with the publication of my book. Well, perhaps I’m just paranoid.

Anyway, the sooner I get the bad news, the sooner I can deal with it. The worst is that I’ll be out $2,500. I’d have to sue Red Hen Press to try to get back my money.

Then I guess I’d end up giving Rick Peabody $5,000 to do the book – because at this point I’m determined to publish it.

Well, whatever happens will be for the best in the end. Yeah, right.

Marc called while he was driving on U.S. 60, the Superstition Freeway; I could hear it when the rain turned to hail.

He said our parents are really strange and Jonathan is even more so (“very particular about doing things a certain way”) and he was shocked at how old Mom had gotten.

He’s still waiting to hear from AirTouch about the new job. He had to take another drug test and go through a new employment check because the cell phone division is like a completely different company than the pager division.

As a cell phone salesman, Marc would get a higher base salary than he did as the manager of the pager store. At this point, pagers are a dying business.

I told Marc I might move to Arizona, though I’d live in Tempe or Mesa or Central Phoenix, far enough away from my parents. ASU is a major state research university, and just hanging around there might lead to something.