according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” And then he asked me, meaning it to be a wry joke, “What could be more un-American, Gene, than sounding like the Sermon on the Mount?”
“WHAT ABOUT PUTTING all the Jews in a concentration camp in Idaho?” said Kimberley.
“What about what-what-what?” I asked in bewilderment. At last, at last, and too late, too late, I understood that this stupid girl was as dangerous as a cobra. It would be catastrophic if she spread the word that I was an anti-Semite, especially with so many Jews, having interbred with Gentiles, now sending their children to Tarkington.
“In all my life, I never said anything like that,” I promised.
“Maybe it wasn’t Idaho,” she said.
“Wyoming?” I said.
“OK, Wyoming,” she said. “Lock ’em all up, right?”
“I only said ‘Wyoming’ because I was married in Wyoming,” I said. “I’ve never been to Idaho or even thought about Idaho. I’m just trying to figure out what you’ve got so all mixed up and upside down. It doesn’t sound even a little bit like me.”
“Jews,” she said.
“That was my grandfather again,” I said.
“He hated Jews, ri g ht?” she said.
“No, no, no,” I said. “He admired a lot of them.”
“But he still wanted to put them in concentration camps,” she said. “Right?”
The origin of this most poisonous misunderstanding was in my account in Chapel of riding around with Grandfather in his car one Sunday morning in Midland City, Ohio, when I was a little boy. He, not I, was mocking all organized religions.
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, “You think your dad’s a good chemist? They’re turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?”
When we passed a Pentecostal church, he said, “The mental giants in there believe that every word is true in a book put together by a bunch of preachers 300 years after the birth of Christ. I hope you won’t be that dumb about words set in type when you grow up.”
I would later hear, incidentally, that the woman my father got involved with when I was in high school, when he jumped out a window with his pants down and got bitten by a dog and tangled in a clothesline and so on, was a member of that Pentecostal church.
WHAT HE SAID about Jews that morning was actually another kidding of Christianity. He had to explain to me, as I would have to explain to Kimberley, that the Bible consisted of 2 separate works, the New Testament and the Old Testament. Religious Jews gave credence only to what was supposedly their own history, the Old Testament, whereas Christians took both works seriously.
“I pity the Jews,” said Grandfather, “trying to get through life with only half a Bible.”
And then he added, “That’s like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa.”
I WAS ANGRY now. “Kimberley,” I asked, “did you by any chance tell the Board of Trustees that I said these things? Is that what they want to see me about?”
“Maybe,” she said. She was acting cute. I thought this was a dumb answer. It was in fact accurate. The Trustees had a lot more they wanted to discuss than misrepresentations of my Chapel lecture.
I found her both repulsive and pitiful. She thought she was such a heroine and I was such a viper! Now that I had caught on to what she had been up to, she was thrilled to show me that she was proud and unafraid. Little did she know that I had once thrown a man almost as big as she out of a helicopter. What was to prevent me from throwing her out a tower window? The thought of doing that to her crossed my mind. I was so insulted! That would teach her not to insult me!
The man I threw out of the helicopter had spit in my face and bitten my hand. I had taught him not to insult me.
SHE WAS PITIFUL because she was a dimwit from a brilliant family and believed that she at last had done something
“WHAT ABOUT PUTTING all the Jews in a concentration camp in Idaho?” said Kimberley.
“What about what-what-what?” I asked in bewilderment. At last, at last, and too late, too late, I understood that this stupid girl was as dangerous as a cobra. It would be catastrophic if she spread the word that I was an anti-Semite, especially with so many Jews, having interbred with Gentiles, now sending their children to Tarkington.
“In all my life, I never said anything like that,” I promised.
“Maybe it wasn’t Idaho,” she said.
“Wyoming?” I said.
“OK, Wyoming,” she said. “Lock ’em all up, right?”
“I only said ‘Wyoming’ because I was married in Wyoming,” I said. “I’ve never been to Idaho or even thought about Idaho. I’m just trying to figure out what you’ve got so all mixed up and upside down. It doesn’t sound even a little bit like me.”
“Jews,” she said.
“That was my grandfather again,” I said.
“He hated Jews, ri g ht?” she said.
“No, no, no,” I said. “He admired a lot of them.”
“But he still wanted to put them in concentration camps,” she said. “Right?”
The origin of this most poisonous misunderstanding was in my account in Chapel of riding around with Grandfather in his car one Sunday morning in Midland City, Ohio, when I was a little boy. He, not I, was mocking all organized religions.
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, “You think your dad’s a good chemist? They’re turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?”
When we passed a Pentecostal church, he said, “The mental giants in there believe that every word is true in a book put together by a bunch of preachers 300 years after the birth of Christ. I hope you won’t be that dumb about words set in type when you grow up.”
I would later hear, incidentally, that the woman my father got involved with when I was in high school, when he jumped out a window with his pants down and got bitten by a dog and tangled in a clothesline and so on, was a member of that Pentecostal church.
WHAT HE SAID about Jews that morning was actually another kidding of Christianity. He had to explain to me, as I would have to explain to Kimberley, that the Bible consisted of 2 separate works, the New Testament and the Old Testament. Religious Jews gave credence only to what was supposedly their own history, the Old Testament, whereas Christians took both works seriously.
“I pity the Jews,” said Grandfather, “trying to get through life with only half a Bible.”
And then he added, “That’s like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa.”
I WAS ANGRY now. “Kimberley,” I asked, “did you by any chance tell the Board of Trustees that I said these things? Is that what they want to see me about?”
“Maybe,” she said. She was acting cute. I thought this was a dumb answer. It was in fact accurate. The Trustees had a lot more they wanted to discuss than misrepresentations of my Chapel lecture.
I found her both repulsive and pitiful. She thought she was such a heroine and I was such a viper! Now that I had caught on to what she had been up to, she was thrilled to show me that she was proud and unafraid. Little did she know that I had once thrown a man almost as big as she out of a helicopter. What was to prevent me from throwing her out a tower window? The thought of doing that to her crossed my mind. I was so insulted! That would teach her not to insult me!
The man I threw out of the helicopter had spit in my face and bitten my hand. I had taught him not to insult me.
SHE WAS PITIFUL because she was a dimwit from a brilliant family and believed that she at last had done something
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