Summer at Squam Lake, 1951

In the summer of 1951, the summer after Dad has been accidentally shot, his family rented a house on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. Today it is best known as the setting of the 1981 film On Golden Pond. But for a fifteen year old with a few empty pages in his scrapbook, it became a place of happy memories that would now be sixty years old.



On the day they left Squam Lake to head back home to Washington DC, Dad took some photographs. He handed the camera to his sister Joan for the first shot here. Dad sitting in front of "The Swamp."
Away from the family house, Dad could stay here alone with Rudolf the cat . What 15 year old wouldn't enjoy a place to himself?
"It had one bedroom, a closet, and a bathroom. It was a great looking place really" he writes in the margins.
There's a shot below of Aunt Joan. 18 years old. A College student at one of the Seven Sisters. Barnard College? I'll have to ask.




Above is a shot of a friend who, at the age of 11, was already smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. He's wearing a ribbon for swimming or canoeing.




"Here is Daddy squinting into the bright sun".

"Here is a nicely blurred picture of Saint and the Oldsmobile in the driveway in front of the house."



"This one here is a group picture consisting of Mom, Dad, Hulda, Al and Rudolf(the white cat in Oma's arms). Notice the poses assumed by the dogs".

As the summer drew to a close Dad returned to Episcopal High School in Virginia for what would unexpectedly turn out to be his final year.



Squam Lake today.
The Number One Song That Summer:
"Too Young" by Nat King Cole

So Much Unfairness Of Things, June 2 1962

Dad's room on the second floor of Memorial Hall at Episcopal High School


The New Yorker published my dad's short story "So Much Unfairness Of Things" while he was still stationed at Fort Lewis. It's about a student in a private school who is faced with the problem of whether or not to cheat on a Latin exam.
It's been on required reading lists for high school students for decades.
As David A Sohn writes in his introduction for the book Ten Top Stories ( which also featured Flowers for Algernon):
"The atmosphere of the private school and the tension of the examination are created with great power and skill by the author. An extremely vivid reading experience, reflecting an unusual writing talent."
As stated in an earlier entry, my grandfather felt the story shamed him publicly by making him seem distant and out of touch.


"P.S. was the fifteenth of his family to attend the Virginia Preparatory School...When P.S. was packing to begin his first year at the school his father had sad "Son, when your great-grandfather went off to V.P.S., his father gave him a dozen silk handkerchiefs and a pair of warm gloves. When I went off to V.P.S., your grandfather gave me a dozen silk handkerchiefs and a pair of warm gloves. And now here are a dozen silk handkerchiefs and a pair of warm gloves for you."
Grandpa Joe and my father in a photo that Dad thought symbolized their relationship

P.S. looked at the brightly patterned Liberty-silk handkerchiefs and the fuzzy red mittens. No thirteen-year old ever wore red mittens, except girls, and particularly not fuzzy red mittens. And P.S. knew he wouldn't dare to wear the silk handkerchiefs.
"Well, thank you very much Dad," he said.
"That's all right, son."

When the novel P.S. Wilkinson came out my Dad told reporter Nora Ephron that the short story was based on a real life incident. He was kicked out of Episcopal High School for cheating on a Latin Test.

If you're interested in reading "So Much Unfairness Of Things", here is a link in PDF form.

http://www.syvuhsd.org/cms/lib4/CA01001173/Centricity/Domain/126/So-Much-Unfairness-of-Things4.pdf

The New Yorker link
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1962/06/02/1962_06_02_031_TNY_CARDS_000272048

"I'VE BEEN SHOT!" August 15, 1950

From Box #4 In a scrapbook full of torn tickets from westerns there's a section devoted to the summer evening Dad was gut shot by a rifle. But it was hardly a story of cowboys and indians. As he was leaving a friend's house in Paoli,PA to go target shooting, Dad tripped on the terrace. His .22-caliber rifle went off. He looked at his friend and like Randolph Scott in The Kansan reported "I've been shot!" The bullet lodged in his stomach. It might have been a fatal wound had Dad not been wearing a thick leather belt which protected his abdomen. His friend ran into the dining room and told my grandmother what had happened. She hadn't heard the shot ring out over the clatter of silverware and dinnertime conversation.
Doctors removed the bullet at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Grandpa Joe, who was in Washington DC at the time, sent Dad a telegram that read "Keep punching chum. I'm bringing you a purple heart this weekend. Love Daddy"

Dad ( seen above enduring a chilly afternoon at Episcopal High School) also received a number of cards from family friends and a letter from the 13 year old boy who witnessed the accident. The family friend was a member of a socially prominent family, heirs to an insurance fortune.

The shooting made the front page of the Doylestown Daily Intelligencer the following day. The surgeon misinformed the reporter that Dad was examining a revolver when it went off. Dad complained about another article that spent undue columns on the various families involved. "Everybody got a bigger write up than me" he complained.

Not sure why I grew up believing Dad was accidentally shot by the friend. The shooting left a vertical scar approximately 5 inches long on his stomach. He also had a three inch scar on his back. Dad gave me the belt that saved his life when I was about 11 or 12.