I wish they’d been better names, but we were only twelve and eight at the time. I don’t remember if we were supposed to be husband and wife or if we were just friends. When we were young, my sister Amy and I used to pretend that we had a hospitality show. “Gosh, it’s good to see you kids!”Īs Amy and I move in to embrace him, Hugh wonders if we could possibly turn off the TV. “Well, hey!” he calls as we walk in, an old turtle raising his head toward the sun. The plan is to hang out for a while and then drive to our house on Emerald Isle.ĭad is in his wheelchair, dressed and groomed for our visit. It is early April, three days before his ninety-eighth birthday, and Amy, Hugh, and I have just flown to Raleigh from New York. This is my assessment of a news story broadcast on the television in my father’s room at Springmoor, where he’s been living for the past three years. Something about a car running over a policeman and a second officer being injured. Isn’t it time for Hurricanes Madison and Skylar? Where’s Latrice, or Category 4 Fredonté?įlorence, it was said, gave new meaning to the word namaste along the North Carolina coast. Hugh was devastated, while my only thought was What’s with the old-fashioned names? Irma, Agnes, Bertha, Floyd-they sound like finalists in a pinochle tournament. The one that claimed our place in September 2018 was Florence. If the hurricane doesn’t come this autumn, it’ll likely come the next. Grow up in North Carolina and it’s hard to get too attached to a beach house, knowing, as you do, that it’s on borrowed time. I received my bachelor of arts degree in 1987, when I was thirty. It might be different now, but in 1984, if you could draw Snoopy on a cocktail napkin, you were in. The place that I eventually graduated from, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has its qualities but is nowhere near Oberlin when it comes to academics. The first two were OK, I guess, but midway through my sophomore year I got heavily into drugs and dropped out.Įveryone said that was it-I’d made an irreparable mistake at age twenty and could never correct it. I went to three in all, looking for the right fit. A good public school followed by college. Like most of you, I am incredibly grateful for the education I received. It’s not necessarily better than the one I earned by going to classes and putting myself into debt, but I’m trying to collect a stack of them before I die, so I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, and for presenting me with this honorary degree. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all.
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