Dave Wood

I’m happy to report that an acquaintance from years past is alive and kicking and still writing wonderful stuff. Years ago, I read my first sample of Calvin Trillin who wrote a hilarious piece in Esquire magazine. An evening later, I stopped by my favorite watering hole to spend happy hour with Star Tribune columnist Robert T. Smith, who was already imbibing with someone else.

“Dave,” said Robert T., “meet my old pal from my days at Time magazine, Cal Trillin.”

What a coincidence. We chatted and chatted until happy hour was long over, and my beautiful wife had a long face when I returned home. Since that memorable evening I’ve kept up with Trillin’s life and writing. I’ve watched him on the Johnny Carson show, read his wonderful pieces in the New Yorker, marveled at the scope of his literary interests (from the plight of the modern farmer to searching for places in Florence, Italy, where he could play foosball with his very exceptional daughters and experience adventures with his late wife, Alice, who obviously enjoyed needling him for his eccentricities.)

The Trillins lived in Greenwich Village, and my job at the Star Tribune occasionally took me there. A phone call to Trillin usually resulted in a restaurant reservation for the B.W. and me that never would have happened without this gourmet’s advice. B.W.  soon forgave him for keeping me too late at that long-ago happy hour at the Little Wagon. Especially after she got a taste of stuffed squid at Cent Anni and Ennio and Michael’s restaurants we would never have heard of.

Trillin and I didn’t have much in common, other than we are now both in our eighties and still writing for publication. Trillin attended Yale, I attended Eau Claire State Teachers College.   Trillin writes for bigtime magazines like the New Yorker and the Nation. I write (happily!) for weekly newspapers like this one. Trillin publishes books with big name presses. I publish my own books. Trillin is a Jew and I’m a fallen away Lutheran. He grew up in the Prometheus of the Plains, Kansas City; I grew up in teeny Whitehall, which is surrounded by nothing but hills. 

We do have two things in common. Our fathers owned diners and we both like food. In fact, I’m certain that Trillin could do a bang-up job writing about a church lutefisk supper, probably comparing it favorably to gefilte fish.

Speaking of the Jewish connection, I read in one of his books that his father was a Jew from Russia and his real name was Trillinsky and that he made his way in the U.S. with a diner that featured his own poetry on the printed menu. His son always wondered why, after his older sister had attended a modest state college, his father insisted that his son attend YALE, whatever the cost. After the old man died, his son examined his collection of books, written in English, which he had read to acquaint himself with his new country’s language. One of the simple books was an adolescent novel about an adventurous college student. The title? “Dink Stover of YALE.”

The discovery inspired Trillin The Young to begin writing poetry for the ultra-liberal Nation magazine, a publication so liberal that actor Paul Newman donated money to it to keep it afloat.  Trillin pitched in and began contributing a feature called “Deadline Poet.” When wife Alice needled him about working for nothing, he replied that the Nation was paying him $25 an issue and he considered that payment enough, because each poem was only four lines long, which means he was getting paid $1.56 per syllable, more than he was paid by the New Yorker for one of his longish pieces. Here’s one of my favorites:

“ON THE REUNIFICATION OF GERMANY”

“There is a fate that

Could befall us:

Deutschland, Deutschland,

Uber Alles!”

Sadly, the lovely Alice is gone, but Calvin Trillin is still at it. Last month we received our copy of the Nation and there was my old acquaintance taking a shot:

TRUMP STORED SOME DOCUMENTS IN THE BATHROOM:

“For folks who like to thumb through what’s around

When they, backed up, are sitting on the John,

Some movement might come more quickly if they found

The secret maps for how we’d bomb Iran.”

Too many syllables, Cal. Are you getting soft?

Dave would like to hear from you. Phone him at 715-426-9554.