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My
Anecdotal Life: A Memoir by Carl Reiner Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Yuks As one reads the stories in Carl Reiner’s
memoir, My
Anecdotal Life, you can almost picture him sitting around a dinner table
and telling these stories to close friends. The stories he tells are often uproariously
funny, and occasionally poignant and emotional. Here’s a sample of a faux pas
as related in Chapter 5: Lovely
Legs (A SECOND SHORT TALE OF SHMUCKERY) For
my second short tale, I must take you back with me to Washington, D.C., the
city to which the army chose to send me in 1943. For some reason, the army
thought that if I studied French at Georgetown University for nine months I
would be qualified to go to France and be a French language interpreter for
our American officers, who were desperate to know what their French
counterparts were saying to them. I did learn how to speak the language well
enough to order food in French restaurants and understand French films
without reading every English subtitle. After graduating from Georgetown, our company of
French interpreters were shipped to Hawaii, and the company of graduating
Japanese interpreters were sent to Paris. We were totally confused by the
logic of those assignments, but who's to argue with the results? We won the
war. "Confuse and conquer!" might have been our strategy. While
at Georgetown, when I wasn't in class struggling to master the more difficult
tenses of the verbs and learning how to ask a French girl if she wanted to go to bed
with me, my good buddy, Sol Pomerantz, and I would go into town on our days
off and visit the local USO canteen to see a variety show or participate in
one. After a year at the Gilmore Theater in New York, two years at the
Rochester Summer Theater, performing roles in twenty-six plays, and a season
touring with the Avon Shakespearean Company, I never lost the urge to get up
on a raised platform and show off. To that end, I had worked up a comedy act
that was good enough to get me invited to perform at the canteen. This was to
be my second appearance there. I had not too long before plied my craft at
Georgetown, having produced a Christmas show in which I did a monologue and a
too-accurate impression of the dean of Foreign Services, Father Edmond Walsh,
and the other good Jesuit fathers who taught various subjects in the School
of Foreign Service. For that performance, I received the best audience
reaction of my career and a serious request from Father Walsh never to do
another performance like it. Since Georgetown was no longer an outlet for the
ham within me, I was grateful to have the USO. As I came through the USO foyer that led to the
canteen ballroom, I spied a comely young lass seated on a white wicker
settee, and she was smiling—at me. Since the dance portion of the evening had
just ended, I assumed that the attractive girl had been dancing and was
taking a breather before going back in to see the show. Her smile broadened
as I approached her, and I smiled back. I had not intended to stop but did
when I heard a melodious "Hello, there!" "Hello," I sang back. "Are you going to perform again this
evening?" "I am," I said, enjoying her smile. "Were
you here last week?" I was. You were so funny." She giggled.
"I hadn't intended to come tonight, and I'm glad I did." "I hope I don't disappoint you. I'm trying
some new things. Well, nice talking to you," I said, starting
off. "Don't you remember me?" she asked
brightly. "I'm sorry," I said, "did we meet
before?" "Well, not formally," she said, coyly,
"but we did share a few moments together." Not possible, I thought. If I had shared anything
with this pretty girl, I would remember. I decided to white-lie myself out of
the situation. "Let me look at you," I said mock
seriously, looking her over from head to toe, pausing to stare at her lovely
legs which were daintily crossed at the ankles. "Of course, I remember
you. Now that I see those pretty legs. I'd never forget legs like
yours!" I had made a bad joke, paraphrasing the cliche,
"I never forget a face!" but the young lady found it funny and
chuckled. It was an honest flirt, because I have always appreciated
women's legs. During my turn onstage, I looked about to see if my
leggy girl was laughing, but I couldn't find her. As I ended my program, I
spotted her at the back of the hall and caught a glimpse of her lovely legs.
My heart leaped, or I should say, fell! I was right about one of her legs, it
was perfection, but the other was polio stricken, supported by a metal brace.
I didn't know what to do or say. What do you say to someone whom you have,
inadvertently or not, offended? "How could I ever forget legs like
yours?!" Damn! While accepting compliments from some soldiers, I
was thinking. How can I face
this girl? What do I say to her?
Do I have to face this girl? Do I have
to say anything? Is there a back
door I
can scoot out of? Am I a
shit? I decided I wasn't one and raced to the foyer, not sure she would be
there—or whether or not I wanted her to be there. She was there, seated on
the settee, and, without asking her permission, I sat down next to her. "You were wonderful!" she said.
"Your new jokes were funny." "Thank you. Some of the ones I did onstage
were pretty good," I heard myself say, "but the one I made to you
about your legs was god-awful, and I apologize." The part of my psyche that controls assuaging of
guilt and the reclamation of mental comfort put those words in my mouth.
Whichever prophet said, "The truth will set you free" was one smart
prophet. That young lady, who had lived with her problem since she was a
child, immediately put me at ease by telling me that she knew I was not aware
of her condition and admitted to enjoying the compliment her good leg
received. "Well, let's see, now," she said,
proudly, showing it off to its best advantage by extending it and pointing
her toe. "It is a pretty nice-looking leg, as legs go." Had I not been committed to a Bronx lass I had met
a year earlier, who also had great legs, who knows what might have developed.
I remember sitting and chatting with her for a long time and being openly
flirtations. I meant to reaffirm something she probably already knew, that
she was a most attractive and desirable young woman. I do not remember her name, but I would love to
know that she had a good life. I feel that she did. Invite yourself into Carl Reiner’s living
room, sit down at his table with some good food, and listen to him tell some
of the stories from My
Anecdotal Life. Steve Hopkins, May 27, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the June 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/My
Anecdotal Life.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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