JONATHAN!!!!
"There were no moral implications in Arthur Green's watering the Scotch; it was purely an executive manuever." Thus begins the first paragraph in the first chapter of one of the best books I have ever read.
I feel like I have accomplished some herculean feat! Today in the mail came the book that I have been searching for for over 12 years:
I once had a copy but foolishly loaned it to a friend while we were in highschool. He moved off to college without returning the book - and his parents, in a fit of spring cleaning, gave away my book!! I have been looking for another copy ever since. If you've ever been with me to a used book shop you've heard this story. I always check. Last week I managed to find it, through sheer luck, on an internet search site for used books. I had the author's name wrong - I thought it was Richard Peck. Oddly, on the website it was wrongly listed as PJ O'Neil, when it's clearly "'A Novel by Russell O'Neil". I don't know how many wrongs it took to make the right that got me my long sought after book and I frankly do not care!
I am SOOOOOO excited!! I'm on page 44 and reliving the joy of this book all over again. I remembered reading this book and actually laughing so hard I had tears blurring my vision... already I have had this experience again. I was reading it aloud to my younger brother, Damon, while he was folding laundry. He seemed to enjoy it also.
It was written in 1959, when people still read for entertainment. And it's wrtten accordingly. Humorous but intelligent. (I had to look up the word terpsichorean, and several others.)
Even at 11 years old (when I first read the book) I aspired to one day have Melissa Drummond's poise while consuming the alcoholic beverages I'd one day be allowed to imbibe.
A sound like laughter from a clarinet turned Arthur's eye to Melissa. He thought, how differently humans are affected by alcohol. George became garrously intense; in Bruce's bulk, alcohol went the way of brandy on charries jubilee. But Melissa was one of those people about whom others say, "How does she stay so sober?"
There was, indeed, a secret, for she did not stay sober. About the middle of the second martini, Melissa received a warning deep inside her. Automatically she started estimating the degreee of poise she was likely to lose upon consuming each additional drink; then she added exactly that degree of poise to her current state. The one flaw in this system was that toward the end of an evening her estimates became slightly inaccurate. She tended to add a bit more poise than she was about to lose.
Today is notable.
I feel like I have accomplished some herculean feat! Today in the mail came the book that I have been searching for for over 12 years:
I once had a copy but foolishly loaned it to a friend while we were in highschool. He moved off to college without returning the book - and his parents, in a fit of spring cleaning, gave away my book!! I have been looking for another copy ever since. If you've ever been with me to a used book shop you've heard this story. I always check. Last week I managed to find it, through sheer luck, on an internet search site for used books. I had the author's name wrong - I thought it was Richard Peck. Oddly, on the website it was wrongly listed as PJ O'Neil, when it's clearly "'A Novel by Russell O'Neil". I don't know how many wrongs it took to make the right that got me my long sought after book and I frankly do not care!
I am SOOOOOO excited!! I'm on page 44 and reliving the joy of this book all over again. I remembered reading this book and actually laughing so hard I had tears blurring my vision... already I have had this experience again. I was reading it aloud to my younger brother, Damon, while he was folding laundry. He seemed to enjoy it also.
It was written in 1959, when people still read for entertainment. And it's wrtten accordingly. Humorous but intelligent. (I had to look up the word terpsichorean, and several others.)
Even at 11 years old (when I first read the book) I aspired to one day have Melissa Drummond's poise while consuming the alcoholic beverages I'd one day be allowed to imbibe.
A sound like laughter from a clarinet turned Arthur's eye to Melissa. He thought, how differently humans are affected by alcohol. George became garrously intense; in Bruce's bulk, alcohol went the way of brandy on charries jubilee. But Melissa was one of those people about whom others say, "How does she stay so sober?"
There was, indeed, a secret, for she did not stay sober. About the middle of the second martini, Melissa received a warning deep inside her. Automatically she started estimating the degreee of poise she was likely to lose upon consuming each additional drink; then she added exactly that degree of poise to her current state. The one flaw in this system was that toward the end of an evening her estimates became slightly inaccurate. She tended to add a bit more poise than she was about to lose.
Today is notable.