Bill Learns How to Pull Leg Of Cadillac Driver at Harvard

(Commander Lederer, author of "All the Ship's at Sea" and other works, is associated with this year's Nieman Follows.)

My good friend Hymie O'Toole, who is a commander in the Navy, wrote me from Korea:

Dear Bill,

I hear you are at Harvard for a year. You certainly know how to feather your nest, and I'm happy for you. But what I'm curious about is this: Are you learning anything practical up there in Cambridge or is it just a mess of theory which will look good in your record at promotion time?

Sincerely, Hymie.

Dear Hymie, (I answered him in my letter):

I think you are wrong.

I'm learning many practical things here. On the extracurricular side I now know how to start an old car on a cold morning, how to mix a martini a la Benny DeVoto, and how to tell a dirty story without giving offense.

But I'm getting a lot from classes too. For example, there's a prof named Fritz Roethlisberger who teaches Human Relations. That means how to get an ornery cuss to do something your way instead of his.

After one of Fritz' lectures I was trying to park my car. That's about the hardest thing to do in Cambridge. It seems that I cruised every square block between Boston and Concord before I saw my chance, a tight parking place on a narrow, icy, one-way street.

By bumping the car in front and the car in back, I finally opened almost enough room for my Lincoln. Just as I was making progress, a Cadillac zoomed up the street and honked at me to let him pass. The racket got me nervous and I missed my pass at the parking space.

The man in the Cadillac now leaned on the horn, switched his lights on and off, and shouted at me to stop blocking traffic.

My stomach felt funny. My neck swelled, and my ears felt hot. "By God!" I thought, "I'm going to drag that skunk from his Cadillac and push his face in."

And then a small voice inside me said, "What would Professor Roethlisberger do in a case like this?"

I climbed out of the car and, pretending that I had a bad limp, struggled over to the Cadillac.

When I reached the Cadillac, the man had ceased honking. He just sat there looking awfully superior.

I stuck my head in the window.

"Mister," I said, stuttering as much as possible and scratching my head in embarrassment, "I'm terribly sorry I've held you up. I don't blame you one bit for being annoyed. But really, my leg's bothering me something frightful and I was having a rough time."

His jaw dropped. He blew his nose. Then without saying a word he backed his car the length of the block and departed by way of another street.

I skipped back to the Lincoln and parked at my leisure.

So you see, Hymie, we really learn a few practical things at Harvard.

Sincerely,   Bill.

P. S. I'm also learning to think here at Harvard. Of course, I don't know if that has any practical value in government.