Page 104 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
his house long before. I also recall finding their answer to be confus- ing and unsatisfactory.
• Senator Joseph McCarthy was also a bad man, even though his law- yer was Roy Cohn. My mother told me this in response to a question that I asked on April 22, 1954, when we were riding in our car and listening to the first live broadcast of the Army-McCarthy hearings, which were also televised from that day forward. I asked what time the verdict would be rendered that day. My mother explained to me, in effect, that in America the wheels of justice grind slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. I did not find that answer to be confusing, but I did find it to be unsatisfactory.
• Carrying your heavy books to school bound by a rubber-band-like device (what was a backpack?) must be done but is no fun. Carrying a girl’s books to school can be.
• Do not discard shoe boxes; you never know when you will next be called upon to have your father make a diorama.
• When your father has diagnosed you as having a hernia that requires an operation, do not explain to Sarah Jane Mermelstein that you have to go to the hospital because there is something wrong with your “technicals.” You’ll still be hearing about it from her sixty years later.
• Try to fall asleep before you reach the operating room, or, better yet, try to have an O.R. nurse who knows how to locate the vein in your arm in fewer than five attempts.
• A hospital is a really cool place: being there gets you as many choc- olate malteds as you could ever want and gives you time to memorize the derivation of Captain Marvel’s magical acronym “SHAZAM!”
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