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ROGER ROSENBLATT: I was about to write this essay. But then I thought
of all the subjects that had already been covered, like the importance
of education, and what to do with the surplus, and racial harmony, and
protecting the environment, and the beauty of baseball, and what ever
happened to the 60's and what America needs now, and I backed off. It's
hard to write essays in an atmosphere where everyone's an essayist,
and all the subjects have been cycled and recycled, like the holidays--
July 4th, Christmas, Halloween, Martin Luther King Day, George Washington's
birthday, Arbor Day, Doris Day, Labor Day, today. I was about to write
this essay about Labor Day, but I didn't. I was on the verge of writing
this essay, but then I worried that critics would find fault with it.
"That's all wrong" and "where do you get off?" Writing
is hard enough as it is without the critics in the trees. George Bernard
Shaw said, "I love critics. I love every bone in their heads."
William Faulkner sent the manuscript of "Absalom, Absolam"
to his editor. But his editor was away, so an associate editor read
the novel and replied to Faulkner that his sentences were too long,
and his syntax was out of whack, and he'd better start the novel over
again. Faulkner fired back a five-word telegram: "Who the hell
are you?" And there was the woman who wrote to an author," I
have prayed for the death of two other writers, and have been successful
twice."
I came this close to writing this essay. But then I thought of all
the truly important things that were going on in the world that cannot
be helped by essays, such as Africa's famines, and Chechnya's war, and
China's tight rope act, and the Middle East, and Alzheimer's, and the
poor and down-and-out. That Russian sub in the Barents Sea and the terrible
burial of its crew. In such a self-celebrating inventive time, you'd
think that someone would have come up with a way to rescue those guys.
I almost wrote this essay about that. Another second or two, and I'd
have written this essay. But then I realized that I didn't have an idea
in my head-- not that that's stopped me before. Of course, there's always
the election. I could have pretended that this is Sunday, and I'm a
guest on "Meet the Cokie," and I could have expounded on who
is flipping and who is flopping; and why the polls, while crucial, do
not mean a thing; and how Bush needed to do what he did in his acceptance
speech at the convention, and yet Gore also did what he needed to do
at his convention; and that the election is not only a horse race but
a toss-up and a too close to call, as well as a dead heat. At least
we now have a clear sense of where the candidates stand. I could have
written this essay about that.
I was about to write this essay. But then I looked outside and saw
the shadows' fingers drum on the grass, and the sun glint off the pom-pom
trees before it settled like a spilled egg over the Atlantic. I was
about to write this essay. But then there were the whoops of the kids
having their last fling before the first day of school, and the sky
hardening its blue as if to indicate that the serious season was upon
us again and it was time to wear long pants, look grown-up, smile that
aggressive can-do smile -- and the kicked-up wind, and the ducks in
check-marked formation, and all that one has to be grateful for that
cannot be accounted for in essays. I was about to write this essay.
But this is Labor Day, after all. Nobody works on Labor Day. I'm Roger
Rosenblatt.
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