Questions and Mysteries

My most common thought when the Fourth of July rolls around: Does it ever occur to the morons who set off fireworks in backyards and alleys what they're doing to households with dogs in them?

Of course not. Even though there's no reason these people shouldn't be allowed to have their "fun," I still prefer to think of them as morons. (I classify in much the same way the people who set volume levels in movie theaters showing films that might draw elderly people such as my parents, or who program the "background" music in restaurants that this same demographic occasionally frequents. Have they never had anything like an empathetic, compassionate relationship with old people in their lives?)


My household consists of one dog who cowers under a table or bed at the sound of fireworks and another who BARKS CONSTANTLY while said pyrotechnics are going off. In a futile attempt to foil an auditory sense that I already knew was unfoilable, I blasted Glenn Miller while the three of us hung out in the living room tonight (windows closed, air conditioning on, fireworks still audible). I was reading, and I can't read with any music that contains lyrics -- hence that particular musical choice (although a couple of songs on this CD do have vocals).

What resulted was simply one dog cowering and the other BARKING CONSTANTLY to the accompaniment of "In the Mood" and "String of Pearls" (the latter, by the way, being one of my all-time favorite songs; is it a "song" if it doesn't have words?).

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The book I'm reading, and having a hard time putting down (it's been a while since I've had that experience), is Remembering Denny by Calvin Trillin, a memoir about the suicide of a college classmate of Trillin's and the author's efforts to understand his friend's life and what led him to kill himself. This subject, of course, has some resonance for me in light of the recent suicide of my company's owner (though, as I've noted, I had nothing like a friendship with him). But I also am interested for a couple of other reasons.

One of my students was killed last year after being run over by a Metro train when she "fell" onto the track. I've personally come to believe she committed suicide, although I never would have picked her out as suicidal (isn't that the oldest story in the book?), and that certainly wasn't the official story at the time of her death.

She was one of my favorite students, full of life and humor. The last time I saw her was a couple of months before she died, when I gave her a ride home after our last class of the fall session. As she said good night, she told me how much she was looking forward to the winter session.

She died while on her way to the first class of the winter. Or rather, I was told she was on her way to the class, then felt sick and got off the train to switch sides and return home (a new home she'd moved into with her partner only days earlier); that's when the "accident" occurred.

I later visited the Metro station where it happened out of a nagging, haunting brand of curiosity, and it's hard to imagine how one could accidentally fall onto the track, unless one passed out -- which is possible, I guess. I also found out sometime later that she had suffered from serious depression; I never saw any of that.

The other reason I'm interested in Remembering Denny is that the subject of my slow-as-molasses biography project (it may be slow, but it is underway) also committed suicide and, like Calvin Trillin's friend Denny Hansen, had phenomenal talent and promise that, it turned out, she was ill equipped to deal with emotionally.

Both stories are also stories of their times -- Denny's the mid-1950s, when he came of age; my subject's the mid-1960s, when she had her first success -- and of their subcultures: in Denny's case, Yale; in the case of my subject, Hollywood.

A big part of what fascinates me so much about her life is the puzzle of what led to her tragic end. Although Trillin's book takes a different approach than I would be able to (he knew his subject), I'm finding it to be inspiring as well as gripping.