We, the Coronado Scribes, consist of both professional and amateur writers. We have in common a desire to learn, by sharing our efforts and listening to other writers. We hold pressure-less sessions every Wednesday, at the Coronado Library conference room, starting at 1:30. Often we have guests who wish to just listen. They are welcome, and so are you.
Each week on eCoronado, we feature a different piece of prose or poetry produced by one of our writers. Please feel free to comment or ask questions in the comment section below.
Now, study hall, forget it. That is where the girls studied and the boys faked sleeping to look at those same girls through the cross hairs of their armpits. Study Hall never made sense to me. Things changed for the better my junior year because we could study in the library. I loved it. You have heard of synchronized swimming. Well, M. Lavin, T. Gardner, and T. Schroder did what I called synchronized reading. Before going to the library, the three of us agreed which quotations from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 we would read for that day. (Milo Minderbinder, Nately’s whore, Major Major and of course page 55 were read frequently). We sat fat apart, for obvious reasons, and at that moment we opened to the predetermined page, a cacophony of knock-out, raucous laughter filled the library and found itself heading right down the hall. However, it was page 55, which made the windowpanes shudder.
“Yossarian: Let me see if I’ve got this straight: in order to be grounded, I’ve got to be crazy and I must be crazy to keep flying. But I ask to be grounded, that means I’m not crazy any more and I have to keep flying. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.” (page 55, J. Heller, Catch-22). Just before graduation, we agreed to get together when Heller died and celebrate his life. Heller died in the winter of 1999, thirty-five years after our arrangement. We had all gone out separate ways: Tom G. was a hot shot Chicago lawyer, Tom S. taught at a University in Tennessee and I was teaching in Western New York. Other than a few holiday cards, an emails now and then, we rarely made contact.
In the Sumer of our senior year, I arranged a meeting place in Chicago where we all could get together. Everyone agreed. Our meeting was starchy and staid at first, but after a few beers, things loosened up. We talked about families and kids. Later, we read our favorite Catch-22 passages and laughed the day away. The ice was broken that day and ever since, we made a point to get together whenever we crossed and paths. Of course, we talked about our families and Yossarian.
©Mike Lavin 2013
