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Students kept novelist-to-be from pussyfooting
around
By Bill Whitaker
For a novelist, life's daily episodes are the lifeblood of
any book -- and even in his declining years, James Michener could
remember most of his with ease.
At least, so it would seem to Rosemary Suttle of Abilene.
Several years ago, Rosemary, a substitute teacher in the Abilene
school system, had occasion to test the best-selling author's
memory. Upon his death this month at age 90, she also had occasion
to recall how well Michener passed that test.
"My dad grew up in Pittsburgh, and he went to what was
called the Hill School for his prep school," she told me
the other day. "James Michener was one of the English teachers
there and also the dorm counselor.
"Daddy used to tell this story about James Michener pretty
religiously at one point, whenever one of Michener's books was
being published, such as Hawaii. After a while, I began to wonder
if he was just making it all up, so I wrote to Michener."
The anecdote in question might seem insignificant, especially
considering the passage of time. It happened in 1930 or 1931 and
concerned late-night shenanigans in the Hill School dorm in which
Rosemary's father, John F.M. Davison, was involved.
Specifically, it involved a tip-toeing author-to-be and thumbtacks.
ONE SHOE OFF
One night at the school dorm, when the teen-aged lads were
supposed to have settled down for the night, Michener -- then
in his early 20s -- heard them "raising Cain" and went
up to admonish several by putting them "on report."
This didn't stop the problem. After the young dorm counselor
left, the shenanigans continued. Mr. Michener returned, but this
time, to catch the boys red-handed, he craftily removed one of
his shoes, then proceeded.
John Davison and the other boys, listening for Mr. Michener's
footsteps, wrongly assumed the dorm counselor had covered only
half the distance in ascending the stairs when, in fact, he was
already at the top of the stairs and ready to spring upon them.
Even this did not stop the commotion, and when Mr. Michener
mounted the stairs one final time, he again removed one shoe,
so as to fool the boys again. But the boys were one step ahead
of Mr. Michener this time.
When Rosemary Suttle finally wrote to James Michener in 1991,
she retold the story her father had told so often.
"The boys put thumbtacks on some of the steps near the
top," she wrote to the author. "They heard you coming
up the stairs, pause, and slowly retreat. To this day, my dad
believes that you again had on only one shoe, and that the tacks
did the job.
"Does this story ring a bell? I would love to know if
you remember this, or was it possibly someone else?"
NOT A BAD KID
By then based at the University of Texas, where he completed
his hefty novel Texas on occasion of the state's sesquicentennial,
Michener wrote back to Rosemary Sept. 4, 1991. At the time Michener
was 84 and in declining health. Yet he was still a thoughtful
correspondent.
"The infamous story that your dad resuscitates is, I am
sorry to have to admit, true," he wrote. "I remember
Johnny Davison most vividly. He was a fine lad, did well in school
as I recall, and went on to do respectable work in college. We
followed our students in those days and felt that we were rewarded
when they prospered.
"Hill was a lot of fun, and I hope he enjoyed it as much
as I did."
I asked Rosemary, whose father died in 1992, if she thought
James Michener worked the story of that night at Hill School into
one of his numerous, doorstop-sized books.
"There's no telling," Rosemary said, a bit philosophically,
"but with 90 years of things to write about, he probably
had more than he could ever use."
Bill Whitaker, who thinks James Michener would forget about
thumbtacks after a half-century or so, can be reached at 676-6732.
E-mail Bill at WTWARN@aol.com.
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1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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