It's The Great Gatsby, Charlie Brown!

Following is an excerpt from a story I am writing about a door-to-door Oxford English Dictionary salesman. Sections of the story are based on my early experiences in Chicago.

My neighborhood was freckled with rowdy sports bars--establishments featuring dozens of widescreen televisions, a variety of lo-carb beers, and, on Thursday nights, six-dollar Long Island iced teas. Packed, from wall to wall, with rugged young men displaying Greek characters on their skintight t-shirts, these watering holes reeked of stale cigarettes, eau de toilette, and unwashed armpits.

Counterpoint: I attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where students have been known to frolic through the woods, reciting Shakespeare and Milton. The college bookstore features a t-shirt that reads: “Vassar Football: Undefeated since 1861.” (One cannot be defeated if one does not exist.) No surprise, then, that I experienced a bit of culture shock upon arriving in a neighborhood marked by chronic nostalgia for Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Sitting, one evening, at a relatively tame neighborhood saloon, enjoying an Irish whiskey, I engaged in what ultimately became a ruinous conversation with the gentleman seated next to me. Following a brief introduction, he offered: “I’m from St. Paul. You ever been?”

“No,” I said. “I’d love to visit. I actually wrote my undergraduate thesis on F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was born in St. Paul.”

“Oh, nice! F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yeah, I love ‘The Peanuts.’ Charlie Brown is hysterical.”

Conversations like this one leave me wondering: where did all of the smart people go and why wasn't I invited?

And now, you must watch this!