Look homeward, angel

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of American author Stanley Elkin, who taught at my flyover university for many years. He also lived two houses down from us growing up. I babysat for his children Bernie and Molly from time to time when I was in high school. His wife Joan was nice. I remember they had the cover of every book he wrote blown up to poster size and framed, which I thought was a little over the top, but to each his own.

Here’s a little film about Stanley which shows our street (I think) at about 1:01.

And here he is sitting in front of his house (photo by Esquire).

He rode a motorcycle until he was diagnosed with MS, and then he slowed down quite a bit.

Anyway, the English Department at WashU must have been quite the place back then–what with Stanley and William Gass and Howard Nemerov. The Gasses lived in our neighborhood too and Nemerov famously walked down our street on his way to work. But some of my friends didn’t like driving to my neighborhood–too sketchy.

Different perspectives.