"There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses."

In America, in the lower grades, schools teach a class they call English or, when they feel like being specific English/Language Arts. I believe in the lower grades this is intended to cover two of the three “Rs” – namely “readin’ n’ writin’” even though one of the those “Rs” is spelled with a “W,” which could be why they don’t teach the three “Rs” anymore, it was just too confusing. (Don’t get me started on ‘Rithmetic.)

My Child, The Wilde Child, nearly 13, has been attending school for a number of years now, and in all this teaching of English/Language Arts/“Readin’ n’ Writin’” one of the things I’ve notice is the reading has largely focused on “life lessons” and diversity. What it hasn’t really focused on is good, solid writing. Some of these stories have been almost painful to read. But this year, the year The Wilde Child becomes The Wilde Teenager, things at last have changed. Just last week, she was studying Edgar Allan Poe. Tangent: I was going to do a blog on Mr. Poe’s birthday, Baltimore, and the Baltimore Ravens, but my health wasn’t up to it during the appropriate week in January and then The Steelers choked the “Never more” out of the Ravens in the playoffs and I lost my hook. A blogger is subject to such whims of fate.

However, over the weekend, The Wilde Child was being most animated about a tale they were getting ready to read in English class. So animated, she went right on and read it. Ahead of time. On a weekend! It is called The Night the Bed Fell. The author is James Thurber. I nearly wept in literary satisfaction. At last they are teaching my child something useful! This, finally, was my tax dollars at work!

I first became acquainted with the wonderful words of James Thurber, unlikely enough, through the medium of television. Strange but true. For 26 whole weeks from fall of 1969 into 1970, there was a television program called My World and Welcome to It about this funny writer/illustrator fellow and his family, which mixed live action, fantasy, and these quirky drawings which would come to life. I was about six or seven years old and dearly loved that program. Foretelling my future relationship with television, it was canceled after one season.

After that, I met Mr. Thurber again and again over the years, notably in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Catbird Seat, and The Unicorn in the Garden. Perhaps it is no wonder that I have been inexplicably drawn to very short stories most of my life. Mr. Thurber also offered words of wisdom on one of my favorite subjects, martinis, “One martini is just right, two is too many, three is not enough.” He is wrong, of course. Two is perfect. Two is sublime. Just don’t give in to the temptation of three because it will inevitably convince you of your own invincibility vis-à-vis Martini Number 4 and that is the knock-out punch that will lead you to start your own memoirs, when you write them, “Had I but known…” and no one wants you to do that. But I digress…

More recently, in reading The Portable Dorothy Parker (let me recommend it once more to any of The Devoted Three I haven’t nagged into submission on this) I was warmed by reading Mrs. Parker’s review of Mr. Thurber’s memoirs of their one-time boss, The New Yorker founder Mr. Harold Ross. When I explained to The Wilde Child that Mr. Thurber was a friend and colleague of Mrs. Parker’s, I could tell we were sharing a special moment. When I explained that, like her, Mr. Thurber sketched and was as well known for his illustrations as his stories, and then further explained that he managed this feat while nearly blind – working on large sheets of paper with a big black crayon, I was led to the local Borders for a collection of Mr. Thurber’s work. Life happens that way sometimes. Yesterday, I was teaching her the alphabet, this morning we were spelling “C-A-T” and “D-O-G,” at lunch time we were keeping company with “Dick,” “Jane,” and “Spot,” now, all of sudden, Mr. Thurber has come to tea. I suspect Mr. Faulkner will not be far behind, and by dinner time that incorrigible Mr. Joyce with his friend Mr. Beckett will be knocking at the door demanding admittance. What’s a mother to do?


This should be retitled for my purposes, "Oh no you don't Mr. Beckett! She's just a baby!"

In researching a cocktail recipe suitable for Thurber, I came across a quote by publisher Harold Ross: “In the old days in San Francisco there was a famous drink called Pisco Punch, made from Pisco, a Peruvian brandy… Pisco Punch used to taste like lemonade but had a kick like vodka, or worse.” This is different from the Pisco Sour, and the San Francisco recipe was thought to be lost to the ages. Here, allegedly, is the “lost” recipe. We’ll keep the Pisco Sour for another day:

LANNES’ PlSCO PUNCH RECIPE

Ingredients
1 Fresh Pineapple
8 oz. Gum Syrup
16 oz. Distilled Water
10 oz. Lemon Juice
1 bottle Peruvian Pisco Brandy

Method
Take a fresh pineapple. Cut it in squares about 1 by 1.5 inches. Put these squares of fresh pineapple in a bowl of gum syrup to soak overnight. That serves the double purpose of flavoring the gum syrup with pineapple and soaking the pineapple, both of which are used afterwards in the Pisco Punch.

In a big bowl the 8 oz. of the gum syrup, pineapple flavored as above, 16 oz Distilled water, 10 oz. Lemon juice, and 1 bottle of Peruvian Pisco Brandy.

Serve very cold but be careful not to keep the ice in one of the above too long because of dilution. Use 3 or 4 oz. punch glasses. Put one of the pineapple squares in each glass. Lemon juice or gum syrup may be added to taste.