David and Ethan Frome

August 30, 2009

[This is] one of my all-time favorite David memories and I can't believe I didn't remember this soon enough to include in my eulogy.

We were in Mrs. Davis' English class in 10th grade or so. Brad Sklar and Andy Landis were in that class. Can't remember who else. (When asked if he was cheating on a vocabulary test once, Andy famously responded, "Yes, I was.") Anyway, we had to read Ethan Frome, written, I believe, by the same people who make Ambien. David was well into his 100th Ursula Le Guin science fiction story by this point, so let's just say that he and Edith Wharton didn't see eye to eye--certainly not a tale about snowbound turn-of-the-century New Englanders doing pretty much nothing of interest.

Mrs. Davis asked the class for its thoughts on good old Ethan Frome. Not surprisingly, no one raised a hand. There was silence in the class until David said this: "That was the biggest piece of s--t I ever read."

It was then, and remains to this day, one of the bigger smiles in my life.

Matt