Good as Gould: The lasting echoes of an essayist’s work

Episode transcript

John Gould: A fashion decree from Moscow says men’s trousers will be shorter and tighter, although it doesn’t say on which end or just where. Probably the dandies of capitalistic America where cloth is still cut wide will not take too readily to the new Russia style. But I suppose if they do, I’m ready because I have a suit which is as short and tight as any of the law will allow. 

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Clay Collins: That was the voice, recorded in 1962, of the late John Gould, a legendary storyteller and Monitor institution whose first essay appeared in the newspaper 80 years ago this weekend. If you’d like, stick around after the credits for a full reading of the essay. It’s called “Long Pants and Longer Memories.” 

Welcome to “Why We Wrote This.” I’m this week’s host, Clay Collins. For decades, Mr. Gould’s essays ran in the Monitor’s Home Forum, a section that’s been a staple since our founding in 1908. The Monitor’s Owen Thomas joins us today. The Home Forum has been part of Owen’s editorial portfolio for about half of his 40 plus years at the Monitor. Welcome, Owen. 

Owen Thomas: Thanks, Clay. Good to be here. 

Collins: For listeners who don’t know, what is the Home Forum and what do you, as its editor, look for in a Home Forum essay? 

Thomas: The Home Forum has been a lot of things over the years. It started out as a collection of 20 short items. This is because the founder of the newspaper, Mary Baker Eddy, knew that readers liked short items. But it’s evolved significantly since then, to the point that now it consists of a personal essay, a language column, crossword puzzle, Sudoku, and the only labeled religious article in the newspaper. In a personal essay, I’m looking for stories that speak to common humanity. I’m looking for stories that talk about a revealing moment in someone’s life. They thought one way, and then this happened and they thought another way. 

Collins: I see. Now to Gould. John Gould was a New England writer, born the same year as the Monitor’s founding, 1908. You’ve said that the more you’ve learned about him, the more you realize that he’s really deserving of more attention than he’s been given. Tell us about him. 

Thomas: I’ve been discovering John Gould for the past 40 years at least. I’m still learning things about him, about the incredible life he lived and how accomplished he was. I wanted to seize this opportunity of the 80th anniversary to call people’s attention to John Gould once again, because I think they’d really enjoy him. His motivation for writing began with his discovery of the goodness of humanity and the joyfulness of life that pervades all his columns. 

Collins: Looking over his hit list.... You know, he’s written 30 books. He was a speechwriter for a congresswoman. 

Thomas: And senator. 

Collins: And senator. Told L.L. Bean that, hey, you might want to create a catalog. 

Thomas: That’s right. 

Collins: Was an early adviser to the still-green Maine writer Stephen King, and a contestant on the guess-their-identity show “To Tell the Truth.” Amazing. 

Thomas: Yes. The Stephen King story is especially noteworthy. Stephen King got in trouble in high school and the guidance counselor basically said, go see this guy who’s editing the newspaper, or else! And so Stephen King showed up and he said later that John Gould taught him everything he needed to know about writing and editing. 

Collins: There was also a gentleness to his approach. And you said at one point that you learned something, through editing his work, about being an editor. 

Thomas: I’ve heard other editors say this, that John Gould is someone from whom editors can learn. And I learned a critical lesson. It’s something that really stayed with me. It was in person, I was visiting him and he exclaimed at one point, “Writers just want to be loved!” Writers just want to be loved. They want to be encouraged. If a writer knows you like them, they’ll do anything for you, basically. 

Collins: Hmm. Can you talk about some stories of Gould’s in particular that really stand out, that really endure? 

Thomas: One particular story that I encountered, I was only 18 months into editing him at that point, my first stint and I got a column from the venerable John Gould. He’s this … he was in his, like, 56th year of filing these columns. It concerned a group of boys playing baseball by a railroad line. And this was back in 1918. John Gould was 10 years old. And they’re playing ball. And every day at 4:30, a slow train goes by. As the train pulls by, this one time, somebody hits a line drive and it heads right for the train and, by golly, the porter catches it. It was their only baseball. And so they’re out a baseball. They have to go get this, they have to go to L.L. Bean to buy a new baseball. Meanwhile, two weeks later, same train, same guy … [kids] playing baseball. And this time, the porter is in the vestibule, and he throws something to them. And it’s a baseball. It’s a brand new baseball. Not only that, but it’s signed by all the first-string roster of the Boston Red Sox, which includes George Herman Ruth, who at that point was a left handed pitcher. A pretty good one. 

Collins: In going over the body of Gould’s work, I was amazed by all the yarns about blueberries and bucksaws and $14 suits. It’s wonderful. It’s also, you know, delightfully quaint. And to talk about John Gould isn’t really just to celebrate some sort of “glory days” of essayists and the Monitor. It’s really about, as you’ve said, bringing him into the present. 

Thomas: Well, he is timeless. He welcomes you into his world and he treats everyone gently. And it’s wonderful to see him work. He can start on one theme and then take you around. He’s spinning you up in the air. He’s throwing you around. But then at the very end, he brings it all back and sets you down. And then you say, oh, I see where he was going with this. But he’s awfully good at that. 

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Collins: Thanks everyone for listening. To find a transcript of this episode in our show notes, including some links to Mr. Gould’s essays. Visit csmonitor.com/whywewrotethis. If you’d like, stick around after the credits for a full reading of the essay, “Long Pants and Longer Memories.” 

This episode was hosted by me, Clay Collins and was produced and edited by Samantha Laine Perfas. Our sound engineers were Tim Malone and Alyssa Britton, with original music by Noel Flatt, produced by the Christian Science Monitor. Copyright 2022. 

John Gould: This one is called, for some reason, “Long Pants and Longer Memories.” 

A fashion decree from Moscow says men’s trousers will be shorter and tighter, although it doesn’t say on which end or just where. 

Probably the dandies of capitalistic America, where cloth is still cut wide, will not take too readily to the new Russia style. But I suppose if they do, I’m ready because I have a suit which is as short and tight as any the law will allow. And it’s in fairly good condition. It hangs on a nail upstairs in the barn, and it’s covered with a cotton feed bag. The feed bag isn’t in bad condition either. 

Now, this suit happens to be the first one I ever owned, and I suppose I was all of 15 then because boys didn’t get clapped into long legged suits the minute they could climb out of a playpen. And in those days, boys used to wear boys’ clothes until they approached approximate maturity. You weren’t supposed to put on airs. 

They used to pay men’s wages and boys’ wages then and when the foreman called you aside one day and said he was now putting you on man’s wages, it meant that you’d accomplished something the likes of which our present age, I suppose, wouldn’t understand. And it also meant that you could put on long pants if you wanted to. 

Anyway, since by some standard I had reached the great moment, we sent word one evening to Mr. Osgood. Then he came over to the house. Mr. Osgood had the agency in that town. He brought a book of swatches and a tape measure. And while engaging in pleasant converse with the family, he went round me like a cooper round a barrel and he took my size. 

Everybody turned to and helped select the cloth. In those days, a suit, you know, only cost $14. And it was no light and trenchant manner to select the fabric of anything that expensive. It had to be something that would wear because suits didn’t grow on trees. And that would be a long time before I got another one. $14, that’s what I paid. 

The pattern had to be right, too. For a young man cutting his first figure at local sociable wouldn’t want to look grotesque and bizarre and something frivolous. We chose a decent brown with a kind of sandy or maybe cornmeal grain to it, and it had a faint pencil stripe that accentuated the vertical a little bit. 

I was supposed to have my choice of suspenders or belt, gratis, that went with the deal, but mother decided suspenders would be more graceful. She called them galluses was against belts because they might shut off your wind. Mother never liked belts and was always able to think up some reason. Mr. Osgood diplomatically offered that galluses were generally more popular at that time. So I felt all right about it. And I really did want a belt. 

I was somewhat astonished when the suit came postpaid from Chicago. I didn’t suppose Mr. Osgood even knew about Chicago. A little note in the box thanked us for our custom and said if the fitting wasn’t satisfactory to get in touch with our representative, it said. And that, of course, was Mr. Osgood. 

But the fit was a dandy. It was a dream I wore at first, I think, to a strawberry time and was the belle of the ball. At least everybody spoke of the nice fit and the attractive weave, and several said with unbelieving air, “You didn’t get that from Mr. Osgood, did you?” And at closing exercises at the end of the school year, I was a beautiful thing in my new suit. And then, of course, I put it on a hanger in the closet and I passed the summer making hay, and by fall I was six hands higher and no longer the proportioned vision Mr. Osgood and fitted.

My feet, stuck out the end of the pants as if I wore stilts. My hands dangled from the sleeves like paddles on a string and the vest was so tight I boggled my eyes like somebody who’s just swallowed, inadvertently, a whole cucumber. But the suit had cost 14 whole dollars, and I was stuck with it. In fact, I had to alternate the two pairs of pants faithfully, so I might get the longest possible good from the investment. 

And when I elected to repeat the sad story of Philip Nolan in the prize speaking contest the next spring, I certainly hit the high spot of my considerable career. The hilarity I engendered was not in keeping with the high drama of the story. Instead of weeping for poor Nolan, my audience whooped and cheered, and all I needed to go directly onto the Orpheum circuit was a black paper patch over my front teeth. 

When I gestured culturally to indicate the deep remorse that flooded the unfortunate hero’s saddened soul, my hand swept the air like a comet crossing the sky. And this, of course, took up the alternate armpit and jerked me like a spasm. I had rehearsed it in a sweater with unfettered freedom, but I was stuck with it. 

The pants got let down to the last thread, the waistband had a gusset and the gusset had a gore. The vest was ripped up the back so I could button the front and the coat was now so tight through the back that my side pockets were up under my ears. But I wore the suit until both pairs of pants developed an unstable economy, after which they were discreetly patched, and I wore them some more. 

But at last the suit was more than too small. There came a time I hung it up in the closet for good and somehow was able to finance my second suit. But, you know, by that time the price had gone up to $16.50, and soon after that suits had reached $18 and then with only one pair of pants. I understand that now they’re even higher. 

And some years later, my primal suit was discovered by somebody who was hooking a rug. But I put my foot down and said, I guess I’d keep my first suit because of certain fond memories. I took it up in the barn where I keep my mementos. 

I’m not moved by the Muscovite edict for shorter and tighter clothes. I can remember sitting stiffly at functions when my trousers were so tight that I couldn’t wink to play winkum. And that certainly slows your social activities when you’re 16 or 17 and the time is ripe. Still, I guess I had fun and I won’t form any premature opinions until we have further word from abroad.

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