Madam Logorrhea

I have written a lot of words in my life, and I was recently surprised to discover that not everyone has produced hundreds of thousands of words in their life for no reason other than they like to. Who knew?

I’ve kept diaries or journals consistently since I was seven years old. In my first blog, St. Scobie’s Mock Whiskey, I wrote 968 posts between 2005 and 2014 about every topic imaginable. As a lawyer, I produce dozens (hundreds?) of long legal documents every year. I’ve written two trade books and a mystery novel. I’ve been working on a memoir for eight years. I won the Christopher Hewitt Award for Creative Non-Fiction in 2018 (sadly, the award-winning story is no longer online). So many words.

There have been times when I did not have so many words. There are gaps in my diaries where I didn’t want to record what was going on in my life because it was too painful to acknowledge. There was my 6th-grade teacher who put my desk in the hall because I talked too much and my 7th-grade teacher who told me I had “diarrhea of the mouth.” Real top-notch educators those two were.

I stopped writing my blog in 2014 when I started my solo law practice as a neutral because I was worried that parties who wanted to select me would be put off by my personal opinions or that I might seem unprofessional writing about The Wire and New Year’s resolutions and Oakland politics. I no longer have that worry. I love writing and don’t want to stop.

At the same time, it’s hard to come up with content on demand that consistently thrills the reader. Thankfully, I’ve got a lot of old stuff that is perfect to mine for ideas. On occasion, I will be reaching back to St. Scobie’s Mock Whiskey or St. Scobie’s Revenge to generate ideas, check in on my own thinking about certain issues, or just reprint some hilarious (to me) stories that have stood the test of time.

For my first throwback reference, I want to share with you my introduction to the late great Nelson Marans.

Best Comeback of the Day

The other day, my little family visited a private preschool in Berkeley during an open house. It was a lovely school but the focus of the other parents' questions* was how would the school handle their child's brilliance. "What will you do if a child is more advanced than his age? Can he accelerate through the curriculum?" This drove me nuts.

I have not come up with a way of dealing with it, but I like this NYT letter writer's approach to handling people bragging about their children:
To the Editor:
I would suggest as an appropriate response to over-the-top bragging of parents about their child that one should repeat back to them word for word what was said, with the statement prefaced by a comment about how fortunate one is to know the parents of such a gifted child. A similar, but adult, situation occurred when one of my friends touted the fact that he was a friend of a multimillionaire. My response again was simply that I was proud to be the friend of a man who was the friend of a multimillionaire. The bragging stopped immediately.
If you really want to brag about your children, wait 30 years and point out that your child gave you a car or a house, indicating that your offspring was worthy of praise, in the unlikely event that this occurs.
Nelson Marans** Silver Spring, Md., Jan. 5, 2006


*My hubs asked about how they impart values of social justice. When the teacher got into an explanation involving puppets, he then stood up and rushed out as though our child were in crisis. He was not.

** A search for this name on the NYT website shows that he writes into the paper chronically, getting a letter published on average every two months. This makes me question whether he has actually employed this approach. Whatever. I hope I have the nerve to use it someday.

Nelson Marans was a hero of mine. Over the years, I wrote 13 posts about him. As I was strolling down Marans Memory Lane, I thought to check in on him, and I’m sad (but not surprised) to report that Mr. Marans passed away in 2021 at the age of 97. I can’t write a better kicker than the WaPo obituary but I hope that I live as long, and write as much, as Mr. Marans did.