'Take Its Rise from Mutual Pleasure'

It’s a comfort to know people who know you. Cleveland has become a semi-ghost town. My brother, parents, teachers, most friends and former co-workers are dead. My niece and nephew are here and so are two of my oldest friends, the artists Gary and Laura Dumm. Gary and I met in 1975 while working as clerks at the late, lamented Kay’s Books. He was then on the cusp of working with Harvey Pekar (1939-2010) on his autobiographical comic book American Splendor (“From Off the Streets of Cleveland”), later adapted as a movie. I thought of Housman: “And friends abroad must bear in mind / Friends at home they leave behind.” That’s what I was doing. 

On Friday my nephew and I visited the Dumms at their home on the West Side of Cleveland. For five hours we talked without once uttering the president’s name – surely a triumph of maturity and good taste. No talk at all of politics or sports, the most common and tedious conversational fodder. Our talk mingled reminiscences, gossip and plain old storytelling. Conversation ceased only when Abe and I had to meet his girlfriend for dinner. Gary, Laura and I confirmed Dr. Johnson’s observation: “The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.” No end in sight.