Thrilling Experiences Pay Off

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
September 6, 1958


   THE OTHER day I huddled with my literary counselor to sound him out on what path I should take to arrive at another rejection slip.
   He told me that the personal experience article seemed very hot at the moment and that test pilots, athletes, jockeys, reformed drunks, gamblers and drug addicts all were having their day in the magazines.
   "The one big drawback in your case," he continued, "is that you never had any interesting experiences."

   "WHAT DO you mean?" I protested. "I'm right on the verge of writing a piece titled, 'I Was a Forest Service Smoke Chaser.'"
   "Hmm," said my counselor. "This is a facet of your career about which I had not been apprised. When were you a smoke chaser?"
   "Well," I said, perhaps lamely, "back about 1925. give or take a few years."
   "You take them," he said. "And my congratulations on a good memory. Did anything interesting happen, by chance, while you were chasing fires? Did you get a leg burned off or rescue a fair maiden? Is there anything that would be remotely entertaining in this resurrection of ancient history?"
   "Let me think," I parried. "I ate baking powder biscuits for a week straight and fried doughnuts over a campfire."
   "Put it in your memoirs," my counselor yawned,"and file it away in a bureau drawer. It will be something for you heirs to throw away when they're cleaning up the place."

   AT LEAST two elements are vital to the personal experience article, he said. It has to be comparatively recent and it must interest more people than the members of one's family.
   "It should be spectacular, such as climbing Mount Everest or crossing Lake Superior in a washtub. Failing that, it should deal with the author's surrender to temptation and his final triumph.
   "One could not possibly sell a piece titled "Women Are a Waste of Time' or "Why I Never Drink Liquor,'" he said, "because such titles imply neither temptation nor surrender--and thus there is no final victory. But you might find a buyer for "No More Cuties for Me" or "I've Had My Last Hangover.'

   "YOUR trouble," said my counselor, "is that you are colorless and middle-of-the-road. You have no bad habits worth mentioning and are disgustingly healthy. You've never had heart surgery or amnesia. You don't even have hay fever. You aren't impetuous and the only hobby you have is mooching cigarettes. You are normal and consequently uninteresting.
   "If you want to succeed in the personal experience field you have to do more than go for the groceries on Saturday morning. You must do something like going below in an aqua lung and killing sharks with a can-opener. You might even do something crazy, such as living in a tree house or sitting on a flagpole. To the outsider your life roughly parallels that of a Hereford, except that the Hereford's is more exciting. He gets slaughtered."

   MY COUNSELOR is doubtless right. I feel a vast inadequacy. Somehow I have missed the boat. While there is merit in an upright life, in a good credit rating and membership on the ways and means committee, there is no drama here, no hot breath of danger or ache of hunger, no gnawing desire for a slug of Old Cornstalk, no thrill of suspense.
   People dream of fame in sports, medicine, finance, politics and letters. Time and kicks in the teeth often squeeze the juice out of such meditations. But mine continue, in a sporadic and anguished sort of way.
   However, I'm not about to go on a two-year drunk just to have something to write about when I sober up. Neither shall I sit atop any flagpoles or fight any sharks.
   A home-body may not have much to go on but I figure that for his own peace of mind he'd better stay in character.

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