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BROTHER PAULHamlet says, "A little more than kin and less than kind." Paul Foster was my brother-in-law twice removed. He was married to my brother's sister. Maybe that's only once removed, but then I understand he was often removed. He was not kin when I first met him in Oregon in 1972. Although Paul was with Laura, brother Michael was not married to Sue then, so kin, no. Less than kind? No, not unkind was he, just crazy. Actually I didn't really meet him because he never stopped pacing up and down the tiny house he shared with Laura and baby Maria. He wore a blue jumpsuit festooned with political buttons: Nixon-Agnew, Humphrey-Muskie, Wallace-LeMay, reminders that looniness reaches the highest levels. He declaimed on a theme to this effect. The powers that be are being and nothingness! The President is a pimp! Political party is a contradiction in terms! Years later, when he was family, I later got to know him through his written work, his epigrams and palindromes. Lex barker prima facie veni vedi velocitorum! "The law barks fustest at the fastest." Strap a nut, not a pot, atop a potato. Pat on tuna parts. Recipe for tuna nut casserole. These were conceived upon request, within minutes. But our professional association deserves mention. A couple of decades after our first encounter, I was teaching junior college English, and the class was reading One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. I asked Paul if he could come in and discuss Kesey and company. He said he would, but to leave the discussion up to him. He arrived, looking fairly normal. He set about taping cardboard arrows around the room, saying nothing. Before long even the densest among us realized they were mislabeled. Arrows pointing up read "Down", those pointing left read "Right" and so on. He then addressed the class, which I here paraphrase. The words point one way but the truth is in another direction. Don't believe what you read. Don't what the politicians and businessmen and shrinks and Nurse Ratcheds tell you. Don't even believe what this guy [me] tells you. Your professor is a nice guy and he's smart and educated but sometimes he'll tell you shit and not even know it. Ok, he'd wrecked my credibility. Now what? Listen, I myself might be telling you shit. What I'm saying is - and what Kesey wants you to get - is go find out for yourselves. It may kill you like Billy Bibbitt and McMurphy. But it just might break you out of the looney bin like Chief Broom. Sound if simple advice. Well, he sure knew how to get their attention anyway. But he had one more offering, and here I must try to capture his manner of speech. "Oh, there is one th-th-thing Kesey got wrong. How Billy B-b-bibbitt got better. Well I'm here to t-t-tell you: A good f-f-fuck does not cure stuttering!" Then he said, "Thank you boys and girls and Professor McKenna," and then he left. And thereafter I was never able to convince the students of anything, especially that Paul Foster was not Billy Bibbitt. It was sort of like meeting Huckleberry Finn or The Great Gatsby in person. Or meeting Hamlet, who like Paul, saw fit at times to put an antic disposition on. © Copyright 2003, Peter McKenna
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