ElmTree of Bliss

I'm entirely extroverted out. This morning I had an hour of therapy, followed immediately by a two hour lunch with my father's Former Student. He's writing another paper about Der Alte, this time for Modern Age, and wanted to ask me some more questions. He also told me several stories he'd heard from another former student, who shall be referred to as Louie, after the character based on him in Queenie's hilarious but unfinished novel. My favorite was the one about the time in 1967 when anarchists broke into the Graduate Library at the University of Michigan and started hurling books out the window, startling Louie, who was on the ground below and immediately raced into the building to try to stop this atrocity. Former Student's favorite story was the one in which my father became secretary of a foundation. He hired Louie to be his assistant. His first administrative action was to cut a check for $25,000 to Leo Strauss. And then he lost the check. So, on his first day at work, my father tore up the offices in search of the lost check. Leaving the place in chaos, they took a lunch break. When they returned to the office, my father picked up his copy of the New York Times, which was sitting on the desk, and slapped it to the floor in frustration. Out fluttered the missing check. He had folded it inside the paper after his morning reading. Just like in "It's a Wonderful Life!" Lucky there was no Mr. Potter to take advantage of Daddy's unsuitability for administrative work. He drove the long-time administrative assistant crazy--to the point where she called the former head of the foundation in Washington DC and interrupted his conference with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger so she could tender her resignation. He had to raise her salary 300% to get her to stay. I don't know why she was so important. Perhaps she knew where too many bodies were buried.