That protean animal, most usually known as Nathan Hackett Hackney, wrote as many kinds of columns as he had names. Under bylines such as Mickey MacDougal, Severn Pufstufsson, Chet Wickman and others, he wasn’t above working in pidgin styles of melting pot english, often making heavy use, in fine Chicago columnist tradition, of the ‘deez n doze’ dialect of a now mostly vanished town.
He was, perhaps, a little too satisfied with his “quicksilver quill” and he could be heroically lazy with his filings. This literary slovenliness would lead to his dubious honor as “the most fired columnist in the newspaper business.” He was obsessed with the production of aphorisms—once trying to copyright the phrases “Two a deez draughts makes a wakin man doze” and “Dat’s rite, Bob!”
Oddly, his most successful quotation (even getting into Bartlett’s) was:
"The superior man is the one who, allows himself to be grandly discovered by others; this need to make himself ever-evident forfeits the very virtue to which he aspires.”
The wonderful world of 20th century columnists. What paradises have we lost?
At a few times during his career, he was able to, in his own words, ‘pull one over’ on his editors at the Harbinger, the Herald, or the Times and get a piece published in an antique or philosophical style like this mannered portrait of the mind waking up. In his own estimation it was “something special. Perhaps my best work.”
What can truly be called the first moment of the day? On a morning like this, when the transit from sleep to full consciousness feels so long, drawn out through the last images of a dream. The surreal world folds and darkens and mutates into the groggy world of morning. Instantly, you have forgotten these images of blond curls, your mother’s chocolate cake, the gentle wafting of the drapes, along with the rest of the soporific shambles. The heavy remembrance of work comes on.
As you open your eyes to the obscure light of your den, the urge to turn back over and reshut your lids reveals its deeper strength. And you are back in the lightless silence. But not for long enough.
The sound of St. Johesephat’s bells intone in your very head, unmuffled by the apartment's paper walls. The rings you count at nine come from the old basilica and you think of the monks at the church further up the blocks who will be performing the hour of Terce. Poor brothers!
If you could choose to sleep more, have another hour or even half that, you would, but your resistance has drained away.
Eyes now open, you feel that you are seeing time itself through the window, first as a general grey and slowly as an unexpected snow scene —the covered roof of the neighbors building and the silver maple’s long, snowy fingers. You hear sparrows through the walls and you see the cat hears them too. Her pricked up ears and open face are staring through the walls to the origin point of the call.
You wonder about the cardinal you have seen this whole week, belting out its alarum calls from the tops of trees up and down the block. You see him in your mind now, a northern cardinal in the March snow. Late March. And after a winter with barely an inch of accumulation. This brings on thoughts of death and you begin to stir.
“In the depths of every heart,” you think, but have no more words to follow it. You can’t recall where it comes from. You feel your mind moving from passive sense to active focus, but your imagination is fading in your bid for control. It is too late.
The moment you actually rise belongs to another stretch of time, and is tragically much closer than it appears. You wish it were just a touch more distant.
With effort you stand up, breaking from your last clutches of wakeful sleep. And you wait for the alarm like the peal of a quick death, forgetting you have already slept through it.
Your spirit, if you have one, has seemed to depart and you don’t know where it has gone, but you do not fuss. Maybe this is what the big change is finally like.
You are still only half awake as you look out on the snow and return to the kettle to start making coffee. You are waiting to emerge from mystery, so that you can take charge of time. Though you know it will mostly pass without your guidance.
Now, your thoughts push out past the snow-covered roofs along the frozen street and the cold sky. You have a vision of Lake Michigan, the waves hardly registering the falling crystals as they fuse their forms into the great rolling body. Swiftly, you meld back with the rippled sheets and covers of the bed, like snowflakes in the surf.