Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 19, 1994 TAG: 9411020013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Naturally, from time to time, I get my comeuppance.
Some years ago, when I worked at an area college, I was invited to lunch with a prominent visitor - a final, if small and casual, send-off event in a two-day whirl of lectures and class meetings for him on campus.
I greeted the invitation as a particular honor. The guest was there to lecture in the sciences; I was merely a visiting teacher in the English department. My invitation came, the event organizer explained, because I, like he, wrote a regular column. She thought two columnists might find topics about which to chat - never mind that his column appeared in a national publication and mine, even then, appeared in this local paper.
I was enormously flattered. I accepted.
And then, the guest lecturer appeared on the scene and showed himself to be a perfect ass. Nothing that had been arranged for his convenience was nearly convenient enough. None of the students he met had a brain. None of the faculty he met had a brain, either. He was abrasive, arrogant and sarcastic; in his deeply caustic public remarks, he compared Virginians to Nazis.
Luncheon guests started dropping like flies.
In a panic, the event organizer called me to confirm my participation. "I really need you," she said. "You're the only faculty member left who'll go."
And I wasn't even real faculty.
I hemmed and hawed. This woman, although she'd done an efficient job of organizing this complicated event, had always struck me as something of a nitwit. She was bubbly and pert, in a cheerleadery sort of way, and I would not have been surprised to hear her witticisms prefaced by "Honey chile."
"Please," she said again. "It's just you and me and the student who's driving. I need you."
"Well, OK," I finally said.
And then, to prepare myself, I set a chip on my shoulder the size of a giant redwood: Here's one Virginian you won't cow, you Yankee, you.
Off we set for the restaurant: Terrified Student, Ms. Nitwit, Mr. Bristly Guest, and me and my chip.
A good time was not had by all.
In fact, a good time was had by no one, until Ms. Nitwit started batting her eyelashes. She giggled. She cajoled. For pity's sake, she drawled!
I squirmed.
But then ... Mr. Bristly Guest softened.
He started chatting! He laughed! He was having a really nice time! We all were!
Thunderstruck, I began watching Ms. Nitwit a little more closely. With all her honey, she was catching that bristly fly. And gently engaging him in a witty conversation the likes of which he'd successfully avoided with everyone else.
Ms. Nitwit, I saw, was a genius! A genius of human nature, a genius of social graces, a genius of deferential keenness. Unlike the rest of us, she had no need to brandish her truly bright intelligence and so, unlike the rest of us, she actually got to fence with this man. Who, it turns out, could be charming, too.
Well there, indeed, was my comeuppance. It was I who was the nitwit at that luncheon. For only a nitwit would have assumed that a pert woman, of great bubbly warmth, automatically lacked brains and skill. Thanks to that one particular "cheerleader," Mr. Bristly Guest left Virginia with a good taste in his mouth. And it so easily could have been otherwise.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB