WHEN I FINISHED, I held my hands up to silence the thundering ovation that was probably impending and said, “I have to ask you to forgive me for two mistakes in there, in that reading. I had intended to make each of these episodes self-contained, and Albertine advertised that they would be, but I realize that a couple of things in this one were not explained; they were just hanging there, and they must have seemed puzzling.”
“The Wall of Happy Diners,” said a woman at the bar who was holding a drink garnished with a pink paper umbrella.
“Yes,” I said, smiling at her. “You’ve been listening.”
She smiled back. Writing has its rewards.
To the room I said, “The Wall of Happy Diners was a wall in Kap’n Klam where Porky posted pictures of people who seemed to be enjoying themselves. I took the pictures, most of them.”
“And Kap’n Klam?” asked a beefy fellow with a full beard, black, flecked with gray.
“That was the name of Porky’s restaurant,” I said, “and that’s a long story.”
“Porky ran a clam bar near the town dock in Babbington,” said Lou. “He was tireless in his efforts to fill the place with happy diners,” and he went on to tell the story of the naming of the restaurant. He told it completely, and he told it well.
[to be continued]
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You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
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You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
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