This from my oldest and best friend, Larry Hatab, known to many as “Arab”.
I was not a close friend of David Halberstam. We met on Nantucket when I was living there in the mid 1970s. Gene and I came to know him through our mutual friends, Frank and Maggie Conroy. David also frequented the Company of the Cauldron, where I worked in its inaugural season in 1976, the year I left Nantucket in the Fall to teach philosophy at Old Dominion University. David’s renown as a writer was of course well known, but on Nantucket I think he enjoyed the intimately relaxed attitude, where the spirit of the Island was the common bond among all sorts of people and personalities. With David, you engaged a very interesting person who happened to be a world-famous journalist. And he seemed to take an interest in people on their own terms. I suppose he was taken by the fact that I was a philosopher who happened to be a waiter. We had several discussions about intellectual matters, especially the state of higher education in America. One of the reasons why David was such a great journalist and writer was the quality, depth, and range of his mind, which I got to see up close.
When I left the Island, summer visits were my life-line, and I would often see David out and about, but the best times involved Third World Softball games. For the record, Andy Malcolm and I invented the name, which stood for the utter absence of bravado or a skill requirement for players. Anyone could participate, young and old, male and female, able and unable. One summer, my girlfriend at the time was encouraged to join in even though she had never played softball before. She had a very unusual batting technique: When the pitch came she would move toward the plate and flail away at the ball, basically trying to swat it away from her. I walked over to her and said: ‘Remember, this is softball, not dodge-ball. The idea is to hit the ball onto the field, not defend yourself against the pitch.” She was cheered on with great enthusiasm.
The Third World spirit was much in evidence when David came to plate against Frank Conroy, a pitcher of legend. Let’s just say that David was no Joe Dimaggio, and Frank was barely mobile (he needed a pinch runner when he batted). But this match-up was always elevated by the group into an epic Battle of the Author-Titans, often with arcane literary references shouted out as “pepper” by the crowd. David did not usually fare well against Frank, mostly because he was a sucker for Frank’s worst pitch, a moon-shot arc that would just plop down on the plate, almost perpendicular to it. We would yell: “David, don’t swing at that shit!” But it was hard for him to resist. Perhaps there was a touch of literary bravado involved, and Frank would always relish his triumph. We called it the Best and the Brightest playing the Worst and the Dullest baseball. And we loved every minute of it.
As time went on, I no longer spent full summers on Nantucket, only an occasional vacation visit. A few times I would run into David and it was always pleasant and interesting. As I said, we were not close friends, and for about 15 years we barely saw each other. Then, as it happened, David was invited by my university to speak at its President’s Lecture Series, a prestigious public event in the Virginia region. When I learned of this I wrote David a letter to remind him that I taught at Old Dominion and to suggest that we get together for a drink after the lecture, if possible. I hadn’t told anyone that I knew David, and I wasn’t sure if the setting or schedule would allow us to meet up, but I was hoping we could. One feature of the Series was a banquet at the President’s home just prior to the lecture, with 30 or 40 people from the university and community joining to honor the speaker. There was no cause for anyone to think of inviting me to the banquet.
I arrived at the auditorium about 15 minutes before the lecture was to start. It was already packed and I was looking for a seat. All of a sudden the President and other university officials rushed toward me with frantic looks on their faces. Yikes, what was this about? The President said: “We were trying to get in touch with you! Mr. Halberstam was very upset that you weren’t at the banquet. Why didn’t you tell us that you two were friends!” I was amazed at this. I was told that David was in a room by himself getting ready and that I should go to see him immediately. When I walked into the room, David gave me a warm hug and we talked a little, just as if we had run into each other in a bar on Nantucket. We agreed that going for a drink afterwards would be great. After the lecture, I moved toward him amidst a crowd of admirers. I told one of the organizers that David and I were planning to meet and that perhaps some others from the university might want to come. He said: “Oh no, that’s all right. I’m sure you and David would rather be alone.” He assumed that we were close friends. I drove David to his hotel and we spent about 90 minutes together in the bar, having a wonderful conversation about all sorts of things, and Nantucket in particular.
This episode at the lecture was startling to me at first. What had David said at the banquet that got people so embarrassed about my not being there? (One thing related to me was that David made much about our playing softball together on Nantucket.) I came to think of this episode as revealing two things about David: First of all, what a sweet and generous person he was. Secondly, how much he valued Nantucket and the people he knew there. Although we were not close, in an off-Island setting there must have been something quite intimate for him about seeing me and drinking in the spirit of the Island again.
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