Bliss, Remembered by Frank Deford Read Free Book Online

succeed in their quest they tend to be weighted down with a greater sense of failure. Then they come to my bank and ask to borrow money. Or, rather, they expect to.
    “Expectations can be cruel, Ted. Someday, you know, the United States is not going to be top dog anymore. I don’t mean the Communists are going to beat us. The Communists are frauds. But they’re mean bastards, like the Nazis were, so they get away with it. For now. But someday the rest of the world will simply catch up with us. That’s not a prediction; that’s just the way history works. And it’ll be especially hard for us, because we’ve been conditioned to think that we must be the best and so we deserve the best. We won’t handle that disappointment particularly well.”
    “Does anybody, under the circumstances?”
    “That’s a good point. Every country can get a pretty good ride out of that national pride stuff. But America is different from all the other empires, ever. You see, Ted, nobody else was ever brought up to believe that they’re living a dream.”
    After thinking about it, I didn’t go to New York, and while I don’t know if my father’s advice was pivotal to my decision, I do know that it comforted me. And I do know that once I made up my mind I was never dogged by that sense of might-have-been, probably because I enjoyed what I did do with the life I chose, and I was so very happy at home with Jeanne and my family.
    In fact, on the occasion of my fortieth birthday, Daddy told me how pleased he was for me that I had found such joy in my work. It made me wonder. “Haven’t you liked your job?” I asked him. He was about to retire as a vice-president at the First Montana Savings and Trust.
    “Well,” he replied, “I can’t say I get up every morning anxious to get down to the office, but it’s been satisfying enough. And I’ve improved over time; I think that’s significant. Perhaps that means more than merely liking your work. When you only like something, I’m not so sure you work hard. You can drift along then, enjoying the ride.”
    “I never thought about that,” I said, “but it makes sense. Of course, I was never in a war, Dad. I never had to go through anything like you did, being wounded and all. I guess it’s affected the way you’ve thought about things.”
    “Yes, I’m sure that would be true, Teddy,” he said, but he refused to take the bait. Even after all those years, that remained off-limits.

    Mom came back with some posies, to remember Daddy by. She put them in a vase and placed it on top of the television set. But instead of wine, she’d brought a bottle of champagne. “How’d you happen to do that?” I asked.
    “Well, I was in the liquor store, and it occurred to me that I might never have another reason to celebrate something and drink champagne again before I die, so I might as well do it tonight.”
    “What are we celebrating?”
    “Well, if Phelps wins the butterfly tonight, I think that’s a very valid cause for celebration. You know, when I was swimming they hadn’t come up with the butterfly yet, so—”
    “It didn’t exist?”
    “Well, yeah, somebody had dreamed it up, but it wasn’t an official race until sometime after the war. I always liked to swim lots of ways myself, but when Mr. Foster started coaching me, he told me, ‘Trixie, concentrate on the backstroke. That’s your best, and you know, as good as you can be, you’re getting into this kinda late. You’re already sixteen, so let’s just master the one thing.’ Look, Eleanor Holm was on the Olympic team when she was fourteen.”
    “Fourteen?”
    “That’s right. In ’28, in Amsterdam. I had some catchin’ up to do.”
    It had warmed up nicely by now, so Mom and I went back down to the garden, and I turned on the tape recorder and she resumed her story:

The first thing Mr. Foster had me do was get a new bathing suit. I didn’t even know you were supposed to call them “swimsuits.” On the Shore, we