In perhaps his most famous autobiographical essay, “The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood” (Assorted Prose, 1965), John Updike, who would have been 78 today, wrote:

“When I was born, my parents and my mother’s parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree . . . was, in a sense, me.” According to Updike’s Shillington contact, Dave Silcox, John’s mother later corrected him, telling him it was planted on the one-year anniversary of his birth.

In “The Dogwood Tree,” Updike continued with a line that has more resonance today than when he wrote it:  “My dogwood tree still stands in the side yard, taller than ever . . . .”

Happy birthday.

(Photo courtesy of Jack De Bellis, taken in spring 2009)

Professor Joseph McDade, of Houston Community College, is the most recent person to join the Society—our 153rd member—and like so many he’s planning on attending the Society’s first conference in October. Also like so many, he has a fond memory of meeting John Updike. His moment came on Monday, Feb. 28, 2008, when Updike spoke at Houston’s famed Alley Theater as part of the Inprint Brown Reading Series. But his relationship to John Updike began before that. He writes,

“I am guessing my own life regarding the man is fairly common.  All through college and grad school my mother would, every Christmas, treat me to each new handsome Knopf hardback, wrapped and under the tree.  Lately my wife has continued the tradition, and this past December treated me to a copy each of Rabbit at Rest and Roger’s Version (I had mentioned these were my two favorite of his novels) from the Signed First Edition series.

“I count as one of the great moments of my life the 20 or so seconds I spent with him after his Houston reading two years ago, when I stood in a line that snaked up the stairs of the Alley Theatre to a desk on a second-floor landing.  As he signed my evening’s purchase (the Everyman’s Library edition of Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels), I told him how happy I was that he had chosen, as part of the evening’s program, to read ‘The Family Meadow,’ a story I had often heard him read on audiotape and very nearly committed to memory.  ‘It’s one of my two favorite of your stories,’ I said.  Then, wanting to note it for the record, I continued,  ‘The other is ‘The Witnesses.”

“‘The WITnesses’?” he asked, seeming slightly startled.  I could only say, ‘Oh, sure,’ and move on.”

(Photo: The Alley Theater)

Joseph McDade

Mary Houck Yuhasz was a Reading native who attended Reading High School and grew up with memories of John Updike that “skip thru our childhood and touch at various times through the years,” because Updike was a longtime friend of her family’s. Her parents and John’s were classmates at Ursinus and remained friends all their lives. In recent years, Yuhasz says she began a correspondence with Updike over the old days and she sent pictures, especially if they included images of his parents. And to the Society she sent a more recent recollection of a visit Updike made to Denver. Here it is:

John Updike Researched at Denver Museum of Nature and Science

In February 1986, John Updike was invited by the Friends of the Denver Public Library to read from some of his works. In preparation for the reading, he asked me (a lifelong friend) to take him to the then Denver Museum of Natural History. He headed for the old Dinosaur Hall and ambled around, studying the names on the exhibits. After a while I learned that what he had hoped to find was a pronunciation guide with each specimen. Since this was not included in the display, I suggested that we head back to the main information booth and ask to speak to a curator.

The person I spoke to was notably disinterested in responding to my request. John stood by, in his usual modest manner. Finally, in frustration I pointed to John and said: “Do you know who this is? John Updike, the author.” That produced a quick retreat behind the scenes and a curator arrived to discuss John’s pronunciation questions.

One of the short stories he read that evening was “The Man Who Loved Extinct Mammals,” (previously published in The New Yorker). He quoted from Harvey C. Markman’s book, Fossil Mammals. Markman had been the Curator of Geology and Paleontology from 1936 to 1954 and the Museum had published his book. John was hoping to find an answer by going to the source. In a recent interview for an article in National Geographic Updike mentioned that he had a basic knowledge in “dinosaurisms,” having written a few other such stories. Apparently such familiarity had come to him later than his 1986 reading here in Denver.

There was a bit of a dust-up over John’s visit that evening. A newspaper reporter took him to task for checking his watch too often. In his own defense, John wrote to the newspaper that he was simply trying to fall within the time period that “my sponsor and I had agreed upon.” He continued that he resented the implication that he was giving “short rations” when he had spent considerable time visiting with people after the reading. Local readers, differing with the reporter, came to John’s defense in letters to the paper afterwards. In his thanks to me he wrote of “how nicely I pronounced all those difficult terms.”

by Mary Houck Yuhasz

In his poem, “Late January,” which was published in Tossing and Turning, John Updike ended with the line, “Time’s sharp edge is slitting another envelope.” How eerily prescient that poem feels now, a year after his passing on January 27, 2009.

Family, friends, and readers all over the world are still feeling his loss. Sure, we received our annual gift from him—three books, in fact: Endpoint and Other Poems, My Father’s Tears and Other Stories, and The Maples Stories. But it wasn’t the same, knowing that there will come a year for the first time in more than half a century when we won’t have a new book by John Updike.

We all have our favorites, but for me, one book of his remains special: Marry Me: A Romance. That’s because in April of 1995 I used that book to propose to my wife . . . with John’s help.

I still remember how he laughed when I phoned to tell him my plan and ask, “Would you help me propose to my wife?”

“You mean . . . like Cyrano?” he said, with that unmistakable bit of mischief that you heard in his voice when something amused him.

“Not quite that bad,” I said, explaining that I wanted to propose to Zarina atop the Empire State Building but hesitated to give her the ring there, afraid that it might get dropped in the nervousness of the moment and be lost in the dusk. “If I send it to you, would you be willing to inscribe my copy of Marry Me so I could use it to propose?”

“Oh, why not,” he said. “To my knowledge the book has never been used that way—though it’s a little ironic, isn’t it, since they don’t exactly live happily ever after in the book? I wouldn’t want it to jinx you.”

“It won’t,” I said. And he got the book to me just in time for a trip that Zarina and I were taking to New York City, where we were going to double date with my best friend from college—Gerry Hoey, who’s the Inspector General of New York City. The first stop was the Empire State Building, where we lingered at the top to allow some of the people to leave. Then I pulled out a small cassette player and set it on the railing. While “Arthur’s Theme” played and Gerry took pictures, I began slow-dancing with Zarina, then said, “I have something to give you.” She was expecting a ring, of course, but instead I reached behind my back and pulled out a plastic bag. I took out Marry Me and handed it to her.

Inside, John had written, “Dear Zarina, If you say ‘yes,’ you might get a ring in the Rainbow Room. Hope it all works out. Felicitations, John Updike.” And he dated it the day that I told him I was going to propose, 4/28/95. Four months later, for a wedding gift he sent us a copy of the limited edition of The Afterlife short story, in which he wrote, “For Zarina Mullan and Jim Plath, May you live happily ever after.”

Today, I’m wishing the same for him.

(Photo and text by James Plath)