Run Silent, Run, Ahh, Not So Deep

As far back as I can remember, people have commented on my taciturnity, usually kiddingly, sometimes insultingly, and other times, I guess, just out of plain curiosity. Last night Barbara, our nephew Jeff and I were talking—well, they were, mostly—and Barbara asked me how long I thought I could go without talking. Well, I haven’t answered her yet, and the countdown has begun. Just joking. I told them I thought I could go for months, a statement which even shocked Barbara, since she was thinking in terms of weeks, although we all agreed that talking or even singing to oneself would be allowed. Talking, in this case, would be defined as communicating verbally with another human being. Conversing with animals would also be permitted, as long as they didn’t talk back to me. And since I have mentioned it, I must admit I enjoy talking to animals, well, dogs mostly, maybe because I can stop any time I want to—even in mid-sentence—and the dog won’t care, plus I can get away with saying things like, “Ooh, it’s a good boy,” or “That’s a Mr. Boonkie Doogie,” without getting ridiculed or punched in the face, unless it’s one of those brainy Border Collies, in which case I might receive a well-deserved chomp.

I’ve tried to remember when I became a non-talker and whether it’s congenital or environmental in origin. Both my parents, while not blabber-mouths, talked a normal amount, so I’m thinking the possible causation might be related to something that occurred in the first grade, when my teacher, Ms. Kornahrens, sent a note home saying that I talked too much in class. I don’t recall consciously shutting down, however she did call me down in class a couple of time; this being the same teacher who had whispered to me that turned out to be the correct answer in a poster naming context. So maybe there was the psychological trauma of being tragically demoted from teacher’s pet to class pain-in-the-ass right there in front of everybody.

Well, whatever the etiology, here I am writing about it with no small amount of catharsis. I may have been influenced over time, as I witnessed others talking and gradually realized that in at least half of the cases, the results of talking were less than positive; many of them saying things that would easily have been trumped by the aforementioned Border Collie, had that animal been afforded a voice box.

Some people have been deluded into thinking I am in deep creative thought or I am some sort of mute intellectual biding my time before I unleash a verbal tsunami, washing away the puny comments of lesser beings. Of course, this is light years from the truth, as anyone who knows me can attest, but sometimes I am slow to correct this misperception, allowing my shriveled self-esteem a fleeting nanosecond in the sun. And I guess people who have that opinion of me are just being charitable anyway, probably thinking that if someone is that quiet, there must not be any brain activity, and they’ll wonder why someone doesn’t shut off my life support, even if they’re Republicans. In truth, sometimes my mind seems to be somewhat vacuous, to the extent that in conversations—very one-sided, of course—with very loud people, there is a definite intracranial echo. Hopefully, they can’t hear it.

I think that up until my late teens I probably talked more than I do now. It was at this point that I discovered that I had a modicum of writing skill and that I actually enjoyed the process. This was, indeed, the death knell for any possibility of being an active member of the conversational community. Initially, my writing was effective in my relationship with my girlfriend when I was a freshman at The Citadel, much more than the spoken word. I could make amends for some Pabst-induced egregious behavior over the weekend by a carefully worded, flowery explanation and apology, thus paving the way for the opportunity to do the same thing the next weekend, and accomplishing this without the messiness of oral—I mean, verbal—intercourse. And I have just given you an example of writing over speaking. In conversation, if I had said “oral intercourse,” it would have been too late to retrieve it. In writing, I had a choice of leaving it in or not, or as I did, leaving it in and at the same time correcting it.

Upon entering the world of work, I discovered the “memo,” just one more serendipitous substitute for the draconian task of person-to-person communication. As a supervisor, I managed by memo for over thirteen years.

I don’t think it’s based on shyness, because even after my vocal chords are well lubricated with alcohol, I’m not any more talkative, although there was an occasion back in the early 60s when out of curiosity I washed down a couple of barbiturates with some J&B and transformed into someone who could have held his own on “The View” for a couple of hours. I don’t recall too much about it, except that my vocal chords were sore for days.

At this point in my life, quietness is expected of me—and by me—as if I have taken some sort of agnostic’s vow of silence and, if I dare break it, people, especially those who depend on it, simply will not accept it. They have become used to carrying the conversational load. Besides, they want me to continue in my role as a listener. After all, anyone who contributes as little as I have to the verbal communication in all these 68 years is obviously an extraordinary listener. Okay, all of you fools who have been participating in this delusion have a seat. I don’t want you to hurt yourself when you faint. I haven’t heard a damn word you’ve said. While you’ve been yammering away, secure form Verbus Interruptus, I’ve been thinking about whatever interested me at the time, from my concern about Roy Rogers playing the guitar too much and not shooting enough bad guys to daydreaming about winning a case of Old Milwaukee for having the highest shuffleboard score of the week at Raben’s Tavern to paranoia about something going haywire with the voting machines and George W. becoming president for a third term to “Wow, did you see that set of casabas?” And incidentally, whose “hmmms,” wows,” and “reallys,” which can’t be counted as conversation, were stimuli to keep you talking and me not. Though unfortunately, in my myopic zeal to remain word-free, I may have created an entire generation of really boring people whom I have convinced that they are scintillating conversationalists. And you know who you are.

In closing, which of course means the challenge to talk can’t be too far away, I want to take this opportunity to apologize to my dear wife who has endured living with what I guess you might call a “silent partner” for 41 years, without ever losing it, the closest coming to a long car ride, when she looked at me with reddened eyes and screamed, “For God’s sake, I’m not Ms. Kornahrens, you can speak!” However, I think she is finally becoming quite serious about getting me to talk, based on the brochure I happened to see on the bedside table this morning, “Water Boarding, the Home Kit.”