Life is So Good by George Dawson and Richard Claubman
Since one of the books I want to write one day is a memoir, although I don’t think I could publish it as one since my family is crazy and vindictive, I read a lot of them. And it’s a tricky genre. How do you come off the way you mean to? A lot of memoirs either get stuck in self-pity or self-flagellation. Either everything you did was wrong or everything that happened to you was wrong. I have read a few that also suffer under the weight of arrogance. Obviously, writing a memoir at all is a fairly arrogant undertaking. What’s so special about you? But a good memoir writer can skate underneath that by describing what’s so special about life in general.
Life Is So Good was a pleasure. Not necessarily to read, because it wasn’t especially lyrical or descriptive or weighty, but it’s a pleasure that it exists. It’s a book that you forgive for any errors or missed steps because it’s just a joy. It’s the story of George Dawson, a 103 year old black man who learned to read at 98 years old. Set against the backdrop of this turbulent century you’d expect harrowing stories about wars and the civil rights movement and discrimination. There are a couple harrowing stories, but Dawson learned his lesson from those early on in life and just strove to keep his nose clean for the rest. When asked about WWI he says,
“I mean all this killing over someone’s honor. Seems like, especially back then,
folks were going to die if a white man is put off too badly. They was too ready
to kill each other. For colored folks, it was different. We didn’t have the time
to worry about honor and we didn’t have enough power to lose. Staying alive,
keeping food on the table, that’s what counted for us. That’s what I remember
about 1914.”
Staying alive and keeping food on the table is what the majority of the book is about. We read about Dawson’s succession of jobs, his family, but they all happen so fast that when you read about his retirement you think, “Already?” It’s not until the book is nearly over and the authors are wrapping things up that you read, “I had come to record a life of hardship and was not prepared to hear of gratitude,” and it suddenly all sinks in. Dawson is, of course at 103, old school. He doesn’t have any rage left in him, it’s all quiet contemplation. But I don’t think the book emphasizes that enough. There had to have been a time where he was angry about how he had been kept down his whole life. Maybe there wasn’t. Dawson seems to just understand the way life is and accepts it completely. When asked if a glass is half empty or half full he says, “I see it as being enough. So it’s just fine.”
Glaubman obviously tried to get Dawson to react more. He brought news clippings to every meeting trying to get a response to some of the shocking events in history, but Dawson relentlessly didn’t care about what was going on in the world. He always brought the story back to where he was working at the time and how he was putting food on the table.
The book really was a lovely way to pass the time on an airplane, but I wanted more payoff. If Dawson had managed to live to this age and gain perspective, I wanted to know more about what that perspective taught him. If he won’t offer insights into history, then tell me what he thinks about today.
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