Fresno Bee (California)
May 4, 2008 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
I remember SAROYAN;
The best part of life was fun
by Bruce J. Janigian
The stage lights go up this year to honor the centennial of America’s
daring young man and Fresno’s favorite son, William Saroyan. Playwright,
novelist, short story and song writer, the life of Saroyan captured
the American dream and heart nearly as much as his writing. From the
child of Armenian immigrants growing up in an orphanage to the toast
of New York’s literary elite, Saroyan’s unbowed brashness lifted the
spirits of the nation through the Great Depression and, after the
World War II, inspired a new generation in search of significance.
With cocked fedora and unrepentant self-confidence, Saroyan wrote for
every man about the intrinsic and overriding beauty of humanity and
individual honesty overcoming all adversity.
The world absorbed his simple truths and fresh delivery, even as its
leaders prepared to sacrifice their populations for dominance and
wealth. From a race destroyed in a world gone mad, Saroyan answered
the fundamental question of all time: How should a man live? "In the
time of your life, live … so that in that good time you do not add
to the sorrow and misery of the world… but shall smile to the
infinite delight and mystery of it."
Growing up in San Francisco with William Saroyan in our family circle
was memorable, as was later representing this cousin in publishing
deals in New York and being able to sit back and reflect with him
about the human condition. Boyhood memories include him at our Sunday
dinner table one week and the following week watching him on
television’s Omnibus Theater, as he introduced a new play.
But Willie wasn’t the only interesting member of the family. My
mother, uncles and other cousins who grew up with him in Fresno all
shared the same temperament and incredible sense of humor and
fun. And, of course, we all looked to our marvelously self-important
Uncle Aram as the greatest target for impersonations, joke-telling and
general merriment. In fact Aram, who was a formidable figure in his
day and who inspired a good many of Willie’s stories, was probably
most valued in the family as the catalyst for the greatest laughter
any of us can recall.
You didn’t have to tell a joke to turn the atmosphere festive. All you
had to do was a quick impersonation of chest-thumping Aram, and the
rest followed like a nuclear reaction. Just saying his name was
usually sufficient.
Willie lived close by us with his older sister Cossette. He also kept
two adjoining tract homes in Fresno, made up identically, and a walk
up apartment in Paris. Many leisurely visits were also in Palo Alto
with my poet and painter uncle, Archie Minasian, who was very close to
Bill and beloved for his warmth and wit. (My cousin was nicknamed both
Willie and Bill. Within the family, we preferred Willie; and in his
professional life, he went by Bill).
They shared a love of life, horse racing and an innocent
playfulness. They would shed their clothes and swim in an irrigation
ditch if the spirit moved them, just as they had done as children,
even as men in their 60s. It was at Archie’s that Bill drove up in a
huge, old gangster limousine once owned by Frank Nitti, a notorious
mobster. Willie bought it for the laughs, see? We all had fun racing
around and imagining what action it saw in Chicago.
It was about this time that Bill told us that John F. Kennedy was
having an affair with Marilyn Monroe. When we asked how he knew this,
he said he was also having an affair with her, and she told him so.
Other cousins were also having a good run in those days. Ross
Bagdasarian had earlier written the music to Willie’s lyrics for the
million-seller song, "Come On-a My House," which launched the career
of Rosemary Clooney. He was now on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and creating
the successful Chipmunks, including an "Alvin for President" campaign.
Willie’s advice to my brothers and me? Never join
anything. Organizations tend to corrupt the pure sense of
yourself. Don’t worry about getting good grades; it’s more important
to have fun. While other grownups would ask about achievements, Willie
wanted to make sure you were focused on enjoying your life. Yet there
was also a very serious side, "If you don’t make it by 25, you never
will."
Several years later, after I became an attorney and Bill had a falling
out with his Paris lawyer, Aram Kevorkian, I worked to untangle
various relationships and rebuild burned bridges. Bill had a low
tolerance for the rich and powerful, and, like my entire family,
abhorred pretension. The fact that these characteristics described
some of his best publishers made for fireworks.
We had a week together in Washington, D.C., where I was then
living. He joined me for a visit to the White House, which he
remembered from Franklin D. Roosevelt days, and to the Library of
Congress, where he, for the first time, saw the extent of his work and
its many translations in the library’s voluminous card catalogues.
Bill absorbed everything he saw on the streets and followed the
conversations even of the children passing by. He was alert to so many
more details than I could even begin to notice — architectural
designs, leaf patterns and coloring, accents and speech, clothing, the
feelings people projected and so many other things simultaneously.
This was, indeed, the man to appreciate and capture the human comedy.
I took Bill to the Dulles Airport, where we awaited his flight to
Paris, never realizing it would be the last time to see him. I’m still
holding the packages of items he collected on our strolls. Reports
about his declining health followed from Archie’s visits and from his
own writings, which continued very close to the end. In one of his
last passages, Bill describes being absorbed in his writing, but
briefly catching a reflection in the mirror — not his own, but of all
people who had ever lived.
He died as a common person in the Veterans Hospital in Fresno and
would not entertain anything else.
Some years later, I watched a very pretentious senior public official
lick a stamp with Bill’s picture on it and then look closely at his
image while sticking it to an envelope. I stood silently smiling for
Bill, who not only had the loudest and best laugh, but also the last
laugh.
Bruce J. Janigian is an attorney with offices in Sacramento and San
Francisco, and formerly represented his cousin, William Saroyan.
INFOBOX
See and hear more from these writers
Bruce J. Janigian will be on a panel on the life and writings of
William Saroyan Nov. 19 at the William Saroyan Theatre as part of the
San Joaquin Valley Town Hall Lecture Series. Joining Janigian on the
panel will be Richard Rodriguez, journalist and author, and Annette
Keogh, curator of the William Saroyan Collection at Stanford
University. Jon Whitmore, president of Texas Tech University, will
moderate.
Listen to Armen D. Bacon tell Bee Associate Editor Gail Marshall about
the joy of growing up in her Armenian neighborhood on a podcast,
available at fresnobee.com
If you have a personal story about Saroyan to tell or would like to
comment on the columns by Bacon or Janigian, send a letter to
[email protected] The length limit is 200 words.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
