Duke's Mixture

 BLY, MCGRATH, WRIGHT, and MANFRED

Some years ago I ran onto a book by Frederick Manfred called DUKE’S MIXTURE. It contains a couple passages I’ve gone back to a few times because they depicted rare humorous occasions that could have happened only once. The people involved were Robert Bly, Tom McGrath, James Wright, and Frederick Manfred. When the book came up again, I did a quick internet search to get reacquainted.

Here’s the scene, they’d all gathered at Robert Bly’s farm in Minnesota for some discussion and fun . One place has the four together swimming in the nude at Lac Qui Parle Lake. Three of the men were of average height and found the water deep enough to hide their privates, but Frederick Manfred at 6’9” splashed around with genitals exposed.

A surprise at the mostly deserted lake materialized when a man and woman in a trolling fishing boat appeared around the edge of an island. Three did not need to experience embarrassment, but Manfred had to sink to his knees to wade around until the boat left the scene. Bly’s wife brought lunch to the foursome and averting her eyes discreetly left it on a big boulder, then rowed herself out of there.

Still in DUKE’S MIXTURE, a gathering of writers in panels discussed their work on another occasion. I quote Manfred, “One day Robert Bly was holding forth, and after a half hour got aboard a wild horse and began riding roughshod over us all with his provocative theories and strong opinions. Great stuff, though some of it got a bit thick. Tom (McGrath) and I were sitting together, wondering where Robert would fly next and where he would finally land.

Finally, Tom had enough. Robert happened to touch on one of Tom’s territories with his sharp hooves and Tom stood up , and said in his quiet voice, ‘Oh, come on now, Robert, that’s not true. And you know it.’ Robert hesitated; smiled; and said, ‘Well, maybe I’m wrong. But how would you put it.’ Tom waved a hand at Robert, smiled, sat down, as if to say, ‘It’s your show. But be careful what you say around me.’ Everyone in the audience laughed. They liked Robert’s fire, and they liked the way Tom tried to cool him down. Both were loved for what they were.”