{"id":1251,"date":"2008-05-18T18:35:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-18T18:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2008-05-18T18:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-18T18:35:00","slug":"greg-oguss-tells-the-story-of-his-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/greg-oguss-tells-the-story-of-his-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Oguss tells the story of his story"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Is the Story of My Story<\/span>


            It\u2019s 1936. And Teddy Rosen has a date with some girl named Jane Stein who spends her summers in Michiana, Michigan, which owes its rather picaresque name to the fact that it lies on the border of Michigan and Indiana. Teddy summers in Michigan City, Michigan, which isn\u2019t exactly a hop, skip and a jump from Michiana. Teddy has decided he wants to break his date with Jane. Only Teddy doesn\u2019t have the thirty-five cents to make the long-distance call and let her know he isn\u2019t going to show. One of Teddy\u2019s friends in Michigan City hears he\u2019s planning to blow this girl off without so much as a phone call. Mostly because he\u2019s flat broke. Also because he\u2019s just not that into her. Jane is all of 13. Teddy and his friend, Lenny, are both 16.<\/span>
            \u201cJesus, that\u2019s terrible,\u201d Lenny thinks. Like Teddy, Lenny also summers in Michigan City.<\/span>
            Lenny doesn\u2019t have much to do on that lazy afternoon in Michigan City. Also like Teddy, he doesn\u2019t have the thirty-five cents required to call up this girl and move in on his pal. But he\u2019s thinking, Jane Stein, huh, what the heck? So he rounds up a few of his friends who are in the mood for an adventure. Including one guy who owns a Model A Ford Roadster\u2014which is a helluva lot more impressive than thirty-five cents in your pocket\u2014and they take a ride out to Michiana. Sans Teddy Rosen. Cut to:<\/span>

            \u201cHey, Jane?\u201d Pause. \u201cJane Stein?\u201d Lenny calls out, as the Model A pulls up in front of her parents\u2019 summer home in Michiana. <\/span>
            She comes out the front door and into the yard to see who\u2019s calling her.<\/span>
            Yeah, she\u2019s cute. Worth the trip.<\/span>
            \u201cYeah, who is it?\u201d the 13 year-old future Miss Hillel of the University of Illinois asks the car full of 16 year-old boys.<\/span>
            \u201cWe\u2019re friends of Teddy Rosen\u2019s,\u201d Lenny explains. Adding, \u201cHe\u2019s not coming tonight. But you want to go to a beach party with us instead?\u201d<\/span>
            \u201cOkay,\u201d Jane replies. Down for whatever. \u201cHold on, let me get my cap and my suit.\u201d<\/span>
            \u201cNo problem,\u201d the driver of the car tells her, \u201cWe\u2019ll wait.\u201d<\/span>
            Jane goes inside and comes back out a few minutes later, just like she promised she would. That\u2019s the story of my grandparents\u2019 first date.<\/span>
            Cut to: 2008. They\u2019ve been married 67 years. There\u2019s a bit more to the story. But it doesn\u2019t get any better.<\/span>
            Sorry, Teddy.    <\/span>



\u2022 Greg Oguss teaches media studies at USC. He's been published in <\/span>Babble and Beat, Off Beat Pulp, Gloom Cupboard<\/span> and on <\/span>Green Panda Press<\/span>, among other places.<\/span>
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This Is the Story of My Story            It\u2019s 1936. And Teddy Rosen has a date with some girl named Jane Stein who spends her summers in Michiana, Michigan, which owes its rather picaresque name to the fact that it lies on the border of Michigan and Indiana. Teddy summers in Michigan City, Michigan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}