Russell Baker - THE GOOD TIMES

Russell Baker

August 14, 1925-January 21, 2019

Last Wednesday, I dimmed the lights for the first minute of class in honor

of Russell Baker. Then I read the first and last few pages of his memoir,

THE GOOD TIMES to my students. Baker's mother was after him to achieve more and "amount to something" even after he won 2 Pulitzer Prizes and years after her death. She appears to him in these first few hilarious pages. The ending, her funeral, is arresting. (Mimi was Baker's wife. Others mentioned are his relatives).

I treasure his words and his wit.

Ending