A weioMnoRH000 has 2 kindof mystica identity which one sazcely suspect let alone noties while one Isliving there, for ving ses up all of man's time and attention. But ip retrospect sooner or later & etn remembers an olf neighborhoed and suddenly notes ‘that there was something fntstic about the place. ‘Wel the neighborhood jast south and east of Emerson School in Fresno was instantly recognized as ‘an Armenian neighborhood, even though Syrian, AS syria, Slovenians Portuguese, Irish, and Serbs also lived thet, and just at the edge of Armenian Town, there was «Besqiehotl, complete with ja ali court. ‘The Basques were shepherds come tothe San Joaguin Volley tocar encugh mane in four or five yeast g0 home rch buy a farm, take wie, and rie aly ‘They did not tend to marry in Fresno. There was a continuous arival and departure of shepherds at and from the Yeoria Hotel sea the Santa Fe depot. In town for a week or two, they sat and ate the earty reas that eame with the rooms they eented,gosiped, fang Basque Songs, and avail themselves of the pro- fesional women, (One didnot see a Basque boy o il at schol, but sooner of Iter, a all uch things rast, it happened. ‘Many Basques did not go home ech, they stayed in ‘California poor, or comparatively poor. And then some stayed rch and othersbecame very rich. And they took wives, and brought up fails, Most of them took ‘Baaque wives, although quite afew took women of the region, of many nationalities. "Now, it may be imposible not to notice that the poopie who lived in Armenian Town were all members of other small nations, It may be fancied that my own high regard for these people especialy forthe ish and the Portuguese, was the consequence of Irland and Poctugal being small nations, but that s probably noe the explanation. 1 liked all ofthese people Beouse they wee quite simply part of the mystery of my neighborhood, be cause I saw them daily for quite few years and be- aus they had» quality about them that both amazed and amused me Now, in the ret of Fresno, I knew members of ater nationals: Taian, Greeks, Germans, Danes, ‘Swedes, Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Mescans, Ameran Indians, and afew Black, apparently at from the South, however—probably fom places tke San Fran- sito, Portland, and Seatle—thati, people witht @ southern scent. ‘The sons of not allo these people came to the pressroom ofthe Fresno Brenng Herald to ake papers fu oon to town with them to el them, many ofthe ons of such people came tothe Herald ust tobe with {ends to visit, anit wer, and now and then oe or two ‘of ther tried slling papers bat soon grew ied oft and repped oat. ‘Tae only rea bustles of newspaper, the only eal headline hallecers were ideo Armenians and Talis. ‘They meant basines, andthe money they eared ws neaded at home, both to keep families going, and to ‘enable thee families to save money enough to make down peymentson homes oftheir own. “There were others who regularly sold pape, bot, Jus a few of each: Greks, Germans and Americans ‘Years after the alghborood lost ie identity and was as goes gone forever, I suddenty understood its ‘mstery—it had een populated by wing exes who nevertheless had deeply longed for a pce they knew they would never see sgn | ‘Tite PEOPLE you hate, wel, this isthe question avout such people: why do you hate thers? Trvaraly the anawet this: Because they were rade, they hurt your felis hey rt you, they tied omake you fel worthless, they early destroyed the teif you fad been working on for so Tong, they drove you to a kind of desperation. ‘Don't bly me anymore, old buddy, don't stand inmmy way, don call me name, don't threaten me, Tm moving, Tm not goin to be sapped by you, Where I come, and if you try 0 stop me I'm ot going to let you top me “This began very cv in ny try, nthe streets of Fresno [took the form of ight with other newsboys, or with boys ofthe stents. Thad set out to be deent‘Tur way to remember peoples ysteraically by time and place, bat thas only done, or attempted, When the ose who & remembering is doing it for & purpose, fr the record, fr the archives even, or for his ‘memoirs, ofr his autobiography, of fora history of the world he knew, ora history ofthe human race he ‘net and experince, ane wants eveything tobe in the kindof sensible orer that does nt exis innate, is not permite to exist in nature luman memory works its ow wheel, and stops ‘where wll emily without reference tothe lst stp, snd with no connection withthe nex ‘This morning a man remembers riding a wagon somewhere vague and bearing the man holding the ring make a sound 1 the horse, and tonight this sine sman remembers seeing n stranger 2 weck ago in the stret, whom be stay believed head seen in pe ‘iely the same manner, somewhere i street, twenty for tiny years ago, and even then, at now, he had thought the words "ny father,” and hadn't paid much tention tothe man the rst ie o the second tie, fr tohis having thought the same words both times, of ‘without tiaking about his father for longer than that ~Yastant, and going onto other thoughts ana memories and dreams of words meanings, and mytria, The word to every new arrival isan instantaneous _rabag of known and unknown people ideas, desir tions, secrets, parposs, menses, joys, comedians, Sot. rows, jokes, songs sounds, and punctuation marks from such ceatares as birds, who come and go freely tree, ences, and porch ralings. Messages from such animals as abit, quirzel, gopher all with fascinat- ing ways of being, and incredible eyes. Free animals, not ike cats and dogs captured in the house and fail, ork cows and hore, goats and sheep, unknowingly living to serv and feed human beings. Ts the midst ofall this, there he suddenly, him sel, begining to bexeme acquainted with the truth of that suange reality. Himself. That which he bas once seen, he Begins 0 notice that be can so agai, for Inaving sen it at lf the fist ime, Seen then, and now, because itis there now, and was there then, in te, and in him, and he rememters i, sometimes on purpose, sometimes hep. ‘And so, theoretically, any writer who is concernedstout a chronicle of people he has met is expected to rele 1 them ehroncogialy. Ta the cae of cet Toad econtis in the work of art and exprestion, a bepnning i made atthe very beginning, end famous Painter, for instance, says he remembers suddenly ‘ecoming binslf when his fathers sperm set his mother's ovam, and wham, a8 he pat it there he was, wild in the ee, and forever after looking. Looking at everybody and everything and then painting tthe Way hesaw it whichis thetruthfal way, besud not the way it seems to be at al. All hings are distorted, be sid, cerything is part of « huge distri, the whole taniverse i distortion, a ering to pices of things that were perhaps once whole, and an exploding of these temible piece and a terble drowning of them in ere ble oan blion tes larger than Lake Waltoke in 191, near Freszo. ‘And then this terrible coentio—enytell of course, just invented—goes on to say that memory follows no rules, and thas, the owner of the book- shop on Monthclon, whom I took to be a Frenck- ran, who tured out to te an Armenian, began to fede os the sing gentleman at his des accepting small coins for old books, a rea! friend, somebody memory would hang onto for along time. And soon alter the revdation, talking in Armenian cach tine we met, the quiet man seemed to be forgotten, seemed even never to have existed, and of course it is the quiet man who is memorable, and the other who is only another talking compatriot, proad and respect, "Thus, Girard became Frat and the real language cof aman beings, unspoken, became Armenian spoken }‘works ona vineyard with a etied Armenian ‘wrestler named Nazart Toresan one year and he is ‘one of the few people I believe I have ever learned & little something of other from, for he frequently stopped in his work to sy, “If your opponent get & Ieadlock on you, fel ou the action of his moses, and ‘when the puter of tension and flaxtion i known, swat Toe the next instant of relanation, ad then leap ‘upward wit all the fore you can manage, and I think you wil ind that you ean break fe frm ks hold upon Your hes.” "Yes sn” Fused to say, “bat in Heaping wp isi not posible thatthe top of my ead wll strike the bottom ais hea, his chin and be considered a foul “No, si” the retired wrestler would reply. "In making your break for restom, the force of your move- ‘ment automatically drives him out ofthe Hine of your released head, bt lt us say that somehow or other his ‘hin ir in fact dircty in ine with your hea, and that the top of your head des srke im onthe bottom of his chin—all he better, my boy. Don't worry abot it ‘you will scarcely feo the impact, whereas he may be tbe close to unconsciousness by the force under bis thin” “Ye, sr" Lwed 0 say, “TH remember that” [And so we might nt speak gin for ten minutes, foc even teny, and now and then not even fran hour, bees pining muscat vines calle for certain amount of concentration, and at the sme tine in noticing the beauty of the stractre of the vine one tends to fall slet. But sooner of later the Armenian wrestler would Stand up straight and sy, “Ifyou are onthe mat, and hae sprawling al ver yout Keep your back at onthe ‘ato that be may win the round, God help you, that's all ean sy.” "Yes, of couse" T used to say, “buts there note {ng can do to stop him from kesping my back Bat on the mea “Yes therein” the old wreiler would sy, “but it fant easy, i almost impossibe, everything happens very swily in wrestling, and when you are of balance fn thet manner, wheres your strength to come from? You are fat, and you have nothing to hold your strong together upon, ors counterattack. But there‘sone thing you can do, and again itis someting tore inthe realm ofa than athctis, and Y mse in along carer of profesional wrestling was able 10 do it only perhaps half s dozen times out of at least a hundred ‘pertunites" “And what is tha” 1 would ask “Disappear” Navaret Torosian would say. “And 1 mean Jos that, Disappear, cut from under. How it happens Ihave never been able to understand, and T have studied the mater from every possible angle My wrestling weight was 249 pounds, all mzsele, bone, nd Cartlege, and s0 we kaow that tis a great deal of ody to cause to disappear, and yet, that is precisely ‘what happened at east half «dozen times. Twas Bat on ry back and my opponent—once he was Strangler Lewis imsel, another time he was Jimmy Londos, and nother time he was Stanislas Stabisco—and then suddenly J was no at on my back, Twat wp, on my feet and he was just turning to see where I hd gone Soll invariably thought to myself, Now, How did that Dbappen? And of coor I went on and won the roend. ‘The matches in those days were the best two out of three, as think you may remember: "Yea" T would reply. "Yes, sig, do remember, tout afer you had given the matter a great deal of thought, what did you conclude? How did it happen ‘hat you were able to disappear in that tanner? What was it that permitted tht imposible disappearance?” "Well" Nazave sd, “Tay decide that was (Christianity Jesus did it Oar blessed babe worked an- ther miracle. Is not for nothing that we are the fst ‘ation inthe world to accept Sau, It was Chistinity that did it” "Yes sii" 1 usd to sy, “but your opponents, they ako were Christians, every one of them” ‘The wrestler would fook up and coasider what I Jd sa and then he would say, "What you sue ru, bat we are Armenian Christin, and that ives us jut the edge we need. An Erish Chrnan, Greek Chir an, a Polish Chritan—Jess wl help them, but caly after be has helped an Armenian Christian.” ‘be never corason tose any ofthe waes: ers advice, however. (Orso T sem to blive at any rate ‘But who says Tam a Chistian? With me, in rel ‘in, thas goto be al or none, and none sjusan edge too lite and beitsing. Chance meetings with ving seins and sons of Bitches go on and on.‘where I walked and picked up pebbles, if they were Words, oF coin of money. our years ltr, [broke through at lt, and my ‘ret book was published let me even now, sles ory years ltr, say prise heaven, praise God, pease Jesus, pis the Sun, praise everything and everybody. While the poems ofthe good cabinctmaker were never pub- lished, heaven help us one and all, ‘| [Bur Evenynopy who is brillant, or at any rate slightly more briliantly stupid than other people, doest come from Bits, although the people who do ‘come fom Bits tke (o think that everybody wo = ‘yilian doe come fom Bits especialy the big of ‘who ae invariably eager to uphold the Bis tradition {or superiority inal things, including loud wala, and in this amtition are unfiinglysnccestfl ‘The oly troubles tat in the end ene or another ofthe big cfs tras out to be really only a shadow loss {ntlignt than the most enormously fous ntligent ‘man in town, Armenian, Caistan infidel or Anglo Saxon, ‘My own branch ofthe Saroyan family hasits share of bo Kinds, and seem to represent a Lind af combiCHANCE MEETINGS nation of them: the wise man, and the fol, oF at any ‘ate the lunatic. But itmust bested so that it may be understood, thatthe word for fanatic ia the Armenian Inaguage, Uhent, i ued without seor snd in some eases with admiration, if not dead even with reverence Davi of Sastoun wae Phen, for instance, ad if you don’ happen to know what he di, let me sum it ‘up by saying that he did everything "Not all ofthe great, exciting, or only moderately Imterating people of Armenia come from Bits. Sas ‘oun forinstance is about forty mile sightiy northwest Of Bits, and there have always been some fsinating peopl in that moantinous ety. ‘On theater hand, there ae cites whose fe es almost exclusively i the commercial talents fits poo ple, Thexe people are bosinesimen, merchants, shippers of prosious merchandise, bankers, money’ lenders, Yuilding construction financiers, and rug merchants [And ofcourse tis expected of such people that onthe fone hand they wil be ruthless in their exploitation of, peopl, including widows and children, and on the ther and that they will donate enormous sums of ‘money to heroic charles. In thee wills they arrange that their fortes shall go for the establishment of ‘Armenian Scbool ll over the wold, with fresh milk ‘provided for ite children a all simes (My mothers father, Minas Saroyan, had a kid ‘nother named Garabet who went 1 Istanbul (which ‘was called Constantinople in those days) and got into so much trouble over Greek girs and insults diteted te ofices ofthe Turkish Navy that he was hustled oot of town to avoid arrest, and then tent to Ameria, ariving in Fremo sometime in 1856, the ealet Seroyan in America, Ta a8 e donsted large rum of money for the ‘Armenian orphans, incioding possibly many blood relaves who didnot even know they were Saroyan. ‘When the everasting colectors of such finds presented ‘Memseves to him in 1932, he said, "Didn't thoge or phan grow apt” "He was one ofthe people Tam glad T knew. I was st litle sarprised ten years ago long after Gazabet ‘nnd been dead and buried and all but forgotten, that a numberof members of my fail, seeing me suddenly aftera year or two, ud, “Why, when you came in here, Teoald have sworn it was Uaele Garabet” Well, yes, we do have the same foshead and moustache, at any rt, ‘One day after I had had ewo books published 1 alld past che eabineimakers shop on Ninth Avene in San Francisco, and he asked me to comin, He ited sheet of lined paper covered with writing, and said, “This isa poem T wrote two weeks ago Ihave been waiting for you to pass by, so T could rea itt yon. Each line begins with speci eter, We do that hind ‘of poetry writing in Armenia, you know. We ako wie ‘his system ass ende forthe ending of mesages to our people wherever they may be All of our poets wrote ‘Poems with concealed messages in thems Unite, Arrenians Fight, Armenians. And so on. Well, this | was embarrased of course, because it was not only aboat me, bat about my father, Armenak, and my ‘mother, Takooi, and about itis, and Fresno, and San Francisco, and America, 1 thasked him, and 1 Het the shop ‘Yeas later I heard that he ad bad nervous breakdown and had been put into 2 hospital And finally Thea that he had ied, but T was lato ea that atleast he had died at home, inthe fat over the cabinetmake's shop, suppose it gure that he would frst have tog ‘mad, and then ie THE FEOPLE you like when you moet them and hile you know them, and the people you remember fondly, ae invariably people who bavea sense of cam ‘dy, no jut sense of humor. They ae a people who fan make you laugh, who do so deliberately because they ike to hear you laugh. They ike to see you fing amused enough to forget that you really fel tere bout the whole thing, as many people do, from the begining tthe end of ther lives, outraged Sit be- catze they have been bor, and then outraged because ‘they ust die. And, of course, itis just sach people, ‘with n addiction to outrage, who set enoy laughter, sand who in tur are most effectively able to make others laagh ‘All comedians are people who relly deeply con-ONT'ANVANO9 ¥ NOLYON'M >A LQ NVAOUVS WVITIM SONILTIIN FONVHD de E 2. i ds a 2; ey Hula a i 2enzunox oes9- IEP