True Prep

by Lisa Birnbach

  We don’t play football, but we might play touch football during Thanksgiving weekend, when all the family gets together. We don’t play baseball. We don’t play basketball, but we shoot hoops when we are at school or visit our kids at school. We used to play soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, ice hockey, and rugby but gave them up when we became, um, responsible adults. We play “hide the flag” at the Ken-nedy’s whenever we’re asked.

  We prefer sports that are, indeed, clubby. Golf clubby (see), yacht clubby, tennis clubby, squash clubby, court tennis clubby, bridge clubby, swim clubby, country clubby. Let’s not forget polo. Prince Charles hasn’t. As for sports in which we engage by ourselves, we ski, of course, and fish (see). And run. And bike. And hike, the latter two often with friends.

  We love sports over which we can achieve some mastery. You don’t have to be supergood to be a fun addition to a round of golf or a doubles match, though it certainly helps. Good social skills, charm, and a new harvest of jokes will add to your appeal as an invited guest if you yourself are not a member of the club. Loud swearing when your ball goes way out of bounds or a constant hum of “sorry”s will not put you at the top of the list the next time your friends need an extra person to fill in.

  Racquet sports are truly prep, as are equipment and special uniforms. You’ll find many preppies fetishize their gear: will only play with Calloway clubs, only hit with Penn balls, only wear Puma shoes or Fred Perry shorts—in other words, something to blame if the points don’t go their way.

  Lounging around the club, getting involved in club politics, and entertaining friends at your clubs are all preppy pastimes, and help you spend your club quotas.

  Daily or triweekly devotions at yoga or spin class, Pilates, or just weightlifting are not overtly prep or non-prep, just as brushing one’s teeth is neither prep nor non-prep. It just is what it is. Obviously, our own men allege they have no vanity. Whatever you say, Tucker.

  Football (after college). Jai Alai. Handball. Synchronized Swimming. Curling. Anything involving hurling “little people.” Unicycling. Dog Racing. Dog Fighting. Cockfighting. NASCAR. Ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate Anything. Boxing. Competitive Ballroom Dancing. Speed Walking (an Olympic sport). Bowling. Competitive Hula-Hooping. Pairs Figure Skating. Ice Dancing. Women’s Basketball (after college). Baseball (after college). Competitive Cheerleading. Competitive Eating. And never: Folk Dancing.

  Which doesn’t mean, incidentally, that we wouldn’t watch them on TV when we are in extremis (insomnia/bedridden/drunk/pregnant/room spinning/bored out of our minds). We also have been known to watch Home Shopping, infomercials, the Game Show Network, televised poker, obscure beauty pageants, Herbalife seminars, aerobics shows, and, if all else fails, CSPAN.

  Any other sport—especially those involving water or racquets—we’ll do or try, at least once.

  Alcohol is like truth serum, in its way. It could be said that drinking enhances one’s emotions as it disinhibits one’s natural tendencies to edit oneself.

  Therefore, if you are a Red Sox fan (and if you are reading this book and a baseball lover, you probably are), the beer you drink at a game amplifies your feeling of passion for your team.

  If you go to football games, you already know that some of your favorite memories consist of your unbelievable tailgate picnics, replete with thermoses of bloodies and huge bottles of single-malt scotch.

  Why is beer (and now wine and mixed drinks) sold at stadiums and tournaments? Because spectators become more involved when they drink. Because there is nothing like sitting in the sun watching other people exert themselves while you are drinking something cold out of a plastic cup.

  You can drink champagne at Wimbledon (or while watching the matches on your television). You can drink mint juleps while in Kentucky watching the Derby (or, again, at home in front of the TV). Of course, it can take longer than the entirety of the race to mix a julep, so plan accordingly.

  Rule of thumb: Beer is the go-to spectating beverage. However, there are lots of preppies (women in particular) who are not beer lovers. So when watching a morning match, try bloodies or the twenty-first-century answer to screwdrivers, the mimosa. In the afternoon, G&Ts are crisp and tasty, and bartenders can’t mess them up. If you are in England or Jamaica, drink Pimm’s. If you are on the wagon, remember that you alone will remember the critical moments of play in the game or match, and you alone will feel good the next day.

  Most preppies are active types who use their free time to bounce around from sport to sport, from lunch to cocktails, from small talk to more small talk. Standing silently in cold water for hours alone, watching and waiting for a fish to bite, and perchance, to catch it, only to release it back into the river whence it came … no talking … no drinking … no sitting … It doesn’t sound like a preppy’s dream come true.

  Nick Cox is that rare fisherman who is both passionate—“One year I fished 200 days; I was really possessed”—about the sport and objectively analytical about its appeal. Based year-round in Ketchum, Idaho, he fishes, he guides, he writes, and he considers all it takes to be possessed by fly fishing. “There is a definite mystique around it,” he agrees one morning. “After people saw the movie A River Runs Through It, they stormed through here and bought gear and didn’t know how to fish … and you can’t do anything without spending [at least] two grand.”

  But just a second, Nick. Preppies love nature and love traveling to remote locations, and even more than that, we love expensive equipment. Handmade rod? Want it. Handmade bamboo rod? Need it. Sounds like the perfect vacation for us.

  However, as Nick explains, fly fishing is not for dabblers. “You just can’t try it. You can test it out by renting gear and hiring a guide to cut the learning curve, but you can’t cast [instantly], and casting is the name of the game. You have to practice casting, and not while you’re fishing.” Professional fly fishermen have reached the consensus that it takes about thirty hours of casting (broken up into half-hour sessions)—perhaps while standing on one’s lawn—to learn to cast. Um, that doesn’t sound so glamorous. “It looks stupid, but it pays dividends.” Besides how dumb it looks, Cox warns that “it’s men with sticks. Like cavemen. Men just want to hit that stick … hard—even with a fly rod, and that’s a bad thing to do.”

  So now we’ve established that patience—a virtue to most, a distant goal for the average prepster—is what is needed to succeed and savor the experience. There are four well-known stages to becoming a real fisherman. “Stage one: You want to catch a fish—any fish will do. Stage two: The more fish you catch, the better. Stage three: You want big fish, then bigger fish. Stage four: It’s no longer about the fish.” It’s just thrilling to be out there. For those of us who’ve never experienced this thrill, when you are focused and intent, “there’s a tremendous adrenaline rush as you get to the river, especially if you see the fish rising. The anticipation itself is compelling.”

  As Nick describes it, the pleasures of fly fishing sound Zen-like: “A form of meditation that can take four hours … you cannot experience it with anyone else. It’s a contemplation thing. In nature. In the water.”

  The other side of fly fishing is that no matter who you are, no matter where you went to school or how many times you were nominated for a Nobel or a Pulitzer, or “if you are a captain of the universe with $50 billion, fishing is a circumstance over which you have no control.” Sounds frustrating. Plus, cell phones are discouraged, to say the least. And you really have to let the guy who got there first have his spot to himself. “If you cut in front, you’re a jerk.” Head upstream. One last thing: The waders, vest, hat, rod, reel, and flies are cool. We all agree. But if you’re seen on the banks of the river keeping your fish out of the water too long in a catch-and-release area, or lying about the numbers and sizes of fish you caught, “you’re a jerk,” says Cox, using a favorite (though, one suspects, unofficial) term. And if you’re a beginner you don’t want (or need) top-of-the-line equipment. To real fishermen, it’ll just give you
away.

  ALASKA

  Bristol Bay Lodge in the Wood-Tikchik Park. Trout, King Salmon, Arctic Char

  Mangrove Cay Club on Andros. Bonefish

  The Lower Dean River Lodge. Steelhead, Salmon

  A few good camps open to the public: Cold Spring Camp on the Matapédia. Atlantic Salmon

  Wilson’s Camp on the Miramichi. Atlantic Salmon

  Henry’s Fork Lodge on the Henry’s Fork offers ten rivers to be fished. Trout

  Big Hole Lodge on the Wise River. Trout

  Arroyo Verde on the Traful. Trout and Landlocked Salmon

  Private Estancia on the Caleufu. Trout

  Private Estancia Tecka on the Corcovado and Tecka rivers. Trout

  San Huberto on the Malleo. Trout

  Nomads of the Sea (a boat that takes you to virgin rivers). Trout

  Sweetwater lodges on Eg and Ur rivers. Taimen, Lenok Trout

  Tongariro Lodge on the Tongariro River. Trout

  Lodges on Kharlovka, East Litza and Rynda rivers. Atlantic Salmon

  Tulchan Lodge on the Spey. Atlantic Salmon

  Enon Plantation. Quail, Duck

  Woodhaven Plantation. Quail

  Quaker Neck Gun Club. Duck, Geese, Dove

  Mashomack Preserve Club* (also clays, skeet)

  Pawling Mountain* Pheasant, Hungarian Partridge, Chukar

  Tamarack Preserve* (also clays, skeet)

  Blooming Grove Hunting and Fishing Club.* Trout; Chicken, Grouse, Pheasant

  Rolling Rock Club.* (Dick Cheney’s favorite club) Duck, Pheasant, Partridge

  Bray’s Island.* Quail, Duck, Pheasant, Turkey

  Cherokee Plantation.* Quail, Partridge, Pheasant

  King Ranch. Quail, Duck, Dove

  Estancia Santa Ana Córdoba. Dove

  Tulchan Estate on the Spey. Pheasant, Grouse, Duck

  Gamebirds Train Shoots on

  Rovos Rail and Lodge Based Fly out shoots (Zambia, Botswana, South Africa) Guinea Fowl, Francolin, Dove, Ducks, Geese, Sandgrouse

  —Jesse Saunders

  Eaglebrook (x), Avon Old Farms, Roanoke

  * private club

  We start a book club because we feel intellectually thwarted by the endless devotion to our children: making their lunches; buying them miniature cashmere sweaters, which they keep losing; packing for camp; and the relentless torment of carpooling. We remember how our intelligence was once piqued long ago in that class we took. Was it at Deerfield or at Pomona? How could we have forgotten? What was that class? The role of gender in the works of Manet and Dickens? Who taught it?

  Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that you and Tricia and Weesa, Luce, Bead, Steen, Bimmie, Mimo, and probably someone else we can’t remember right now have our mornings free (after Gyrotonics and yoga, that is) and could use the brain stimulation. Who wants to host the first one? Should it be Thursday at eleven? And then break for lunch? Perfect. Once a month? Perfect. The first Thursday of the month? Or the second? Excellent. That’ll give us time to read the damn books. What should we serve? Tea sandwiches and coffee and wine and cookies? We have to have a salad? Oh, just skip the sandwiches and the cookies and the salad. Bimmie, you’re so bad! Okay, everyone just serve what you want to serve. Luce and Mimo never eat, anyway.

  But what should we read? Something cozy and familiar? Or something new and harder? Didn’t we always promise ourselves we would read Camus or Proust? Whatever.

  Former NBC news producer, now studying landscape architecture. Wharton graduate and trustee. Normally reads The Wall Street Journal only.

  A walking advertisement for Tory Burch but actually a mother of four children under the age of twelve and stepmother of four more (teenagers). How does she do it? Vino, vino, vino.

  (opposite, cross-legged) Named for Daddy’s favorite toy. Prodigious reader. “Where does he come from?” Mummy (Mimo) just announced she’s dyslexic.

  What kind of wine will be served?

  We join a book club because we need to find meaning and sisterhood and community. That’s why we’re rereading that book by what’shis-name? McGowan? The guy? That prize? We join it because now we only read Vogue and US and look at the cartoons in The New Yorker and feel like our minds are turning to oatmeal. Because it would be fun to carry a big book like Infinite Jest when we’re getting our pedicures. (And then we can still read People and Hello! and OK!) We join book clubs because we crave discipline and routine. And Cal’s hardly ever home anymore, anyway.

  You know, we’re never going to get through a single book, with the Dohertys’ divorce and Lila’s affair … Why don’t we make this a magazine club?

  Recently remarried (third time) interior designer. Rumored to have been long-ago mistress of Agnelli, which would explain the house in Capri.

  Never reads the book for book club but still talks too much. Claims to be “working on a project,” but it’s been four years. In coffee cup: vodka.

  Working mother. Dartmouth graduate and senior editor at Time. Knows John Irving personally. In her ninth month. Really.

  In addition to the books taught in school’d at Hotchkiss, here is a list of books you will enjoy … some fiction, some nonfiction, some about schools, some about suburbs, some about WASPs, some about Jews, some about divorce, and some about money. Yes, many are memoirs. Some are set in the past, and some are set in the present. As with everything else, the older, the preppier.

  Slim Aarons Once Upon a Time

  Joan Aiken The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

  Nelson W. Aldrich Old Money: The Mythology of America’s Upper Class; Tommy Hitchcock: An American Hero; George, Being George: George Plimpton’s Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, etc., etc.

  Louis S. Auchincloss The Rector of Justin; East Side Story

  Anne Bernays Growing Up Rich

  Stephen Birmingham “Our Crowd”

  Art Brewer and C. R. Stecyk III Bunker Spreckels: Surfing’s Divine Prince of Decadence

  David Brooks Bobos in Paradise

  Christopher Buckley Losing Mum and Pup

  William F. Buckley Jr. God and Man at Yale

  Josiah Bunting III All Loves Excelling

  Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

  John Cheever The Wapshot Scandal; The Stories of John Cheever

  Ron Chernow The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

  Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volumes 1 and 2

  William D. Cohan House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

  Stephen Colbert I Am America (and So Can You!)

  James Collins Beginner’s Greek

  Laurie Colwin The Lone Pilgrim

  Evan Connell Jr. Mr. Bridge; Mrs. Bridge

  Charlotte Curtis The Rich, and Other Atrocities

  Roald Dahl Fantastic Mr. Fox; Kiss Kiss

  Charles Dickens Great Expectations; Oliver Twist; Bleak House

  Joan Didion Slouching Towards Bethlehem; The White Album

  Dominick Dunne The Two Mrs. Grenvilles: A Novel

  Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

  Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex

  F. Scott Fitzgerald All of his work

  Jane Fonda My Life So Far

  Tad Friend Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of WASP Splendor

  Paul Fussell Class

  Barbara Goldsmith Little Gloria, Happy At Last

  Katharine Graham Personal History

  Beth Gutcheon The New Girls

  John Hawkes The Blood Oranges

  Brooke Hayward Haywire

  Ernest Hemingway A Moveable Feast

  John Irving The World According to Garp

  Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made

  Henry James Daisy Miller; The Portrait of a Lady

  Nora Johnson The World of Henry Orient

  Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival in Prep Scho
ol

  E. L. Konigsburg From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

  Jean Hanff Korelitz Admission

  Alison Lurie The War Between the Tates

  Patricia Marx and Roz Chast Meet My Staff

  William Maxwell The Folded Leaf

  Mary McCarthy The Group

  James Merrill Selected Poems

  Susan Minot Evening

  Nancy Mitford Love in a Cold Climate

  Rick Moody The Ice Storm

  Ogden Nash The Best of Ogden Nash

  Barack Obama Dreams from My Father

  John O’Hara Appointment at Samarra; Butterfield 8

  George Plimpton As Told at The Explorers Club: More Than Fifty Gripping Tales of Adventure (Explorers Club Classic)

  Anne Roiphe 1185 Park Avenue

  Philip Roth Goodbye, Columbus

  J. D. Salinger Nine Stories

  Christine Schutt All Souls

  John Sedgwick In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness and Desire in an American Family

  Erich Segal Love Story

  Thomas Shomo To Manner Born, To Manners Bred

  Cornelia Otis Skinner Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

  Richard Stengel You’re Too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery

  Sarah Payne Stuart My First Cousin Once Removed: Money, Madness, and the Family of Robert Lowell

  J. Courtney Sullivan Commencement

  Booth Tarkington Alice Adams; The Magnificent Ambersons

  Andrew Tobias The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up

  Calvin Tompkins Living Well Is the Best Revenge

  John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces