Wuxtry! Wuxtry! Read All About it!

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

In the old days of kids hawking newspapers on street corners, they’d yell, “Extra, extra, read all about it!” to announce that special edition of the paper containing what CNN labels every story, “Breaking News.” (I maintain it’s not really breaking news if the last three newscasters covered the same story, but I guess CNN and I disagree about that.)

Did the newsies really yell that? If we assume that the movies are often documentary in nature, providing a recording of actual life, then they probably did. (I maintain that, in the same way, Bugs Bunny cartoons are an excellent archive of vaudeville acts.) And in some movie at some point, I must have heard “wuxtry” in place of “extra,” which apparently was to suggest a Brooklyn or, according to a google search, New England, accent.

If I had fantastic news, I would likely post it on social media so everyone could share in the joy immediately. (Sometimes people react to a post so quickly I can’t believe they even read the whole thing; I imagine them sitting somewhere with their phone in one hand, index finger of the other poised to hit “LIKE” in case something hits their newsfeed.) But I recall a time before social media—yes, boys and girls, there was—when we didn’t have that option.

I remember the day I returned home in late 1996 and checked the answering machine. The light was blinking, denoting a message. (Yes, kids, it’s like those little red numbers on your phone apps meaning notifications!)

So I hit play and listened to the words, “Good afternoon, Dr. Schrum!” The voice, the department secretary of the UC Berkeley Department of Dramatic Art was calling me, using my new title for the very first time, to tell me my dissertation had been approved by the Graduate Division, and that my PhD was complete.

I looked around. No one home. I could call someone, but I might interrupt them. (My late wife was likely teaching at the time.) But I had to tell somebody, so I think I called my friend Mike, whom I had met at Berkeley, when he was an undergrad. Actually, my memory is a bit hazy since it took so much to get to that point, and so the realization of finally getting the degree completed (or PhinisheD) was a bit of a shock.

And I have no way to check any archive or newsfeed; I have to rely on my memory.