5.19 / GD / 77
of the Fort Worth Press, who
would paint the battlefield at
Little Bighorn in red splashes
of horrible realism but with
the Goodyear blimp floating
overhead. Blackie hired Jenkins
while he was still in high
school and sent him on to Texas
Christian University (to letter
in golf) with a byline.
Blackie’s Boys--all of whom
became eminences--included
Gary Cartwright, Jerre R.
Todd and Bud Shrake, who like
Dan was destined for Sports
Illustrated, best-seller lists
and screenwriting credits. Bud
and Dan joined in occasional
collaborations and were
inseparable friends.
Sherrod pointed his young
staff to the files of stylish
writers, such as Red Smith, and
once again Jenkins broke in as
an imitator. Henry McLemore,
covering the ’36 Olympics in
Berlin, wrote, “It is now
Thursday. The Olympic marathon
was run on Tuesday, and I am
still waiting for the Americans
to finish.” So Dan kicked off
a high school football story
this way: “It is now Monday.
Birdville played Handley on
Friday night, and I’m still
waiting for Bubba Dean Stanley
to complete a pass.”
But pretty soon, just like
before, Jenkins found his own
words, his own voice. It was
a blend of prairie-twang and
ranch-hand nasalness softened by
and cultivated with a surprising
lilt of sophistication. He was
willing to be funny, but only if
it was true.
“Missouri’s Dan Devine looked
like a man who just learned that
his disease was incurable. He
was leaning against a table in
the silent gloom of his locker
room, a towel around his neck,
a paper cup of water in his
hand, whip-dog tired, and his
large brown eyes fixed vacantly
on a lot of things that could
have happened.”
Sherrod called Jenkins “a news
dog” and “the most effortless
writer I’ve ever known. The most
confident, too. Most writers,
they’re insecure to the point
of hiding under the bed. Dan
always had the attitude of a
competent athlete,—and he was a
good athlete. Golf. Basketball.
Pool. I think he could’ve roped
buffaloes. Nothing in the world
spooked Dan except snakes. Just
a picture of a reptile would
crater him. We spent a lot of
time rolling snake photos into
his typewriter. He’d come sailing
in, smoking his 19th cigarette
of the morning and drinking his
12th Coke. When he rolled his
typewriter carriage, out would
jump this hideous rattler. And
Dan would beat and thresh and
fall down in wastebaskets. Then
he’d sigh and sit down and, once
he quit trembling, write you
the best 800 newspaper words you
ever read.”
“If every college football
team had a linebacker like Dick------------------------------
THE 10 STAGES
OF DRUNKENNESS,
BY DAN JENKINS
------------------------------
Mankind’s 10 Stages of Drunk-
enness originally appeared on
page 115 of the novel Baja
Oklahoma, which was published
in 1981. “If I’d known it was
going to become such a popular
item, I’d have moved it closer
to the front of the book,” Jen-
kins said in 2015.
The list was inspired, Dan
said, by two friends who were
with him late one evening in
P.J. Clarke’s when a mutual
friend wandered in accompanied
by a young lady who was not
his wife and the mother of his
children.
“He thinks he’s invisible,”
one friend said.
“Wrong,” the other friend
said. “He thinks he’s
bulletproof.”
The notion for an entire
novel was born in that moment.
The 10 stages now live again.
As Dan said, "I’ve been trying
to become known for something
else ever since."- Witty and charming
- Rich and powerful
- Benevolent
- Clairvoyant
- F--- dinner
- Patriotic
- Crank up the Enola Gay
- Witty and charming, Part II
- Invisible
- Bulletproof
Jenkins with President Bush
(41) in 1989 during one of his
three visits to Camp David.
***
BLACKIE SHERROD called
JENKINS “the most effortless
writer I’ve ever known.
The most conffiident, too.”