(HOST) The life and work of Robert Frost is getting a lot of attention in Vermont this year, and that has reminded commentator Willem Lange that he once got some advice directly from the poet himself – and didn’t take it.
(LANGE) During my student years, if Robert Frost was speaking anywhere within reach, I’d be there. He came eventually to my college the same week I graduated and my wife and I had our second child.
I slipped into a news conference at the college president’s house. It was a hot day; the old man was testy.
"Didn’t I read somewhere," asked a young reporter, "that you’re the poet laureate of the United States?" Yes, Frost answered, that was true.
"How much do they pay you for that?" she asked.
"I serve without emolument," he responded.
"Yes, I understand," she said. "But how much do they pay you?"
"Young lady," he growled, "your business is supposed to be words. I suggest you go back to the office and look up ’emolument,’ and then come back and ask me some more questions."
The president, standing beside me, whispered, "How’d you like to ride up to Cleveland with Mr. Frost this evening?"
Would I! But Mother and our two-day-old son were in the hospital; I had to find a babysitter for our daughter; and my boss at the bus station wouldn’t let me go. So I quit the job, put on my cheap summer suit, and showed up at the president’s house just after supper.
Frost was old and tired, about 18 months before his death. He shook my hand, asked my name, and signed my volume of his poems, "To Will Lange from his friend, Robert Frost." "There!" he said. "That’ll make it worth more someday."
We climbed into the college limousine, a 1958 DeSoto. The president sat in back with a couple of coeds; I got into the front between Frost and the chauffeur, the college plumber, Louis Noletti.
The humidity was stifling. With a sigh of relief, Frost took off his tie and stuck it into his pocket. Louie did the same. So I did, too. The old man had just finished supper. He undid his belt buckle and unzipped his fly. Then Louie undid his trousers, too! I just sat there between them looking back and forth in panic and thinking, "No way!"
We drove past the hospital where my wife and new baby were. Frost bent toward me. "They tell me you and your wife have just had a son."
"Yes," I nodded.
"What are you going to name him?"
"Well, sir," I answered, "in honor of your visit, we may name him Robert Frost."
"No," said Frost, "that’s not a good idea. Never name a child after anybody famous. Spends his whole life having to explain, trying to live up to it, or living it down. Haven’t you got any other ideas?"
"Well, there’s the family name."
"What’s that?"
I said, very tentatively: "Willem Maurits Lange, the Fourth."
Frost gazed at the soft sunset and the rolling hills of Ohio. The breeze through the window stirred his hair. At last he turned to me. "You better name him Robert Frost," he said.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.