From Frederick Exley's 1968 A Fan's Notes:
It wasn't that teachers weren't permitted to drink in Glacial Falls, or that anyone would have frowned on a teacher's cheering in a local saloon. My case was somewhat different. Prior to his offering me a contract, Mr. A., the superintendent, had told me, half apologetically, half menacingly, that he understood I drank heavily. I should have said, "Well, friend, if you understand that, you'd best not expose me to and run the risk of my polluting the kids"; but I badly needed the job and so found myself in the humiliating position of having to assure the man I'd refrain from "excessiveness" around Glacial Falls, a rural community of ten thousand, buried half the year under leaden skies and heavy snows, and all the year under the weight of its large and intransigent ignorance.
Tags: Exley, Fan's Notes
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