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"I remember one day, 1952 or ‘53, me and a few friends decided to walk by Mr. Faulkner, one at a time, and holler, ‘Good morning, Mr. Faulkner,’ or ‘How are you?,’ knowing that he would not answer," Mitchell wrote. "After we passed him, we would circle around and get in front and repeat our taunting again. He acted as if we were not even there.
"There he was — head held high, with a swagger stick under his arm, wearing his English riding pants, knee-high leather boots and tweed jacket.
"Move forward over 50 years and ask me if I feel proud of this," Mitchell wrote. "People, some of us didn’t know what we had in our midst. (I will take this opportunity to apologize.)"
Griffith said he came into the curator’s job with a respect for Faulkner’s prose but not as a "super fan." When he was growing up in Illinois, an English teacher assigned him to read "As I Lay Dying," and he protested with an essay called, "As I Die Reading."
"I remember arguing, telling her that I’d never thought about Mississippi and I’m quite sure I’ll never go to Mississippi," said Griffith, who has since re-read the book several times.
Griffith said when the teacher heard he’d been hired at Rowan Oak, she told one of his relatives: "‘I hope he knows karma is a real thing.’"
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