[Tenniel2]

Very damn well done -- a slam-dunk example of what we used to call doing an "explication de texte," i.e., analyzing a passage from every imaginable angle and drawing the appropriate conclusions.

As a footnote to NLex's dissection, what jumped out at me was the line "... the table got EF Hutton quiet," which is a reference to a TV commercial that ran in the mid-80s. (Two yupscale types are chatting over dinner in a well-populated restaurant, with much clinking of crystal and clatter of silver in the background. First yup: "... that's what my broker says. What does your broker say?" Second yup: "My broker is E.F. Hutton, and E.F. Hutton says..." Instant silence as all the other diners drop their forks and crane their necks to hear what E.F. Hutton says.)

If the "diarist"'s story of the LSO's career is true, you kinda hafta wonder what a subteenage girl was doing watching the sorts of programs sponsored by brokerage houses, and why she remembered the ads 20 years later. My nickel says this piece was written by a fiftysomething male New York academic with a lifelong addiction to the Sunday chatshows.

[Philistone]

If the "diarist"'s story of the LSO's career is true, you kinda hafta wonder what a subteenage girl was doing watching the sorts of programs sponsored by brokerage houses, and why she remembered the ads 20 years later.

Beat me to it. I'm 47 and just barely remember those commercials. I doubt there are many 47 year-old LSOs with 8 years of Marine experience (she would have to have joined up in her late 30s). Not impossible, just unbelievable.