Don’t Suspend That Literary License Over ‘Dutch’

“Dutch” and me, we go way back.

My dad also knew him, and my granddad too, and we all knew he’d make something of himself someday. I’ve known him forever.

Before the White House.

Before Bonzo.

Even before birth.

Dutch and I go all the way back. In fact, we were pals in that misty long-ago before we evolved into human beings, when we were just a couple of saber-tooth tiger cubs playing catch with hunks of raw gazelle. He had a winning smile and he cocked his head just so, even then!

Now you might be under the impression that I’m talking about Ronald Reagan, whose nickname is Dutch. And you’d be right: Ronald Reagan has been my close personal friend since the beginning of time, and now his long-awaited authorized biography--”Dutch”--comes out and mentions me not once!

I guess I can’t come down too hard on the author. Edmund Morris has been under a lot of pressure. After 14 years of researching Reagan, Morris concluded he was a great president but a dull interview. He figured the only way to spice up the ho-hum story of the man who led the free world for eight years was to insert a fictitious narrator--and a family for the fictitious narrator--who supposedly interacted with Reagan at various points in his life.

So now the critics are huffing and puffing because of Morris’ unconventional approach to history--i.e., making stuff up.

A lot of people--including several members of the Reagan family--are ticked off at Morris. He has a lot on his mind now, so I’m not about to take any cheap shots at him for overlooking my role as the first and greatest fictitious narrator in the life of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

But, FYI: When the scholars at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley have some small question on, say, RR’s favorite hot-dog relish in the spring of 1936, you know who they call.

Because I was there.

Ditto with the story behind his famous demand: “Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall!”

His first draft was: “Mr. Gorbachev, let us ride to the ridge where the West commences--don’t fence me in.”

By now, I guess you know who talked him out of that one.

I know Dutch like the back of my hand. I’ve been hanging out at the Reagan Library forever. I drove the Ronald Reagan Freeway when it was just a Chumash footpath and the Indians called it “The 118.”

Now that I’ve established my credentials as the world’s foremost fictitious narrator, I must tell you: Morris committed no sin by making one up for the Gipper.

You might not realize it, but I was a copy boy when Benjamin Franklin fired up the printing press at America’s first newspaper, “The National Enquirer.”

I’ll never forget how he lectured a nervous young reporter who didn’t know Dolly Madison from Dolly Parton: “Young man,” boomed old Ben, “make stuff up!”

The world has changed since then--and for the worse.

Now journalists are fired for making stuff up--even when they mean only to spare their readers the blandness of everyday events, the gray confusion of reality, the unspeakable dullness of being.

And to think that publishers keep holding these head-scratching seminars over plunging circulation! My advice to them is much what it was to Attila the Hun--a very nice guy, by the way--when we were roomies at a prep school in Ulan Bator: “Geez! Lighten up!”

A halfway competent fictitious narrator can make even the dullest story interesting. For example:

“The Ventura County Sludge Commission on Tuesday approved a tertiary-treatment facility on land zoned for greenbelt uses.” What a snore!

Now consider:

“Martha gave me one of those looks with her come-hither green eyes. Not bad for a sludge commissioner, I thought. After she and the others do their dance on the new sludge plant, I figured maybe we’d do one of our own . . . “

Presentation is everything, they say.

And I happen to know that Dutch would agree.

Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or via e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.