"that pachyderm's ear" and other things

No one, I think, who has read Black Deutschland  will have forgotten this (p. 95). For all the meanderings in this picaresque novel, when things do happen, they can happen fast; for example, this other bout of heterosexuality (p. 191). Jed's a big boy now (on the wagon) and can bring a glass of wine to a "thin older woman" he used to drink with. She compliments him on how much his German has improved and asks him if he's reading his favorite authors in the original.

I was flattered that she remembered that I liked Heinrich Mann. Two hours later my joker was wrapped and I was balling her. To stay interested I had to pretend I was commanding her with that fat one of Manfred's I'd never seen.

On another topic, someone commented derogatorily on "Dad's" opinionatings but I found them usually indicative and often spot-on:

"He loved the flashlight more than he did the hearth," Dad said of guys he'd heard had left their wives.

And the short section on and ending page 107 summons and sums up the strength of this family's life:

"Now we must put our finer feelings to bed as the great task of sleep devolves upon us," Dad laughed on the stairs.
   "Sleep for America," I heard Mom say.
    In the book of my heart, pages keep falling out, many of them marked "Mom and Dad."