Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner After All Is Said, Done

Foreseeably, not all readers agree with me on those celebrities, living or dead, I would like to invite to a dinner party.

I was not making up a list from scratch, but merely commenting on a list provided by the guests of Ann Wells at a recent party of her own.

One chose Hitler, you may remember (because he wanted to tell him off); others chose William Buckley, Charles Lindbergh, Mark Twain, Douglas MacArthur, Mae West and Jesus.

One of her guests remarked, however, that he didn’t think Jesus would liven things up much.

I agreed that Jesus probably would be dull; that Lindbergh hadn’t said anything interesting since he landed in France, and that MacArthur would most likely talk about nothing but himself.

Also, I noted that most of our modern Presidents, from Harding to Bush, have been humorless, with the exceptions of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

First, I perhaps owe an apology to Col. Lindbergh. I noted not only that he had nothing interesting to say, but that he seemed to have a strange affection for Nazi Germany (for which he later redeemed himself by his services in World War II).

T. Willard Hunter, author of a forthcoming book on Lindbergh (“The Spirit of Charles Lindbergh”), suggests that I may have misjudged Lindbergh because he never talked to reporters. “This, of course, is enough of a cardinal sin to throw him down your memory hole.”

Hunter notes that, among other things, Lindy wrote seven books, one of which was the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Spirit of St. Louis.” (All right, what was the name of another one?)

Betty Kirby notes that Lindbergh also wrote “The Culture of Organs” with the eminent surgeon and biologist Alexis Carrel. The two developed the perfusion pump used in keeping organs alive outside the body.

Lindbergh did seem to be enamored of Goering’s Luftwaffe and was decorated by Germany; in 1940 and 1941 he urged America to stay out of the war; later he flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific.

John Weld, a former journalist and Hollywood stunt man, offers a view of Lindbergh’s noncommunicative side: “I was with him for days as a newspaper reporter after he landed in Paris. Overnight he had become the most famous person in the world and Universal Service hired me to stay with him and record every word he said. . . . I can tell you, he was dull as a conversationalist.”

One cannot blame Lindbergh for his later distrust of the press. He and his wife were hounded by them during the investigation of the brutal kidnaping and murder of their son.

Weld, by the way, notes that Lindbergh became world famous for “one stunt.” Weld writes about his own many stunts in “Fly Away Home,” to be published Feb. 24 by Mission Publishing.

Many readers reproach me for rejecting Jesus, but more in pity than in anger. Their general tone is that dining with the Master would probably do me good.

Many note that Scripture pictures Jesus as a hearty and useful dinner guest. Cathy J. Miller reminds me that besides “curing the blind, dumb, epileptic, insane, palsied and so forth, Jesus also raised three people from the dead, besides himself, and changed water to wine.”

I admit that a man who could change water into wine might be a boon at a dinner, though I would hope that none of my guests would need his other miracles.

“The really important question,” writes Bob Sears, associate pastor of Cypress Evangelical Free Church, “is why on Earth he would want to meet with the likes of you or me. And yet he does , according to Revelation 3:20: ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in and eat with him, and he with me.’ ”

If he knocked, I certainly would welcome the man to my table. But I do not think of him as an engaging companion for a light-hearted evening. I’m afraid I would feel that I was being judged. (Besides, no good host runs out of wine.)

In defending Lindbergh, Hunter adds to the lore about President Coolidge. He says, “You left out the one where his wife asked what the preacher preached about. ‘Sin.’ ‘Well, what did he say about it?’ ‘He was against it.’ ”

Hunter also recalls Will Rogers’ summation of Silent Cal: “The country didn’t want nothin’ done and Cal done it. And the thing about Cal, he done it better than anybody else.”

By the way, Betty Kirby recalls that when she was just out of Stanford she sat next to former President Hoover at the captain’s table on a voyage to Europe, and walked around the deck with him every morning.

“I found him to be one of the most amusing persons I have ever met, with an endless store of wonderful anecdotes.”

Ah, what a young woman can do for an old man’s wit.

Maybe I can get Betty Kirby to come to dinner.