Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
- Flannery O'Connor's favorite snacks included fried shrimp, peppermint chiffon pie, and Coca-Cola spiked with coffee.16
- Flannery O'Connor once gave her mother a mule as a Mother's Day present. Regina O'Connor was a dairy farmer, so it was probably a very practical gift.17 We know what we're getting our mom next Mother's Day.
- O'Connor was invited to a dinner party at the home of literary critic Mary McCarthy. When McCarthy began talking about Catholic communion wafers as a good symbol of the Holy Ghost, even if she didn't believe in any of its spiritual value, the staunchly Catholic O'Connor retorted, "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it."18
- O'Connor's close friends, Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, asked her to be a godmother to one of their six children. In what is perhaps our favorite piece of trivia about her, O'Connor was never able to remember her godchild's name.19
- Flannery O'Connor originally wanted to be a cartoonist when she grew up. At Georgia State College for Women, she was a popular cartoonist for campus publications.20
- Actor Tommy Lee Jones wrote his thesis at Harvard on Flannery O'Connor.21 Perhaps the more surprising tidbit here: actor Tommy Lee Jones went to Harvard.
- O'Connor always felt a connection to birds. As a girl, she sewed clothes for her pet chickens and once taught one how to walk backward.22 Hey, everyone needs a hobby.