I just read in my little book of literary tidbits that on this day in 1983 playwright Tennessee Williams died at age 71 in New York City, leaving $10 million to the University of the South in the little town of Sewanee, Tenn.

From what did he die? I have suspicion because of a story told to the students in my English class by the late John Engman, a budding poet who came tardy, as usual, to class because it collided with his well-paying job at the Haberdashery, a chic downtown Minneapolis wine bar featuring free peanuts. John interrupted our discussion about the merits of dactylic hexameter.

“Hey, you guys!  You can’t believe what just happened to me. I worked the noon shift at the Hab and guess who I waited on: a literary celebrity! That doesn’t happen too often in a free peanut joint. Too many shells crackling on the floor, I guess….”

“Get to the point, Engman. Who was the celeb?”

“Hold your horses. At first the guy looked like any elderly fellow who was probably staying at the Radisson, where we’re housed, perusing our wine menu.”

“I’ll have the special Cab….”

“And perhaps a basket of free peanuts Sir?’

“No peanuts. How large is your wine glass?”

“It’s a generous 6 ounces, sir.’

‘Just fill one of your beer mugs,” he said.

“But that will cost more sir.’’

“A beer mug, if you please.”

“Four mugs of cab later he drawled, still upright, for ‘another, please. No, no peanuts.’”

“That drawl, that ascot, Eureka! That’s got to be Tennessee Williams! I remember reading last week in the Strib that he was scheduled to be in The Cities for a resurrection of his play ‘A Street Car Named Desire.’ At that moment the assistant manager arrived, late as usual.

“I called him aside to tell him I didn’t serve the customer at table 16 with the proper size, but a beer mug rather than a stemmed goblet.”

“’That,’ said the assistant manager, ‘is highly irregular.’”

“I know, but this guy is a CELEBRITY!”

“How celebrated is he?”

He’s TENNESSEE WILLIAMS!!”

“Well,” the assistant manager said with a tinge of condescension, “I’ll let it go just once, but I must say I’ve never had a high regard for country and western music.”

John said, “Get it? He thought I was talking about TENNESSEE ERNIE FORD! Had to share that, sir. Now we can get back to the English class and the Dactylic Hexameter or whatever you guys were talking about when I interrupted you...”

His classmates calmed down sure in the knowledge that their liberal arts education was superior to a major in restaurant management, and that an arts education would enable them to tell the difference between the author of “The Glass Menagerie” and the guy who sang “Mule Train,” “Shotgun Boogie,” and “Ballad of Davy Crockett.”

But I’m not so positive  If John had begun his tale with “This  guy walked into a bar and told me he was Tennessee Mountain Landis, the baseball commissioner who banned the White Sox players from ever returning to a big-league diamond a century ago, that arts education would have given them no base to stand on, and perhaps only earn them pitying looks from those who know a whole lot more about what goes on in real life than any English major ever would.