I found the following quote of Mike Nichols, director of the hit revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” on Broadway in the article titled “How Oedipus Wrecks” in March 24. New York Times:
“My father was proud once when I won a horse show in boarding school. And he was proud when I was brave when I broke my arm. And man, I’ve hauled those out innumerable times.”
As I’m not familiar with the expression, “haul something out,” I looked for the definition without success in OED and CED.
There was an entry of “hauling out” as a noun in Wikipedia, defining it as;
- Hauling-out is the behaviour associated with pinnipeds of temporarily leaving the water between periods of foraging activity for sites on land or ice. Hauling-out is necessary in seals for mating and giving birth and non-reproductive aggregations, termed "haul-outs".
I also found the following answer to the similar question on “haul out” in www.englishforums.com/:
- (haul out is) to take a heavy-handed approach to justice. It is a US phrase. I guess it comes from the slightly stereotyped image of the sheriff going into the saloon bar and "hauling out" …
However, I think neither applies to Mike Nichols’ statement, “I’ve hauled those out innumerable times.”
What does “haul something out” mean? Does it mean “experience / get over problems" or simply "pull something out”? Is “haul something out” a popular day-to-day phrase?
Best Answer
To haul something is to [roughly, and/or with considerable effort] drag it up/along. It's not often used metaphorically of memories, along the lines of OP's cited example. The englishforums claim about a "heavy-handed approach to justice" is simply mistaken - the standard idiom, British and American, is "hauled up before the court/magistrate/beak". In respect of memory retrieval, common metaphoric idioms are...
"to dredge [something] up" - to recall a long-forgotten memory (by implication, not repeatedly).
"to trot [something] out" - to [regularly] recall and recount the same memory to others.
The title of Dowd's article is a pun on the Sophoclean tragedy Oedipus Rex, and Nichols' father died when he was 11, so we can assume strong associations with the Oedipus Complex (specifically, feelings of jealously and anger towards one's father). Nichols says he often "hauls out" the only two memories he has of his father being proud of him.
The choice of verb emphasises that Nichols finds recalling those memories emotionally taxing. Dredging them up wouldn't work because the memories aren't long-forgotten. Trotting them out might well be valid here, but Nichols probably wouldn't want to use this expression because it's normally said somewhat disparagingly.