Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Near Hero
I cried when I heard this.Elmore Loenard Dies at 87
This guy gets honorary status as a hero. This thing I have about people that I admire who hold on to 90 or plus years of life.
He didn't make 90 but his life was double the output of "normal".
I read everything. Everything.
The westerns, the short stories, the movie scripts the wonderful crime novels.
Master of the short sentence. He said he cut all the unimportant stuff out.
I tried to learn from his model.
I met him once in Chicago. He was doing a book signing down the street from where I was working.
I made sure to be there.
And I took the recent book he was signing for. I was half way through.
The early crowd was sparse so I got a shot at saying a few words.
He and I shared a life experience, the victory over alcohol. Transforming. We are in the same fellowship.
I told him I would be happy to buy another book, he laughed and made some comment about our tendency to excess.
He wanted to see where I had read to. Opened it there and checked it out. Laughed.
He said there was a lot to read yet. He wrote that he hoped I liked the way it turned out. To him, it was certainly the trip that counted but the destination was important too.
I remember he had on a crappy looking blue blazer and needed a shave in a way that is now fashionable. A mile wide smile and generous with his time and, I felt, laser attention.
His later work got a little thin around the edges but it was always an example of how much could be said with so little time. He had a genius for the ways you could kill someone.
You have to admire that.
