Ray Bradbury R.I.P.

I was off on a boat when Ray Bradbury died.  Sorry to lose him but glad he had a good long run.

Gay and I spent most of a day with him about ten years ago, when he'd just turned eighty, and were impressed as always with his sprightly nature.  Always questing and inventive; always glad to meet his readers and other writers.  It's a pity he didn't travel more, so people outside of California could feel the glow of his personality.

I was in grade school, about sixty years ago, when I first encountered his writing.  I loved him in college, when I started writing, and loved him afterwards, even though my own writing went in a different direction.

In a trench in Vietnam, in 1968, a guy passed on a mud-soaked issue of Playboy that had his story about meeting the spirit of Ernest Hemingway.  I was educated enough to "know" that the story was corny as hell – but it still made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

He played his strange chords, and familiar ones, so well that it's hard to think of him not being part of the landscape.  He'll be around a long time, though.  Longer than his critics, I think.

Joe