Recognition from Greatness

I don’t know how I missed Bill Bryson in my home page’s tease Brushes With The Rich and Famous.

He’s my all-time favorite writer, a great guy and unbeknownst to him blessed me with a bloggable story for this Oh, No effort of mine.

Having read and reread his books to the point of embarrassment I dropped him an email singing his praises and he kindly responded.

His father had been a terrific sports writer for the Des Moines Register for 50 years and Bill Jr. clearly followed in his father’s ink stained- footsteps. As it turns out Bill Jr. and I have a great love for baseball.

So, an email or two about the grand old game and then low and behold I noted in the local media that Bill was coming to the Greensboro, N.C. coliseum (near my home) for a speaking engagement.

Of course, unable to help myself, I dropped him a line saying my wife and I would be there and looked forward to his presentation.

Shortly after taking my seat the guy (whom I’d never seen before in my life) sitting next to me leaned over and said, “I wonder if this guy is a jerk.”

Thinking that perhaps it would be a good idea for him to read some of his books, I calmly said, “No, he’s really a great guy.”  This evoked a “how would you know” look from my seatmate.

Moments later, Bill (I call him Bill) took the stage, looked out into an applauding crowd that easily numbered 1,000 and said, “Before I begin, I’d like to say hello to two friends of mine here in the audience. Hello, Jim Darby, and hello Bob Cairns. Guys, thanks for joining us tonight.”

I was pretty much in shock. With that the “new neighbor” leaned over and said, “I wonder who those two are?”

I had recovered just long enough to say, “I don’t know who the hell Jim Darby is but I’m Bob Cairns!”