Stop the Surveillance Bills!
Harry Crews
A very nice classmate of mine, who remembered that I was a Harry Crews fan, sent me a link to a column in the St. Petersburg Times, my favorite paper when I lived in Sarasota (the Sarasota and Bradenton papers were mediocre, and the Tampa Tribune endorsed George H. W. Bush for president in 1992) about one of my favorite authors, Harry Crews, written by excellent NPR commentator and FSU professor Diane Roberts (relative of, inter alii, former Florida Supreme Court Justice B.K. Roberts, author of the court's decisions in the Virgil Hawkins cases, and that link is to another excellent St. Petersburg Times column by the esteemed Martin Dyckman... but I digress—repeatedly).
(It's funny, having classmates who know my predilections, but whom I've never met and may never meet.)
The purpose of this blog post, however, is to relate my humorous Harry Crews anecdote.
I went to law school at the FSU College of Law (whose main building is named "B. K. Roberts Hall"—and people wonder why I'm not a proud FSU alumn?). I was on my way home to South Florida with a good friend. I became peckish as we were approaching Gainesville. I remembered that there was then a kosher delicatessen in Gainesville, conveniently near I-75.
So my friend and I stopped to get corned beef sandwiches. (My friend is from St. Lucia—I don't think she'd ever eaten Jewish-style corned beef before.) We were in line after ordering, waiting for our sandwiches, when a very worn-out looking man and a younger, good-looking woman got in line. The man had a strong Southern accent, but obviously knew a lot about Judaism—he was explaining some things to the woman. I looked at him, and a little light bulb went off in my mind. I said "Excuse me, but would you happen to be Harry Crews?" He said "I would."
I gushed for a few minutes, telling him how much I liked (for instance) A Feast of Snakes. He was polite, friendly, and gracious—a heck of a nice guy.
Then I had a bright idea: why not get his autograph. But what could I ask him to sign? I didn't have any of his books with me, and I wanted his autograph on something significant.
So I got his autograph on a Sammy's Kosher Deli menu.
(It's funny, having classmates who know my predilections, but whom I've never met and may never meet.)
The purpose of this blog post, however, is to relate my humorous Harry Crews anecdote.
I went to law school at the FSU College of Law (whose main building is named "B. K. Roberts Hall"—and people wonder why I'm not a proud FSU alumn?). I was on my way home to South Florida with a good friend. I became peckish as we were approaching Gainesville. I remembered that there was then a kosher delicatessen in Gainesville, conveniently near I-75.
So my friend and I stopped to get corned beef sandwiches. (My friend is from St. Lucia—I don't think she'd ever eaten Jewish-style corned beef before.) We were in line after ordering, waiting for our sandwiches, when a very worn-out looking man and a younger, good-looking woman got in line. The man had a strong Southern accent, but obviously knew a lot about Judaism—he was explaining some things to the woman. I looked at him, and a little light bulb went off in my mind. I said "Excuse me, but would you happen to be Harry Crews?" He said "I would."
I gushed for a few minutes, telling him how much I liked (for instance) A Feast of Snakes. He was polite, friendly, and gracious—a heck of a nice guy.
Then I had a bright idea: why not get his autograph. But what could I ask him to sign? I didn't have any of his books with me, and I wanted his autograph on something significant.
So I got his autograph on a Sammy's Kosher Deli menu.
posted by Mitchell L. Silverman | 9:42 AM
1 Comments:
I thought you might be interested to know that the Winter 2007 issue of The Georgia Review, scheduled for release in mid-December, will feature a forty-page section from Harry Crews's unpublished volume of autobiography, "Assault of Memory"; nine unpublished letters written by Crews to various writers and editors during the past forty-five years; an essay on Crews's work and reputation by fiction writer Larry Baker; and seven photographs of Crews taken between 1968 and 2003.
If you'll forgive a "shameless commerce" plug, single copies will be available in fine bookstores or from the Georgia Review office for $10, which includes periodical-rate shipping.
Thanks,
Brenda Keen
Business Manager, The Georgia Review
(800) 542-3481
www.uga.edu/garev
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