Ray Bradbury died today. I have a Ray story:

In the late 1980's I attended a writers' workshop and conference at a Long Beach hotel in the Marina district near Naples Island. Ray Bradbury was the guest speaker at the Saturday lunch. He was brilliant, as always.

That afternoon I saw him in the hotel bar and bought him a drink. We sat at the bar and he regaled me with some of his many stories. After a while he asked if I knew a bookstore named "Acres of Books" in Long Beach and I said yes and that I could take him there. He really wanted to visit that place, a book shop that occupied most of an entire city block.

"I'll save you the cab fare," I said and we got in my car. "First, I want to swing by my house and ask if you will sign my books I have that you wrote." He agreed.

We did that and then I drove through town to the book shop. He wandered off among the huge stacks and rows and after a while I couldn't find him! So I headed for where his novels would be and there he was, checking his own books!

We eventually returned to the hotel bar and had a few more drinks. I was totally astonished with the man's mind. He had a brain as sharp as a razor and a memory as tight and strong as aircraft cable! He would pulverize a Harvard PhD. in an argument! He told me all about how John Huston got him to write the screenplay for Moby Dick and his impersonation of Huston was better than Huston himself. I nearly pissed myself.

After a while I walked him to his hotel room, said goodbye and that was it. A memory that has lasted many years and will always be fresh.