This morning on NPR I heard Blind Willy Johnson, a black blues singer moaning a few bars of "The Night Is Dark, The Ground Is Cold." It matched the melancholy I'm feeling since seeing the obit of Vickie, a former friend of mine, in the paper yesterday.

Vickie was a writer, and a damn good one. She wrote romance novels, the Harlequin romance kind, under a pseudonym. She lived at the farthest back side of a remote county at the end of a dirt road. You had to go over a trickling branch of water called Skull Creek, nearly hidden with dense undergrowth, and cross a rickety plank bridge to get to her house. But despite that, she was linked with editors, publishers, etc. in New York by computer.

I used to go to her house and play Scrabble. She was so intelligent. I knew she let me win because I was so competitive. I was not in her league by any stretch of the imagination. She had such a pleasant laugh and a great personality. I have several copies of her books she autographed for me. Vickie had readers everywhere, and I was thrilled to go into book sections in stores and find her books for sale.

She had a wonderful way with dialogue and character development, and wry humor. She could have written the Great American Novel with her talent. I think I told her that one time. I don't know what happened exactly. We drifted apart, then I saw her obit and photo in the paper. I wish I had told her how much I admired her. I can see her now, standing smiling on her front porch, the green yard all around and the wheelbarrow planted with flowers out front.

susil