Monday, June 14, 2004

They're off! Eamon and Sakura at the airport this morning, about an hour and a half before they took off for Tokyo. The clerk at the airline desk didn't quite get it when Eamon said he didn't have a return ticket: He's going to Japan to stay (well, his initial spousal visa is good for a year and will be renewable for three years). Eamon and Sakura's trip has been coming for such a long time that I think I took it kind of for granted and only thought briefly about how I'd feel when they were gone. But now that they are -- it kind of hit me this evening when Kate said to Tom, "It's just the three of us here now" -- I miss them both and feel like they're very far away. But what a great adventure. And the next time we see each other, I hope, will be in Tokyo. 10:23:09 PM    comment []

Ralph Wiley, 1952-2004 Just saw this on ESPN: Ralph Wiley, an author who worked on the network and for a long time as a feature writer for Sports Illustrated, died. OK: I have not read one of Ralph Wiley's books, and didn't follow his magazine career avidly. But I remember him when we were both "copy clerks" (an upgrade from "copyboy") at the Oakland Tribune in 1977. I was personally in a pretty bad state at the time -- was angry with my life and the paper and treated the job like a piece of crap. The Tribune let me go at the end of my three-month probation period. That felt bad, though entirely deserved, and for years I thought I would never work for a paper again. Eventually, I learned something from the episode about not burning bridges. Ralph learned something else. On the job -- at a not-first-rate paper run by a publisher who liked to put on disguises to visit the city room, a paper living under constant threat of going under or getting sold -- Ralph made an impression Smart, quick, good-looking, and funny; he seemed like someone who was having fun and was really on his way someplace. He moved up from copy clerk to writing for the sports department, then became a beat writer and columnist, then moved on to Sports Illustrated. Here's a decent obit from theWilmington (N.C.) Journal . Next-morning update: The San Francisco Chronicle has a nice piece on Wiley by columnist Ray Ratto this morning. And the Oakland Tribune remembers him, too. 7:30:03 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dan Brekke.