The pleasures of Elmore Leonard's fiction include exquisite run-on sentences.  For example, early in Cuba Libre: 
  "He came out on the train from East Texas and was waiting for Tyler the first day of the new year, 1898, on the porch of the Congress Hotel in Sweetmary, a town named for a copper mine, LaSalle Street empty going on 10:00 A.M., the mine shut down and the town sleeping off last night."

What’s he doing?, she asked.
My guess sleeping, he said.  He took a sip of coffee.
What else can you do in this fucking town.

Trip at sunset

Owatonna MN @ sunset, Sunday, Aug. 4

   After achieving a particularly graceful strike, the kind when all of the pins scatter perfectly like a palmtree skyrocket,  she turned to Nick standing there watching and suggested they go on a trip to find out where the train track ends.  Could be a long trip, said Nick as he went back for another tap.  No one I know remembers this conversation from last spring, but those two just signed up for another year of league bowling.

Dylan Schear in the Aug. 28 (year yet to be id'ed) Tahoe Daily Tribune:
" Now mind you, I am not one to inhabit the grave. But, as of late it has been more frequent. When I sit by the headstones of the departed and ask a very specific questions of them, I get answers to my questions. I start by treading lightly and asking for a sign that they know I have visited them. As time passes, my questioning will get more intense.
"On this particular day I was off to my mother-in-law's grave with a few stops along the way, one of which was to get gas at Costco. After gassing my car, I noticed a woman who drove by. I peered into the car and I swear she looked like my mother-in-law. I even wondered if it could have been her sister. However, the lady who was driving was very old and I wondered if I imagined the whole thing.
"Off I went until I reached the mortuary and found where she was buried. With flowers in hand, I sat down beside her and told her that I had come to visit. I felt she was talking to me and wanted to hear my husband, Blythe's, voice. So, I did exactly what she wanted. I pulled out my cell phone and called him.
“'Hey, Blythe,” I said. “I'm sitting by your mother at the grave. I'm going to put you on speaker so you can talk to her.'
“'Hello, Mom,” he said. 'Mom, if you know that we are here please give us a sign. Please let us see two green Volkswagen Bugs.'

LaffyTaffy

Today's note from college chum Larry Spears, now of Pollock Pines CA

In 1988 I think I went to Brazil.  Stayed with Carlos and Marcella, who had lived with me in Berkeley for a year.  You met them, and Vona met Marcella's mom, Betty Danon.  Just to set the story.  The next year, Carlos and Marcella invited me to Carlos's home in Brazil.  They were amicably breaking up at that time. Marcella and I decided to visit a 1700s Portuguese town an overnight bus trip away, Oro Preto.  I think you've seen a picture I took there of a distant cathedral in the rain.  .......  Well, we got there and I jumped into a window well of another cathedral to avoid heavy rain, and about a minute later a handsome, smiling and cheerful guy, Ariel Sikorsky, an Argentinian psychiatrist, jumped in as well. He spoke only Spanish, I only English, but using common references and pass a pyhrasebook back and forth allowed us to construct a conversation in which we would actually get laughs........... 
So when it was time to meet Marcella, I invited him along.  And when I saw the look on her face when we appeared, I knew I would be traveling alone the next few days.  ...... I went on to Belo Horizonte (sp?), a big city, to get some gifts for the family....two days later, Marcella and he showed up, and the three of us spent a day, and that night Marcella and I caught a bus back to her home.....it was raining hard, and I was dozing when Marcella touched my arm, and she said, "You know, you are more than a father to me."  I still treasure that moment.  And it taught me something in words I had not used before......your kids can be your friends.  they sbould be your friends.  Nothing profound, but something to let sink in.  And it sunk in, and has been part of me since.  The 1980s were altogether the worse decade of my life, but they eventually brought me three daughters along with a son, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild.  And a wife.  You never can tell.

   One thing I don’t talk about much is my tremor.  You’d think it would be one of the main conversation themes with friends and relatives, but I guess people view something like a tremor is one of those off limits subjects like a noticeable disfigurement. 
   The first time I talked about it with a physician, I mentioned that my mother had it and it got worse in her old age when she could barely hold a coffee cup or light a cigarette.  He nodded in recognition and wrote"familial tremor" down on my medical record.  Once he put me on a beta blocker for blood pressure with hopes that it would also reduce my tremor but a week later I landed in ER with an acute asthma attack.  He apologized for not noticing asthma on my chart and returned me to a diuretic.

When we move to Owatonna, we must decide what possessions to shed and what to take with us.

The morning pilgrimage

Each morning about 9:30, dozens of people who've spent the night at homeless shelters make their way to the St. Cloud Public Library where they discuss what to do next. 

Friday

Up at 7:45 am, read Artie's suggestion we breakfast at Copper Lantern Monday the 25th, skimmed the SC Times, email accounts, and facebook.  Ran across this:

A Higgs Boson particle walks into a church.
Priest: "Your kind is not welcome here."
HB particle: "Then how are you going to have mass?"

episode

A man with a baby in his arms boarded the train.  The door closed and the train glided quietly out of the station toward a small farm town 10 miles away.  At that station, the man realized the baby was gone from his arms.  He looked under seats, queried passengers in the car, then bolted out the car door and onto the station platform.  He heard baby cries, garbled, as if they were in the cornices and ledges of the waiting room.  A woman offered to help find the baby, but the cries became more faint until they disappeared.  The man fell to the floor, crying inconsolably “no no no.”

Before the search engine

When I first discovered the internet, it was described to me as a library in which all the books had been taken from the shelves and tossed onto one pile in the middle of a room.

D. T.

D. T. had a roller coaster life before the boss picked him up off the street, cleaned him up, and made him sports editor of his small daily newspaper.  If I ever hear of you taking a drink, you're out of here, the boss said.  I was on the city desk next to D. T.'s making me the closest to his breath.  For months, he seemed clean and performed well until the state high school track finals in the Spring.  One night he asked me for a ride home.  His breath smelled of Listerine.  As we headed down Bell Street, he asked me to stop at a liquor store and wait for him while he picked up a package.  I can't do that or I'll get fired, I said.  His tone was subdued, smooth at first.  Just a pint to get him through the track meet, the boss doesn't need to know.  Can't do it, I said.  He raised his fists and smashed them into the delicate dashboard of my Renault Dauphine.  The second blow left the dash a splintered mess.  I took him to the liquor store, then drove off.  D. T. was never seen again in the newsroom.

Best comedy movie

At coffee today Marty asks the five us what's the best movie comedy of all time, then said, before the rest could weigh in, his favorite was Airplane.  A couple nodded in agreement about Airplane.  Here's the final list (someone apparently named two):
Three Musketeers
Blazing Saddles
Dumb and Dumber
Young Frankenstein
Roman Candle
Caddy Shack.

They elope

Long ago when drought and unemployment darkened America, a youthful Minnesota electrical engineer and cornetist eloped with a small town college girl and joined a vaudeville troupe in Kansas City.  After several performances, the troupe set off on an eastwardly-bound train, doing one night stands along the way.   By the time the train pulled into Pennsylvania Station, the bride was pregnant with me and the groom entertaining doubts about whether or not show business was an appropriate profession for a young father.  They settled in Brooklyn and I was born on Navy day.

Train story

When the train slowed to a stop, a passenger door opened and a man with a baby in his arms boarded.  After a minute or so, the door closed and the train moved quietly out of the station and on to the next station, a village 10 miles away.  At that station, the passenger with the baby realized the baby was gone from his arms.  He looked under seats, queried the few passengers in the car, before bolting out the car door and onto the station platform.  He heard distant baby cries, garbled, as if they were from the cornices and ledges of the waiting room.  A woman offered to help find the baby, but the cries became more faint until they disappeared.  The man collapsed to the floor, screaming inconsolable gibberish.