{"id":1585,"date":"2018-04-20T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T13:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2018-04-19T10:39:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T17:39:45","slug":"tales-from-the-trail-the-guy-i-didnt-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2018\/04\/20\/tales-from-the-trail-the-guy-i-didnt-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales from the Trail – the Guy I Didn’t Meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I woke up this morning in the Davenport Hotel\u2014the old Davenport\u2014in Spokane. \u00a0(When I was growing up we had a maroon leather couch that my mother always called the davenport. \u00a0How davenports morphed into couches and then into sofas is one of the mysteries of the universe.) \u00a0And what the hotel Davenport has to do with furniture davenports is another mystery, but it\u2019s a gracious old hotel and our spacious corner room has what I consider a book tour miracle\u2014two comfortable chairs as opposed to one comfortable chair and one desk chair. \u00a0In terms of comfort, the people designing ergonomic desk chairs could take a lesson from the people who used to design \u2026 well \u2026 davenports.<\/p>\n

So this is Tale from the Trail number four. \u00a0That means we\u2019ve been on the road for more than a month and more than 4000 miles. \u00a0Today in Spokane is the last major day of the tour\u2014two events and one interview. \u00a0In a little while I\u2019ll need to get my hair washed and ironed and my make up on to be ready for the interview.<\/p>\n

But before I do that, I\u2019d like to tell you about a guy named Howard Malley. \u00a0Howard became a fan of mine early on. His was one of the first names in my database when it switched over from being the Doghouse Call List\u2014from my rolodex\u2014to an e-mail list.<\/p>\n

The people reading this probably never heard of Howard Malley, but they\u2019ve seen his name and I\u2019m pretty sure most of them are familiar with his work. \u00a0He was part of the team that produced the video for \u201cWe Are the World.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard and I corresponded over the years. \u00a0A book would come out, and he\u2019d let me know what he thought of it. \u00a0During that time I learned something about him. \u00a0He lived in Westlake Village in California, had a wife named April, and had been medically retired from the entertainment industry for a number of years due to muscular dystrophy.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, he sent me an e-mail asking if I would consider putting him in one of my books as a character. \u00a0I told him no, I wouldn\u2019t do that, but I would dedicate a book to him. \u00a0That book was Proof of Life. \u00a0The dedication reads: \u00a0For Howard G. Malley whose ongoing battle with Muscular Dystrophy constitutes a daily and courageous Proof of Life.<\/p>\n

Just prior to the publication of Proof of Life, Howard\u2019s health situation worsened to the point where he had to move into an assisted living facility. \u00a0When the \u00a0Duel to the Death tour schedule was posted, Howard sent me a note. \u00a0He was excited to see the Burbank event listed on the calendar and was making arrangements to come. \u00a0He also asked if I would mind if he had a T-shirt made, featuring the cover of \u201chis” book. \u00a0I told him to have at it.<\/p>\n

On March 24, the day before the Burbank appearance, he sent me a note saying the T-shirt had arrived, but he had come down with some kind of intestinal bug. \u00a0Since he didn\u2019t want to risk spreading it to me, he said he wouldn\u2019t be coming to the event. \u00a0As an author on tour I appreciated his decision not to share, and I told him how sorry I was to miss him.<\/p>\n

\"\"We were back in Seattle when I heard from April that Howard had passed away on March 29. \u00a0I\u2019m so sorry I missed him, and I know April misses him terribly, too, but here\u2019s the thing. I\u2019d like the whole world to see Howard’s T-shirt.\u00a0 And do you know what else? \u00a0I just gave everybody reading this what\u2019s commonly referred to as an ear worm. \u00a0They\u2019re going to be humming, \u201cI\u2019d like to buy the word a coke\u201d for the next several days, and they\u2019ll have no idea why that happened or where it came from.<\/p>\n

It came from you, Howard Malley, so rest in peace. \u00a0I think we both just made lots of people smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up this morning in the Davenport Hotel\u2014the old Davenport\u2014in Spokane. \u00a0(When I was growing up we had a maroon leather couch that my mother always called the davenport. \u00a0How davenports morphed into couches and then into sofas is one of the mysteries of the universe.) \u00a0And what the hotel Davenport has to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tour-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-pz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1593,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions\/1593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}