The Furious Spinner

Mario and I spent part of the evening going through the letters and poems of our dear friend David Johnson who died recently. E-mails have nothing over letters. I liked seeing and touching the pages where his hand had made black lines into words. I even cherish the typed pages because I know his hands had touched them. I found one handwritten note stapled to a review he sent me. It was dated 9-24-95 and ended with, "Also, thanks for telling me that you see me as a magical being. It went a long ways toward shoring up a somewhat besieged ego/spirit. D." That made me weep. And it made me glad because he always knew how much I loved him. He always knew how much I admired him. What better gift to give a friend?

He often mentioned his granddaughter, Grace Elizabeth. He said he had a dream (or hope) that one day she would show up on his doorstep, and they would run off together on a motorcycle—him showing her the world she was not allowed to see as a child. He said once she asked him why he didn't go to church on Sunday, and he told her, “Darlin’, I go to church every time I’m out of doors.” In one letter to us, he wrote, "I had an exquisite few moments with my granddaughter, Grace Elizabeth. She's two years and a couple of months old and a thoughtful elf who seems to realize how much I love her."

He was always so excited about writing, always planning his next project. In one letter he wrote, "Got the green light to do a 2500-word piece on the mystique of the Mountain Lion and why some of us want to shoot holes in them and others want to shoot holes in those shooters. Should be a lively assignment."

In 1994 he wrote, "I'm in the media lab on Pill Hill getting caught up on query submissions, writing a letter to you instead of taking care of business. Oh well, why change work ethic in midstream. A Chinese student has just asked me how to work the laser printer. He thinks I'm a college professor and thus will know how to run the machine. I've always wanted to be a teacher and once in a while, I'm asked to talk to a class for an hour or so. I prefer the image of professor over the petty sturm und drang of the real thing. Although, where can you go to escape the petty whatsit of whosit? I'm sure that by now, the hermit on top of the legendary mountain has a beeper and cellular phone."

Tomorrow at the memorial service, Mario is going to read a paragraph from one of his letters to us written in 1994. Dave wrote, "Enclosed is a poem called 'Sunday in Marcola' recently published in Fireweed. I've been working on it since 1979. When it finally gelled, I jumped up and didn't know whether to spike the computer like a football in the end zone or sit on a metaphorical branch and grin like a cheshire cat. As hardworking writers, you know what I'm talking about. I wouldn't trade my craft for any gift or ease of livelihood. I passionately believe that there are messages afloat. They are out there for we who write—ancient sorrows, detonations of delight, chance encounters that tip the tumblers of understanding. We can use that stuff anyway we want in what Dylan Thomas called our 'craft and sullen art.' But mostly, we can make sweet music out of our own pain."

Oh, sweetheart. You have left us in pain. May we make sweet music of it in your name. 0 comments

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