Robin Williams

          I was saddened to hear of Robin William's death. Late-night television will never be the same. People are compelled to tell stories about him in his memory and many of the stories are far more important than mine. But it's my Robin Williams story, and the time to tell it is now.
          I was at a men's clothing shop on Melrose avenue in the mid-eighties. I was trying on a sports jacket. That's what we did back then. I was aware of a man standing next to me. He came into the store after me and was trying on jackets as well. I paid him no mind. But at some point I looked over and realized it was Robin Williams. We both had jackets on and simultaneously turned toward each other. He asked, "how does this look?" The jacket he was wearing was a pond-scum green color. "I'm not sure it's your color," I said.
          "That jacket looks great on you, but it's a little wide around the shoulders," he said to me.
          I looked at myself in the mirror. He was right. We both took off our jackets and hung them back on the rack. Neither of us were interested in buying one. We stared at the jackets on the rack one last time before stepping away as if to leave. I nodded my head to Robin and said, "have a good day," he nodded his head to me and said, "you too."

Big Trees

          I've taken to saying outlandish things to strangers in bars. The other night I told a man that I liked hunting moose. When he pressed me for details about the type of gun I used, I replied "I use a musket, old school." I've learned that if you speak with conviction humans are apt to believe it.
          This part is true. I spent three days on a forty-nine acre ranch near Sequoia. The ranch had three springs that emptied into a swimming pond. There was a herd of goats with long menacing horns on their heads. The goats scared easily. Maybe they knew I was thinking of them as bowls of soup. There was a dog named Roxanne from the great Pyrenees mountains. She escorted us to our cabin at night to protect us from mountain lions and bears. We hiked near the ranch and came upon giant trees. Some of the trees were over three thousand years old. Fire couldn't kill them. Lightning had tried and failed. Loggers brought some of them down, but the trees were too big for them to move, so they lost money.
          There were Indian spirits, but talking about Indian spirits makes you sound like a lunatic so I didn't say a word. And if you yelled into the distance, the distance yelled back.