Good-bye, Barney

We’d already lost Gilligan and The Skipper. Now, Deputy Bernard P. Fife has left us, too. One by one, my childhood icons are checking out. Too soon, I suppose Andy Griffith, Barbara Eden, Dawn Wells and Jim Nabors will leave us. Sucks. Don Knotts has always been a part of my life because of reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show.” The highlight of staying home from school in grade school was getting to watch that show and “Gomer Pyle, USMC” in the afternoon. Not to mention The Reluctant Astronaut, The Apple Dumpling Gang and, of course, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Yeah, he was Mr. Furley, too, during the jumped-the-shark years of “Three’s Company.” The world will be a sadder place without Don Knotts.

In other news, the puppy battle has been lost. We just got home from the pound, where we adopted a shepherd mix puppy. He’ll be neutered this week, then we can pick him up. I hate going there because I have to leave knowing that a lot of those dogs are going to be put down. There was an adult female shepherd I’d love to have brought home, but she was big enough that she could have gotten over our fence too easily.

ConDFW was fun yesteray. It was good to see everybody. I missed F. Paul Wilson’s reading, which I would have liked to hear, but I got to talk to him a little bit later on and he signed a copy of The Tomb for me. John Steakley was … John Steakley. I finally picked up a copy of his Vampire$ and got him to sign it.

Chris Fulbright had copies of the convention sampler I contributed a story to. High Ferocity is a collection of reprints from me, Charlee Jacob, Chris, Angeline Hawkes-Craig, C. Dennis Moore, Steven L. Shrewsbury and C. Dean Andersson. You can buy a copy here. Remember, it’s a collection of reprints meant for promotional purposes, so don’t tell me about the evils of Lulu.com. My story is “Warren Pepper’s Victory Choir,” which you can also get in the new Darkscapes pretty soon.

Sunday or not, I have a newsletter to write for Write Communications. No rest for the wicked …