August 9, 2006

• An Odd Coincidence

  Today, I thought I'd tell a story that gave me goosebumps when one of my oldest friends, Chris, shared it with me.

  I met Chris when we were both very young. Now he lives a thousand miles
  away, but for about 20 years we were close and did many things
  together, including running a business as partners for over a decade.
  He is a great friend – intelligent, thoughtful, warm-hearted and
  generous, dry sense of humour, killer smile – unforgettable.

  
  A few years ago, Chris was sharing a rented house with a few friends,
  while I lived with my partner of the time a couple of blocks away. His
  grandfather, a southern-Ontario teacher, had died, and he received a
  box of his old papers. I think he enjoyed going through them and
  learning more about this interesting man.

  He discovered that his grandfather had hoped to publish some of his
  writing, particularly some poetry. After he retired, back in the 1960s,
  he had investigated this possibility, but he was unsure how to go about
  it. Naively, he responded to a magazine ad from a "literary agent" in
  Toronto who, for a price, would seek publication for his clients. Chris
  found a bundle of correspondence between his grandfather and this
  agent. Despite many letters over a period of years, Chris’s grandfather
  was eventually frustrated to realize that the unscrupulous agent was
  taking money without providing any useful services. It seems that he
  was never able to get his money back, either.

  Leafing through these decades-old letters, Chris was naturally angry
  about this agent who took advantage of his grandfather's longing to be
  a published author. He took a closer look at the man's contact
  information, and noticed the address from which the agent did his
  business.

  At that moment, Chris was sitting in the very house the agent had been writing from, over 30 years before.

  Did you shiver? I did, all over again!

  Later edit: Some
  of you asked about the poetry, whether it could be published now. As I
  recall, Chris said that it was very old-fashioned verse, the kind of
  thing you might expect to read in a volume from the 50s or 60s entitled
  "Boy's Own Annual" or something like that. So it could certainly be
  published privately for the family, but there might not be a public
  market for it.

  • 12:36 pm
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