"No Pay But Love Returned"

Though I know it goes without saying, forgive me if I do so: Ray Bradbury is cool.

Now, I'd seen him before -- he came to speak at the library near my school about six years ago -- and thought it was cool, then, too. The trip to the Venice library, however was extra special.

My department chair and good friend teaches a whole unit on Bradbury, and through various machinations (including a letter-writing campaign) had pulled off an invitation to a night at the library. She invited me to go with her, and since she was doing the driving, I agreed. We took off as early as possible to beat the traffic and arrived without incident around four p.m. A single promotional flyer on a board by the entrance announced that Ray Bradbury would be there that evening. The lack of ceremony reminded me that this icon of literature is a regular guy, and a local guy at that. He began writing The Martian Chronicles about a block away from that very building, when he was living with his wife and making forty dollars a week.

The man at the information desk said that the room he was scheduled to speak in had a capacity of up to sixty people. D. and I looked askance at one another; if ten of her students failed to show, and the ones who did didn't let their parents come, and we counted the two of us, we would have sixty people all on our own. Talk about an 'intimate venue'.

(On a side note, we asked the woman at the information desk about places to eat. After a long walk in the wrong direction [for which I take full responsibility], we ended up at C & O Trattoria, one of the best restaurants ever. Killer Garlic Rolls, indeed.)

By the time we came back, it was six o'clock, and people were lined up to get their books signed and their pictures taken. Several of D.'s students were there -- and lots of them I knew because I taught them last year. We put our names on Post-its to get books signed directly to us, since Mr. Bradbury doesn't hear so well anymore. If D. will let me put up a picture, I will, 'cause she and Ray are The Cutest Thing! Some of her kids had blown up his picture, laminated it, and hot glue-gunned it to their shirts. Ray Bradbury obligingly signed those, too. A literary rock star.

He spoke for about an hour, and the kids were remarkably respectful, especially given the circumstances. We were all at his level, since he was in a wheelchair, and so many could not see. The microphone wasn't often close enough, so we had to strain to hear. And Ray Bradbury throws a lot of references into his talks that not many students of high school age would know: John Houston, Herman Melville, and Christopher Isherwood, for example. Still, kids were absorbed almost the entire time, and, I think, impressed with the whole theme of Bradbury's talk, which was love.

Bradbury's love of writing, his love for his wife, and his love for life have guided him throughout his life and his career. It was a letter of love and admmiration that brought him into the sphere of director John Houston, and his love for his wife that kept him expanding his repetoire of writing to support her and their two children. His love for the freedom of thought and imagination stoked the fires of Farenheit 451 and "The Illustrated Man." The message he gave us was to love deeply: ourselves, the people who inspire us, our work, and our world. And sometimes you don't get the money, or the bling, or the house, or the diamond. Sometimes, there is "no pay but love returned."

And that's enough.

Except for one sour note, the evening was an unmitigated sucess. The fun part was when the librarian in charge asked incredulously in hushed tones, "You came all the way from N------? How did you find out about this event?"

And D. got to say, "Mr. Bradbury invited us."