Jim Dinan sent in the shot above from the walk on September 8, 2013 — 891 Post is in the background, right, with the What a Grind coffee house sign and a bit of the front awning visible. Thanks, Jim.
To kick off the gumshoe action this year how about we return to an old tradition? — the Palm Sunday walks in memory of the late, great Charles Willeford. He passed away on a Palm Sunday, March 27, 1988 — an unbelievable 26 years ago this month.
This time around, though, Palm Sunday falls on April 13 — so if you’re in the mood to shadow the footsteps of Sam Spade, show up next month with twenty bucks and four hours to spare. I’ll toss in as an extra the hotel where Willeford told me he wrote his first novel.
(A couple of years ago I did a Memorial March theme — with notices for Willeford, and Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Philip K. Dick, as well as Robert E. Howard critic Steve Tompkins. Tough month for writers.
(I’m thinking if I can grab a moment I may have to use the rest of this month to try to catch up on various pals of mine who have been dropping like flies, a somewhat different handling of Memorial March. Honest, it almost seems as if everyone I know is dying.
(Depressing.
(Just heard last week that fantasy writer Michael Shea died last month. Only knew him casually, but a nice guy, came over for bar-b-que a couple of times when I was doing my stint in Sonoma County. His story “The Autopsy” in particular is one of the more gruesome things ever committed to paper.)
