Naturally, my post the other day about the first meeting of me and no less than Bill Arney on a tour back in 1982 was noticed by Bill Arney, who says:
“Oh, man.
“That was my first hat, my first trench coat, and I had met Don for the first time about two hours earlier, give or take. Yeah, Summer, 1982.
“And it was that first hat that started all the ruckus — for me, anyway.
“Really glad that guy took the photo. It captures a critical moment in time.
“I remember being pissed when I read the plaque, as I had not yet read The Maltese Falcon, and the plaque gives away the whole damn mystery!
“And damn! WE WERE THIN!
“Funny, I never thought of myself as thin. I guess thinner would be a more appropriate term.
“Great find — historic!”
And I also got a note from Hammett maven Mike Humbert, seeking to get his name back in my Tag Cloud, who notes:
“Amazing coincidence. Then again, those things happen once in a while. When my wife was a teenager, she worked as a waitress in Skipper’s seafood restaurant. One time, she was telling various stories about those days, and mentioned a guy who used to come in and order a pitcher of root beer and one glass.
“I started smiling. ‘Did he have a big mop of curly hair?’ I asked.
“‘How did you know?’
“‘Because that was ME!’
“As it turns out, Carla and I ‘met’ years before we thought we did.”
Do you get the feeling that the Hammett arena is more fraught with coincidence than most?
