I gave this scenario to H-Man almost a year ago. The great columnist Anna Quindlan wrote a fabulous piece on her friend author David Halberstam. The incredible line went something like this: "Nothing can be learned from his death but that life is just as random as we think it is."
As she expressed, the famous writer survived Vietnam yet was killed in a car crash in San Mateo, California in April, 2007.
It was a very odd accident. Seemingly lucky Kevin Jones, a graduate student at Cal-Berkley, had been selected to give Halberstam a ride to an interview. Imagine, you get to chat with a famous author while running an errand. How in the hell do you screw that up? Listen, Kevin, all you do is give the guy a ride to an interview. How hard is that?
Instead, the kid makes a major mistake driving and kills the guy. Young Jones went to jail for five days for his fatal error.
But as I told H-Man and now Dave, I don't think it was a mistake. Let's go with this scene. Young Jones gets some special time with a famous writer. He's a journalism student who has written a play. He lets Halberstam read it on the way up hoping for a good review. Halberstam says it's crap. Jones says, oh, yeah, watch this.
And then he swerves left into a speeding car.
Can you imagine what Halberstam was thinking?
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