ONE HELL OF A STORY

People can do such amazing things. I am humbled before John and his mother.

 

Tears running down both of my cheeks.

A fantastic job by Mr. Hollandsworth.

 

Amazing story. Well done by Skip.

 

Weird to read that today, hours after reading this.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/641866

 

Yeah, I was fine until that exact point.

Wow. That is one hell of a story.

 

We use "wow, just wow" around here a lot to depict something that astonishes us.....generally in a negative way.

After reading that powerful, powerful story and seeing the pictures.....I'm sorry, but I have nothing to offer other than....wow. Just wow.

 

I'll reluctantly dissent a little from the consensus. I enjoyed the writing very much, and the story was certainly excellent, but I didn't feel like I knew John as well as I should have by the end. There were some terrific glimpses of his thoughts about his difficult existence - "Can you tell me what sex is like" was rather heartbreaking - but he never seemed nearly as three-dimensional to me as his mother did.

 

Thank you, beer. That story reminds me of why we try to be great writers.

 

Not to be flippant, but maybe that is because there wasn't much outside of him laying in bed. Like he said, other people were out there making new memories. All of his were from before 1973.

 

No, fair point. But I think all the stuff about his mom doing everything for him, including wiping his behind and bathing him, called for some sort of explanation about how a once-independent teenage studmuffin football player felt about his sudden infantilization, how he came to grips with it, etc.

I'm not necessarily criticizing the reporting! Though I'm not familiar with Mr. Hollandsworth, he seems fantastic. Quite likely a problem of available and confirmable information. I just found the absence of some of that material to be a significant hole.

 

oh, my. :'( :'( :'(

beautifully told. :'( :'( :'(

 

Brilliant story. Well told.

When I read stories like these, I'm as interested in the reporting as in the writing. I'd like to know more from Skip regarding how long he worked on this and all the interviews and research he did into the subject.

And, yeah, a dust storm blew right through my house at the exact time I was reading it.

Good find, beer.