In 2010, I received an email from Ed, vaguely stating he was "going through some things" and would reach out when those were resolved. In the interim, I ran old posts with the tag "Steward Setback Saturday."
On the Saturday before I left for Raleigh, I decided enough was enough. I mean, I'm all for giving a dude his space, but five years of silence?
Uh, uh.
So I called. And I'm glad I did. Ed was glad I did. Turns out, the difficult situation is not yet resolved, but he did share some of it, and I empathized with his trying circumstances.
But.
As we talked, his voice became brighter and his interest in the entire BryonySeries project revived. He hadn't realized I was still plugging away at it. He'd forgotten to read Staked! He'd forgotten this was the novel where the fictional steward really shone. He'd forgotten that Saturday was his space on the blog and was surprised that I'd held it for him and that I'd filled his empty space with all things Irish. He was humbly stunned that we celebrate Calkins Day; when our conversation ended, I sent blog links to prove it.
But before we ended the call, Ed decided to read Staked! No, he wouldn't accept a free copy; he'd buy his own from Amazon.
And he promised to write blog posts. In fact, Ed promised to send one by the very next Saturday.
Which he did. And has done every Saturday since then.
I now have three such "telegrams."
But...wait, I can almost hear the new reader to the series ask. You...you talk as if Ed Calkins is real.
Ah, well, he is. He really, truly is. With his own page on the BryonySeries website.
So without further ado, I bring you the return of Ed Calkins.
My Dearest Mistress of My Immortality (MOMI):
Through my many years
of delivering newspapers, I had one favorite publication, which I'm thinking of
reviving: The Ruthless Times.
This was a freestanding newspaper existing from about
4050 to 3099 B.C. Even though, it wasn't very informative, as back in
that day nothing really changed, it was both ruthless and amusing. In fact, in its fifty-one years of existence, I don't think it actually had a single story that could be
actually counted as news. Mostly, it simply the happenings of the prior two hundred years.
Now the publisher, who was also the distributor, could hardly be blamed
for this. Back then births were not quite as newsworthy as the invention of naming
your children. Also on and then it was the notion of
Journalistic integrity or simply telling the truth. Since that at this time
humanity with spread entirely over the globe the first addition was never
completely delivered Perhaps the papers most endearing feature was it's
"this day a thousand years in the future".
In an age when journalism has suffered such diminishing
returns, perhaps it's time to bring this paper back. Maybe a website would like a copy.
Ruthlessly yours,
Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara
P.S.: The Ruthless Times was always a free publication, which
is another reason why it went out of business.
Below, the real Ed Calkins, in a striped shirt and a kilt, laughs at an unknown joke, while "Brian Marhcellis," holding a non-white Snowbell, looks on. This fake Snowbell belonged to my grandson Lucas. With the push of a button, this grinning cat cocked its head and made growling purrs. VampFest was the 2011 launch of the BryonySeries and a fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters for Will & Grundy Counties. We donated $1,400 to the nonprofit, not bad considered we didn't even have a book to sell yet due to publishing issues.
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