and so it goes

it's odd to type, but i have a hero.

i had a hero.

my hero died this week.

i'm older, but not wiser. and he's dead.

my hero wrote. a lot.

he wrote:

"Listen:
When I was a younger man---two wives ago, 250,000 cigarettes ago, 3,000 quarts of booze ago . . .
When I was a much younger man, I began to collect material for a book to be called The Day the World Ended."

and so it goes.