Alan W. Walker - Al-V

Some people knew him as Fast Al from his stockcar days in New Hampshire. I met Al-V in High School auto shop class and quickly discovered that we had many things in common. We became best friends.

Over the next few years we founded a Hot Rod club named Vandal Speed Incorporated. VSI grew in membership to about 35 within two years while we built hot rods from Al-V's Burgandy 1957 Chevy to my '62 Ford red and white Sunliner convertible, to Danny Davis' White Whale 1958 Chevy convertible.

We spent many late nights and weekends in his parents garage in the house on the hill across from smoker's corner outside E.L Vendermeulen High School in Port Jefferson, NY. His parents were terrific, feeding us and allowing us to enjoy a few cold ones as we reconstructed his '57.

Al died about 12 years ago. I admit that we grew apart after my tour of duty in Vietnam, but I believe our feeling of brotherhood remained with us both until he died, with me still. My wife Ruth and I visited his grave site around 6 years ago and was pleased to see the wolve's cut into his marker.

His father Edgar (a quiet, patient and funny man), died within a few weeks of Al's dying and is buried alongside him.

Some people go through life touching others in positive ways that they never understand while doing so. Al was one of them as were his parents, Emily and Ed.

Hope you found peace, Al.

More later.

Photographed August 20, 2006 at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, SC
by Larry Schliessmann

Anna Hyatt Huntington's Don Quixote at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, SC. Photographed August 20, 2006 by Larry Schliessmann

Ward Clarke Campbell

Yesterday, I received a letter from an old friend Helen Belnick. She informed me that a good friend, Ward Clarke Campbell had died.

I had not spoken to him in a year or two, but only because I'm in South Carolina and he was in New York, and life has a way of pressing ahead, filling days and weeks quickly enough that time slips into a rhythm that blurs everything but the immediate.

Back in 1980, at the age of 31, I was struggling to rebuild a life that alcohol abuse had ruined. I had been sober through AA for less than 6 months, but was determined to make it. The first step I needed to make beyond not drinking, was finding a job.

After reading the want ads in The Village Times, for several weeks, I spotted an ad for Delano Studios. They needed someone to run kilns and assist with shipping. Nervously, I applied, was interviewed and waited.

A few days passed before I received a call from Laurene Sama. She told me that the job had been filled by an earlier applicant, but that they would file my application for future openings.

Yeah, right, I thought, and resumed my search.

However, two weeks later, Mrs Sama called and said that Mr. Campbell (everybody called him Mr Campbell (to his amusement it turned out)) wanted to interview me again.

The interview went better than expected, and I got the job.

Working at Delano Studios was like being adopted into a new family of people who all cared about each other, celebrated life and its events.

My supervisor was Linda Speiser from Stony Brook. Through her and Ward Campbell, I learned about the business, and about life.

Ward had a way of nurturing a person, treating them with respect and kindness. He never tried to dominate or control his employees, but did befriend most of us.

Years later, after I had left Delano Studios, lived in Oregon where I attempted to build Geodesic homes (did get one up and sold in a bad mid-80s real estate market), I returned to New York to live. I visited Delano Studios and learned that Ward was selling, retiring.

I suppose that when I worked with him earlier, that the idea of him retiring seemed unlikely. How naive are we when we are young?

I wanted to buy the company, but could not. Instead, he recommended to the new buyer, G Stuart Smith of Low Country Guild, Bluffton, South Carolina, that I go down and help them set-up Delano Studios in its new location. I went and stayed.

Once again, Ward Campbell set into motion events that changed my life in ways inconceivable at the time, creating an opportunity for me to make a lot of new friends, live in a place that really is God's country, and work doing one thing I loved.

I owe Ward Campbell a lot of thanks, and am pleased to have known him, to have called him a friend.

More later.

A Visit With Mickey Spillane

The first time I spoke with Mickey Spillane was the day after his 86th birthday party held here in Murrells Inlet, SC. We provided a movie poster to be displayed in the banquet hall.

Ruth and I had been invited to share in the celebration. During the evening, we invited Mickey to stop by our bookstore in town.

I admit I did not think he would. After all, we had opened the store nearly a year earlier, displayed some of his movie posters in the front windows, and knew he drove by a time or two every day.

However, Mickey walked through the front door around 11am and wandered around looking at displays of books and toy cars, something he collected, and finally stopped at the counter.

I had an original I, The Jury movie poster under the counter, which I took out and showed him. He broke into a grin, shook his head and said, "Biff." He clearly didn't think that Biff Elliott was a great Mike Hammer (he played the part in the original movie). After a moment of hesitation, I asked him to sign the poster. He looked at me and I read his reluctance, and watched him sign despite how he might've felt. I promised him then that I would not ask him to sign anything else, and never did.

As a long time fan of Mike Hammer, I had collected many items related to his career, including some books written by other authors who he had helped promote by sending their work to his agent.

We talked about a man named Garrety who wrote some hardboiled cop books. When I asked him what happened to this writer, he told me he had died young, and by his tone, I surmised that Garrety died due to behavior Mickey did not agree with.

After walking around the store with him, showing him collections writers that few people read anymore, both mysteries and science fiction, he turned to me and said, "So many of them are gone now. Death just doesn't make sense."

I'd never thought about death in that way, but had to agree and still do.

By the time he left, around an hour later, he had invited Ruth and me to visit him at home, which we did and started a brief but good friendship.

More on Mickey later.