I know we don’t know anything right now, but I’m not going to be surprised if @realDonaldTrump helped kill my friend. Was that civil enough or everybody?
Words matter. Obviously I believe that. I’ve been sending words out into the world professionally for 28 years.
I would need 2.8 million characters to tell you about Rob Hiaasen, one of the most curious and open-hearted journalists I’ve ever known.
Here’s one story. There was almost a rite of passage for all feature writers at the Sun: Try to get Anne Tyler to agree to an interview.
I wrote to her. Linell Smith (Ogden Nash’s granddaughter) wrote to her. Rob wrote to her. She always said no.
But Rob kept writing and they became friends. She wrote him a reference when he applied for (and won) a Knight Fellowship.
I stole a line from Rob and used it in a book: “You’re only as happy as your most unhappy child.”
Rob was also one of three reporters, along with Lisa Pollak and me, who spent a summer write dispatches about other places called Baltimore because, well, why not?
He could make a story out of anything. Anything. The worst boneheaded boss stories, Rob made sing.
I should probably stop. I’m grieving, I’m numb, I’m angry, I’m drinking gin. My apologies if I don’t favorite or reply to every kind word here.
And I feel a fraction of what his wife and three amazing children feel.
