A non-football note: one of the finest writers from my hometown passed away this morning. James Crumley—in addition to propping up the bar at Charlie B's tavern and providing gruff advice to younger people so foolish as to desire careers in the Literary Arts—wrote one of the best first sentences in all of modern American crime fiction. And here, in memoriam, it is:
"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."
—The Last Good Kiss, 1978
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