RAY BRADBURY AND ME

In one of Bradbury's episodic chapters in The Martian Chronicles, there's a character who looks like whatever person sees him as. Some saw him as a dead relative, some a former lover, even a policeman saw him as a killer who had gotten away. I'm starting to feel a little like that guy.

In the past month, I've had people tell me I look (or looked like) Beaver Cleaver, Tony Orlando, Billy Joel, and then on Thursday, a new one--Wolfman Jack. I was riding in a golf cart with my wife when the cart girl stopped to ask if we wanted something to eat or drink.

As I approached her the conversation went like this.

"Ohmygosh, you look like Wolfman Jack. I think it's the beard. I bet your wife has a fantasy about that."

"Wolfman Jack?"

"You even sound a little like him with your deep voice."

"And as far as my wife. That's not my wife. It's someone else's. You see, I have fantasies, too."

End of story. I told my wife about it when I returned to the cart. Like a lot of my humor, she didn't much care for it. She didn't seem to say much about The Wolfman comparison.

But then again, she knows I'm certainly not a Renaissance Man. But just maybe I am Universal Man.