Biographical Quote

“Call me a traitor, tell me to shut up and sit silent while the republic is ruined, and I’ll show you the symbol of freedom located between my index and ring fingers. And I will be anything but quiet about it.” Sunday, February 11, 2007

I had to get rid of my land line a couple of years ago. Not only was it unnecessary — I had a cell phone — but every new letter or mention in the Times Daily would bring THE CALLS. Fearless free speech comes at the price of some privacy given over to anonymous assholes, drunken old ladies, gibbering idiots… I’m actually talking about the fans, here. The ones who wanted to argue were bad enough.

The Times Daily published my letter today, and I just happened to be at mom’s house for two minutes to pick something up when the phone rang. Mom answered it and stopped me three feet from the door: “It’s for you.” It was a very nice lady from Russellville, Alabama, calling to tell me that she agrees with every single thing I write.

I asked my mom if this had happened before. “No,” she said, “but it was a good letter.”

I guess so.

Now, let’s assume that lady called every ‘Osborne’ in the phone book before she got the right house on the right day at exactly the right moment. Fate, in other words. But a disconcerting fate, for I have taken great pains to be hard to find. Something cosmic is at work here; I hope the poor lady hasn’t fulfilled her greatest wish and condemned herself to an ironic demise, or something.

I hate fame. I don’t want to be famous. In fact, I tried like hell to keep my name out of the article that ran with that picture.