The most precious thing we can ever have in this world is time - and I was praying plaw would have just a bit more of it. He endured so much, though. I know he is at peace and beyond any earthly pain now.
We exchanged many PMs and found that we had other things in common besides The Godfather. Music, Kingsborough College, stuff like that and more. He nagged me until I finally reread the GF book for the first time in over thirty years. He knew that book backwards and forwards. Nobody could spoof Puzo's writing style like plaw. His parodies were absolute classics. He should have written the "authorized" sequels, not Mark Whatsisname.
We only got to meet one time, but it was memorable. He came into Brooklyn this summer and we went to dinner together at Adelman's Deli (which is around the corner from where I live). He ordered tongue, which he loved. We talked about a lot of things, then off we went to meet Don Cardi and SC at a Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game in Coney island. It was clearly a tiring day for him, but he enjoyed seeing some of the Crew and getting out for a good time. I had no idea this would be the first and last time I would see him. We were supposed to go to Philadelphia together for the BB Convention, but it was physically too much for him.
I hoped that he might slowly regain some of his strength and grace us with his presence at the next local BB "sitdown" dinner. Perhaps at GoodFellas, the NJ restaurant that his "pal" Frank Vincent seemed to be "connected" to...like the rest of the BB, I was just waiting for his next post or a progress report.
Now, I'm more than a bit numb from the news.
God, I'm really gonna miss him. Rest in peace, friend.
Signor V.
-------------------- Do not go gentle into that good night... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. -Dylan Thomas
"For me, there's only my wife..."
"Sure I cook with wine - sometimes I even add it to the food!"
"When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?"
"It was a grass harp... And we listened."
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"
