...A new manuscript of a novel my father just finished is still open on his desk — he was working on it on his last day at home before he fell and broke his hip and the congestive heart failure had its final say, from all the bacon and cigarettes. The novel, entitled “The Reunion At Herb’s Café,” tells readers where his major fictional characters ended up. His most famous and true creation was Billy Clyde Puckett, a sort of composite of all the dashing NFLers he knew. I stood over the manuscript this morning in tears, and then read a line, and almost spit my coffee.
In the book, Billy Clyde is a retired old man, with two dogs.
He named them Tom and Giselle...