Hard to Imagine Another Like Him   

I’m 57, and first came across WFB when I was 14. The book was “The Jeweler’s Eye”, and it was instrumental in instilling two things in me: one, a love of language that has lasted all my life (I went on to become a language/linguistics teacher), and two, a BS Dectector. The BS Detector came into being by reading and listening to WFB. It enabled me early on  to cut more quickly through the BS and get to the essence, be it Right, Left, or Center. To paraphrase Jay Nordlinger in his tribute on this website, he didn’t teach me WHAT to think, but rather HOW to think.

While an SDSer in the Sixties, I picked up “National Review”, and discovered, among others,  Frank S. Meyer, Hugh Kenner, and Guy Davenport, who would become my long-distance mentor for nearly a decade.

It has only been in the past few years I have come to see how deeply I was influenced by this man, even though I didn’t share many of his ideas. I continued to read him, and when I needed to clarify some current political question, I’d go online to get his take on it.

I only met him once, c. 1971, after a speech he gave in California:  a handshake, a book signed, and a “Good question, by the way”, refering to a question I had asked. Half a dozen letters: I have the impression that he answered every letter that he ever received.

It is hard to think of someone who has had this kind of influence in our time, and who touched so many people. And its even harder to imagine that we will see anyone like this in the future.
Richard Laubly, Paris, France

03/03 11:36 AM