An Author is a Person in your Neighborhood

On my regular walk around the neighborhood, I pass the peripheral of the old cemetery that banks the Hudson River on one side and the block where I live on the other. I've walked past this old portion at West 153rd & Riverside Drive so many times that I can't quantify the frequency. Yet a recent blog post from my old pal Jules got me thinking about a writer that inspires me, Ralph Ellison.

I read "The Invisible Man" years ago and like all who touched upon this remarkable piece of fiction, you turned the last page shocked, moved and inspired. There's a park near my building that features a quote from said novel. Little did I know that the local homages I see in the area mean that at one time Mr. Ellison had been a neighbor.

Apparently he is still a neighbor. Two blocks from my home at the end of the cemetery is an area where above ground crypts reside. They overlook Riverside Drive from a pristine wall of interred slots. And there, just as you round the corner onto the spacious roadway is Mr. Ellison himself, now joined by his beloved wife Fanny in eternal rest. I've passed this everyday. Now I stop and provide a slight bow in reverence to this remarkable author just as I scoot home from work or attempt to run along the curved road along the river.

In the novel that made this man famous was the epilogue: "America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's 'winner take nothing' that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many -- This in not prophecy, but description."

A truly remarkable voice.