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David Mitchell
Am I wrong, or doesn't the Ohio Pennitentiary connect with several writers? Didn't O'Henry write some of his works while a prisoner at the Old Pen? I think he served several years inside those walls. My dad always read to me as a kid - Dickens, Twain, Fennimore-Cooper, Stevenson, etc. But although he raved about O'Henry for years, he never read me any of his stuff (and I still haven't on m own)
Speaking of Dad's experiemces inside the Pen, he used to tell us about an old guy who was quite a charater among the inmates. After the Burt Lancaster movie "Bird Man of Alcatraz", this guy became known by the rest of the inmates as the "Bird Man" because he was allowed to keep pet birds in the Pen. I guess he was a very old man and Dad told us he had been inside forever. He said the old guy was a very intersting man but would not tell us what he was in for - said we wouldn't want to know.
And a few other Columbus artist connections:
We had some cousins who were Sigma Chi's at Ohio State. I seem to recall an older cousin who was a fraternity brother of Milt Caniff - who wrote the cartoon series "Terry and the Pirates" and "Steve Canyon".
And my Grandfather, who had come to Columbus from Maine a few years after 1900, spent a summer living in the older Beta house. His summer roomate was Columbus's own George Bellows - the famous American impressionist painter (he painted "Stag at Sharleys" - famous boxing scene below). Anyway George Bellows gave grandpa Leon a painting he had done as a gift at the end of their summer together. If I recall correclty was titled "The Beta Grip" and was (I think) a picture of a guy hugging his girlfriend. But someone stole the paintig out of their room just days before Grandap's time with Bellows was about to end.
(Yes, I just revised that last paragraph - remembered it more correctly after I first posted. Pretty sure that was at the Beta House, not the Sigma Chi house)
And finally Mike, my daughter, a free-lance writer gave me the same writing guide book of Seven King's years ago. (Still have not read it.) But get this - She and her husband moved with their kids to Bangor Maine last year and if I go up to the end of her block and turn east on Broadway about 6 blocks, I drive right past Steven King's house - a great big beautiful, old, turn-of-the-entury red Victorian house. Small world!
Stag at Sharkeys by George Bellows - Columbus native - this is NOT the giift to grandpa
(scroll sideways and up and down for whole scene)
 Sorry, the image appeared on the page last night, but it is gone now?????????
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