Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Gilbert Frigate lost his male appendage in the men’s room of the Rialto Theatre. That’s how the novel Frigate began and I heard the whole thing read in person by the author himself. Marty Myers. In my last year of university I took a creative writing course and he was our instructor. In each class students read their work out loud, Marty included, and it was the best course any of us ever had. Marty was the first person who really edited my work and instilled the love of writing. He also taught two valuable lessons – throw your ego out the window, and remember the reader.
I was saddened to hear of his passing at age 96 and recall the last time we met, a long-delayed lunch when he was pushing 90. I couldn’t believe he was that age, but it was him. Tall and thin. Maybe a little thinner than before. But he was still Marty, a writer with this addiction to putting words together and making people laugh and while they were laughing, or maybe afterward, realizing there was something profound in what he was telling us about the human condition.
My big assignment in that class was writing a one-act play that would be performed by third-year drama students and Marty came to see it. When I got married we extended an invitation and he was there with his wife Colleen, and over the years we kept in touch giving each other blurbs for novels and saying to hang in there.
Marty was always a good friend and supporter. Maybe his best advice was when I told him about this gig doing a newspaper column.
“Don’t take yourself too seriously,” he said.
He was right about that. And about mortality, too.
Condolences to the family from Jerry Amernic and wife Dorothy.
