Who was Jack Kerouac? He was actually born Jean-Louis Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922. His most famous book, On the Road, was written in April, 1951, in Denver, Colorado. Here is an early quote from the book that reminded me of my dear Brokie friends:
“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everyone goes 'Awww!' "
Today I finally got to see the famous scroll of On the Road in person. It's a 120-ft roll of paper containing the 175,000 words of the manuscript. Because he was a fast typist, further fueled by coffee, Kerouac used Chinese calligraphy paper rolled into his typewriter so he wouldn't have to break his chain of thought while writing. Think what he could do if he'd had the Internet then!!