Roger & Antidisestablishmentarianism & Me

One of my most prized possessions is an e-mail I received from Roger Ebert on April 3rd, 2010. He was telling me that I’d inspired a Twitter tweet of his, and he screen-printed the tweet for my perusal. I still have the e-mail in my Outlook Inbox, and so was able to take a screen print, thus:

Here’s the journal page Roger saw that inspired his tweet that compelled him to send the e-mail:

And here’s a link to another tweet, that awards Roger’s tweet Best Use of Antidisestablishmentarianism: https://twitter.com/kbeninato/status/11552988313

Lastly, here’s a Roger Ebert page I just finished today. It wasn’t the first Ebert page, and it won’t be the last. And let me make something clear: Roger’s generosity with his fans was thousandfold. What is a huge thing to me was something he did dozens of times a day. He read EVERY SINGLE THING his myriad fans sent him, and responded to an incredible number of them. I’m grateful for this tangible evidence that we interacted–it’s no coincidence that I’m doing this post Thanksgiving Day–but I’m sure that the number of people Roger similarly interacted with is well into four figures, if not five. And the number of people who miss him is in the millions.