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Bob Dyer: Gold rush continues in Seattle

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I want a cut of the royalties.

In April 2012, I wrote about an unusual connection between an Akron resident and a popular mystery novelist from Seattle.

Four years earlier, Bob Gold had shot an email to author Kevin O’Brien joking that Gold’s daughter, who lives in Seattle, was frequenting too many of the places that were settings for a serial killer in O’Brien’s latest book.

O’Brien wrote back, and they struck up such a friendship that in O’Brien’s next novel, Terrified, the name of an expert forger was — yep — Bob Gold. And the name of the character’s daughter was Dana — same as Gold’s real-life daughter.

I thought that was cool and wrote a short column item about it. Gold says the column led to an immediate spike in O’Brien’s website traffic and eventually to an all-time high for his book sales in Ohio.

Ordinarily, I’d tell you that O’Brien’s new novel, his 13th, is called Unspeakable, and I’d tell you that several pages are devoted to a character named Dana Gold-Roberts, a pretty, blond University of Washington freshman visiting her therapist for a sleep disorder. But I ain’t telling you nuthin’ until I see a paycheck from O’Brien’s publisher.

Brain drain

Not many people will freely admit they have fewer brains than they had the day before. But Chuck Collins was right upfront about it after undergoing brain surgery to remove a tumor the size of Pittsburgh.

The program director for radio station WAKR (1590-AM), Collins expects to visit the station briefly today and return to work on a limited basis by mid-August.

His surgeon apparently nailed the tumor but spared Collins’ funnybone. As the Beacon’s Rich Heldenfels noted last week, Collins sent friends an email saying the good news was “no long-range damage to my voice or motor skills,” but the bad news was “no apparent increase in math skills.”

He’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s trying hard to stay upbeat.

Shaq logic

Janice Charton of Tallmadge thinks she knows why ex-Cavalier Shaquille O’Neal endorses a pain-relief product.

It’s because he also endorses a midsize automobile, the Buick LaCrosse.

By the time he folds and unfolds his 325-pound, 7-foot-1 frame into and out of the car, he needs some Icy Hot.

Spooning

Sunday’s column about a woman’s quest to have spoons automatically delivered with knives and forks at Bob Evans restaurants struck a chord with Akron reader Jean Royer.

She inherited a spoon with special meaning. It belonged to her late father, John Royer, a veteran of World War II. He carried the spoon in his pocket during the Normandy invasion, where he was a dispatcher on Utah Beach.

Jean Royer says he acquired it through a somewhat shady “midnight requisition” and took it everywhere.

“He said the reason he had a spoon was he could eat anything with it,” she says.

Take that, Bob Evans.

Secret ridge

Bob: I was reading the BJ when I discovered an article that said our Northeast Ohio Indians “crossed the Continental Divide” on their way to the Tuscarawas River.

Hmm. I thought I crossed the Continental Divide when I drove through Colorado. Did they move it?

Mind you, this is in a “Newspaper in Education” column.

Can you make sense out of the article? Or is this just a big mistake on their part?

Judi McCort

Akron

Judi: I must have missed the same geography lesson you did, because the only time I have ever used the term “Continental Divide” was in conjunction with the Rockies.

And, OK, in a highly underrated John Belushi movie of the same name.

As it turns out, there are bunch of other continental divides in this country. I think those continental divides should fire their publicists.

Sure, I knew that rain falling in northern Summit County rolls north, ending up in Lake Erie and, eventually, the North Atlantic. And I knew rain falling in southern Summit County rolls south to the Ohio River, eventually dumping into the Gulf of Mexico.

And I knew the dividing line runs right through Akron.

What I didn’t know is that our line is one of six continental divides, including the big boy out west. It’s called the St. Lawrence Continental Divide.

This could come in handy the next time you’re on Jeopardy!

Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.


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