Last year they rolled living Sci-Fi legend Ray Bradbury across the Comic-Con floor and propped him up in his wheelchair in front of the giant Jabba the Hut. & I say "propped him up" because Ray was clearly unconscious. &
And there he sat. & Alone in his chair on the convention floor, unconscious in his wheelchair, his head tilted sideways. & Immediately he was in the bullseye of a hail of flashes from dozens of cameras. & Although folks kept their distance, he was literally mobbed.
And here I was watching dozens of people photograph a sleeping old man, abandoned in front of one of the inspirational fruits of his legacy.
That's when it happened.
A woman jumped from the crowd to stand next to Ray, leaning down with her head beside his, beaming a zillion-watt smile. & Ray, meanwhile, was asleep. & He was 86 at the time and obviously frail. How proud that woman must have been of that picture, smiling like the Joker beside her hero.
Too bad she - and the rest of us - didn't treat our hero like one that day.
