On this special day … let us remember young Errol in his own words …

“Looking at myself subjectively, I see myself, secretly, as a rather swell guy. Sure, I make allowances for myself. I find excuses for all the things I have done which I ought not to have done and vice versa. I can make the amends honorable (to myself) for all my sins. But outwardly, I can only see myself as a rather ludicrous poseur getting away with, simply, murder. How else can I explain my success up to now?

“I confess, I don’t take life seriously. I take life, if you ask me, as a very enjoyable joke. The most worthwhile things in life to me are its laughs. But because I choose to treat it as a joke doesn’t mean that I am not aware of the other side. I am also aware of the people who don’t take it as a joke because their self-importance overstuffs them. You see, I simply don’t believe that we are important, any of us. And an unimportant person can sit in the gallery and laugh his fool head off and have the hell of a time doing it. We only weep, don’t we, over tremendously important things? So, if everything, ourselves included, is unimportant, it remains to laugh.

“But I must confess that I am an extremely happy person despite my awareness of unhappiness. I am happy because I live in the realization of this moment. I have no future, nor any plans for a future. I don’t want to know where I am going to be or what I am going to be doing a year from now. I loathe routine. I detest clocks. I have absolutely no conception of time, and don’t want to have.

“I am fortunate in realizing that I am young. A lot of people don’t savor their youth while they have it. They appreciate it only after it’s over. I know that I am young now. I know that this is the time. I know that right here and now I am most keenly capable of zestful enjoyments, vivid excitements. I’m having them. I get everything I can out of each present moment.

“I think I can say, too, that I am uninterestingly without neuroses, inhibitions, or complexes. Even the best-selling inferiority complex is lacking in me. I’m not afraid of old age or death, much as I value youth and life. I’ll deal with them when they come up, not before.”

“I have the trait, childish, no doubt, of wanting to do anything I’m told not to do.”

“For the life of me, I don’t understand why a quiet, reserved person like myself should be involved in the news so much.”

“Life is not complete to me without a dog. I don’t know just what this companionship of man and dog really means. I’ve never analyzed it. I just know that I’m miserable if I don’t have my hound around. Maybe it’s because he depends on me for all of his good times. Maybe it’s because he so confidently expects that I will live up to his idea of me.

Thank you Errol.  You are indeed one-of-a-kind!

 

— errolsfan1130