Big Audio Wednesday - Escape

Today's Big Audio Wednesday offering is a "classic" Arthur Conan Doyle story titled "The Ring of Thoth." It was presented on Escape on Aug. 11, 1947, and stars Jack Webb in a surprising turn as a non-military non-cop. (ETA: This broadcast is available on the Escape HQ Encodes page-the audio quality on these episodes is awesome, much better than most of the old radio transcriptions on Internet Archive). Click on the widget to listen.



As stories go, it just proves why Conan Doyle's non-Sherlock Holmes work has been mostly forgotten. It's not very good, frankly.

But aside from the novelty of hearing Jack Webb play a millienia-old sorcerer, I'm posting it today because of its central premise: a man who suffered a tragedy so great that he was unable to move past it, even after centuries had passed.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the greatest tragedy in my life. It's something I don't talk about; very few people who didn't know me then even know about it. But as bad as it was (and it was very bad--something broke in me that day that will probably never be fixed), I moved past it and have been able to find life and a measure of happiness since.

And that's the way it should be, I think. It may be very romantic to think about a love so great that it completely destroys you when it's gone, but I think it says something more and better about the human spirit that people are strong enough to absorb that damage and move past it and keep living.