‘Tell Leon We Love Him’
Health Issues Keep Leon Hale, 99, from Participating in Book Launch With His Wife
Although legendary Texas newspaperman Leon Hale missed the official launch of his 12th book last week, his star never shone brighter than it did that evening. That’s because Babette Fraser Hale, Leon’s wife and the woman he has always referred to in his columns as his partner, spoke from the heart during the poignant and frank hour-long Zoom presentation.
Approximately 200 diehard fans had pre-purchased Leon’s book from Brazos Bookstore in Houston, which hosted the online event. After the moderator welcomed viewers and made brief introductions, she turned the program over to Babette, who stated the obvious.
Alone in front of the computer screen
“I’m not Leon Hale,” she said, facing the computer screen in the couple’s bedroom at the old farmhouse at Winedale.
Leon was unable to participate due to health issues.
After articulating her sadness and regret, Babette, who was unveiling her new collection of short stories that evening, then redirected the audience’s expectations.
She held Leon’s proxy.
“So this evening, we’ll have a discussion about Leon Hale and his work rather than a conversation with Leon Hale,” she explained. By accompanying her husband to about 100 different presentations over the years, she had memorized the answers to readers’ most commonly asked questions.
Leon and Babette wrote their new books, “See You On Down the Road” and “A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers,” respectively as a COVID project. They worked on computers 20 feet apart in the Winedale country home they’ve enjoyed together for almost four decades.
Leon’s book is described as a retirement journal and Babette’s is a collection of 12 short stories, some of which have already won accolades. What binds the couple’s new non-fiction and literary fiction books together is more than a sense of place. It is a real place: the rural area between Round Top and Brenham.
Her intense characters grapple with issues
“Most of the characters in my stories are newcomers searching for something they often cannot name and usually finding something quite different,” Babette noted before reading from “Wolf Moon,” a story about how a displaced New Yorker’s ambivalence toward guns fractures two families. It is told from two points of view.
“These are not funny stories. That’s not part of my toolkit.”
Kirkus Reviews endorsed Babette’s collection by saying, “Hale’s lovely prose shows a keen eye for detail... (as she) explores... the book’s recurring theme of desire – for freedom, for clarity, for autonomy and for personal fulfillment.”
To introduce Leon’s latest book, Babette read from the introduction to “See You on Down the Road.” He started writing it in 2014 and continued through his birthday on May 30, 2020.
Excerpt from Leon’s new work
“This is the beginning of what I’m calling a retirement journal. I considered naming it the “Last Days of Leon Hale,” but that seems pretty smart-ass and might tempt the fates to put an end to me before I finish the first paragraph. I’m somewhat late getting started on this project and here’s why. When I finally quit doing the column, I was so fed up with writing sentences that I didn’t want to produce another for any reason.
“I wanted to see what it felt like to live a little while without putting as many as a dozen words together that made sense, to go to sleep at 11 o’clock without worrying about an idea for the next column. I’ve lived that way now for more than three months. I have enjoyed it ever so much: sitting on the front porch here at the Winedale place, reading and listening to the birds and doing not one lick of anything kin to working for a newspaper. The only labor of any kind I’ve done is clean up the kitchen and make up the bed.
“So am I tired of living this way? Why no, I’m not tired of doing nothing, but I’ve developed a small problem. I keep hearing this whisper. Sounds a little like it’s coming through my hearing aids when they’re not working. The whisper says, ‘You ought to be working. You ought to be working. You ought to be working.’
“Okay, so I ought to be working, but at what? I’m simply not ready to pursue the projects I talked about back before I quit. I said I had part of a play written and close to a third of a novel and other unfinished work that would keep me busy until it was time to attend my own funeral, but that work is not exactly beckoning me. In fact, I’m not interested in it right now, but I would like to make that whisper go away, so I’m starting this journal. It pretends to be work at least. I’m somewhat curious about what will show up in it.”
Sharing memories and daily life
In the 245 pages that follow, Leon writes about whatever comes to mind. Some of the entries are a few paragraphs while others are several pages in length. A pleasant, comfortable read, “See You on Down the Road,” will delight those who still miss Leon’s longstanding newspaper commentary. Yet, the book contains surprises because some of the personal stories and private viewpoints would never have appeared in his daily columns.
When the program reached the question and answer phase, viewers were quick to thank Babette for her work and for standing in for their beloved Leon.
“I started reading Leon Hale when I was 11 years old,” an audience member named Betty said. “I’d come home from school, get a snack and read the paper, which at that point meant Dear Abby, the comics and Leon Hale. My parents were big fans of Leon, so before the internet, Daddy would cut out the columns and mail them to Uncle Ray every year.”
“I’m wondering if perhaps Leon revealed to you where Madam Z’s place was on the Brazos River Bottom?” inquired Mason. “Those columns had such a profound effect on me. I would sit and look at a map, daydreaming about where Madam Z’s place was. I had my own theories about her.”
As he signed off, Mason added, “Tell Leon we love him.”
Babette confirmed that Leon had not divulged Madame Z’s location nor where he would stop and visit with the talking mule either.
Jennifer, who shared Leon’s birthdate of May 30, asked whether it bothered him that his birthday was celebrated as a national holiday.
Babette replied that it did. “I think the older you get, the more sort of disconcerting it is. He still feels that May 30 is Memorial Day, not his birthday.”
As to the number of Labrador retrievers the couple had enjoyed over the years, the answer was four full blooded and a fifth that was only half Lab.
When queried about a possible motion picture featuring Leon’s book, “Bonney’s Place,” Babette explained that the rights were languishing as an asset in the estate of a deceased popular actor.
When it came time to close the session, Babette put Leon’s appeal to a broad audience in perspective.
“Leon’s work appeals to people not just in Texas but in Ohio and other states. It appeals to different races. The humanity of the experiences and the way he treats the experiences in memory are truly wonderful.”
Readers couldn’t agree more.
For more information about the two new releases published by Winedale Books, visit https://www.winedalebooks.com. “See You On Down the Road” and “A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers” are available from Brazos Books in Houston, https://www.brazosbookstore.com, The Fayette County Record in La Grange or Amazon.