A lot of people are moving a little slower today after three days at the Mayborn writer’s conference, held this weekend in Grapevine. There are plenty of entertaining anecdotes from the event, some of which I’ll put up in a later post. (Teaser: A multiple-Pulitzer Prize winner smoking pot, the dark world of reptile smuggling, and one Texas Monthly writer digging glow-sticks out of the trash at 2 a.m.) My favorite tidbit from the weekend though may have come from legendary — and dapper — sports writer (and HBO Real Sports correspondent) Frank DeFord.
It seems some time ago DeFord was in Dallas, working on a story about Jerry Jones. They were out at a bar and Jones was, in the words of DeFord, “going on and on,” when a waitress approached with a request. “She proffered up her breast,” DeFord said, and asked Jones to sign. Jones, agreed, so the story goes, but only if she would let DeFord sign the other. And did he? “Of course I did!” he told the audience after someone posed the question. “A writer doesn’t get a chance like that every day.”
