This story simply just warmed my heart. Like many others of my ilk (i.e. the generation who came of age in the often gaudy and cultureless culture of “the 80s”), I looked forward to few events with as much pure glee as a Bill Murray film. Yes, I am one among many in that massive, devoted audience who “grew up on” Bill Murray’s deadpan antics. In fact, I believe Murray’s performances single-handedly informed me about the very meaning of that word, deadpan. I still remember my first Bill Murray film and can even more vividly recall my response of falling from the sofa to the floor laughing at that scene in Ghostbusters when the giant library bookshelf creaks, teeters, and falls—and nearly squashes Dr. Peter Venkman in the process. And I believe Murray’s reaction to the mishap made me laugh all the more uncontrollably.
Few memories from my childhood survive with such forceful nostalgia as that for Murray’s roles and movies—except perhaps for baseball and baseball cards, which stack up very closely to this high esteem. Thus the story of author Peter Richmond’s few days of complicit misadventures with Murray in Chicago soaking up the ballpark sun, beer, and Polish sausage proved an almost Proustian read and experience. So grateful was I for this glimpse that I was compelled for some show of appreciation.
After an utterly embarrassing amount of time, thought, and effort, I finally came up with this.
(My thanks to thingsdonetocards for partly inspiring this creation–and since I kind of borrowed part of their Fleer ’82 Tony Danza/Micelli fantasy card as a template.)
