TOM WOLFE

Tom was a top reporter and feature writer at the Tribune when I was a lowly copyboy, but we were on a first name basis. He had not yet written "The Right Stuff" or "Bonfire of the Vanities," but his "New Journalism" articles in various national magazines were fast winning him great fame. Tom was easy to spot from a distance; as he does to this day, he wore white linen suits and high starched collars. Then as now, he seemed other-centuryish. When I wrote my short piece in 1963 about the March on Washington which I attended,, I asked Tom to critique it. He did, and it was a rave. I've still got the original sheet of typing paper he wrote it on.