My sister, Diane, had a yard sale. Friends and family showcased their items along her driveway, and large front yard. Shortly after I arrived, my brother-in-law, Jimmy, called me over to show me something.
“You’re the only one I knew who might be interested in this,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll probably just toss it in the trash.”
He directed me toward three cardboard boxes filled with original hand-typed plays. After a quick inspection, I knew they …show more content…
The playwright’s name was Thomas Oliver Crehore who, after a cursory Google search, I found out died in July of 2015 at the age of eighty. One by one, I pulled out the plays, the oldest being from 1959 and the newest from the mid-to-late 1990s. Some had hand-written corrections in the margins. One binder was not a play, but a loving tribute to one of his productions. The play was produced in Cape Cod, the binder filled with reviews and black-and-white photographs of the cast and crew. Tom (By now, I felt I knew him well enough to call him Tom) resided in New York City and Cape Cod, so he must have been doing something right. But …show more content…
During World War One, after being turned down by the U.S Air Service and U.S. Naval Aviation, Austen Crehore went to France and joined the French Air Corp. Tom should have written about his dad. Austen Crehore was part of a flying squadron known as ‘The Grim Reapers’. Austen Crehore is credited with saving another pilot’s life (his best friend, no less). He barrel rolled to shoot down the German plane that was shredding his friend’s tail-section with a machine gun. He then went on to win France’s highest award, the Legion d’Honneur.
Unless Tom Crehore walked on the moon while juggling chainsaws, he was never going to top that.
With that said, I needed to find someone who wanted these original manuscripts. Another search found that he was a member of the Dramatists Guild, so I sent them an email and explained what was no in my possession. Shortly thereafter, I received a reply from a Mr. Roland Tec, Director of Membership for that organization; he thanked me for the information and informed me he would forward my query on to Mr. Crehore’ s estate. I was assured they would reach out to me.
Excellent, I thought, I’ll just wait until they get in