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    John Walton Thompson II

    john-obit-cropped-3My brother, John Walton Thompson II (b. August 6, 1954), passed away on September 14, 2016. He was 62. He would have hated that I have revealed both his middle name and the “II,” the “two-th,” after his name. He hated the Walton, for reasons obvious to anyone old enough to remember the television program “The Waltons” and “John-boy Walton.” Our family was sworn to never reveal his middle name–an old family one foisted on my father and my brother by our Grandmother–to his friends. (Sorry bro, but if you’d wanted to keep these secrets, you should have stuck around.) It was ironic that, after 9/11, “John Thompson” became a suspected terrorist name, and when John wanted to fly, he found it easier to use “J. Walton Thompson.” Continue Reading →

  • In Family

    Living Legend

    Twenty-plus years ago, when I decided to freelance full-time, my father wrote me a long letter extolling the virtues of corporate job security, medical…

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