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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

followed by these miserable old cars. We had our rented car. We drove right in the procession. Of course, we were going right home from the funeral. The cemetery was on the way back to Memphis.

Then, a rather amazing thing happened. We went through the town square in whose centre the courthouse stands. The three or four policemen were standing there with their caps over their hearts. There must have been 2,000 people in that square, standing in the streets or in the stores or the second balconies of the stores. They stood there absolutely silent as we drove by. There wasn't a sound. It was as though the city was in suspended motion. And you could see that they realized that they had lost an important citizen. They hadn't read him. They didn't understand him. They didn't pay much attention to him when he was alive. But the fact that Life and Look were down there plus a corps of reporters and the fact that he had won the Nobel prize...

Q:

Of course this editor must have had some influence on the town too.

Cerf:

Yes.

Then we went out to this simple little funeral. About fifty people were standing there in the hot July sun. Directly it was over--a very short service, very unimpressive this service--Bill and Donald and I got into our car and beat it back to Memphis and flew back home. We wanted to get back for the Fourth of July.





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