Richard Pryor, R.I.P.: The day the Laughter died...

Ditto all the accolades that are being bestowed, and none will ever be enough. but to add my 2 cents:

Dear Richard,

We were spoiled by the presence of you. You made it look so easy and even when your personal pain became evident, what did you do, but make us laugh harder.

One of my favourite memories involves my love for you. In junior high, my Bestfriendinthewholewideworld and I would lay side by side in our sleeping bags with our heads propped on one of those mono-speaker cassette players, listening to tapes of "That N-r's Crazy" or "Outrageous" or...whatever pilfered from her brother's collection. One of us had to 'man' the pause button in case her father decided to pop his head in or, more likely, we were silently laughing so hard, we'd miss the next bit. It didn't matter that we could recite any of those bits verbatim, with perfect imitation of your unique cadence and the accompanying physicalites. We needed to hear you do it, over and over and over again. If the cassette got tangled, one of us would hold the tape flat while the other one spun it back into position with a #2 pencil. Nothing would get in the way of our own personal "Richard Pryor - Command Performances". We'd wake up the next day with the indentation of the cassette player on our temples, eager to listen for a just little more before we were called downstairs for breakfast.

To this day, if someone says,"This water's cold..." I can't function until I say, "And, it's deep, too!"

Thank you.
I love you,
Jodi