WEBVTT

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I'm going to read a short and
then a regular length story.

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This will be sort of the
sherbet between the courses.

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I'm very fond of
short short stories,

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reading them and writing
them, and I was very pleased

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that in the course of People
magazine's trashing my work,

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they paid me an
inadvertent compliment.

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They were complaining that
my stories are so short,

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and the fellow called me
James Michener's evil twin.

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[LAUGHTER] This is
one of the reasons

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why it's from Reasons to Live.

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It's called "The Man in Bogota."

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"The police and
emergency service people

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failed to make a dent.

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The voice of the
pleading spouse does not

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have the hoped for effect.

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The woman remains on the ledge,
though not, she threatens,

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for long.

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I imagine that I'm the one
who must talk the woman down.

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I see it, and it
happens like this.

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I tell the woman
about a man in Bogota.

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He was a wealthy
man, an industrialist

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who is kidnapped
and held for ransom.

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It was not a TV drama.

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His wife could not call
the bank and in 24 hours

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have $1 million.

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It took months.

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The man had a heart
condition, and the kidnappers

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had to keep the man alive.

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Listen to this, I tell
the woman on the ledge,

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his captors made
him quit smoking.

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They changed his diet, made
him exercise every day.

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They held him that
way for three months.

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When the ransom was paid,
and the man was released,

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his doctor looked him
over, he found the man

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to be an excellent health.

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I tell the woman what
the doctor said then

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that the kidnap was the best
thing to happen to that man.

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Maybe this is not a come
down from the ledge story,

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but I tell it with the thought
that the woman on the ledge

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will ask herself a
question, the question that

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occurred to that man in Bogota.

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He wondered how we know that
what happens to us isn't good."

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[APPLAUSE] A generous audience.