Arthur Miller has died, and somehow this is making me just about as sad as when i read the play “Death of a Salesman” and Willy Loman died.

oddly enough, Miller’s most famous play was not the Miller play i read first. when i was a junior in high school we had to read “The Crucible” and my supersmart English teach taught us a lot about metaphor, the red scare of the 50s, and the salem witch trial. of course the thing i remember most was how all the women were called Goodie Lastname. odd.

it wasn’t until the next year that my senior english class read “death of a salesman.” my senior english teacher, Baiba Olinger, was amazing. and when we would read the play in class she would actually transform herself into Willy Loman.

willy was a good salesman. it was something we always said, most randomly, in english class that year. even when we were talking about the lesbians in the Count of Monte Cristo, or Macbeth or Holden Caulfield.

it’s funny, because tonight i have to work at the bowling alley. every once in awhile, we have a sub on Friday night named Hap. and everytime i see him i think of “Death of a Salesman and i say under my beath “Willy is a good salesman.” i like to think he’s named after Hap Loman, but i think my Hap is about the same age Arthur Miller was.