Of Black Shirts and Steve Jobs’ Sneakers

I’m a bit down today. Every time I turn on an electronic device Steve Jobs stares back at me from the Apple Website. His image is in black and white but his effect is one of bright color and explosive genius.

How can a man as talented and creative as he was be gone? It is such a simple question and answer – because he is.

I have been an Apple fan since the first Macintosh. I wrote my first book on it. The book wasn’t very good but the computer was amazing. I was using a Smith Corona electric typewriter just moments before and then all of  a sudden on that small black and white screen everything changed.

I have had an Apple ever since – over twenty years – though as my eyesight has gotten worse I really appreciate the much larger iMac screen that I write this on. I had the first Apple laptop. I bought an iPod. I bought an iPhone. I bought an iPad. Even if I didn’t buy the first iteration because I didn’t have the money I have always gotten my money’s worth and then some. My day job work is on a PC but my writing has for twenty plus years been on a Mac. I feel like there is a neurochemical link between the two of us.

I look at the picture of Steve Jobs and realize how important this man with the glasses and short hair and black shirt and sneakers has been to my creative writing life. One has grown with the other. This year my debut novel is published and Steve Jobs has died. I never met him but I live with his legacy. I will miss those talks he gave to introduce the next Apple big thing. I will miss thinking that something coming out of Apple would always be another big, life changing, thing.