A Note to a Great Writer: Remembering Tom Robbins

A Chance Encounter

When I was in my early twenties, I found a book in a thrift store, and its cover captivated me. A desert scene complete with pyramid and palm trees gave it a parched feel. In the center, a large, Pileated Woodpecker carried an unlit match in its beak. Save for the bird, the cover mimicked a pack of Camel cigarettes. Stretching across the top, blue stenciled lettering arched above the airborne bird declaring, Still Life with Woodpecker. The author’s name, one Tom Robbins, seemed familiar, but I knew I hadn’t run across his books before. Intrigued, I bought it and headed home, excited and curious to see what lay waiting within its pages.

The next few days, I spent every second I could with Princess Leigh-Cheri and Bernard Mickey “Woodpecker” Wrangle as they navigated environmentalism, sex, and bombs. It is not your typical love story, which was fine by me.

Mystical Coincidences

One afternoon, I lay on my bed, the house to myself, which was a rare occurrence as I had no less that five roommates, my nose deep in Still Life when there was a knock at my window. Startled, and a little astonished, as my window was about six feet from the ground, I peaked through the curtains. Imagine my confusion when I found our modest front patch of grass empty. I shrugged and settled onto my pillow and got back to the sexy happenings between the pages.

I made it only a few paragraphs before the phantom knocker stuck again. This time, however, I was less engrossed, and noted that the knocking came from the top of the window, not the bottom. This realization made my heartbeat quicken. Was someone on the roof? If so, why would they choose that vantage point to knock on a window? Surely they were about to fall, having to lean over the eves.

I pulled the curtain aside again and, this time, glanced up. Imagine my wonderment when I found a Pileated Woodpecker clinging to the top of my windowsill. His beady black eye caught mine, and we regarded one another through the rippled glass. Feeling that I was not a threat, or that he could fly away before I pounced, he turned back to the old house, and drilled his pointy beak into the rotting wood of my window in search of juicy grubs.

The sight of the woodpecker threw me. I had never seen one before, having recently moved to Northern California from the desert. I had grown up with birds that were the color of dust and the size of golf balls. This beauty, with his crimson plumage and checkerboard undercarriage, was something to behold. The coincidence that he matched perfectly with the cover of the book held in my hand didn’t escape me, and this chance encounter cemented in my soul a special place for Robbin’s work. Yet, let’s be clear, Robbin’s mastery of his craft had already awakened a love affair with his writing that would last me the rest of my days. The synchronicity between the bird and the book was the type of magical occurrence Robbins’s novels are famous for, and it made the book even more special.

A Lifelong Fan is Born

Still Life with Woodpecker was my first tango with the offbeat world of Tom Robbins, but by no means my last. I was hooked. Like an addict in need of my next fix, I began hanging around the local used bookstore, perusing the R section in search of more novels by Mr. Robbins. His strong female characters, references to religion, and unorthodox plots kept me wanting more. I found a group of kindred readers, all lovers of Bonanza Jellybean, Pan, Wolfmother Wallpaper, and the silver, Catholic spoon traveling with a painted stick and a can of beans in a quest to find an airstream modified to look like a Thanksgiving turkey.

How to Blow Meeting Your Hero

Ten years after I discovered Still Life in a dusty thrift store, I had amassed a modest collection of Robins’s novels (It would have to be small. At the time of his death, two days day before the writing of this, he had only penned eight full novels, a collection of short stories and essays, one novella, and an autobiography), I got to meet the man himself.

Now, they say, never meet your heros. But I may counter, never meet your fans. I was so excited that when I finally got to the front of the line, my arms laden with hard covers, I spouted, “Does your hand hurt?” referring to his signing hundreds of books that evening. He gazed over his sunglasses at me, eyebrows raised in what I could only interpret as irritation, and said, “Yeah, a little.” And then it was over and I was crestfallen. Of all the words that could have come out of mouth, I wasted them on an absolute cliché.

The Life of a Legend

Tom Robbins passed away at the ripe age of 92 on February 9, 2025. Critics and readers alike celebrate him as one of America’s greatest writers, and his novels earned him numerous awards, including Bumbershoot Golden Umbrella Award for Lifetime Achievement (1997); Literary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia (2012); the Willamette Writers’ Lifetime Achievement Award (2015). Robbins enjoyed a colorful life including dropping acid with Timothy Leary, rubbing elbows with Terrance McKenna, hanging out with mythologist Joesph Campbell, studying mythology in Italy and Greece with Robert Bly, working as an art critic for the Seattle Times, hosting a radio show, and taking part as a board member for The Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas which is dedicated to fostering the creative writing of kiddos ages six to 18.

Over twenty years after happening across Still Life, I am still enthralled by Robbins’s work. His prose changed the way I viewed the written word and how I absorbed future books. His ability to craft metaphors alone would take me a lifetime to grasp, and I still wouldn’t hold a candle to his genius.

We will remember Tom Robbins, a poet and southern gentleman. As one of the finest writers to grace our fair planet. I believe it’s time to dust off my copy of Skinny Legs and All, and take the rest of the day off with a cold drink and spicy Mexican food.

Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer. — Tom Robbins (2003). “Jitterbug Perfume”, p.411, Bantam