Marry the Man With One Leg

In fiction, examples of great men missing all or part of one leg abound. From this, we learn that if you meet a man with one leg, you should marry him. Cases in point:

- Peeta Mellark. If you only know The Hunger Games through the movies, you might not know that as a result of his injuries, Peeta had to have a leg amputated near the end of the first book in the trilogy. Therefore, he competed in the Quarter Quell - and all the subsequent events - with a prosthesis. Although renowned for his baking skills, Peeta is no slouch when it comes to survival, both physical and mental. No wonder Katniss chooses him over Gale Hemsworth Hawthorn.

- Dan Evans. I haven't actually read Elmore Leonard's original short story, so I base this off Christian Bale's portrayal of Dan in the 2007 movie 3:10 to Yuma. Dan lost a leg in the Civil War. He then moved west, to the hot, dry climate of Arizona, with his wife and two sons because the younger son has tuberculosis. Before antibiotics (which came into common use right around the time of World War II), one of the few treatments they had for tuberculosis was a hot, dry climate. Dan's sole motivation in this film is earning enough money to keep from losing his property so that his child has a chance to live a little longer. Back then, everybody who got tuberculosis eventually died from it. A dad who'll put his own life in terrible danger to give his terminally ill child a few more years to live? That's a character whose character I can appreciate.

Sidebar: Most of what I know about tuberculosis, I learned from reading Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy.

- Augustus Waters. Gus - he's the teenage guy you'd actually want your teenage daughter to date. He's smart, well-read, romantic, funny, witty as can be, and in remission after the bout of bone cancer that cost him one of his legs. Gus is the actual perfect boyfriend. When he meets Hazel Grace Lancaster in their cancer support group, he knows their time together isn't likely to be very long, but he loves her perfectly in the time they have. Just don't read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars unless you're prepared to cry, then drop the book because you're crying, then call it a stupid book because it made you cry and drop it.

- Noah Langford. Noah is another war veteran, this time in Barbara Longley's contemporary romance novel series Perfect, Indiana. Noah is the hero of the first book, Far From Perfect. Noah slowly falls in love with Ceejay, but she is a very stubborn woman, and Noah is a very stubborn man, so their path is not entirely a smooth one. But they do manage to spend a night together, and when Ceejay discovers she's pregnant, it soon becomes evident that Noah's default setting is "amazing dad." Naturally, they live happily ever after. It is a romance novel, after all.

Far From Perfect made me cry, too, not because of Noah and Ceejay's rocky road to love, but because of the late-life romance between two of the secondary characters.

In real life, there's Alex Minsky. My dear goodness, is this one-legged man made out of gorgeous. Alex is a real-life war veteran and a U.S. Marine who lost the lower half of his right leg and wears a prosthesis - wears it so well, he's become a model.



Photographer Michael Stokes' nudes of Alex were famously banned for "obscenity" by Facebook, but sister, ain't nothing obscene about Alex's body.



So, when you find yourself a one-legged man, I suggest you marry him.

This is an affiliate link:

Oh How Pinteresting! Wednesday: Elmore Leonard Appreciation Post

One of the great prose artists of American literature, Elmore Leonard, passed away on the morning of Tuesday, August 20, 2013. Leonard was born in New Orleans in 1925 and later adopted Detroit as his home. His short stories, screenplays and novels were heavily inspired by the writing style of Ernest Hemingway, although Leonard accused Hemingway of using humor too sparingly. Leonard's crime noir style became a staple of U.S. popular culture, inspiring everything from a Quentin Tarantino film to a classic Western to the TV series Justified.

Leonard in 1989. Creative Commons photo.

This Oh How Pinteresting! Wednesday pays tribute to Leonard's prolific career - highlights, in my opinion. Feel free to share in the comments what your favorite Elmore Leonard works are.



I've never seen the classic movie adaptation of Leonard's short story (which he spelled "Three-Ten to Yuma").



The 2007 remake, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, is so much more than a Western. It's just a flat-out great story about a father who will go to any length for his family.



I read Rum Punch so long ago that I don't really remember if I liked it or not.



I do harbor a certain affection for Quentin Tarantino's characteristically over-the-top movie based upon Rum Punch, which is Jackie Brown.



Ms. Pam Grier is not only one of the most beautiful humans you will ever lay your eyes on, but she's also a genuinely good person who loves animals. You can follow her on Twitter. She's a loving, supportive, positive person and, really, there's nothing not to love about her.



I'm not going to lie to you - I ship these two so hard every time I watch this movie (and I've seen it at least five times). If I recall, the book has a sex scene between them, which the movie does not, and this made my heart very happy when I read it.

The only other Leonard novel I've read (well, listened to as an audiobook in this case) is Tishomingo Blues. Supposedly, it was Leonard's personal favorite.



This one was published in 2002. I remember really liking it. It was witty and funny in the noirish way that Leonard's works usually are and just really entertaining.



Surprisingly, I've never seen Out of Sight, which is unusual because I'm one of those rare people who loves almost all the movies Jennifer Lopez is in.



This is the short story collection that Justified in based on. I've never seen the show, but my dad is a big fan, and he's also read the book.



I wonder if Netflix has Justified. I'll need a new TV obsession soon, now that I've watched all the episodes of Orange Is the New Black and the True Blood season (and possibly the entire series) is over.