AJR  The Beat
From AJR,   June 2002

In Memoriam   

Brian Dickinson, a Providence Journal columnist who kept writing after Lou Gehrig’s disease immobilized him, dies at 64.

By Kathryn S. Wenner
Kathryn S. Wenner, a former AJR associate editor, is a copy editor at the Washington Post.     


Brian Dickinson, 64, who for years wrote eloquent columns for the Providence Journal after Lou Gehrig's disease left him unable to move anything but his eyes, died on May 4. "Faced with the cold reality of this awful illness, what was I to do?" Dickinson once told AJR (see "Writing for His Life," March 1997). "I could turn toward the wall, steep myself in self-pity and thus compound the misery of my situation.... Or...I could take a deep breath, and with the loyal support of my family, resolve to make the best of a cruel situation, trying to gain some benefit from what time remained to me." Dickinson started with the Journal as a reporter in 1964 and became editorial page editor in 1981.

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