Status Updates From Hearts in Atlantis

Well. I've gone back and forth on whether I'll just read the two stories that definitely tie into the Dark Tower, but those stories don't have their own GR option, and I surely don't want to claim to have read a book when I've not read all of it, so I suppose I'll leave Roland and Co. back under the beam for a wee bit.

Finished Blind Willie. Really liked it. This is definitely Stephen King at his most philosophical and I’m here for it.
The whole scene of him looking at the scrapbook of memories at the end was king of heartbreaking. Like watching someone’s life fly by in an instant.

I’m not sure I’ve cried so much while reading a book before. The last third of the titular story “Hearts in Atlantis” was so powerful. A reminder of the efforts made by brave groups and individuals despite the resistance from the arbiters of propriety, striving to uphold traditionalism or the status-quo—gray-people. Not just then, but now.
When my time is nearing, I want to be able to say I tried.

Good stuff.
“A good deal of edible artwork came along the conveyor belt during my time in the Palace dishline, but I think that one was the all-time champ. Stoke Jones would no doubt have called it a waste of time, but I think in that case he would have been wrong. Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.”

I loved Low Men. It ended with the heartbreaking reality of growing up.

I got a little deterred by the slow start of the titular story, but I’m warming up to it now!
“Us class clowns aren’t wild about making friends—two or three are apt to do us for a lifetime—but we don’t react very well to the bum’s rush, either. Our goal is vast numbers of acquaintances whom we can leave laughing.”
I feel this.