Regarding Ray ripoffs, I do have a reminiscence. I watched the 1980s series
21 Jump Street regularly and couldn't help noticing in a 1989 episode, "Woolly Bullies," described here,
http://www.tv.com/shows/21-jum...oolly-bullies-75250/, the part of the storyline involving officer Douglas "Doug" Penhall's character was a direct ripoff of Ray's short story "The Utterly Perfect Murder." I wrote Ray explaining that character had always been named Doug, just like the guy in his story, so that was just coincidence, but the plot was a direct steal of his story.
Ray never answered, and I contacted Donn Albright saying it was awfully funny that Ray almost always answered my correspondence but had nothing to say about that, especially in view of the fact that he went to the Supreme Court over the
Fahrenheit 451 steal in the early days of TV. Donn explained that Ray said it happens all the time, intentionally or not, and if he took the time to pursue every such case it would take up too much time and energy so he chose to ignore it.
I thought I was going nuts when I had Ray flashbacks watching
Dirty Dancing, but finally realized I was remembering Ray's story "Some Live Like Lazarus" only with the rich and poor roles of the male and female main characters reversed. I sure recognized the situation and setting. A similar setting turns up in Ray's story "Someone in the Rain," which may be confusing to some readers who might not associate Ray with summer resort stories.
Incidentally the story "The Utterly Perfect Murder" disturbed me because it implied or stated Doug was a successful writer. I had also been plagued by childhood bullies, not as badly as Doug, but enough to make a lifetime goal that if I succeeded as a writer I wouldn't be bothered by these memories anymore, even to the extent that Doug was in the story. The other story of Ray's with which I can never reconcile to the ending is "Season of Disbelief" from
Dandelion Wine.
