Several months, and hundreds of man-hours later—mostly by others—the launch party for A Life of Dreams is in the books. It was an incredible experience in so many different ways. To distill it down into a blogpost will be a challenge. This one might be longer than most, so get yourself a snack and let’s get started.
I will not here retell the story of my wife’s immeasurable contributions to the success of this event except to say that without her creativity and devotion the entire project would have gone down in flames. She is and continues to be the one irreplaceable of my life. But, she had lots of help…
These three women make the world go round for me. Whenever something important is in the wind they show up in force. My big sister Linda is the one holding on to my shoulders—the exact position she took when I was five years old when it was time for the family photograph at Sherando Lake. She has been trying to make me stand still for all of her life. My other sister, Paula, brought her organization and work skills to bear on this party by taking charge of things, but more importantly, baking and bringing the Cowboy Cookies. Of course my two capable brothers in law got roped into this event as well and their contributions were tremendously helpful and appreciated.
Then there were a long succession of friends and family who pitched in with great skill and generosity, from serving food and drinks, to set up and tear down, all the way to the group of four Generation Whatevers who manned the sales table like maniacs on commission!!
The only important contribution I made to the evening besides actually writing the book in question was choosing the emcee. This was an easy decision since it couldn’t have been anyone other than Tom Allen. Tom, being a writer himself, knows a little about the concept and could appreciate the nuanced answer I gave when someone asked me what I did when I got writer’s block. My answer was deep and insightful, “I don’t write.” Afterwards Tom says to me, “Why didn’t I think of that?” But seriously, he handled all emcee duties flawlessly with his customary wit and lightness. Plus, he works cheap.
But then there was this…
I had been quite nervous in the days and hours leading up to the party. In fact I spent one such day in a furious wage because of a printing error that had placed the first 19 pages of someone else’s book in front of mine! To make matters worse it was a book of poetry! Very bad poetry!! Just about the time I had cooled down from that fiasco it dawned on me that I would have to read a chapter of my book in front of 135 people, something I had never done. Look, reading a book like “The Watson’s Go To Baltimore” and doing all the voices in front of 15 family members at the beach doesn’t count as public reading. Mostly because, it wasn’t my book. So, I was nervous. But then I looked out at this crowd of people and immediately felt at ease. The people in these two photographs come from many different parts of my life. I could tell you stories about each of them. There are people I’ve known all my life, some for over forty years, others just a few years. But every one of them had gone to the trouble of coming out on a stormy, rainy Monday evening in Ashland to support me and to celebrate with me. I cannot tell you how much that meant. At my age a man becomes more aware of what and who is really important. All of us spend our lives working, providing for our families, accomplishing things great and small. We worry, we fret over things. We enjoy great successes, we suffer humiliating setbacks. Eventually we lose someone dear to us and we grieve. But along with the experiences that are common to man we also, if we’re lucky, accumulate a great cloud of friends who help us through all of it. These are the people who count, the ones that belong to your small tribe, the ones who show up to listen to a 66 year old first time published author read a chapter of his book, and they smile and applaud when you’re done. When this happens you’re tempted to think that you’re one of the luckiest people in the world.
After the reading there was a surprise guest who arrived by way of a note she wrote to be read aloud by Paula. My daughter who at that hour was busy having a wilderness sleepover with 50 5th graders, sent her congratulations via a heartfelt tribute about things I wasn’t even aware I had done for her when she was a child. She spoke of how I had contributed to her love of language and writing by watching me write in my old leather bound journals back in the day. Like most dads, I wasn’t even aware she was watching all those years ago. I was so busy juggling chainsaws while riding that unicycle up on the high wire, I didn’t even notice. As I listened to Paula read I realized that I might not even be the best writer in my own family!
Pam and I got home after 10:00 and Lucy was nowhere to be found. It was as if she had vanished into this air. It had been a stormy night and she is famously terrified of thunder and hard rain. Finally we found her in the utility room where she had apparently fled during the storm only to somehow pull the door closed behind her! So she was trapped in there all night. Now we have dog-owner guilt. Maybe I should write a book!
So, if you are reading this and were in that crowd last night, from the bottom of my full heart, thank you. If not, then buy a book, read it, like it, and write a review!
No comments:
Post a Comment