Book Tours

Since the last day of January, Charlene and I have made two trips with four stops to promote her new book. We stopped at a church in Kentucky on our way to the Freed Hardeman University annual lectureship, then returned home before attending the Faulkner University annual lectureship and on to the Women of Hope conference in Murfreesboro, TN. It has been a heady time. 

Her book is a biography of Roberta, a friend of ours, who was targeted and brutally murdered on the streets of Port au Prince, Haiti. She was in Haiti raising abandoned children and feeding and educating many others. JoJo, a four-year-old, was kidnapped during the same event and has not been recovered since.

We chose these four venues because of people who would be there who had known Roberta. At the Women of Hope conference Roberta was been chosen as the 2010 Woman of Hope and had spoken several times through the years. 

At that conference, at least two people at different times saw the poster we had made of the book cover with Roberta’s name and picture on it and stopped cold. They put their hands to their faces, said “Roberta” and started crying.

Our intent in these journeys is not to make money. The books are priced significantly below the going rate. Our hope is to use Roberta’s story to inspire readers to aspire to the fortitude, perseverance, faith and trust in God, and love for God’s children, especially the downtrodden, that kept Roberta going through thick and thin – mostly thin.

Altogether we sold about 120 of the biographies and nearly half that number of my most recent book, “Growing Up White in the Heart of Memphis.” To see Roberta's biography check here.

Alex

The Quilt #5 - Alex

Alex has always been a delight to us. Our first grandbaby. And I guess we will always think of him that way no matter how much he grows up. 

He had a tiny little time-out chair in the hallway of our big old house on Robert Street and he loved it. Sometimes he would just stop by there and sit down for a visit. He never minded time outs. He would just turn loose his amazing imagination and let it soar. 

We have a picture on the wall here of him sitting in the kitchen window with the sheer window curtains pulled across him, just staring off into space. I have often wondered what is out there that he could see, and we could not.

He and his Granny snuck off to the attic one day to make me this t-shirt. Those are his handprints. On the back it said “World’s Best Grandpa” all spelled out in Granny’s handwriting.

I could write a whole book about Alex, and now that I think of it, I may do that someday. One of my favorite times with him was when the two of us took a road trip to Boone, North Carolina. On Robert Street, when he was about two, he fell in love with an audio tape I picked up in a specialty store in downtown St. Paul. It was Ladysmith Black Mambazo, still in the earliest days of their popularity.  

Several years later I learned that they were going to perform at Appalachian State University in Boone. It was 748 miles away, an eleven-hour drive, but we took off. He must have been about nine years old. It was a great concert and a delightful time. His arm was in a sling at the time. He had broken it in Minnesota before he came down to visit us for the summer. His last words before it broke were “Hey, watch this.”

On the way home we stopped by the Kennedy Space Center to watch them launch a manned satellite.

Alex is still a delight. His relatively new wife, Abigail, and his brand new daughter Ginny are his driving forces now and it suits him well. Dream on, Alex.

USMC

USMC

Quilt Part Six

Almost every time I write a resume, or a bio, I start off with the fact that I was a Marine Corps Captain with time in Viet Nam. That overshadows all the rest of my story. But I do know some former Marines, some Viet Nam vets, or both who let that fact become who they are. It has become their whole identify.

There is a bar on the East side that mid-afternoon, every afternoon, has a large pick up truck sitting outside with a Viet Nam vet sticker on the back. I want to meet the guy and probably will at some point. I am guessing that is who he is. Though I do have Viet Nam vet license plates on our van, there is a balance that needs to be maintained. If you get stuck in the past – who you were – it can keep you from moving on to who you want to become.

There is a ritual to two Viet Nam vets meeting. They are recognized by the ball caps, or less often the jackets. The one not self-labeled will identify himself. It may be in a grocery store or a restaurant, but he will make himself known to his brother in the ball cap. Then they will compare parts of the country where they were, what parts of the service they were in and the years they were there. There will be a brief reference to major battles and perhaps to the lingering effects of any injuries. If both were Marines the Marine Corps slogan “Semper Fi” will be exchanged, then as they part company each will say to the other “Welcome home.” That’s a recognition that during the Viet Nam war, service men were often not welcomed home. They were instead shouted at and ridiculed.

After they pulled me out of Viet Nam, they put me in a paper pushing job on an air base. It was part of the routine, established to ensure that all new officers got a balanced set of experiences, but I told them that if they had left me in the dirt and grease, I might have stayed in. I am glad I had that time in the Corps, but I am glad I got out when I did. Semper Fi.