We're official now!

Imagine my surprise when, while wandering through the rows and rows and stacks and stacks and tables and tables of books at Barnes & Noble last week, I should happen upon the education section and see, staring back at me, my very own book.

Yes, it's finally happened. The moment we've been waiting for since my "Books and Authors" post in January of this year.

Added to the sensibility and readability of my book, I now have credibility, respectability and... availability!

These are all good things for people trying to prove they're authors not only because they can publish their own books, but because someone wants to read them.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised to see my book there. Afterall, it was me who, after writing tragically about not being in B&N, sent them a book to see if they'd like to carry it. It was me who worked frantically for months to get a distributor when they said they'd like to buy 100 copies but could only buy through a distributor. It was me who packaged 100 books in five different boxes and mailed them to four different places from Nevada to New Jersey. It was me who paid the postage to send them there, knowing I wouldn't make money on them even when I got my percentage after the distributor and bookstore and postman kept theirs.

Still, it was somehow a surprise to see "Keep the kids away from the power tools" sitting there, at about eye-level, cover out (not spine -- horror of marketing horrors) and waiting to be loved.

And now the miracle has to happen. Someone has to buy those 100 copies!

Someone who's perusing the aisles and tables and shelves at B&N has to choose my little book on what I learned about the world and teenagers and education by substitute teaching. Someone who's interested in people, in life, in learning. Someone who doesn't mind that it hasn't been featured on Oprah or isn't about anyone rich and famous. Someone who gets past the dislays on classics and New York Times best sellers and travel logs and science fiction fantasies all the way to the little section on education.

That will be the greatest and most welcome surprise.

Red, white and blue

He doesn't yet know the reason his Dad is gone. And that it has something to do with that flag.

He doesn't yet know the reason that flag's been placed next to his great-grandfather's grave. Or the significance of the word "veteran" on its stand.

When you're just old enough to discover things on your own, all the world's a playground and every object in it worth exploring.

But someday that red, white and blue object will be more than a new curiosity.

Someday he'll understand why his Mom had her baby without a husband nearby to hold her hand.

Someday he'll realize the sacrifice his great-grandmother made when she raised her first child alone for a time, as her husband flew fighter planes in the South Pacific.

Someday that flag will represent to him, like it does to so many in his family, love of country. And sacrifice.

Giving something of yourself. Going somewhere for someone else. Doing something inspite of fears or reservations or preferences, for something bigger than yourself.

_________

Dad will be home soon and Mom has lots of help from family. Great-grandpa got home and helped great-grandma raise six children all told.

The flag of the United States of America flies not only for them, but for all who believe in, and work for, and have been blessed by, freedom.

Leading or weaving

There are two ways to tell a story: my way and my husband's way.


My way is likely the result of journalistic training. Newspaper reporters are taught to tell the story up front -- the who, what, when, where and why first -- the "lead" -- and the details can follow for those interested in the rest of the story.


My husband, on the other hand, doesn't just tell a story. He weaves one.


He starts way back and fills in all the asides of interest (or not) and builds to the climax, with everyone sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for him to get to what finally happens.

Except me.


Because if it's a story I already know because I was there when it happened, I am positively apoplectic -- trying to bite my tongue and keep from getting to the end faster than he eventually will.


Take our Teton hike, for example.


If I were to tell the story, you would know right away that three miles into our hike to Ampitheater Lake, we ran into snow and had to turn back. If you were sufficiently amazed that this could happen in June, I would add that one of the kids just had sandals on, another thought he could hike two more miles in snow but stepped in one spot and sunk up to his thigh, or that we eventually noticed that everyone passing us had ropes and ice picks and crampons, etc. You'd get only as much of the story as you convinced me you cared anything at all about.


My husband, on the other hand, would more likely begin as we approached the park and noticed how low the snow was on the mountainside. He'd tell how we asked the ranger at the pay booth if the trail was open, and when she was unsure she asked another in the booth and both thought it was fine. He'd comment on the ranger we passed on the trail, who didn't mention the impossibility of such a trail for those dressed such as us, and on.


And you would be mesmerized.


Well, perhaps that isn't the best example of a mesmerizing story, and perhaps this isn't even one my husband would choose to dramatize, but we didn't see any bear so snow will have to do.


Perhaps a better story would be for me to tell about how when we entered the only restaurant overlooking the square in Jackson, which turned out to be a tavern, everyone was asked to pull out their drivers' licenses, but the guy at the door said he didn't need to see mine. And my husband could start with how I picked the restaurant based on its location and view (another way we two are different) and not its food or drinks or the sensitivity of its bouncer.

(I'll tell that story in detail if the picture my son took of me sitting next to a Budweiser sign shows up anywhere.)


There is no one right way to tell a story. I have very close personal children relatives that would make me very happy by telling more personal stories in any length or size or direction at all.

Stories are good, whether told with a lead or with a climax. Whether funny or interesting, profound or mundane.

And the people who tell the stories tell something of themselves in the telling.

Some of us just get to the end sooner.





















(Before it got deep.)