Book Signing and Reunion in Ohio

I spent last weekend in Sandusky, Ohio, where I spent a fair number of hours at the Kalahari Waterpark Resort, signing books—and also enjoyed a reunion with a lot of high school classmates, many of whom I had not seen in forty years. Everyone looked just the same (yeah, just like I do). I sort of, almost recognized a lot of people—especially after we all put name badges on. Everyone greeted me warmly, a little bit like a homecoming celebrity (strange, but nice, I thought); and I finally found out why everyone recognized me so easily. Turns out, a new hometown newspaper whose existence I hadn’t even been aware of had run a nice front-page spread on me that week! I had no idea what people were talking about when they referred to the newspaper article—but finally, just as I was packing up to leave, I was given a copy. Nice!

My wife wasn’t there, so the mice got to play: during the music and dance part of the reunion, I finally danced with all those girls I was too shy to ask to dance with me when I was in high school! (Danced with them all at once, more or less.) The book signing went very well; a few people (not classmates) had even come looking for me, because I’d posted info on my web site. That’s not something that happens every day. I even sold enough books to cover my airfare!

Plus, I brought back five 12-packs of Vernors ginger ale. (Yay!) I had it neatly and securely duct-taped together, but the airline made me buy a box from them to put it in. (Boo!) Hey, Vernors—you make great ginger ale, so how about selling it in New England, so I don’t have to keep doing this, eh?

The following pretty well expresses how progress on my followup book to Sunborn is coming:

“Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” —Gene Fowler