Saturday was a fun day -- one that pushed me a trifle out of my comfort zone. I grew up a little bit that day. (And I met a wonderful senior citizen role model Ethel Tucker whose book From Pilot Knob to Main Street would inspire everyone that they can still write the book that they want to write. She was so beautiful and charming that I found myself hoping someday I can be even a little like her when I am in my eighties.)
I really did not want to drive to Sturgis by myself although my husband and everyone said it would be easy. And it was. Gerald printed me directions from his trip maker and also drew me a little map, which was very helpful. I had already looked Sturgis up in the atlas and had it laid out to take in case I got lost. Which was really silly cause the way was so simple.
Somehow I had heard of Sturgis, KY, many times, so I assumed it was a larger town than it was. It was my size town, and the scenery in Kentucky driving there was so beautiful. And a high percentage of the people there must be book lovers. I could not believe the wonderful foot traffic as people came all day long to buy books from the more than a hundred authors sitting at tables prepared for us.
The early morning drive was somewhat difficult because of heavy fog and a bright rising sun shining through it--especially at Shawneetown as I approached the bridge. I am always a little spooked about driving over bridges, but the fog was not that heavy on the bridge. I was sort of proud of myself that I arrived plenty early while a very young man said he arrived late because of the heavy fog coming down from Evansville. I just felt real competant and grown up that I had driven by myself although I still regretted that because of her surgery Lois Barrett had not been able to make it with her When the Earthquake Spoke. Of course, this was a rural drive, and I am a very experienced rural driver. It is city driving that is difficult for me--I can't read and process the signs quickly enough to be comfortable, and Gerald's directions to just "read and follow the signs" does not help me a whit.
I promised myself I would not buy any books, because I knew I would be at risk surrounded by all those authors and their books. I did really good too. I could not resist my tablemate's historical novel when I found out it was about her fourth great grandfather, who was one of George Rogers Clark's 75 men who made the "impossible" expedition through overflowing swampland across Southern Illinois during the Revolutionary War. I have already read A River Away with great fascination. I finished it at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. Marilyn Dungan's five years of research stored in four file drawers was obvious and made this novel's look at history especially meaningful. I wanted to buy Marilyn's latest book about her son a Kentucky veterinarian, but I resisted.
I was pleased to meet David and Lalie Dick, who have done so much writing about Kentucky. Although I hung around their table as briefly as possible for fear of buying more books, there was no way I could resist David's beautiful hardcover that was a biography of Jesse Stuart. Seeing the dedication to Naomi Deane and the youthful photo on Jesse on the cover, I am looking at it longingly and with great anticipation. Is anything greater than having a special book that you want to read all ready and waiting just for you?
When I stopped at the post office in Sturgis to find out where the convention center was, I saw another person inside and I was able to guess he was there for the same purpose I was. So I did not even have to go inside. I just asked for his directions. That author turned out to be Lee Martin, whose Turning Bones flyer was given to me some years ago by Gerald's librarian sister Ernestine. I have meant to order it all these years--it is in one of the genealogy piles of paper in my office. I did get the opportunity to ask him where his Martins came from, and found out they came from Pennsylvania and not Bedford County, Tennesee, so I guess we aren't related. (Or at least it would have to be even several more generations back if some of our southern Martins did happen to come down from Pennsylvania, which is a possibility I have heard mentioned.)
One of the delights of the Western Kentucky Book Expo for me was meeting several Illinois people, who had also ventured across that Shawneetown bridge through the fog: Mary Jo Oldham Morgan and husband Larry Morgan, the librarians from Harrisburg who were wearing "I am reading Silas House" buttons advertising their book promotions going on in Harrisburg, and many others whose names I failed to remember. Larry, who shares my alma mater Anna-Jonesboro High, had once hauled anhydrous to our farm for Gerald back when he had worked for Winfred Brown, and we had numerous connections of area people and places. Mary Jo had seen my book and sent him over to look at it as she thought he would be interested, and I was so pleased to autograph it for him. (Isn't it strange how the mention of a long-ago hometown friend, such as Winfred Brown, so warms the cockles of one's heart!)
The Harrisburg group had also had Lee Martin recently as one of their featured writers. I went up to his table a couple of times, but he was so popular that I could never find him unoccupied with fans and I did not want to interupt. That is for the best, cause I might have had to buy a third book.
4 years ago
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The following spam was voted "Best Blog Spam Ever" by the blogger known as The Walker:
October 3, 2005
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 362 7064
The Honorable Kenneth Wainstein
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
U.S. Department of Justice
555 Fourth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Mr. Wainstein:
The full text of my autobiography titled "Significant Moments" can be accessed on the web at http://signmomentsone.blogspot.com. The manuscript is unusual in structure, and is written entirely in the form of quotations from published material. I spent about ten years writing the document, from the spring of 1993 to about the year 2004.
From June 1988 to October 1991 I was employed at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, two of whose executive managers are Robert S. Strauss, Esq. and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Dennis M. Race, Esq. of Akin Gump designated himself the contact person regarding questions about my employment (202 887 4028).
From 1992 to 1996 I was an outpatient at the Department of Psychiatry of the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry, which at that time was chaired by Jerry M. Wiener, M.D. (now deceased). Dr. Wiener served in 1994-1995 as President of the American Psychiatric Association. He had earlier served as President of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Coincidentally, Dr. Wiener was Jewish and a native of Texas, like Robert S. Strauss (who serves as a trustee of GW's Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine). Robert S. Strauss has an interest in biomedical issues and endowed a chair in neurology at the University of Texas Medical School. Both Mr. Strauss and Dr. Wiener were graduates of the University of Texas.
I believe (without proof) that senior Akin Gump managers surreptitiously (and unlawfully) obtained draft versions of my autobiography which I submitted to my psychiatrists at GW. I further believe that Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. transmitted the draft versions to his close friend and confidant, former President William Jefferson Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton. If you recall, in the mid-1990s, Mrs. Clinton chaired an ill-fated national health care reform initiative that considered benefits for mental health treatment.
I understand that the willful fabrication of delusional symptoms to bolster a Social Security disability mental health claim would constitute a prosecutable act of criminal fraud.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
cc: Eugene Lambert, Esq., trustee, GW
David Kendall, Esq.
January 5, 2005
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
U.S. Secret Service
245 Murray Drive
Building 410
Washington, DC 20223
Dear Sir:
This will advise the U.S. Secret Service that I have been the victim of an ongoing fraud and racketeering conspiracy run by attorney managers of the Washington, DC law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld: a criminal enterprise that has involved The George Washington University Medical Center Medical Faculty Associates, The District of Columbia Public Library (Richard Jackson, Interim Director), as well as several high-level federal officials including former President William Jefferson Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and former Treasury General Counsel, Edward S. Knight, Esq.
The Government of the District of Columbia (Office of The Corporation Counsel) determined (in 1997) that I formed a genuine and good-faith belief (though unsupported by fact) that in January 1990 members of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld (a class of persons that included Edward S. Knight, Esq.) gained unlawful entry to my apartment (at the above address), and that the unlawful entry was made with the knowledge and consent of the firm's management committee (a class of persons that includes Robert S. Strauss, Esq. and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq.). Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, 96-CV-961 (DCCA, Sept. 1998), Brief of Appellee District of Columbia at 9. The firm did not dispute the District's determination or its legal or factual relevance.
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. is a close personal friend of former President Clinton's.
Secret Service Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot (now retired) is familiar with this matter.
Enclosed is a collection of pertinent documents.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
At 10:01 PM, Anonymous said...
best blog spam......ever.
the walker
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