Cross Country TWA

Woke up at 2:15 am after a Sunday of doing my best to ignore the outcome of the Face of Halloween Contest, given that the last time I checked, despite the unsolicited efforts of friends and family to push me past the goal line with money purchases of extra votes, I was mired in 2d place and apparently out of the running. I felt like I had let my supporters down, but given the money went to The Starlight Children’s Foundation, it was for an extremely worthy cause –

https://donate.starlight.org/campaign/679755/donate?utm_source=google_cpc&utm_medium=google_paid_search&utm_campaign=cbc_gsearch_bof_evergreen_donations&c_src=GooglePaidSearch&c_src2=bof_evergreen_donations&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=10204461546&gbraid=0AAAAACpG23zLLNglHAya8exIGA-SMRFbd&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0Y3HBhCxARIsAN7931VhI-5HJkldLv_uEG6LKJ22-1f4Q6dvqMnoYYLuqlgK5TUfozoYKQgaAm8bEALw_wcB

and the donations should be tax deductable. It’s not like losing that money at a dog track. Thank you all. I mean that. From the heart.

However, when I went on line to face the inevitable, I was met with a cryptic message from Kane Hodder – the bad ass acttor from the Jason Movies –

https://www.facebook.com/CharlieTop10s/posts/kane-hodder-the-actor-who-famously-played-jason-voorhees-in-multiple-friday-the-/1184182550420427/

So, I remain in the dark as to the outcome and my destiny as of the writing of this blog. Seems like Chicago may be voting the dead, again.

Will keep you all posted as the final returns are counted through the early hours.

But on a far more interesting note, yesterday, my dear friend and confidant, Renee Clarke, who appears by that name as a central character in Where The Ley Lines Meet, reached out to me with a DM on FB:

“I think you might find this interesting. I bought a used version of TWA to loan out to my friends and here is what was inside …

Now I only know two Geoffreys.

One is the British Gnome my sister – Veronica, the basis for “Bonnie” in The Claire Saga – brought back across the pond from her (and her spouse’s) Posh Townhouse across from Primrose Hill Park in London. That Geoffrey sits on Gnome Hill here on Casa Claire. I’m sure he’s much happier in his present surroundings. He is one of the original gnomes I bought West with me from Da Bronx, and the original basis for the idea of including the gnomes in TWA.

That’s Geoffrey, the little guy, front row, right of the photo. The only British Gnome in the bunch. But he has traveled the farthest to get here.

The other is Geoffrey Cobb, a Brooklyn Historian working with a group from Fordham University, who did a Zoom video interview of me on the date of the inscription for the Bronx Irish History Project.

https://www.irishecho.com/authors/geoffrey-cobb

I was never sent a copy of the interview. And quite honestly had forgotten all about it until Renee sent me the photo.

Luckily, my blog has a searchable data base (go ahead, give it a shot, there’s four years of blogs in that data base – better than an autobiography). And I was able to narrow the event down based upon the date of the inscription. So I let my fingers do the walking and a few minutes later, Voila!

Wherein was the paragraph commemorating the historical event.

“Yesterday I did a zoom interview with members of the Bronx Irish History Project. John McGuire, Geoffrey Cobb and – you are not going to believe this – Father James Joyce – of course, a Jesuit. It was a delightful 90 minutes of craic. A good time was had by all. I sent each of them an inscribed copy of The Claire Trilogy. Always be selling.”

Now what are the odds that Mr. Cobb somehow placed his copy of TWA back into on-line commerce only to be purchased in North Dakota of all places, by not only a dear friend of this author, but, as I mentioned, a central character of a book I had not even yet written at the time of the Bronx Irish History Project Interview. So that particular copy of that book went from my publisher in Texas, to here in Northern Colorado, to Brooklyn, then back across country to North Dakota. That is a well traveled copy. Here’s hoping it has actually been read at least once along the way.

Small magical world indeed. Mr. Cobb, I can only hope to someday be as famous as Ernest Hemingway, I already don his beard, so you will hopefully regret having surrendered your – at that point – extremely valuable inscribed copy of my first novel, TWA, and my dear friend, Renee, will reap the economic benefit, or at least the bragging rights of having a second inscribed copy of TWA just to loan out to her friends.

Indeed, it is only fitting that Renee plays such a central role in this story as this lovely woman is one of my few human friends who has actually visited Casa Claire and met Claire in person.

Renee has appeared in other blogs as well.

I’ve even had lunch with Renee’s lovely eldest daughter, Kylee Clarke.

And now Renee will also have that particular copy of TWA’s provenence. The book, like the Gnome, Geoffrey, has traveled quite a distance to reach its forever home, and that back story can only add to the joy of whatever friend she loans it to. Indeed, she should print out a copy of this blog and staple it into the back of the book in question. Thank you Renee for your continuing support of my work and for being the coolest and loveliest North Dakotan I have ever met.

Well, that is a long saga but worth the writing.

Okay, so here we are at another Monday. Don’t look it in the eyes.

You fine, five readers just get out there and do whatever it takes to sustain yourselves.

Always remember, you work to live, not live to work.

So, no matter whate else we have on our plates, let us all make today a great one.