The Triumphant Return (HOL 63)

House of Laughter 64

On the local N.P.R. station this afternoon, the announcer interviewed an author who had recently visited Winston Salem. She had written a collection of humorous essays about being from the South, and had spoke at a book festival. The journalist asked how her book came to be and her response fascinated me.

She was a housewife in Alabama and started writing a monthly newsletter to a few of her friends. The newsletter had a few humorous essays from a Southern angle. Eventually their friends asked to be included and then their friends and so on. After five years she had several thousand people subscribing to her newsletter. She never set out to publish a magazine. She went to a publisher and told them, there are several thousand people who are ready to buy my book if you publish it, so they did.

That story is why I am writing tonight. She never set out to write a book, she just wrote because she enjoyed it, and it connected her to people. I hadn’t written lately because our lives have been so hectic and I am generally a pretty lazy guy. However if I ever want to be able to go and tell stories of homespun wisdom to a paying crowd in Winston Salem on a publisher’s dime I need to get cracking.

We still have two houses. It turns out, now is not a good time to sell a house. Thankfully I am only reminded of this every time I turn on the radio, look at TV, or read a newspaper. I only mention it, because if you want to buy our old house, just let me know.

Isaac is now officially two. He and Nancy traveled for about three weeks this summer to Virginia and Florida. I met them down in St. Augustine for a week with my parents, and my sister’s family. Isaac really liked having his cousins around. He and Eli and Lily would ride together in the wagon to the pool every morning, and play with play doh and color in the afternoon.

Nancy, Isaac and I went to Animal Kingdom and EPCOT one day while we were down there. Normally this would be a nightmare, due to the heat, crowds, and price, but my cousin gave us a couple of tickets, and Nancy and I decided all we had to do was have a good time. If that meant watching flamingos all day, that was fine.

Isaac was a big fan of the train ride to Conservation Station. I too enjoyed Conservation Station, but mostly because Pocahontas was there (I loved that movie. It’s not that she was portrayed by an attractive young actress in a fake buckskin dress.)

The big hit of the day though was the Finding Nemo puppet show, and it almost didn’t happen at all. There was a huge line outside of the theater, but we got in it just as the theater opened. Isaac was tired and fell asleep on my shoulder. We had about a 20 minute wait in a dark air conditioned theater which would have been great if I didn’t trip and fall on the way in.

Since I was holding Isaac, I held him up and caught my other arm on the guard rail. This woke Isaac up and he was not happy. We finally calmed him down, but my arm was bruised and my leg scraped up. (I also fell onto an Arkansas Razorback fan who was pretty understanding.)

The show started, and it turned out we had some of the best seats in the whole theater. Dory the fish made her entrance right in front of us.. Acrobats ran through the theater with fish kites on poles that darted and circled overhead. Isaac was mesmerized by the whole thing.

Continued soon.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt