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Neat how a photograph can send me backward…this one from Bob taken at a signing in Iowa City brings back memories of a warm evening, a great cup of drip coffee that morning at the Java House, and sitting on an I-80 on-ramp with the window open to the sound of birds and blowing grasses as I did a phone interview with a radio station back home.  So thanks, Bob:

I don’t recall if I ever posted this.  Last spring during book tour in Seattle I was invited to sit down with Nancy Pearl, the librarian who has her own action figure.  If you are an author, going on Nancy Pearl’s show (“Book Lust”) is like having an audience with the Pope, being on the Tonight Show, and meeting Elvis – all rolled into one.  As of this typing, I haven’t seen the whole interview, but I did watch enough to come up with a question of my own: Did I even answer her first question?

It’s fun to joke, but long before I met Nancy Pearl, long before I sat down to do this interview, she made  couple of mentions of my books on National Public Radio, and those mentions had a very direct effect on the continued life of those books.  So I am grateful, and if you think I look like I’m sitting for this interview in the manner of an eager first grader on his best behavior as he recites his spelling words for Teacher, well, so it was.

Had some voice trouble last year.  Good news was, I knew a great speech therapist.  Not only did he help me out, we had fun doing it.  Among other things, if you see me driving down the road saying “mmmmmMMMMMMMMWHAHOWAREYOU?” over and over, it’s fine, I’m just workin’ out.  Drive on.

He has also decreed – especially when I’m on the road – that I do morning and evening sessions with a steam inhaler (clearly I am working my way up to diva).  Today as I was leaving the hotel room I saw the steamer sitting there and wondered what someone might think if they came in and didn’t know the backstory.

So.  To the kind person who delivered clean towels in my absence, no, that’s not an electrified water bong.

Although I know at least three dudes who could totally do the conversion.

What a neat way to remember the Coop tour of 2009: with a video from Wisconsin Public Television.

A special thanks to Frederica for all the introductions over the years and to all the rest of the Here And Now crew for the work that goes on behind the scenes and in control rooms just so I can yap about books and chickens.  I’ll continue to do essays for WPT but they’re switching them to a different show at a different time.  We’ll keep you posted.

Whenever I wrap up a book tour or even one of my shorter road stretches, I find I’ve accumulated a collection of disparate gifts and mementos.  Books, notes, green-shelled eggs, tomato plants, snickerdoodles, funky magnets, a fine pair of slippers with cow appliques (those were actually mailed — thanks T!), t-shirts, rooster sweatshirts, inexplicable hoodies, fire department patches, truck mirrors (yep, you bet)…each thoughtfully presented by a reader somewhere out there.  During book tour – especially if I am flying and traveling light – I often have to box them up and mail them home, so they’re waiting for me here in my office upon my return.  When I’m driving myself, I keep a box or two in the back of the car and pile the goods in there.

After a couple of months of heavier touring I still have a few of those boxes to sort.  I thought it might be fun to show you a photo of an item I just dug out, and how it represents (in this case, literally) a story.

This was the gift (when someone hands me something that says “International,” it’s a pretty good bet they’ve read Truck):

And here was the note accompanying (click to expand).

The references to asphalt mileage and “never been shifted into third after 1943″ are terrific.

The thoughtfulness I encounter so regularly is the greatest gift of all.  Please consider this my thank-you in general.  I will say that gratitude notwithstanding, one has only so much shelf and floorspace (don’t get me started on the pole barn!), so at some point there may need to be a charity auction, but I’d never do that without announcing it first.  The snickerdoodles are long gone, by the way.