A surprise at every turn

How far would you travel to get your name in this blog?

For Dave Cripe, the answer is 100 miles.

Now let's backtrack a little here. A few weeks ago I posted a piece in which I led with the line: "Attention Dave Cripe: I'm coming to your hometown."

As I've noted before, Dave's name appears on this blog almost as much as mine. He promptly replied: "I will be there!!" And that's no typo. He pulled out the double exclamation marks.

A week or so later came an e-mail from Dave with the ominous subject heading: "Bad news." (Note: No exclamation mark.)

These are the kinds of e-mails you dread. You assume the worst. So I was incredibly relieved that his "bad news" was really not bad. He was letting me know that he wouldn't be coming to my book signing in Glen Ellyn because he'd scored tickets for the Notre Dame-Navy football game on the same day and time.

Was I disappointed? Sure a little. But as I wrote to Dave in my reply, if I were in his shoes, I'd have done the same thing. Notre Dame football versus Randy's book signing? Notre Dame wins by six touchdowns.

Dave mentioned that he was going to try to make it to another one of my upcoming appearances, as a way of making up for not being able to come to the Glen Ellyn signing. I wrote back: "If you are able to make it out for another appearance, that would be great. Don't go way out of your way, though."

I suppose every man's definition of "out of your way" is a little different. For some a trip around the corner is too far. Knowing Dave has family and job responsibilities, I really didn't expect anything from him. I thought there was a chance that he might make it to my upcoming appearance in Chicago, but that's about as far as I figured he'd be willing to go.

Last night, I traveled to Milwaukee where I stopped in at Richard Katz's Mystery One Bookstore, which almost seems like it came right out of the pages of a Raymond Chandler novel.

After making my way around a maze of books that climbed to the ceiling, Katz popped his head out from atop the second floor and apologized for not promoting my appearance as much as he typically would do for an author's event. Turns out he'd been laid up for much of the last month due to hip replacement surgery.

To make matters worse, the signing was scheduled after store hours, so you couldn't even count on casual traffic coming into the store and happening upon my book signing.

So I stood there as the minutes ticked away, talking baseball and politics with Katz and another bookstore worker. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Then surprise of all surprises, a customer walks in. He bears a striking resemblance to Anthony Hopkins and introduces himself as a friend of Dave Cripe's. Now I should explain that Dave had mentioned to me that he'd sent an e-mail to colleagues in his company's Milwaukee office and told them about my book signing. I figured there was no way that any of them would come so it was a pleasant surprise that one actually did.

But the real surprise came minutes later when Dave himself came walking in, wearing one of my "Have you gotten LOST yet?" T-shirts.

After selling ten signed copies of my book to Katz, Dave and I strolled over to the cafe next door and had a nice talk over a beer. 

The great thing about writing a mystery is that there are surprises at every turn. Dave's visit was one of the nicest ones yet. Thanks, Dave, for going out of your way.

Well, I'm off to D.C. on Friday. I can only hope that there are a few more nice surprises to come.

Comments

[Dave Cripe]

I can promise you I will not be in D.C.!!! (note the THREE exclamation marks). My wife, Julie, says I am your groupie. I am sure you wish your groupie was a nice looking female and not some bald guy. I guess you have to take what you can get.