A couple of months ago I got an email.
It was from Real Live Preacher, letting me know Eerdman’s was giving him some copies of his upcoming book to give away. And he wanted me to have one.
What stood out for me was how disarming his email was.
Wonderful first time author stuff. There was no sales spiel, no plea to review it.
It was a - ‘here, would you let me give you this because I want to’ email. Given all the book pitches I’ve seen in my life, it was completely charming and without guile.
It wasn’t a pitch.
It was advance notice of a gift and I was really touched.
But truth is I didn’t believe that wonderful intention would translate into hard copy showing up at my door. I didn’t believe it for a couple of reasons. As long as I’ve been blogging, distance still surprises me. Texas is a long way from here. RLP is only a click away online, but you know what I mean.
And, I didn’t make it easy for his publisher.
I didn’t give my real name.
I sent the email asking it be sent to Bene Diction c/o.
ar arr arrrr.
They want to publish books from blogger Real Live Preacher, they have to go with the flow, eh?
And I gave the ground address of someone who has taken the long journey to meet me in person. Someone who fully understands all the neat reasons I’m Bene.
Okay.
So the publisher - Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company has to send a copy of Real Live Preacher to Bene Diction. I don’t know where their printing and shipping offices are. Whoever deals with these sorts of things has to print up that strange label and ship the book over the border to Canada.
Two quick notes here. I live ‘north’ even for a Canuck. I don’t use a credit card. I don’t have one, and I don’t want one. Even if I did - the bank wouldn’t give me one, because I don’t meet the right criteria. I’m ‘poor’, according to the bank because my housing costs exceed 48%.
Whatever. I live just fine within my needs. No debt. No wanting what I don’t have.
We have a good library where I live, 2 new book stores, a couple of used book stores and even a tiny ‘Christian’ book store. It hardly has any books though. I can’t imagine them even knowing about blogging, let alone carrying Real Live Preacher. com.
So, I have to ‘consume’ books accordingly. I can’t buy one online. (good thing - I’d overspend) I can order from the library - sometimes it takes months. I could get the new book store to order for me - but a new book is quite the luxury. Eerdmans may be well known in the US. Here, asking for a book from a religious publisher gets a polite “er, who?” I’m okay with that too. A book is a big deal. Especially a new one. From the author. Wow.
Back to the gift.
Once it got to a blogging friend in Toronto, it would have to be re-addressed, stamped a lot accordingly and sent off again. And it still doesn’t land at my door.
It lands at another address, and I go pick it up.
That’s a lot of travel for a book, and inconvience for at least a couple of people. The postage alone probably cost more than the book.
Have you ever stepped into the middle of an online conversation in the comments section of a blog?
Happens to me a lot. You find yourself trying to pick up a thread.
So this - Well. This made me grin from ear to ear. It made me laugh out loud. And I decided to play.
Only in blogging!
I got an email from Darryl asking for an address. I forgot, he doesn’t know where I live. I never told him. He has met so many bloggers face to face he probably couldn’t name them all.
I haven’t.
Darryl, LT and Charlene went a long way out of their way to meet up. We got together at a tourist place.
That is three more bloggers than I ever expected to meet face to face with, and I still smile. I always will. I don’t know if I told him my legal name. I’m Bene. Just like Real Live Preacher is…well you get it.
Maybe someday I’ll blog about the day I walked away from the limelight.
The day I knew my heart was getting hard, and the kind of danger I was in was about more than a sociopathic law enforcement officer. Maybe. Knowing your heart is growing too hard and it’s time to walk away is tough stuff. I try not to look back much.
And I believe ‘the right hand should not know what the left hand is doing’.
I’ll break that rule this time.
‘Cause a gift is on the way and this is fun.
When I got hold of Darryl by email he’d already sent the book.
And he didn’t get to read it.
I’d already emailed Real Live Preacher and asked if he’d pop over and ‘give’ Darryl permission to read it.
And he did.
And it was fun.
But the book is in the hands of Canada Post because that’s just who Darryl is.
So.
I’ll get it.
Thank you!
I’ll read it.
Then, because it is such a great gift and it has come so far, I’m going to ask Gordon Atkinson for one. more. thing.
It may well become the most travelled Real Live Preacher book ever.:^)
I’d like to package it back up when I’ve read it and send it to Texas.
Right to the desk of Real Live Preacher.
And I respectfully ask a terrific new author if he would autograph it just for Darryl and Charlene Dash.
I’ll toss in a small American bill, so he can send it back to Toronto for my friends.
I know it’ll get read, and shared and appreciated.
A lot.
And that is what it’s journey should be about, don’t you think?
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That is quite a journey!
So you really do live way up north where the snow is deep! Do you trap beavers and trade pelts to get coffee and flour and sugar? Is your real name Jacques? Have you ever built an icehouse? How many grizzlies have you wrestled, personally?
Take care of yourself until the chinook blows!
Jeri
Bene:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m touched. You didn’t even have to think about doing that. Wow.
I heard someone recommend that you only own items that have a story. This is becoming a book with quite a story.
This uplifted the heck out of me. Thank you!
F
LoL:
The snow is deeper south, west and east. There is a trapping industry here, and a lot of Americans come here to hunt. I haven’t bought a bag of flour in years. There are three languages spoken, mostly english, but also cree and french. I honestly don’t have any friends named Jacque. The chinook blows of the Rockies onto the prairies. I don’t live on the tundra, I’m on the shield. I’ve encountered a few black bears, no grizzlies or polar bears.:^)
Awe..some.
Great story. And Darryl’s comment about only owning things that have a story…I like that!
you are probably in the part of Canada where my grandmother was born in 1915. Her mother was a half-breed (we are told Cree but have never been able to track down records). Her father was in the Great War, an aviator we are told, who didn’t come back from that war. Her horrified family spirited her away from her mother and sent her to California where she was raised with her cousins. I always wanted to find more about my great-grandmother, but the native/white folk relationships were so tough in those days.
Ummmmmmm……pretty much everyone in Eastern Canada lives well south of us Prairie folk! But this guy http://stevemc.typepad.com/ has us all beat by a fair margin!
Steve? For sure. That is north. I kind of envy him.
I’d need to dig out a longtitude latitude map, but if I remember my geography correctly the parairies are much further north than either coast. And you get the weather to prove it. Blog on!
Without meaning to perhaps, Bene, you have betrayed a very generous spirit. I’m encouraged…and a bit chastened, but in a good way.
This copy of Gordon’s book may become the literary version of the legendary Christmas fruitcake that keeps getting passed from person to person. Only, the recipients don’t want the fruitcake.
God bless!
What a brilliant, brilliant story.
And what an amazing journey - you and the book.