Not Just Anybody. . .

There are not many people I would stand in line to see—no athlete, no politician, no Hollywood celebrity. You get the idea: I have no interest in meeting shallow limelight seekers. On this morning however, my daughter and I left home early to get near the front of the line. We arrived in Highlands about nine o’clock to find about twenty already waiting. We took our places in the queue even though it would be noon before anyone entered. Behind us, the crowd soon stretched down the block and around the corner. In front of us, several people gave up and left. Our patience—well, it was more persistence than patience—moved us up to position eight by noon.

Once the door opened, we proceeded quickly to the back of the store.  There he sat. Friendly, smiling, cordial. I handed my book to him. To my surprise, he looked up and started talking directly to me in that voice tinged with the sugary sounds of the Deep South.

The brief conversation turned to his books and I remarked, “You will always be Conrack to me.”

He laughed and replied that he had been an unconventional teacher.

“I have been known to be a bit unconventional, too,” I said.

He looked down and wrote:

To Clara, for the love of teaching,

Pat Conroy

My daughter asked permission to photograph the two of us and he graciously obliged.

As we left with our books, she looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you stood in line for three hours to see anybody.”

“Not just anybody, I said, “a writer extraordinaire.”

Tags: authors, books, booksigning, memoir, Pat Conroy, queue