This morning when I got to the doctor's office, my cell phone, my Kindle, and I all needed re-charging. I took the Kindle knowing I'd have time in the waiting room and exam room, and I really wanted to call my office to ask a favor. Couldn't do either, so I sat and had a lesson in patience--in the waiting room, in the exam room, at the pharmacy. That was the final blow--it was almost noon by the time I got to the pharmacy, and I was hungry as I sat in the drive-through pickup, which is never as fast as you think it's going to be. Finally this nice young man informed me that my insurance wouldn't cover it and did I want to pay $40.99? No, I didn't! Thoroughly frustrated, I went home, unpacked my groceries, ate lunch, and then headed back, with my insurance card in my hand. What I didn't realize was that when TCU changed pharmacy services, the new service covers all pharmacy transactions not just mail-in orders. So it was all straightened out fairly quickly, and I headed home with my antibiotics by 1:30. But I worked, some office, some my own, until 4 p.m.--a really late nap, from which I didn't want to get up. But there's that interior clock in me--it was time for the news, time to feed Scooby, etc. Made myself pea salad and salmon croquettes (one of my absolute favorite things) for supper.
Tonight is a huge reception for the lead title of our TCU Press fall list, Calvin Littlejohn: Portrait of a Community in Black and White by Bob Ray Sanders. Littlejohn was the only photographer for the black community for many years, most of the twentieth century--he took photos at schools (we have a school picture of Bob Ray in maybe third grade that Littlejohn took), churches, weddings, funerals, family gatherings, ceremonial occasions. He also took studio portraits and, best of all, pictures of any celebrity who visited Fort Worth. There are pictures of Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, a young George W. Bush looking bewildered, and of many black athletes and musicians. Maybe the prize is the one of Martin Luther King, Jr., sitting in a parlor with a group of women. Bob Ray, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist and well known in any community in Fort Worth, did an incredible job of tracking down people and getting specific identities of many of the photographic subjects.
So tonight they expect 300 people at the Ella May Shamblee Library for a reception/book signing. Nice note: Bob Ray's niece, Brenda Sanders-Wise, is catering (he is the youngest of 12 and has nieces and nephews who are older than he is--I thought for a long time Brenda was one of his sisters, but not so). Brenda submitted such a yummy menu that I asked Melinda if she wasn't going to bring me a doggy bag. The doctor supported my instinct that I shouldn't go--don't need to expose everyone to my germs, and I still don't have the energy. So, following orders to lie low for three or four days, I'm at home but I'll be anxious for a report tomorrow.
This book is a fitting cap to my publishing career. I wanted to publish Littlejohn's work ever since the 1980s, but there were problems getting permission. Finally, the family gave the photographs, or most of them, to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. I was able to work with Director Don Carlton to cooperate on the publication. It's truly a book to be proud of--beautifully designed and printed--and I'm delighted to view it as my swan song.
Meanwhile I'm not all that unhappy to be comfortably at home in sloppy clothes, with a bit of work to do and a book to read, but I do feel a bit bad over missing the moment of triumph.
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