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          Thinking on this Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend about the holiday: it used to be called Decoration Day; started by John Logan, a Civil War general. Why in May? Lots of flowers are in bloom so it makes sense. We need to remember. Several years ago on a brutally cold, windy February day, something pulled me off the Garden State Parkway on the way home and took me to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I’d never been there. The conditions were so harsh, no one was around.  I walked in solitude around the memorial, consisting of 366 panels representing each day of the year (leap year too), reading each name (on the day they died) and finally committing two random names to my everlasting memory. So to Arthur John Abramoff and Albert Potter, especially on this weekend, I think about you. Now to dedicate today’s blog to a new friend on Facebook, Stephanie S. who appeared a few weeks ago and has taken me under her wing. She must’ve sensed my ‘newness’ and eagerness to reach out and find friends that I can share words and ideas with; a special sensitive person.

            Wednesday and Thursday of this past week was Book Expo America. Last year there was no knowledge about it. I was three years into writing my first novel and hopelessly adrift in the Atlantic in a ‘Lifeboat’, just Tallulah Bankhead to keep me company. It still bothers me (a little less each year) that Walter Slezak pushed William Bendix overboard. While adrift, I got an email from Book Expo so I went for the first time last year.  Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road was I. An enchanted place where I learned wide-eyed, asked questions and put my name on every author’s list. On Tuesday past, the night before taking the Jersey Transit train to NYC, my stocking of anticipation was hung with the greatest of care; two days of networking to look forward to. But there was something else. A spirit was guiding me along; a spirit of thought, direction, purpose and composition. Borrowing Margaret Hamilton’s crystal ball, I see a high school English class in 37 years studying my blogs and novels. A kid in the last row raised a hand. “The blogs had a designed purpose, foretelling future novels.”

            On the train passing my Jersey coast, ‘something’ made me notice the most remote, random things out my window; puddles of oily water, an occasional duck floating, weathered pieces of driftwood, people rocking on chairs on porches aimlessly( I never want to have a porch or rocking chair. Verboten) small boats moored in the bay (how do you get to them and what’s their purpose?), smoke stacks by the Merck plant in Linden spewing something (for two minutes passed Merck, I kept yawning as if Merck was making tranquilizers; by products in the smoke), rows of barbed wire on top of each other, filling every crack and crevice around a building’s ledges (with almost no windows). A jail no doubt; certainly not an industrial bakery. I worked in one in Newark when Johnson was President. I wore whites

            A few blocks from Penn Station, on the corner of 34th and 10th Avenue, the icon told me to walk. A car disregarded and almost hit me. Temptation gushed (like BP’s gulf oil volcano) to slap the car hood and yell, “I’m walking here!”  Inside Javits: the Autograph section. A lot of authors and book signings. Real birds trapped inside the hall, swooped and hid behind a large Exit sign at the back. I looked for a bald rotund man reading a newspaper next to a doorway. Saudi Arabia had an extensive booth for their publications. The writing on the booth sign captivated; a palm tree, gentle line curves of design; simple and serene. The attendants smiled and so did I. They had plates of fresh dates on displays while some American booths had bite-sized Halloween chocolates. Yes Virginia, there’s a difference. Back and forth a few times passed the Saudi booth, I so wanted to tell them my first novel has a Muslim main character.

            At the other end of Javits, University presses had booths. A school known for football: their booth was manned by a 300 pound lineman or so it seemed. I thought natural order of things. A small booth signed “Publicity for Authors.” A man with gray hair, wrinkled weather beaten face, wearing a seersucker sport coat sat with eyes closed. I felt the spirit of Willie Loman nearby, smelled my armpits and walked away. Some attendees had a red stripe on the bottom of their badge–literary agents and I love Howard Roark more and more.

            3pm on Thursday, I knew the content of my heart and character. I’ll soon begin writing a trilogy and find myself back here next year and the year after; one time with a felt pen in my hand, collar loosened, looking up at people and down at a book, asking them their name. And I must thank the spirit about; my grandfather.

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