Category Archives: Big Stone Gap

Surprise, Surprise!

Posted on by
7

Jack’s Wednesday post limps in on Friday this time – –

Well – what a week it’s been and it isn’t over yet!

First of all we had a phone call from California from folk who have read ‘The Little Bookstore’ and intend to visit Big Stone Gap, then we had another call from a couple in Charlotteville who will be celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary by doing the same thing next week (having read Wendy’s book when it first came out five years ago). This is great for the town as they will stay in a local hotel and shop locally while they are here.

(BTW – Wendy and I celebrate our 20th anniversary next Tuesday.)

Meanwhile a radio station in Scotland has agreed to air my weekly radio show ‘Celtic Clanjamphry’, so it will now be broadcast in Tennessee, Virginia and Scotland.

But the icing on the cake happened yesterday afternoon when a group of folk came in the door and explained that they had driven down from Toronto. They were all from Korea originally and included a friend who was just visiting for a short time. He was the real reason they came to the shop because he works at the publisher in Seoul who put out the Korean language version of ‘The Little Bookstore’. He had brought both an English language and Korean copy of the book to have Wendy sign them. They spent some time with us and luckily Wendy was here to socialize and chat. To say we were gob-smacked would be putting it mildly!

book-cover-korea

koreans

That’s Mr Young-Eun Goh of Danielstone Publishing on the left.

We had some fun describing the convoluted email conversation Wendy had with the Korean translator back when that edition was being prepared and we proudly showed the copy we still have.

We actually received six copies from the publisher when it came out and sold five of them here in the bookshop. We thought that was pretty amazing, but getting a visit from the publisher was something else entirely!

We look forward to visits from the Polish, Portuguese and Chinese publishers – – –

Day 3: Roadside adventures in SD

Posted on by
1

IMG_4188We planned a day of looking at stuff as we meandered across South Dakota’s Interstate 90 until  we reached the Badlands. Jack and I dragged the unsuspecting Barbara and Oliver into the Porter sculpture park first thing. Greeted by a gopher on arrival, Oliver looked suspicious and annoyed.

But he cheered right up when Wayne remembered us, and traded us t-shirts again–our shop one for two of his–and then comped all four of us into his park. I brought him a long-promised copy of Little Bookstore, and he asked how long it had taken to write. I asked how long it took him to make that huge bull that is the park’s signature nationwide. Turns out, it took us about the same length of time.

IMG_4224If you expand the goldfish picture to look under it, you will meet the gopher who unnerved Oliver. We remembered Wayne feeding the gophers chocolate last time we were there, but he told us they were on peanuts now. “Chocolate is bad for them, turns out. Too much carbs and sugar.” So even gophers are on the Keto diet now…

Next stop: Mitchell, because if you are hauling Brits across the States, you need to see some tacky stuff. Also, they have really good ice cream. Barbara and Oliver were suitably impressed with the idea that someone could cover a brick building with decorative corn murals and revitalize a dying economy. “Heavy price to pay,” they noted, given the traffic and the, well, corniness of it all. Remembering Farmington’s gentle dignity down by the river, plus the empty buildings everywhere, who can judge whose choices?

 

From the ridiculous to the sublime, we sped our little Nissan along 90 to Chamberlain, where the famous “Dignity” statue awaited at the Lewis and Clark interpretation center. The sculptor used three indigenous models to create her: a girl, a mother, and an elder.IMG_4240

Finally, I found out what Lewis and Clark had been doing all that time: looking for a passage to the Pacific. (Who knew?) It’s one of those things Americans feel like we ought to know, but when it comes down to it, you don’t.

And then, the Badlands. Which gobsmacked the Brits as much as we expected it to. *smirk* More on that tomorrow.