Plane Old Friends
For those of you who aren’t reading and/or listening to this live, this installment is one of five that came out on Saturday, August 16, 2025 (Give Me Fireworks Or Give Me Death 2 Parts 1 & 2, Giving Hamilton, this installment, and The Other Side Of Fear). There’s a reason for this. I have been on summer vacation since the end of June, and without having to go to work every day, I kind of lost track of any sense of routine. School officially starts back up on Monday, so I decided to do a summer dump.
On Saturday, July 26, 2025, at around 5:00 a.m. Paige and I finished packing up, said goodbye to our cat, Charlie, grabbed some stuff from her parents’ house, and got coffee. We then went to my parents' house and waited with Mom until it was time to Lyft to the airport for our 10 o’clock flight to Orlando.
Now, no matter what, I always write on the plane. On the day of the flight, I was already planning on doing the summer dump, but I had only written Give Me Fireworks Or Give Me Death 2 Part 1. Since I didn’t want to dig through my bag and get on my computer, I created the document for part two on my phone and wrote the first paragraph while waiting for Ryan and Luke to arrive. While I’ve described the covers for Greattastic Adventures 1 and 2, I don’t think I’ve ever focused on the cover of my second book, Once In A Lifetime: A Song For Sam. On the front cover, there is an image of S.M. and me above the title. I chose that image because it’s the image that people who know us generally think of when they think about me and S.M. The back cover is an image of Elizabeth that her sister thought would be nice. Ryan wrote some of the chapters in Greattastic Adventures 2 (specifically the ones about Cousin Simple). While the boys have read parts of my books and most of my blogs, they haven’t read all the way through the books. Ryan’s authorship encouraged them to do so.
None of our seats were together. Paige sat toward the front of the plane, and while I could see the rest of my family, none of us were in the same row. Luke and I were the closest. I had an aisle seat, and he had the window seat, the row behind me. After we had boarded, a group of ladies who were probably in their 60s boarded. They were clearly on a girls' trip. I noticed that one of these ladies, who sat a few rows diagonal from me, was missing one hand. Two of these ladies were in my row.
Once we were in the air, I pulled my tray table down and opened my computer to continue working on Give Me Fireworks Or Give Me Death 2 Part 2. But since it hadn’t been connected to Wi-Fi since my parents’ house, the document that I created and started working on at the airport didn’t exist on my computer. “Well,” I said out loud, but mostly to myself, “I guess I’m actually not going to write.”
“What do you write?” The lady in the middle seat asked.
Once I (briefly) explained the books and this series, the lady in the window seat said, “Oh my gosh, our sister also wrote a book! It’s about her life with only one hand.”
We continued talking, and I learned a few things about them.
1. They were on their way to Florida for a Baptism.
2. The one in the window seat lives relatively close to Paige and I.
3. While the two sitting with me were biologically related, most of the group are “sisters” in the same way the Andersons are mine. As the conversation continued bouncing back and forth, I slowly explained the concept of all the books. Specifically, I spent a lot of time on Once In A Lifetime.
At some point during that part of the conversation, I turned around in my seat to stretch and saw Luke reading his copy of Once In A Lifetime. Now, what actually happened was that my brother, who was coincidentally reading my book, heard me talking about the same book, and was completely prepared when I snatched it out of his hand. This is what my new friends saw: a nearly 28-year-old author turn around, and with way too much confidence, pluck a book out of a random stranger's hands, and it just happened to be his own!
When they recognized the third-grade version of me on this cover, I could practically hear their inner voices screaming, How famous is this guy? Obviously, after I played it up just a little bit, I explained our relationship. As we got off the plane, we exchanged numbers and made plans to meet up when we were all back in town.
To Be Continued…
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