Last March I wrote a blog titled “Journey South With the Women of My Life” The blog described a bonding time I shared with my wife and two daughters as we traveled to the Mayo Clinic for second opinions on a couple of health issues.
Both prognoses were positive so the journey had a happy ending. Then last week an email arrived to remind me of an occurrence that took place in the Mayo Clinic complex that I had almost forgotten about.
In between our appointments the women had shopping on their minds. I didn’t so I found a bench in one of the many hallways and proceeded to people watch. I did that with a feeling of unease because I had just handed over my credit card to my daughters as they had plans of outfitting their mother with some fashionable clothing.
I might have tagged along so I could keep a watchful eye on my credit card until I heard them mention that bra shopping was going to be a part of the excursion. That’s when the people watching idea popped into my head and it seemed like the option that would result in the least embarrassment for an old guy like myself! 🙂
I sat and sat and sat. I didn’t realize bra shopping was so time consuming.
Finally I got up and decided to take a walk and scout out some of the tiny shops that dotted the hallways. That’s when I stumbled upon a tiny gift shop called James Krom Natural Images. The beautiful little shop specialized in paintings and sculptures of wildlife and nature scenes.
Many of the sculptures consisted of majestic Bald Eagles that had beaks painted with 24 karat gold. That became very obvious when I noted the price tags of several of the sculptures were $3500.
Framed art adorned the shop’s walls and some of those had price tags over $1000. It was at that moment I was happy my daughters had my credit card so that I would not have been tempted to make a rash purchase.
The clerk was a friendly, middle aged lady who began to visit with me. I, of course, complimented her on the beautiful merchandise. As we conversed she found out I was a children’s author and that prompted me to dig into my pocket and pull out a business card to present to her.
We parted ways and I continued to view the beautiful art work.
Several minutes later a young gentleman approached and I saw he was carrying my business card. I found out I had been visiting with his mother and she had told him about meeting me.
It turned out he was the owner of the shop and was interested in featuring children’s books written by self-published authors. So I gladly shared information about my eight books.
The books which immediately interested him were my three volumes of Children In The Outdoors. As I mentioned in an earlier blog the three volumes are a collection of 73 children’s nature columns that appeared in the magazine “Minnesota Out Of Doors”.
He then gave me his business card and I assured him I would scan several of the columns when I returned home and email him copies. All the while I was imagining my three books displayed with his classy and expensive merchandise. It was an exciting thought but once he read the scanned stories and viewed the activity pages I feared he would lose his enthusiasm.
So the very first thing I did upon returning from the Mayo Clinic ‘vacation’ was to scan three stories and activity pages from Children In The Outdoors and email them to the James Krom Natural Images gift shop. I imagined them standing proudly next to the $3500 Bald Eagle sculptures.
In fact one of the stories that I included was the story I shared in my December blog titled Off the Wall.
To my shock and delight I heard from the young man almost immediately and he stated he enjoyed the three stories and activities. But I could tell he was uncertain if the books would be something that would be suitable for his gift shop.
Emails flew back and forth between us all weekend as he had various questions and concerns. Finally since he had never seen the actual books I suggested that I send him a set and he could consign them in his gift shop. That would give him time to make a decision about carrying them in his gift shop full time.
So I packaged up the three books that had their humble beginnings in the back room of the Wheaton Gazette where the ladies who prepared the weekly paper typed the original manuscripts in 1987, 1989 and 1991. And now from those humble beginnings the books were headed to the Mayo Clinic and a gift shop that was several pay scales above my life style.
I was excited and proud of the potential possibilities but at the same time acutely aware of the fact that the books might not fit in with the gift shop’s classy merchandise.
Maybe the books would some day lift the spirits of a sick child who was recovering from an illness at the hospital and then return to the child’s home which could be almost anywhere in the world.
That was almost a year ago and like I mentioned at the beginning of this blog I had almost forgotten that my books were on sale deep in the bowels of the Mayo Clinic. And then the email arrived.
The young man from the gift shop emailed me to find out my mailing address. It seems that during the month of December he had sold my three volumes of Children In The Outdoors. With a smile on my face I promptly returned an email with my address.
The check arrived a week later and I’m proud to announce that the price I received for the consigned books set an earning record for the three volumes possibly never to be topped. I’m giving credit to those bald eagle sculptures with the 24 karat beaks! 🙂
On the check the young gift shop owner wrote, “the books are very beautiful”.
That was the good news. The bad news was that there was no request for more books.
The Mayo Clinic book sales by Michael J. Larson had come to an end. It was a brief and exciting time in the life of the author.
Now the question I’m pondering is where are those three books today? They might have found a home in England, Australia, Switzerland or even Rosholt, South Dakota. My only hope is that where ever they ended up children will be filled with enjoyment as they read the stories and complete the activity pages. That’s why I write. 🙂
Until next time.
