Getting To Know You ~~ Better

At our Brockport Library yeserday, I could not find the copy of "Journey With Jeff" that I knew was there. Earlier I'd had a conversation with the young librarian, Jennifer, who had awarded me a prize for Summer Reading last year, and shared the new, exciting plans for this summer's readers. So, I went to her desk and asked her to help me locate "Journey." She found it and was amazed to learn that I was the author. "You did all this work?" she said. "How long did it take you to write it?" I told her it took 30 years the first time. I sent it on to publishers who said, "This is lovely, but we can't use it." So, I read it onto 5 CDs, and there was a copy of this also in the library. Then, when I decided to self-publish "Journey" in book form with BookSurge, an Amazon.com company, it took me about a year to complete. She paged through the book, glowing with amazement. I felt well-rewarded. ~~~ "I've been reading your book, a little at a time," said my family physician when I went to check out a cough, a gravely voice, and some other annoyances. I had sent "Journey" to the Health Clinic with a friend from church who worked there. She told me it had been scooped up and taken to a staff meeting, but she didn't know who had it now. The doctors had been asked, "Who knows Sybil Reisch? Who knows her best?" and my most-visited physician claimed it for his book shelf. "I'm glad to get to know you better," he said, "the most we ever see of our patients is like one snapshot of their lives." He is reading it slowly, one or two stories at a time. Glad I wrote it so he could!