My First Book Is a Quarter Century Old

I had almost completely forgotten the existence of my first book, "From Here to There," which I put together to support the Virginia Museum of Transportation (I was on the board). I found it two days ago in a box in the basement and put it aside. Then I gave a copy to a friend for her birthday and took a look at it before presenting.

Jeez! It's good. Like, really good.

This is a compilation of nearly 50 stories by Virginia writers (and non-writers, mostly my friends) with the theme of transportation somewhere in the stories. Beth Macy wrote about carrying her baby, others wrote about hot cars and trucks, planes and boats and trains and the like.

The stories are personal, funny, profound, enlightening and just get-it-off-your-chest cool. The book is out of print (I think we ran 5,000 of them) and I suspect the Museum doesn't have any left. I have one box and I'll hoard it for selective presents.

It was compiled (I edited, wrote and photographed for it) in 1998, so it's 25 years old. Not hard to imagine, but difficult to believe.