My sister Cindy texted me this photo (below) with the message: "I'm all choked up---this came in the mail yesterday but I just got it."
That book in her hands is the result of the collective efforts of the most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure to interview sharing their memories and experiences to honor their friend and family member. And, my sister had plenty to do with it as well. First, she read the manuscript over and over through thirteen drafts, looking for everything from inconsistencies, unintended repetitions, spelling and punctuation problems, you name it, she fished it out and said it needs fixing.
She brainstorms and problem-solves with the best of them when you're stuck on something, especially with respect to creative challenges and technical problems. (She's creative and a techie.) I had a huge writer block with respect a title; came up with lots of titles and didn't like any of them. She the one that insisted that Pluck was the right title. I didn't like it, but she nagged and nagged on it, just what I needed. She was right; it's perfect. She did all this while working full-time for a government contractor in a job I don't really understand because it's mostly top-secret, AND while building her own dream, an online foreign language library called The FLLO for people who like to read and want to keep up their language skills (Take a peek and share thefllo.com when you get a moment; it's impressive, and fun.)
So, I'd like to ask Cindy to take a bow so I can publicly add her to the group of people who gave so generously of their time to help make this book happen. She lives in Columbus, Georgia, and now she has some connections to David besides helping his story get written. David stood up to his brother Eric's wedding in Columbus, and, later, Columbus is where David played his first live performance of Blackberry Winter on the Tennessee Music Box with Stephen Seifert and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
