Merry Christmas

I couldn't let this day go by without giving a shout out to the folks that are reading my book and sharing it with their friends. On Thursday, yesterday, I plopped down my money to print the third printing of Remembering Isaac. I have sold out of the second printing. You can still find some in Costcos, but my distributor is out and back ordered three hundred copies. This is exciting. It is just beginning to hit me that I am an author. It seems so surreal. I have received lots of great emails in the last couple of days, thanking me for the books. It has been a lot of fun to read these--to hear how people are thinking, laughing, crying and wanting to live in Niederbipp. I love it. Tonight, I am tired after a long day of visits with family, but I am feeling like I need a visit to Niederbipp. Maybe I will stay up late and figure out what Jake and Amy have been trying to tell me all day. I also hope in the next few blog entries to begin telling my story. I am glad this the story of Niederbipp and Isaac are touching so many lives, but I never did this for the money. So far, I have spent the better part of $60,000 this year producing and printing the book. Because of the delays in getting paid, I wont see any return on that investment until mid-January. This delay has been a blessing--it has helped to solidify my feelings that I money was never my drive when I jumped into this project. Sure, I hope I don't lose money, but the message is what is important. It has been wonderful to hear from folks of all ages and stripes who are finding themselves in Niederbipp and never wanting to leave. Maybe our world needs more of this. Maybe our world is looking for the answers Niederbipp has to offer.
I want to get to Jake and Amy, so tonight I will just share a portion of my story. When I was in grade school, I remember believing I was born without talent. I was lousy at sports, I was only an average student. I had zero musical talent--even to the point of being asked by the music mom to mouth the words because I was always loud and never on key. I had very few friends my own age. My neighborhood was filled with folks that were mostly at least 60 years older than me, but it was a magical place. Many of these old folks had tools in their garages and cookies in their jars and time to sit on their front porches and tell me amazing stories of their younger years. As I read and re-read the stories of Niederbipp, I find myself reflecting on the village that it took to raise me. So many have had a hand in who I have become. Most of these folks are gone now. Margaret Torkelson, the 95 year old woman who my mother sent me to to practice my reading, passed away more than twenty-five years ago, but I can still remember the smell of her flowered couch and the color of her beehive doo. She gave me jumbo gum drops after each visit. I read to her all of the books that drove my mother crazy--most of which were by Dr. Suess.
I am grateful for those old folks who loved me like a grandson and always welcomed my visits, helped me fix my bike, lent me tools to use as I dug holes in other neighbor's yards-trying to get to China, filled my mind with fun stories and opened possibilities to me that I never could have imagined. It seems my imagination has no limits because they were never imposed on me in my youth. I never watched TV because it could never compete with the world outside. It still can't.
I will write more later.
If any of you have any questions about the book or about my story, this might be a fun forum for question and answers. Ask on--
Cheers, Ben