I’m Fixing to Nail My Feet to the Ground

I’m fixing to nail my feet to the ground.

That’s what the late Lewis Grizzard said he was going to do if he ever got back to Georgia, shortly after he had moved to Chicago.

And that’s kind of the way I felt after I recently took a seven day tour down to the Florida panhandle for author visits to all the middle schools in Bay County, and a couple of bookstore signings.

I was really hyped about going down to the Sunshine State, then the first thing that got me was the time. The Saturday night before I left the time changed, then I traveled from the Eastern time zone to the Central time zone, and suddenly it was two hours earlier than it had been the day before.

I had to get up early on the following Monday morning, like at six in the morning, but it had been eight in the morning two days before, so I got to get up early and sleep late at the same time.

The second thing that got me was my schedule, which was included in the package I received when I checked into my hotel. It stipulated that I was scheduled to do six sessions a day for four days straight, each one lasting 45 minutes with a 15 minute break in between each one.

I kept telling myself I was going to grab a little beach time, but after completing my heavy schedule each day, all I wanted to do was get back to my hotel room and grab a pillow.

Finally, Friday morning came around and I knew I was going to grab some of that beach time I had been yearning for, because all I had on my schedule that day was a two-hour book signing.

The next thing that got me was the weather. When I went outside on Friday morning I was shocked to find that it was windy and 39 degrees. So once again I spent my down time in my hotel room attempting to adjust the heat, which they don’t use much down there.

But all’s well that ends well. That night I braved the cold and went down to waterfront and ate my weight in oysters, as fast as they could shuck’ em. And the next day, Saturday, was the day I was scheduled to come home, with just one stop along the way, which turned out to be the highlight of my week.

Once again I was scheduled for a two-hour book signing, this time at the Downtown Book Store in Apalachicola. I had to travel down the coast a good ways to get there, and as I did I noticed all the beach high-rises and all the stop lights had disappeared, and when I got to Apalachicola, it looked like I would have imagined it to look a hundred years ago—a quaint fishing village on the waterfront.

I sold books almost as fast as I could sign them, and met a lot of nice folks on vacation, some from as far away as Montana, who said they were going to take a piece of the South home with them—in the form of my books. The folks who owned the bookstore were real nice too, they gave me a copy of a local cookbook and fed me a hot bowl of seafood gumbo before I left.

It seemed like it took forever to reach the Georgia state line, then the rest of the trip home all seemed like it was downhill. It was 327 miles from Apalachicola to my house in Jasper County.

I’m fixing to go find me some nails.