2019 - A Crackerjack Year

When my daughter, Louisa, asked a few weeks ago what I wanted for my birthday, I had a quick response: "Take me to see the movie Little Women while you're home for Christmas."

I received my gift Monday evening, the night before she returned to California. She bought my ticket, and my husband, Steve, and son Elias accompanied us to the local theater, where I proceeded to cry intermittently throughout the film. The tears came in some unexpected places – like where Jo breaks down over her shorn hair, her "one beauty" – but I was not surprised that my eyes grew moist at the part where Jo holds a copy of her newly bound book in her hands. 

I can now relate to that surreal, momentous feeling of holding my own book in my hands for the first time. It's why 2019 was a crackerjack year for me. It's the year I became an author. It's the year Crackerjack Bands and Hometown Boosters: The Story of a Minnesota Music Man became an honest-to-goodness book, one that you can buy in a bookstore, or check out from a library.

The companion book to Crackerjack Bands - a limited edition!

"To write a book someday" was a vague goal I'd had since early elementary school, when I began reading voraciously. Two of my favorite book characters were writers: Betsy Ray in the Betsy-Tacy series by Mankato author Maud Hart Lovelace; and Jo March, in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I'd get gray pencil smears on my (left) writing hand – emulating Jo's ink-stained fingers – while scribbling in Mead notebooks, and for a time, I kept my writing in a trunk, like Betsy. I checked out stacks of books from the library, and spent gift money on books at B. Dalton, and I was smitten with the thought that one day my name could also be on a book, and that book, and my words, would remain for others to read, long after I was no longer around.

As I grew older and focused on telling true stories through journalism, the goal of writing a book became even hazier; whenever people would ask, I'd say I hadn't yet come across an idea worthy of a book. Unlike Maud and Louisa, I was not inspired to use my childhood experiences as the basis for fiction. Instead, I shelved the idea of writing a book while I pursued a career, and began raising a family, and then, low and behold, the idea for a book came when I was least expecting it. It took me an entire decade — essentially all of my 40s — to become the writer character in my own nonfiction book about my musical great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs.

I don't expect to become a movie character anytime soon, although I did retain the rights to any movie adaptations of my book (Greta Gerwig, feel free to contact me at writerjoyriggs@gmail.com). But I am happy to report that I'm already featured in a second book, written by my new favorite author named Louisa – my daughter, Louisa.

For years at Christmas, our family of five has drawn names and exchanged what we call Kris Kringle gifts, which have to be something you do or make for the person. Louisa had my name for the first time in several years, and she surprised me with an astonishing gift: Crackerjack Joy the Hometown Author: The Story of a Minnesota Music Mom, by Louisa Lawler. She accomplished in a few days what took me years; she interviewed her two brothers, her dad, my mom, my writing mentor Kate Hopper, and my friend Myrna Mibus, and wrote a 30-page book about what she learned about me and my book.

Much like the experience of watching what, in my opinion, is the best-yet movie adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, I laughed and cried as I read the book by my own "little woman."

It concludes with these words: 

"Mom was continuing the family story every day; finding new articles, speaking to people who knew G. Oliver, and sharing stories of bands, bears and cowboys. One day she might even find that legendary picture of G. Oliver and Sousa, stashed away in somebody's storage locker or safety deposit box.

Wherever she ended up finding it, I was proud of my little Kris Kringle project. Mom was helping so many families record and preserve their stories, it was a privilege to be able to record a little of hers."

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2020 brings you an abundance of creativity, a wealth of pleasant surprises, and enough tissues to catch your tears of happiness.