Saturday is going to be a long day.

At eight in the morning I’ll be setting up under a blue tent at Old Fashion Day in Sulligent, Alabama, which is the town I grew up in. That afternoon at two I’m signing books at Barnes & Noble in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Those two things do not fit inside one day. Not for one person.

They fit fine for four.

My wife and kids are coming with me, and sometime around noon I’m going to hand the Sulligent tent over to them and get in the truck. They’ll run the table, take the money, hand over the books, tell people the author stepped out and will be back.

I’d like to say I planned it this way. I didn’t. Old Fashion Day got postponed from the 10th to the 24th, and the Barnes & Noble date was already on the calendar, and that was that.

But I keep thinking about what the books are actually about. Somebody turns up right when they’re needed and helps a child do the thing the child couldn’t do alone. I’ve written that story four times now.

So: Sulligent from 8am until I have to leave, and the tent stays open after that. Tupelo at 2pm. Signed copies of both books at both places.

Come see whichever one is closer. If you get the table in Sulligent in the afternoon, you’ll meet the crew that makes the whole thing possible, and honestly they’re better company than I am.