Friends, Romans, Country men and women

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
I come to praise Shakespeare and speak of Books of Love.
William has already been buried, and he's had a lot of praise over the past 400-plus years.
The noble William was born on this very day;
The noble William died on this very day.
The noble William lived from 1564-1616 in Merry ol' England.
William was an honorable man,
and
this honorable Englishman wrote a lot of good stuff.

That he was ambitious,
It was not such a grievous thing,
for many countrymen and friends and even Romans have read Shakespeare's plays
The world around.

I find it indeed fortuitous that today, the birth and death day of Shakespeare,
should be the birth of the launch of my own great literary
endeavor.
Maybe friends, Romans and countrymen AND women will read it the world round.

Well, I don't know if that's gonna happen, but I do have the same motive as Marc Antony this morning. I really want to stir something up. Antony was stirring up the rage of the Roman commoners in his famous funeral oration after the gruesome stabbing of dictator Julius Caesar by a pack of Roman Senators.

My motivation is much more benign. On this morning of Shakespeare's birth and death day, I ask for the loan of your ears, eyes and tongues in an enterprise much less gory than the heinous event Cassius coerced Caesar's close friend Marcus Brutus to engineer.

My motive is to get folks to read a book. Lessons with Love: Tales of teaching and learning in a Small Town High School ($16 plus tax and shipping --- Keokee Books at (www.KeokeeBooks.com) will become available for readers. The books are due to arrive within the first couple of days in May and will ship from Keokee by May 5.

Also, Keokee and the Panhandle Alliance for Education aka PAFE ( http://www.panhandlealliance.org/) are sponsoring a book launch on National Teacher Day, Tuesday, May 8 in the Commons area of the Seasons at Sandpoint Resort.

This open house is scheduled to run from 5-7:30 p.m. with speaking/reading set for 6 p.m. Keokee will provide hors d'oeurves and beverages. Dress is casual.

I'll be introducing some of the folks who, behind the scenes, have played integral roles in helping produce this book. Artist Cheryl Klein will be there. My son Willie, who wrote a story in the book, will be on hand as will Colin Moody who wrote the "Foreward." I'm hoping my sister-in-law, Mary Brown, who has pre-edited all three of my books, will be able to make it also.

I'm also hoping to introduce several or maybe all the generous souls who endorsed the book or wrote really nice things (they knew their grade depended upon it).

Cheryl Klein's painting of Lincoln School, which appears on the cover, will serve as a fundraiser for PAFE. A silent auction for the original piece will begin that night and run through Sandpoint's "Lost in the '50s" celebration May 19-20. It's also possible Cheryl will have prints and/or cards of her painting available at the book launch.

Besides the silent auction, PAFE will receive a percentage from every book sold that evening. If you check the website, you'll see this organization has given away thousands and thousands of dollars' worth of grants to local teachers for use in their classrooms.

Finally, I'll also be reading an excerpt or two from the book. I'll bring my pen along too, just in case someone wants me to sign a book. The evening's event will offer an opportunity for books autographed by all folks mentioned above. It should be a fun for all, and there will be plenty of information about the book launch in the media over the next couple of weeks.

Another event with the book is scheduled at Vanderford's Books at Second and Cedar in Sandpoint, Saturday, May 12 (the day before Mother's Day) from 1-3 p.m. I'll be there to sign books, which might just make a nice Mother's Day gift.

So, friends, all you Romans, and all you country men and women, I hope to see you as the book craziness begins. More than anything, I hope you enjoy the stories, which provide at least a partial tapestry of my 33 years of working with Sandpoint's students and even teaching them a little Shakespeare.

Oh friends, I must pause now because my heart and mind have turned toward that tomb where William put a really scary curse on anyone who ever dared move his bones.

And, so he has stayed in there all this time, and not even the modern-day folks from CSI have unearthed his remains to check the DNA and see if that's really William, the bard, inside that vault at Holy Trinity Church.