We'll Always Have Cleveland

I went to the local library last night for a talk by Les Roberts. He's kind of a big deal around here because he's written a popular series of mystery novels set in Cleveland that feature a Slovenian P.I. I've read all of his books and seen him speak once a few years ago. Plus, my mom and I used to see him almost every year at the Buckeye Book Fair in Wooster. Thus, most of the books I own are signed.

He signed books last night, too, after he spoke for about thirty-five minutes and took questions (very patiently, I might add, given the quality of some of the questions/comments) for maybe another twenty.

I took a few pix while Mary Lu explained that she's from the Youngstown area (he's working on a new novel, Youngstown Tune-Up) and then he signed my copy of his memoir, We'll Always Have Cleveland.

She got a relatively standard signature, but I got a "Once in love with Amy . . ." to go with the other "Once in love with Amy . . ."s in my collection. Since we had a discussion in the parking lot about how she never gets interesting/funny comments from authors, I'm posting blurry images of some of the other inscriptions, just to rub it in:

• " . . . Always in love with Amy"


• "We'll always have Cleveland"


• "It's not about baseball!" (The Indian Sign)


• "Who's ripe for 'chasing'" (A little Kevin Smith shout-out because it was 1997 and Chasing Amy had just come out.)

They're no "Val, you owe Mary Lu $5" from David Sedaris, or even "Amy, always listen to Mary Lu!" from John Powers, but they're all I got.