Well readers, my wife and I arrived at Louie’s Pizza in Woburn, Massachusetts at about 1:40 pm for a scheduled 2:00pm to 5:00pm book signing for my newest release:  “The Art of Being Cool”.  What we saw completely amazed us!  People were already there awaiting our arrival, and it was a cold day, too.  We set up as quickly as we could then opened the doors to everyone.

Louie’s stayed packed for three-whole-hours!  There were people I haven’t seen since graduating high school in 1961.  People who haven’t seen each other in almost 50-years were brought together in our old 50’s “hangout” as if time, itself, had stood still for three hours of pure fun, emotions, and many, many tears of happiness.

One of the characters in my book flew out from California while another traveled down from Maine.  But I must admit, the most emotional moment of the entire day was when two retired GIs I was stationed with at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam walked through the doors of Louie’s Pizza.  I have not seen nor been in touch with these two great men  since shipping out of Nam almost 40-years ago.  Seeing them, and meeting their beautiful wives made my entire trip from San Antonio, Texas more than just worth it… it was magnificent.  Charlie Barr and “Vince” Vincilette were with the 483^rd Security Police Squadron and played devastating roles when a sapper attack on the 25^th of August, 1971 blew up the “tri-services ammo storage area”, trapping numerous K-9 troops and security policemen within the exploding ammo dump.  The diligence of these two heroes managed to get each and every one of those troops out of harms way over an almost 18-hour period… without a single loss of life.  It is with their assistance that I am in the process of writing a true screenplay about the incident, entitled: “CRB”.

In all I managed to sign over 100 books, and then the owners of Louie’s purchased 15 more to sell in their store, which I signed for them.  It was a great adventure for both my wife and I, and we can only hope that my next book’s release-signing will bring us as much pleasure.  Oh, by the way, that’s my wife and I in the above photo… just thought I’d mention that!

Tuffy 2009