The Michigan Book Tour

They say you can’t go home.  I’m not going to try to.  My return to Michigan for book tour lectures and interviews is not an attempt to recapture my past but an opportunity to tell a great story. 

I spend a lot of my time researching and writing about the past.  When it comes to my own past however, I have little desire to go back.  While I write about the past I don't see my own past as my "glory days."  I have always believed that my best is yet to come. 

 

I was an awkward kid (aren't we all?) during my high school years.  Like most youth, my thoughts were not how to make the most out of where I was, but focused on the future and where I wanted to be.  I prematurely outgrew my home town; at least in my own mind.  Like many people I spent many years thinking of my hometown as boring.  That simplification gets you through your youth I suppose.  Now, in later life, I have started to develop a deep appreciation for Michigan and the history of my local area. 

 

I am looking forward to the events I have coming up in Michigan but not for the reasons you might think.  This is not a matter of me seeing people I knew in high school and college…that will be nice.  I planned this trip to give back to the community.  The subject of my book Lost Eagles, Frederick Zinn, was born in Galesburg and raised in Battle Creek.  For me this is a chance to tell the people in those communities about a local hero that they might not have heard of.  I think Fred would have wanted it that way. 

 

This trip is not all promotion for Lost Eagles.  I am currently working on a true crime book set in Marshall Michigan and I'm hoping to do some research while I'm there.  It helps to know the locales, the people, the lay of the proverbial land.  Sometimes my family name opens doors, sometimes it slams them shut.  That's part of the fun.  

 

So, if you're in Michigan between December 3-7, please stop in at one of my events and soak in the discussion. Check my web site Blaine Pardoe News for the latest on where I will be.  I hope you find these lectures entertaining.  Obviously I hope you buy the book - that's a forgone conclusion.  If you get a chance, introduce yourself (or reintroduce yourself).  You never know where my next story may come from or how much you might be able to contribute.  After all, it's not my history, it's your history I'm fascinated with.