Once a year I attend the annual Southeastern Booksellers Association Convention.

I have been a member for 12 years and the annual convention is an ideal place to interview authors and network with others in the publishing industry. It is also the only time I involve family in my business (ad)ventures.

It all started back in 1987 when my back was bothering me. I asked one sister if she would go with me and help with my luggage, briefcase, etc. She did, and we enjoyed our time together tremendously. The following year another sister offered to join me. The first sister still wanted to help, too. I figured “why not?” Both have been tagging along ever since.

We always split up and go in different directions. They seek out authors or books I ought to help promote and tell me about them. If I don't manage an interview at the convention I usually follow up later.

I have not had an opportunity yet to interview Joshua P. Warren, author of “The Lonely Amoeba” and a book about ghosts, but he is one of the authors Lynda discovered this year.

She was intrigued by “The Lonely Amoeba” and that was the book she felt I should tell folks about. It is a precious little children's book that helps the reader understand how to be his or her own best friend. It is a good book.

However...

While learning about “The Lonely Amoeba,” Lynda discovered “Haunted Asheville.” The author handed a copy to her and asked her to check it out. She told Mr. Warren that the three of us were going to spend the night at the Grove Park Inn, in Asheville, on our way home. He said, “Don't read my book until after you leave there.”

She said, “Okay.”

She lied.

We arrived at the Grove Park and had a wonderful dinner on the sunset terrace. The band was awesome and the sunset equally so. We were starting to relax and were more than ready to go to the room and to bed for a long overdue good night's sleep when — you guessed it — Lynda pulls out the ghost book.

We lie down and she starts reading. After about thirty minutes I have to tinkle. I insist that Tamra, the other sister, get out of bed and go with me to the bathroom, just around the wall, a good 20 feet. Lynda says “No way, she stands so I can see her too, or we all go to the bathroom together.”

And so the night unfolded. There was little sleep to be had. Luckily we were in the Vanderbilt wing, which is a newer section of the grand old resort hotel, or I can assure you we would never have even closed our eyes.

The next morning I took my sisters over to the old section. There we stood just outside room 545 where they claim the “pink lady” is most frequently sighted, felt and heard. If the room had not been occupied, we might have asked to see it, since it was daylight — at least, we like to think we were that courageous.

Now, I did not know anything about a “ghost” until Lynda proudly presented us with the story, but I will tell you that I already had decided — the first time I ever went to the Inn for Sunday brunch and asked for a tour and stood in the hall where room 545 is — that I would never spend the night on that floor, and I wasn't sure I ever even wanted to try to sleep in the place at all.

But sisters will do anything.

And so to my memory bank I have added a humdinger of a memory. I am sure I will go back to the Inn again whenever I have the opportunity, for lunch or dinner maybe. But I will think long and hard before I sleep there again, and then only with my husband. Snuggling with my sisters holds little or no appeal.

I did like “The Little Amoeba” though. Small children cannot always grasp the idea that Jesus Christ wants to be their best friend. But it is possible to convince them that they have within themselves the best playmate they will ever want or need.

My grandson, who turned 5 yesterday, is easily bored. At least he used to tell me he was bored frequently. Every time he would do so I would tell him to hold up his hands and look at them. “Now, how can you be bored?” I'd ask.

And so would begin my dissertation about being made in the image of God, and how if God created us, then we are creators too, and there is no excuse for being bored when we have a brain, hands and feet. He's getting the message.

He is seldom still these days and not often bored. He is discovering the potential of who he is as God's creation.

It is a continuous adventure.

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