The Quarter-Ton Pick-Up #3

The Bubbly

Ingrid De Groot Minnisto,
Not sure where to send the 52 Pickup. But here is my question. What do you do to celebrate the ending of the book? Party with Judy? Crack a beer? Do a jig around the loft?

Hi Ingrid,

I have to admit that like readers, I have a tendency to slow down when I get toward the end of a book, almost like I don’t really want it to end. It’s not like I don’t know that there are going to be more adventures with these characters, but I’m leaving them at that moment in their existence and it’s always a little sad.

​I tend to write in bookends as I call them, where the action or dialogue of the novel at the beginning is the same as the end, so I always know what the ending will be—sort of, so I’m generally not surprised by it.
​It’s usually a quiet thing, in that I’ll come down the stairs from the loft here at the ranch and we’ll be having dinner and I’ll mention, “I think I just finished a book.”

Judy tends to be a little more celebratory than me and her favorite way to express that is champagne. It’s funny but neither of us thought we liked the stuff until I did a residency in France, where we discovered we just didn’t like shitty champagne, but the expensive stuff ain’t bad at all.

Anyway, we generally keep a bottle of the good stuff ($50 or so) for just such occasions, and usually drink a toast to the good sheriff. So, that’s pretty much it, a bottle of champagne and a quiet night at home. I guess I spend so much time on the road that when I get the chance to stay here at the ranch, that becomes exotic in itself.

One of the stories I’ll always remember from that French residency was a small champagne maker who had a building in town where he did all of his work, but business was good, so he needed to expand and bought the building next door. Business was so good that they were using forklifts and other heavy equipment, so they had to pull up the cobblestones in the caves below in hopes of pouring a smooth, concrete floor that the machines could more easily roll.

That’s when they discovered human bones underneath the stones.

The building had been used by the Gestapo during the occupation of France in WWII. Knowing full well that the government would likely confiscate the building from them, they quietly returned the cobblestones in place.

The business of making champagne requires placing sugar plugs in the white wine and then stopping them, but with the process sometimes comes an explosion where a certain percentage of the product blows the corks and empties itself out and onto the cobblestones in the caves, seeping between and into the fertile ground.

​Upon showing me one of the empty bottles in the wall rack, the elder founder of the brand looked at me and then at the wet stones and simply said, “That one is for them.”

See you on the trail,
Craig

PS: You can order your autographed copy of THE LONGMIRE DEFENSE, to be released on September 5, at this link:

https://www.craigallenjohnson.com/the-longmire-defense.htm

PPS: THE LONGMIRE DEFENSE book tour hits the trail starting September 4. You can find the schedule here:

https://www.craigallenjohnson.com/tour-of-duty.htm