"Cashing In" My Golden Ticket

I can't believe I am running late! I know I planned out to the minute, what time my Darling Sister-In-Law and I would have to leave home to get to the theater in time to see Stephen King.

Speaking of my Darling Sister-In-Law...where is she, she's not in the car with me? OMG, I've left her behind! I can't afford to turn around and get her, that would really make me late but then I can't leave her behind, she has been eagerly awaiting the Stephen King visit as much as I have, maybe I can call The Colonel and have him bring her to the theater. I feel terrible, sick to my stomach.

Wait a minute, my cell phone is ringing.

"Hello?"..."Hello?"

I hear Stephen King speaking in the background.

It has started without me...It is my Darling Sister-In-Law on the other end of the line...she is holding up her phone so that I can listen to Mr. King.

How did she get there before me? I am running very late now and will be mortified when I have to walk into the theater and interrupt everyone as I find my seat (and face Darling Sister-In-Law).

I feel terrible...anxious...stupid.

Bzzz...Bzzz...Bzzz...

My alarm clock...thank God it was only a dream...an anxiety dream...a nightmare! How appropriate as I was going to see the master of scary stories, Stephen King later that morning.

You can bet, with that bad dream behind me, I would make darn sure we would not be late to see and hear Stephen King speak.

He was to begin speaking at 11:00. Darling Sister-In-Law and I left the house at 9:45. We stopped to gas up the car (should have gassed up the night before; this fact fueled the anxiety dream I am sure, even though a stop for gas was built into our travel time) and then proceeded to our destination.

We arrived at around 10:20 and finding a parking spot was not as daunting as we had anticipated; we found one not far from where the line was queuing up at the theater entrance. We were about 11th and 12th in line.

It did not take long for the line behind us to grow, snake down the sidewalk and curve around the building.

The doors were opened at 10:35. Once inside the doors, we followed the line to a table and at the table were two women who handed out plastic bags for us to put in a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, a CD of an introduction to the stories and poems of Mr. Poe and a reader's guide to his works, all free.

With our bag of goodies in hand (as well as our golden tickets), we crossed the thresh hold of the theater door and handed the tickets to the man. He tore the tickets in half. I wanted to say to him, "Hey, what if I wanted to put my ticket in a scrapbook fella?" but I didn't want to cause a scene and hold up the line, plus I haven't had a scrapbook since I was a girl.

We easily found our seats...and great seats they were! Row C, seats 101 and 102. Just three rows away from Stephen King. Nice.

Darling Sister-In-Law in her seat. Look how close we were sitting.

The minutes were ticking away as more people found their seats.

The lights dim and a gentleman steps out on stage. He is meant to represent Edgar Allan Poe. He speaks a few words and tells some jokes. Darling Sister-In-Law and I do not find him convincing nor amusing. We've come to see Mr. King.

Mr. Poe exits stage right and next on stage is the Editor of the Charlotte Sun newspaper. She will act as moderator and will ask Stephen King questions.

She tells us, before Mr. King gets on stage, that we may not take photos during the program. This does not stop several people from doing so, myself included. (No Mom, I wouldn't jump off of a cliff if everyone else was doing it). I refrained from snapping photos until the tail end of the program (and then only upon Darling Sister-In-Law's urging) but did not use a flash like others did (so the quality of my photos is poor...Cosmic Karma?).

The editor readies the audience for Mr. King by naming some of his many books and she quizzes us by giving a clue about a book and we have to shout out the title. Hello...of course we know our stuff...the fact that we are there should render a quiz a moot point...but it was fun anyway.

The editor finally introduces Stephen King and we give him a rousing welcome with applause as we leap from our seats. As we clap, he smiles and waves and walks across the stage to his wicker chair and sits down. We all sit down. It is so quiet now you could hear a pin drop.

My first impression of Stephen King is that he is tall and thin, almost to the point of being lanky. He looks quite ordinary, not at all flashy or famous looking. He was very much at ease and was funny as he answered the moderator's questions or went off on a different tangent altogether. Darling Sister-In-Law and I both agreed he seemed like he would be a fun guy to hangout with.

Stephen King said lots of things scare him and one of the reasons he writes scary stuff to be able to turn it around and scare someone else. Some of his writing material comes from his imagination and also from reality. The Pet Cemetery idea can be traced to the death of his daughter's cat and its burial in an animal-friendly cemetery behind the King house in Maine. The plot for the book also was inspired by a near-death incident on the same road his daughter's cat was killed. His youngest son was 2 years old and made a dash for the road and Stephen King tackled him at the shoulder of the road just as a huge truck zoomed by three seconds later.

King spoke about who influenced him as a writer. He mentioned Robert Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury and to some extent Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1975, King put his own twist on Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart". He retitled it "The Old Dude's Ticker". The story features a Viet Nam veteran suffering from combat fatigue and uses language reminiscent of the 1970's. It has never been published. Mr. King told us about it and then said, "If you beg and scream, I've got it in my pocket, I can read it to you", as he reached for his jacket pocket. We all cheered and applauded. "You really want to hear this story?", he asked. We cheered and clapped even louder.

With an animated voice and matching hand motions he read us his story. Not only is he a great story writer, he is a great story teller too. He read the story like he was in a play.

I think that was the highlight of the hour-long event for me, having a "bedtime" story read to us by Stephen King himself.