visiting mike
Thanks, Mr. Perry.
Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.
— John Randolph
Despite being a plantation owner in Virginia who owned over 400 slaves, and despite his anti-equality, pro-aristocratic attitudes, Randolph is nonetheless quite correct. The older I get, the more my time is valuable and not to be wasted.
When someone says Thanks for letting me take so much of your time, I usually respond You didn’t take my time, I gave it to you. There’s a difference. A person who doesn’t know the value of their own time is sure to waste yours, and as I get older I am less patient with people don’t understand that the clock is always ticking. We are, as Dickens said, “fellow passengers to the grave.”
Michael Perry is one of my favorite writers. He’s a New York Times bestselling author, and if you think that has gone to his head, nothing could be further from the truth.
Mike is perceptibly grounded. People who spend time with dirt under their fingernails and wear nitrile gloves see the world differently. Your New York Times Best Seller status is not significant when you’re dealing with a minivan that was t-boned by a drunk driver in an F-250, and you’re doing CPR on one of the victims, hoping that there would be no orphans created as a result of the collision.
Hospice work isn’t as fast-paced as working as a first responder, but it has similarities. Any awards, wealth, status, or fame are pretty insignificant when you’re facing the inevitable. Contemplating your own mortality can ground you, and contemplating someone else’s can do so too. Hospice chaplaincy gives you the gift of observing how people deal with tough decisions when time is the most precious it will ever be. I dare say that a person in their last moments would gladly take back a few hours spent earlier in life in a mindless chase for amusement.
From my observation, Mike Perry writes because he must. Yes, writers need to eat, and this is how he makes a living. Bills must be paid. But I don’t think he does it strictly for the money. He does it because he’s Mike Perry, and what Mike Perry does is tell stories. Fortunately, he gets paid something for it, so he can keep doing it.
That’s not to say he couldn’t do something else. He’s competent enough to restore an old IH truck, and I’m sure he could make a living any number of ways. He could get his nursing license renewed. But he’s a writer.
I have written three letters to people whose work I admire. One to Mike, one to the vocalist and songwriter P!nk, and one to David Sedaris, the humorist whose acerbic wit and observations of minutiae make him another favorite. Mike and David responded, leaving me astonished. P!nk, I didn’t expect anything, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Mike and I have corresponded off and on for a number of years. Yes, his job is to write, but there’s also touring, readings, writing, reading for audio books, and recording for his Substack. He spends a lot of time on the road away from his family. He puts plenty of miles on his vehicle. He signs hundreds of pounds of books a week.
We have a fair bit in common. We both love to write. That said, he makes a living at it; I don’t. Sure, I write columns and essays for our local independent paper, and for a few websites and other outdoor publications, and they all bring in a small check that supports the travel fund. I will write books in the future; I’m already working on them a little at a time, but the heavy lifting won’t happen until I sell the shop. I’ll never be the writer Mike Perry is, and that’s fine. I shouldn’t be. Someday I’ll be the writer I should be.
I own a dozen of Mike’s books, and I can recommend all of them, but my favorites are Population 485, Truck, Coop, and Visiting Tom. My favorites are mostly his early work, and that’s probably because I read them at a time when I was trying to figure out my own voice.
Population 485 is beautiful, but some of the stories will eviscerate you. He wrote it while working as a volunteer firefighter, riding ambulances as an EMT, and in rural Wisconsin, the accidents may be less frequent but certainly more graphic. That doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful stories. I think it’s about him falling in love with his hometown again.
Truck is purportedly about restoring an old International Harvester pickup at the same time he’s falling in love with his wife.
Coop is about him falling in love with the little family he and his wife created together, with chickens in it so the title makes sense.
Visiting Tom is about his love for an old, eccentric neighbor who oozes wisdom and isn’t even aware of it. Come to think of it, so does Mike.
Mike sent me a postcard last September when I thought I was going to close rather than sell Rutabaga. I don’t expect postcards from unintentional mentors, which is how I describe Mike. He certainly didn’t set out to be a mentor, but those are the best sort.
Mike is an accomplished performer, with a natural, authentic, and casual cadence that’s clearly practiced but not overly-polished. You feel like you’re listening to him tell stories around an old kitchen table. Too shiny would be inauthentic.
When my son gave me tickets to his reading for Christmas, I was delighted. I sent Mike an email and offered to buy him dinner before his show. I figured he’d be busy, and I should have known his time isn’t really his own before a show. He responded graciously, thanking me for the offer but explaining his time is tightly controlled on tour. He did invite me to visit with him backstage before the show. I was grateful for a few minutes just to say howdy.
I arrived at 6:15 and told the person at the counter I was there to see Michael Perry. She looked at me like I’d walked into a barn at the World Dairy Expo and asked to see the Holsteins. “The house isn’t open yet. We’ll open the doors at 7:00.” I explained that I was there to see him. Same Holstein look. “We’re friends.”
Never having met him in person, it felt a little weird to say we were friends, but it got the job done. I was led through a labyrinth of hallways to the green room, where he was sitting alone. He greeted me warmly with the firm handshake of a guy who has mucked out a barn or twenty and thrown 50-pound hay bales into a wagon. Author, yes, but there was not a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches in sight. Just a Wisconsin-themed T-shirt.
We chatted about family, writing, road life, and trying to maintain good health north of 60. We went through what I call the organ recital, where old dudes talk about their aches and pains. We talked about writing. I told him about my favorite books of his, and even some lines from them. He was gracious and seemed almost surprised, offering a quiet but sincere thank you.
A few takeaways from our conversation:
If you read the first several books, he references his mother frequently. If half of what he says is true, she’s the Mother Teresa of the 715 Area Code. I love that woman, and I wish I had met her before she passed away.
No matter how talented a writer is, there’s imposter syndrome. We both feel to some extent that we’re lucky to be where we are in business, his as a writer, and me owning a paddlesport shop.
People ask him to do events for free all the time. He sometimes does. People ask me to give them free stuff all the time. I sometimes do. We both have improved our ability to send our regrets.
We are now looking at a finite number of days ahead of us. That’s sobering, but also provides clarity. Every minute is a gift. We briefly discussed my heart attack and how a shot across the bow is better than a broadside, as unpleasant as it may be.
Being a father to daughters is so, so beautiful. Hard, but beautiful.
Neither one of us care much for influencers.
People are generally good, irrespective of their political leanings. There should be less name-calling, more help me understand why you feel that way.
I looked at my watch and 45 minutes had passed.
I am still astounded at the gift I received from Mike. Time is precious, and knowing his schedule, he could have been doing any number of things to relax before the show. Instead, he gave me his time. Time is limited, which makes the gift even more meaningful.
As part of my effort to be a card carrying member of the no-influencers club, I didn’t take a selfie with him. Instead I took a quasi-anonymous photo of one of my favorite writers.
If you’re a reader, dig in to one of Mike’s books and enjoy. His writing is honest and soulful, but not overly sentimental. I don’t know how much he labors over his words, but I believe he spends a lot of time honing and polishing his prose to achieve the proper effect he desires. Or he’s a roughneck savant. Or maybe it’s a little of both.
Thx Darren, I need to add Mike to the authors I need to read. I survived a widowmaker heart attack last summer. I'm doing very well with a sharper appreciation for the time I have left at 69 years old...🤔
Beautifully written as always my friend. And thanks for a reminder of how precious time is...especially someone else's. Now I am off to the bookstore to find a Perry book.