(from my myspace blog)
We arrived in Scranton the day before the concert and as Nancy felt tired after the long drive she decided to have a lie down in the afternoon so I went to investigate the local shopping mall, (my first American Mall experience)
I'd just got to the stage where I had decided it was no different from at home, and was a bit cheesed off because I couldn't find anything fun to do when I bumped right into Steve Jay, right there in the Mall!
I said Hi! and smiled and I guess I must have looked familiar or something from Sunday night (though we had not met) and he said Hey! You're the British gal, right? You got a minute?....
Anyway, introductions over, he said Lets get coffee, so we went to Starbucks and sat there for AGES just chatting like old friends. He reminisced about times past spent in England, and I talked about how I had come to America specifically to see the two gigs.
We talked about the world and politics and religion and science and books and generosity and friendship and selfishness and just about everything imaginable.
When we finally finished our coffees he said
You've gotta read this book ..
So, we went off in search of a bookshop. This does get pretty funny .
So, bookshop right? Could we find one? Steve was going up to everyone and asking. Two black guys in hoodies were lounging around on a bench and Steve said.. Let's ask them, they look like readers. It was at this point that I knew I was just gonna have to roll with what was gonna be a fairly surreal experience. No bookshop. After asking about five or six people we came to the conclusion that the nearest bookshop was Borders, in a place called Dickson City, out of town. It was actually funny to watch these people as they realized for the first time that they lived in a town with no bookshop lol
So, we left the Mall and Steve jumped out into the road with his arm in the air and soon a cab appeared not for us but for someone else, but the driver did order another for us. Soon we were on our way to Borders. It was a pretty long cab ride, just under $30, and Steve gave him extra to wait. We went in, only to discover, eventually that the book was not in stock, so Steve bought me another book entirely LOL. It's called "The Quark and the Jaguar" by Murray Gell-Mann, a Nobel Laureate physicist. I was pretty flattered Steve thought I was capable of reading theoretical Physics with any degree of understanding I must say, and I really do intend to give it a shot, even if it is just to get some idea of the points he was trying to explain.
The cabbie took us back to Scranton and there was a bit of a panic when Steve realized he couldn't find his cell phone. We went back to his hotel where he struggled for a bit to get an outside line in order to call the phone, but eventually it turned out he had left it on the counter in Borders and they sent it over pretty much straight away. It was a memorable afternoon. I found Nancy in the bar of our hotel and she was amazed at what had been going on while she was having a nap. I showed her my book though, which Steve had signed for me, so then she believed me.
The next day, after we came out of the venue, Steve was the first person I saw and he said "Jeez! It's Louise!" and gave me a big hug and Nancy took some great photos of us goofing around outside.
Steve Jay... what a guy.
