The other night at Politics & Prose bookstore, The Newshour's Jim Lehrer was kind enough to sign a copy of his new novel, Oh, Johnny
, with a dedication "To Bettye," the mother of someone I know. The heroine of his story is named "Betsy," so I had to spell it out for him. He got it right. He signed books after reading a passage from the story about a Marine suffering from shell shock that caused him to choke up...A different side of the normally low-key onscreen TV news anchor. Oh, Johnny
is about Marines, baseball, and buses--three of Lehrer's long-term interests. Lehrer mentioned his USA Today interview about the book during his talk and the Q & A (to an audience with Marines and journalists, not too many bus drivers or baseball player could be discovered), so here's a link.Oh, yes. Lehrer did do one of his famous bus calls for the audience, recreating the first time he was paid to speak into a microphone in Victoria, Texas...