Some fans are simply fans. I may know a bit of their story, but often I don’t even know their names.

Years ago, at a signing at a tiny no-longer-extent bookstore in Tucson, a grungy looking guy showed up fresh from the homeless shelter where he was living. Turns out, among the books he’d found in the shelter’s small library, he’d encountered some of mine. He came to the signing and gave me a coffee mug he’d made in a local pottery class as his way of saying thank you. I’m not sure my photograph here does it justice. I don’t drink coffee from it because it’s a work of art. It sits on a side table in the hallway. Although I have no idea of his name and saw him only once, I think of him every time I do one of my inside laps. My pottery-making artist is one of the former. Now you’ll be introduced to some of the latter.

In 2008, Bill and I did a 5,000 mile, car-and-driver book tour. One of the events was in Boulder, Colorado, at a public library. Terry, a fan who lived in Grand Junction, drove almost 200 miles one way to come to the signing. When she arrived, the people in the library told her the room was filled to capacity and wouldn’t let her in, so she had to wait outside. After the talk, when I signed her book and heard her story, I was furious. If I’d known about that, I would have thrown Bill out of the room and let Terry in, but that was the beginning of our friendship.

She was a first-rate fan. When a book came out, she’d open the audio edition on the stroke of midnight and listen to it through h the night. By the time I’d crawl out of bed the next morning, her review of the new book would be sitting in my mailbox. The same thing was true of the blog. She always commented—not on the blog comments page but by sending me a personal email. One Friday, she didn’t comment. I waited a day or two. After three I tried calling on the phone. No answer. Finally, the following Thursday, I called the local Sheriff’s Office and asked them to do a welfare check. Turns out, she was in the hospital in an ICU with no access to a telephone. After that, Terry gave my contact information to her caregiver. That’s how, years later, I learned that Terry had passed away. Her caregiver gave me a call.

And then there are my two incredibly loyal Tucson fans, Janice and Valerie. I first remember seeing Valerie and her husband, Ted, at a bookstore called Footprints of the Gigantic Hound. At the time, Ted had such an amazing white beard that he could have been a dead-ringer for Santa Claus if he hadn’t been way too tall. Janice and her husband, Frank, generally showed up at signings on the far northwest side of town, but they were there often enough, with Janice flashing her amazing smile, until I could recognize her on sight and was able to personalize her books without asking for her name.

Then time passed—lots of it. Janice and Valerie read the blog, made occasional comments, and showed up in person at events whenever possible. Then in the fall of 2020, I received emails from each of them individually saying that their respective husbands, Ted and Frank, were in separate Tucson-area hospitals with non-Covid ailments where neither Janice nor Valerie were allowed to set foot. They were able to visit their menfolk only through windows. With two of my fans in the same town in much the same boat at the same time, it made sense to put the two strangers in touch with each other, and eventually they became friends. Then another fan named Michelle came along. She was in Texas. Her husband had come down with Covid and was being transferred from hospital to hospital miles away from where she lived. One night, after trying to visit him, she hit a deer on a country road on the way home and wrecked her car. So Michelle was added to the group, and so was my childhood friend, Pat, from Florida. When Michelle’s husband eventually succumbed to Covid the other four of us were there to provide support as she started over.

We called ourselves the Circle, and we’ve stayed in touch with group emails ever since, keeping one another updated about what’s going on in our lives. During that time three of us—Valerie, Janice, and I, have been unavoidably cast into the role of caregivers to our spouses, and it’s not been an easy road. Earlier this fall, I saw a TV video of an older couple, an elderly man and his much younger wife, walking on a beach. As the old man tottered along over the uneven terrain, his wife surged past him, marching along without bothering to offer him a steadying hand or even glancing back to see how he was doing.

I was incensed by her utter disregard. How could she not reach out to help him? And my instant thought was, “At least I’m NOT HER!” Neither are Valerie or Janice. Janice has been there to pick Frank up off the floor whenever he falls. Valerie has spent weeks sleeping on a sofa in their living room, keeping vigil next to Ted’s hospice bed. Earlier this week, Ted passed away, but I’m sure that, exhausted as she is, Valerie would willingly have continued to be Ted’s “NOT HER” for much longer. And now the Circle, one that grew out of fans who became friends, will be there to offer comfort and support to Valerie she finds her way in this new part of her life.

As for me? I’m grateful for all of my fans—the one-and-done guy who gave me the coffee mug and ones like my late friend Robin, a retired school psychologist, whose night-owl, early morning messages kept me engaged and entertained for years.

All those years ago when I was a kid in Bisbee, imagining a future where I hoped to become a writer, I had no idea how much I would come to value interactions with my readers. That’s a side benefit of living my dream that I never saw coming.

PS. Once again, if you’re unable to see the photo, try clicking on the comment page and then go back and check to see if it’s there. If that doesn’t work, send me a note at jajance@me.com