Just a few miles south, or was it east, of Atlanta, Ga., I was sitting in a traffic Jam. Not really, but the traffic was horrendous. I couldn’t believe that there were so many people on the highway at eight o’clock on a Sunday night. It took an hour to get to the hotel. I was so tired, I went to sleep, never knowing that the next day would turn out to be one of the best days of my earthly life.
Nine in the morning, I’m on my way to meet TC at the mall to go to Alpharetta. One of the fallacies of the directions that I took with me was that it failed to give directional placements for the intestates, as in go north or south. I turned into the lane that I thought I was supposed to be in. I zoomed along and thought to myself how lucky I was to be on this side of the interstate. The other side was in gridlock. About that time, I noticed that I was going the wrong direction. I finally made it to the mall. TC’s sister-in-law, Kim, was with her, and also her young son. We talked and sang on the way to Best Buy for a chance at another meeting with SCC. It was 9:30 and the store wasn’t opened yet. We waited patiently in the car for the doors to open. There were others in the parking lot who were obviously waiting too. One young girl looked like she would bolt if anyone made a move to exit his or her car.
Finally, at 10 o’clock, the doors open. Best Buy was not prepared for this at all. They had no table, no tape blocking off the line; nothing and not a SCC picture anywhere. Rod, a very nice young man, had no idea why we made a fuss about it. “Write you name on this paper and come back at 12 o’clock,” he says. We, of course, looked at him like he has lost his mind. “I’ll make sure that you are first in line,” the obviously confused Rod said to us. Hmmm, didn’t work for us, so we insisted that he start a line somewhere. He brought out chairs; that was very nice of him. He passed out things that he wasn’t supposed to and I think that he got into trouble for that. I’m sorry Rod.
So, Rod began to set things up. He brought out a table and starts hanging up AAL posters on refrigerators and other appliances. There was one problem though, he had set up SCC’s table in front of a battery display. “Excuse me, Rod, can you come here for a second?” Rod walked over, “Ummm, Rod, you cannot put Steven Curtis Chapman in front of a battery display,” I told him. He assured me that he was going to move it, and he did. The line was growing quite rapidly; we were fortunate to only be about ten people from the front.
Twelve o’clock sharp, not really, I’ve been told that he is always just a little late, Steven comes out to the table. The ‘man at the table’ was ready to begin. I was last in our group, I think, and when it was my turn, I slid a card to him. I wonder if he had a chance to read it yet, and he reached out to shake my hand. He looked up and I think he remembered me, and greeted me like a long lost friend. He has such a gift for making people feel special. I slid my license plate over to him to sign. I will paraphrase what he said, because I’m not entirely sure that I will remember his exact words. “I feel like I’m defacing Federal property,” he said. I leaned in a little and told him, “That’s OK, I really don’t care.” Not exactly the correct attitude for a Christian to have, but when Steven Curtis Chapman was signing your SCC FAN license plate, what more could you do, besides forget to say something appropriate. Silly me, I didn’t even look at my camera when they took the photo for me.
