Just received a wonderful gift from Natalie Harvey Bontumasi that I thought Fredheads might appreciate. It’s a Lego toy flashlight, the significance of which is known only to the 200-or-so people who got stuck with us in the underground auditorium at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe when the power went out city-wide.

When it was clear I was going to have to give my reading and lecture on Appetite for America in the dark, I asked if anyone in the audience had a flashlight. The Harvey family–many of whom had joined us on the train from KC to New Mexico–were all sitting in the front rows, and three of the resourceful Harvey women produced light sources from their pocketbooks. Natalie, who has young kids, had a Lego light that shot beams out of its feet–which I loved and had a hard time giving back after the talk (which went on for 45 minutes in the dark before the power was restored just in time for a Fred Harvey dinner at La Fonda.)

Natalie was recently at a Lego convention and said she couldn’t resist buying me one of my own. Very kind, and just one more instance of the Harvey hospitality my wife and I have been shown in all the years of working with the family on this book.

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