Having nothing better to do on a rainy Saturday morning, one that unfortunately canceled my tee time, I started going through old emails in an ambitious attempt to delete a hundred or so.

Yes, I had that many stacked up.

By the twenty-fifth deletion, however, I was already getting bored with the project. My attention span is roughly comparable to a dog’s, except I don’t have a tail to wag when something shiny distracts me.

I was just about to hit delete on one particular email when I noticed it was from a professor at a local college. I checked it twice to make sure some spammer, hacker, or online miscreant hadn’t sent it.

(Side note — I hope there’s a special place in Hell for those people.)

Oops. Sorry. Distracted again.

Anyway, the email looked official enough, so I opened it.

It was from a Professor Alfred Frampton of Carefree University, just north of Phoenix, Arizona.

Professor Frampton’s email was direct and to the point. He explained that a friend had given him a free copy of one of my books, much to my indignation, and that he enjoyed it enough to visit my website and check out several more titles from the university library.

Would it have killed him to actually buy one, I wondered.

Sorry. Side tracked again.

Once he finished explaining what a cheapskate he was, he finally got to the point of the email.

He wanted me, a kid from the bean-fields of Illinois with diesel exhaust permanently embedded in his lungs, to teach a week-long seminar on writing and publishing novels.

I read the email twice.

Did this man not realize that despite having ten books for sale, I still hadn’t sold fifteen hundred copies?

I cursed my luck again for not having been born John Grisham, although I was convinced I had been better looking when I was younger.

The fact was, virtually nobody knew who I was. Or worse, they did know and simply weren’t interested in what I had to say. For the sake of my ego, I’d been choosing to believe the first explanation.

Of course, there was probably a third possibility: at seventy-two years old, I simply wasn’t technically savvy enough to get my work in front of people. One online help desk actually laughed — in print, no less — and suggested I keep my day job.

I immediately accepted Professor Frampton’s offer and asked for details.

I didn’t ask whether the seminar paid anything, though I’d be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind. I did, however, ask if I could sell my books during the seminar.

He agreed.

I had two weeks to prepare.

The first day of the seminar finally arrived. Wanting to appear fashionable and important, I deliberately showed up a few minutes late.

When I walked into the classroom, roughly twenty-five people were staring back at me.

Trying to look professional, I removed my books from a cardboard carrier and carefully stacked them on a table at the front of the room.

Three copies each of ten books.

Thirty books total.

At the end of the lecture, I carried twenty-nine of them back out.

Over the course of the week, though, the class slowly grew larger, which made me think I must have been doing something right.

Early on, I shamelessly played the “confused old guy intimidated by technology” card and received an avalanche of help from several younger students who seemed genuinely eager to educate this ancient boomer on modern publishing.

By week’s end, I had autographed and sold ten books, answered questions ranging from story structure to newsletter functions, discussed proper font sizes, turned down one marriage proposal, and been asked who the president was when I was born.

But what I really walked away with was knowledge.

And three good phone numbers.

Mostly the knowledge.

My wife wouldn’t let me call the phone numbers.

By Friday evening, I realized I had probably gotten far more from the class than the students ever got from me.

I mentioned this to Professor Frampton as we stood talking after the seminar ended. I thanked him sincerely for the opportunity and volunteered to return if he ever decided to offer the course again.

As I reached the doorway, he called out to me.

“Jim,” he said.

I turned back around.

“Yes, sir?”

“Keep writing,” he said. “You’re actually a pretty good storyteller.”

Then he lowered his eyes back to the papers on his desk.

I stood there for a moment watching him, an odd warmth coming over me.

Had that old coot organized the entire seminar more for my benefit than the students’?

I’ll never know.

Professor Frampton died in his sleep that night.