Three Years Ago This Month: Are copies of JT: Another Mighty Midyett actually available yet?

Yes! In several formats

By Moristotle

[Interview originally published on March 4, 2015. We re-announce this today as a way of informing readers of a new feature of Moristotle & Co. – its Book Authors’ Corner, which is featured near the top of the sidebar. The corner’s purpose is to celebrate and promote books by Moristotle’s authors, who include members of the staff and others who have kindly allowed us to excerpt their work from time to time. Randy Somers, the author of JT, falls into the latter category, but as the article below reminds us, he has a close connection with a staff member.

You ask whether copies of JT: Another Mighty Midyett are actually available yet.
    Yes, they are! As of this week [a little over three years ago now], you can order paperback copies directly from the publisher, Xulon Press. [Shortly after original publication, Randy’s own website came up, and you could – and still can – order JT directly from him there.]

What about eBooks?
    Yes again! You can order Kindle and Nook books from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, respectively.

Randy Somers

Doesn’t the book have some connection with Vic Midyett, a columnist at Moristotle & Co.?
    It certainly does! The “JT” of the book’s title is Vic’s father, James Thomas Midyett, and the author is Randy Somers, Vic’s cousin and a nephew of JT’s. The book is Randy’s tribute to JT, depicting the sacrifices and challenges JT faced in war and as a missionary in India, where Vic was born soon after his parents arrived there in 1950. Vic has published a number of his “Missionary Kid” stories here on Moristotle & Co.

Why did Randy Somers write the book? It must have been a lot of work.
    Vic Midyett wrote about that on February 3, quoting Randy’s own words about the project. As Randy explained,

Then, as I grew up, Mom began to tell me things about World War II that her brother was involved in: two amphibious landings in the Solomon Islands, the first at Guadalcanal. Some of the things he had told her made the hair on my neck stand up. He, like the others of his generation, just didn’t talk about it. It was a fluke I knew anything at all.
    Later on in his life, he asked me to help him write sermons to help raise money for him to go back to his beloved India to see the people he had worked with. This simple one-on-one guy was going back to visit ministries that he either started or helped to build. One at a time.
    Then one day, before my mom passed away, I had a strong urge to record my uncle’s life. I knew there were some things that were worthy of being told. I took him for a walk that day and told him of my desire, even though I now knew how humble he was. He told me people had suggested this before, but he was afraid that attention would be drawn to him instead of the God he loved. I assured him that would not happen.
    I told him the book was a useless endeavor unless he did two things: tell me what he actually faced as a member of the United States Marine Corps in WWII, and about the dangers and challenges he faced in India as a missionary. He agreed to tell me.

I see now that Vic’s February 3 column said that Randy’s website would “go online [that] week.” But when I went there, it said the site was still under construction.
    Yes. Unfortunately, Vic’s column was a bit premature in announcing that. Review of proofs prior to publication was a good deal more time-consuming than Randy was anticipating at the time. But randysomers.net really is going online this week [three years ago, as explained above], and you should be able to visit it before midnight today!

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