I did my first socially distanced book talk this week — mask and all — and it was fun … but a little different.

I’ve done online talks during the pandemic for both of my last two books — “Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America” and “The Class of ’65: A Student, a Divided Town and the Long Road to Forgiveness.” It can be strange. I remember one Zoom session where I did a version of my barbecue slide show and heard nothing but the sound of my voice for half an hour and saw nothing but my images on the screen. It got very uncomfortable. Felt like I was giving a speech in a closet.

So when Johnny and Sally Darden invited me to speak to their book club in Gainesville — in person — I was intrigued. The Dardens come from Sparta, Ga., and are neighbors of my mother’s family, the Yarbroughs. Sally assured me that the club would meet outdoors, in a park, and would take precautions against the coronavirus. Johnny is a medical doctor, a retired surgeon, so I figured they would have a proper respect for the virus.

We met under a picnic shelter in Riverside Park on the north side of Gainesville, 20 or so people well-distanced at tables and on folding chairs. Everyone wore a mask — some of them quite interesting. Wilson Golden, a politically active friend of mine from Mississippi, wore a mask that said: “Vote” (which played well with the topic of my talk: politics and barbecue). One woman sported a mask with big red lips. Another wore one with the Rolling Stones’ tongue-stuck-out logo. She asked a question after the talk. I have to admit that I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying as I looked at that tongue and tried to suppress a laugh.

Many thanks to the Dardens and their book club friends for a pleasant experience that proved therapeutic for me. After all these months of online encounters, seeing half a face in person felt almost normal.

Many people don’t know that Jesus was born in Gainesville, Ga.

When I spoke about “The Class of ’65” earlier this week at the Cresswind community in Gainesville, I began my talk with this unusual bit of latter-day biblical scholarship. It comes, of course, from the Cotton Patch gospels, Clarence Jordan’s retelling of the New Testament in the Southern vernacular. Jordan co-founded Koinonia, where my story is set, so it seemed fitting that I tell my listeners we were on sacred ground.

In the Cotton Patch version, Mary and Joseph are headed to Gainesville to see about a tax matter when Mary goes into labor pains. The couple pull over at the Dixie Delite Motor Lodge, but there aren’t any rooms, so they take shelter in an abandoned trailer out back. The baby is born, swaddled in a comforter, and laid in an apple crate.

This was my first talk since November. I’ve been very busy the past few months finishing my next book, a history of barbecue for the University of Georgia Press. As I took the podium, I was afraid that I’d start blathering about wet ribs vs. dry ribs, but I needn’t have worried: I fell back into Koinonia and Americus High and Greg Wittkamper and his classmates like I’d never left them.

It was a great audience: about 70 people representing the dozen or so book clubs that meet regularly at Cresswind. One of them, a group of men, call themselves the Curmudgeons. If I were writing a Cotton Patch translation of the New Testament, I would definitely include Paul’s Epistle to the Curmudgeons.

Many thanks to Wilson and Kris Golden (seen in the photo with Pam and me) for inviting us to Cresswind for a lovely evening.