Farewell me hearties

A story about writing came up the other day. I had told this story to an online friend some time ago and we had been out of touch for about a year and then she came back a couple of weeks ago. I started to tell the story and she said she had heard it and that she had told it to friends of hers. I asked what their reaction was. “They laughed,” she said. And that, I told her, is why we don’t share much of the process, but here is the story anyway.

That book in the left column “Keep the Round Side Down,” took almost twenty years to write.
It started in the mid 70s as a short story tall tale. I used to write those for fun, practice, if you will, with no intention of ever publishing any of them. It is like the pianist doesn’t go to Carnegie Hall and play scales and these were scales to me. One followed another over the years and I found people enjoyed hearing me read them, as my daughter attests in that nice review she put on Amazon.

In the early 80s I began driving boats and because of the adventures I had with killer whales came to be called Orca by people for a while.

One night I began to fantasize how someone named Orca would get that name and another tall tale developed, only this went on for a while. I wrote several more with the same character. It eventually developed into a novel in which the boy Orca saved a pod of orcas from a catcher crew that was collecting them for a marine zoo, somewhat akin to Sea World. (My interaction with Sea World is another story) I worked on it for several years intermittently, in between other writing projects, boat adventures, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Somewhere in that time a friend told a friend of his about the stories, someone who ran a small Alaska publishing house. I eventually gave her the short stories but not the novel.

That was because in the interim Disney had come out with the “Free Willie” movies and my story looked so much like that, it would have been ridiculed, so I figured that was a lost cause, more practice, more scales.

The publisher eventually came back to me liking the stories but wanting what she called a framing tale to connect them all. I showed her the Orca stories but told her of my apprehension about accusations of copying. I suggested maybe I could rework it with a different ending, She liked it and the book is the result of that.

Now, here is the real part of the story within the story: One day I marched to the Post Office (this was before Internet and such)with the last submission, the book had been written, edited, corrected, revised and this was the last mailing.

I remember handing it reluctantly across the counter to the fellow in the Post Office and once it was out of my hands I walked over to our favorite watering hole thinking I would celebrate. I sat down, ordered a beer began to take a sip, when an almost tangible overwhelming sadness came over me. A realization. It hit me that I had just said goodbye to a whole group of friends. For the past 20 years of my life all those characters had been with me every day in one form or another, friends I could play with at my whim, kindred spirits, mates, foes, lovers, fellow adventurers. And now they were gone, they wouldn’t be there the next day, I had passed them into the care of another person. It had left me feeling empty and alone.

The bartender who knew I had mailed the manuscript for the last time came over and asked me what was wrong, she had sensed my mood. I looked at her and said I just lost a whole bunch of friends today. She smiled at me and she said she thought she understood. I think she did. It goes to that poem somewhere in this blog that John Updike wrote about marching through a novel:
“I love them though I march them to finish them off” but in my own case with the hope they always sail with the round side down.

I put that picture up there just because I like it. It was taken by our friend Annie Daly on the voyage of the Kaisei last summer.

Precious

This just has to be shared. This little girl made a cover of Lady Gaga's new song "Born this way." Originally I posted a clip of a segment from the Ellen DeGeneres show which explained what has happened since this 10 year old posted this video on YouTube. Warner Bros. claimed ownership and that was taken down from YouTube. This is the original, it caught the attention of the Mother Monster herself who posted a link to it on twitter. Twelve million hits later, the interview, plus Lady Gaga invited Maria to appear on stage with her at a concert in Toronto.

It’s comin’ by gum …

Phrase popped into mind today, a line from a song sung probably in junior high school. Is this that long-term memory we hear so much about? Anyway, it is. Signs of spring. I’ve never been one to want to hurry spring along, mostly because these days March is the absolute best month at the East Pole. It gets cold enough at night to keep the snow and the creeks frozen and the compacting of the snowpack plus a hard freeze on the surface at night lets you go anywhere you want until it warms up by early afternoon.

On a bright sunny day, which there seem to be many of in March, on the west-facing deck, the temperature can rise to 70 degrees, t-shirt and beer weather. It stays that way until the sun disappears behind a tree and then drops to 30 again.

So, signs of spring. Yes. It’s becoming more difficult to sleep late into the morning and I find myself waking up earlier and staying up because of light coming in. Then there’s the height of the sun. Just a week or so ago I needed sunglasses and the windshield visor because I had to drive straight into the sun which was low enough in the sky to shine directly into the car during the commute. Now the sun is high enough in the sky so I don’t need the visor anymore because it is above the top of the windshield.

Can winter’s kiss goodbye be far away?

And the woodpecker was back at the feeder when I walked out into the blaze of pixie dust yesterday. Seems like all is right with the natural order of things. Biorhythms, don’t you know. If only the human relations were as much in synch.

Pixie dust

Stepped out yesterday into a sparkling world. Everywhere in the air little bright spots floated. Bright sunshine meant it wasn’t snowing and though it was cold, it wasn’t ice fog and sundog cold. It seemed to be going on for no particular reason until I saw a bird fly out of a tree heading for one of the feeders. We had had a light snowfall of that cold, tiny flaked type over night and when the bird took off it sent a bunch of it flying off the branch into the air. The flakes were so small and so light they drifted in the air for a time and reflected the sunlight. Given there were several birds flitting from the trees to the feeders and probably a couple of squirrels running around, a considerable amount of snow was thrown into the air and created this little storm of sparkle in the yard. Or maybe it was pixies after all, and they are the cause of all the mystery. Watching the trees for a sign of Tinkerbell, but the way the rest of the day went I doubt I received any pixie dust from her.

Brightness yields clues but no solution

I left for work yesterday over a clean blanket of snow in the driveway. When I returned in the dark, there appeared to be more tracks in the yard than there should have been. Just at the doorstep were two footprints even and next to each other, much smaller than mine(they were about 2/3 the length of mine) and with pointy toes. Definitely not mine. In the dark and being tired I waited until morning to investigate. A vehicle with wider tires than mine, probably a pickup, had pulled in sometime yesterday. Unless it backed in, the driver did not get out, only a passenger with those pointy shoes who walked to the doorstep and apparently stood there but did not go up on the porch. Very curious. Oddly I could not find tracks of those pointy boots leading away from the step. But there was quite a mix of my own tracks in that area from when I went to work and returned. Obviously these were not the causes of the light going on the night before, but now a new element has been added. Perhaps all this mystery can be grown into a story. We shall see. Meanwhile there have been lots of visitors today.

In the bright light of day, the mystery darkens

Sun rose bright on the east side of the mountain and set just below the peak before rising again on the west side. Won't be long until it passes over the mountain instead of behind it. But even the clarity of sunlight did not solve the night before's mystery. Not a track to be seen anywhere within the arc of what the light would have illuminated. A line of squirrel tracks from one tree to another was all that spoiled the surface of the new snow and that happened early in the day. Perhaps back in the woods the critters held a wake for the fallen hero Brian Jacques who died Feb. 5 at the age of 71. I recall my son and I late at night when he was younger taking turns reading alternate pages of his Redwall books, (there are 22 of them) following the adventures of Mathias and nibbling on scones once we found out what they were.

Dark mystery on a white background

In the woods a new fallen snow becomes a newspaper into the world among the trees, a clean sheet awaiting imprint to chronicle the comings and goings of the citizens within its circulation area. All one needs to read that journal is to slap on a pair of snowshoes and take a tour across the broadsheet to see who’s been there, what direction that critter took, whether it was running or walking, in fear or confidence, some chased, occasionally the trail ending abruptly when one is caught from above by the owl, the snow disturbed where its wingtips touched as it grabbed its prey. News without headlines, the passing in nature that needs not the added drama of bigger type, only the imagination of the viewer to fill in the details. Occasionally one ends in mystery, just stopping for no apparent reason or going out of sight into the distance.

Now a new mystery has been added, promoted by the availability of electricity and motion sensor technology. With sensing lights on both sides of the house, the yard illuminates without apparent reason sometimes. A cat running through the yard perhaps or a bird flying by. During the huge windstorms that blow through here often they will be on constantly, triggered by the bending swaying branches of the trees. Tonight, though, a mystery.

Tonight the west side light came on. There is no wind so that was not the cause. New snow had left its sheet over the ground awaiting the news, but there was no news, no telltale tracks hinting at what might have moved past. So, what was it triggered the light? The spirits of the forest perhaps, wisps of fairies dancing just above the snow. In the dark few birds fly by and the feeders remain untouched. No spy of my imagination slipped up to a window, no cat followed the squirrels across the yard, no moose came to nibble the lilac. What mystery motion could have sparked the light into brilliance? Perhaps morning will reveal the answer. And then came a tapping, tapping tapping at the entry door…

Now here's a surprise

It seems to be a day for finding interesting things on the Internet. Today was the release date for a new Lady Gaga song, first one in more than a year, I think. The first thing i did when i reached lucidity this morning was buy it on iTunes. As of 6 p.m. I still haven't listened to it. There is this fear I won't like it and a whole slew of disappointments could build on that. But after finishing income tax, for some mental relaxation, I went searching to see how it had done today and what people were saying about it. Now comes the surprise. Far be it from me to land on a site about religious faith, and far be it at least in my mind, for the religious community to find anything positive in Lady Gaga. But, here it is: Our Lady of Gaga?
Though some of what the writer says is a bit of a stretch, her main message rings true from what I have learned about the singer. I am not sure if this makes me more or less interested in listening to the new song. But the message resonates: "Born This Way."

Alaska on a clear day

The photo was taken from the NASA Aqua satellite Jan. 12. It shows a snow covered Southwest Alaska and the southern Bering Sea. For location, Anchorage is a bit above center vertically on the right side of the image. The Alaska Peninsula angles down to the lower left.

Here is what NASA had to say about it:

"From an altitude of 438 miles, the biting cold and snowy hassle of winter melts away and is replaced by minimalist beauty. The clouds that normally shroud much of the Arctic cleared on January 12, 2011, to unveil a snow-bound Alaska. The scene was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

"On the ground, snow is an equalizer: It covers everything uniformly in a blanket of white. But from space, snow is a revealer. Subtle variations in color and texture highlight Alaska’s rugged topography and primary ecosystems.

"Inland, the vast boreal forest is dark, colored by evergreen trees that shed snow from their tall, conical forms. The treeless tundra, on the other hand, is bright white. The low shrubs and mosses on the tundra—along the coast and above the tree line in the mountains—do not break through the snow, so the landscape is an unrelieved white except for the slender rivers winding across the landscape.

"Winter white extends to the ocean. Land-bound ice swells the coast, temporarily claiming the ocean for the land. The shadow of the summer coastline, where land meets sea ice, traces a faint outline—a hint of gray—between stark white sea ice and equally white coastal tundra. A brown and green channel of semi-open water separates the continent from the ice-choked Bering Sea. Moving away from land, ice creeps across the open sea in wisps and curls that resemble foamy froth.

"Beyond the clutches of ice, the Bering Sea shows signs of turbulence and the dark waters swirl with vibrant green. Such color often points to phytoplankton, but this burst of color could also be sediment brought to the surface by powerful waves spawned by winter storms."

This is taking things way too far

There is a bill before the Alaska Legislature this session to stiffen the laws governing Internet crime. From the brief synopsis I was able to get hold of, it is mostly meant to protect children from predators and all people from financial scams. It also raises protections for senior citizens making us sound like feeble minded idiots. One of the supposed crimes the bill wants to protect us older folks from is "sexting," that process of sending racy messages back and forth between cell phones (which is not exactly Internet, but hints at the mentality behind the bill). Wait just one minute. I do not want to be protected from sexting. As a matter of fact I was looking forward to it when other things have given out, I am drooling in a wheelchair at the Pioneer home and it is the one thing left that will get the blood going. The arrogance of the young is amazing. I really don't think i was that way, but who remembers back that far (hope you caught that). Perhaps it will finally be the protest that gets me a night in jail, not exactly the protest that led Henry David Thoreau to Civil Disobedience, but it will have to do. I can almost see the perp roll (wheelchair, remember): looking for the handicapped entrance to the jail, screaming for my cell phone, slight lifting of the blanket over my lap, a leftover from the crime (one can only hope) and going to jail for the rights of geriatric sexters everywhere.
Rock on brothers and sisters. Take it to the man and woman.

Stopping by the woods

Lace in the trees, bright sunshine when you come out from the shade of the mountains and warm enough to almost feel that winter's kiss. Faint northern lights on the way home and temperatures in the tolerable range. All that was needed for a perfect winter day was a little more snow.

They'rrrrrre back

Grouse at the feeders tonight. You'll just have to take my word for it.

In case anyone caught the self CPR posting

Cure this Contagious Rumor: Coughing Won’t Fend Off a Heart Attack

Despite a contagious rumor, coughing doesn’t prevent a heart attack. An e-mail that spread around the world like a contagious disease a few years ago claimed that anyone who feels heart attack symptoms while alone should cough “repeatedly and very vigorously, repeating a breath about every two seconds…until help arrives, or (a normal heartbeat returns).”

Wrong, says the American Heart Association.

“It’s right up there with voodoo as far as I’m concerned,” says Dr. Cary Fishbein, a cardiologist with the Dayton Heart Center.

The coughing technique known as “cough CPR” has been used in hospitals by physicians to treat sudden irregular heartbeats in monitored patients during cardiac catheterization procedures. In this case, a responsive patient who develops a sudden irregular heartbeat could possibly maintain blood flow to the brain and remain conscious for a few seconds if they cough vigorously and forcefully while being directed by a physician.

But traditional CPR is not used to treat heart attack victims who remain conscious – but only if the heart attack if followed by cardiac arrest, the American Heart Association says.

Twilight zone

OOOO woo woo: How bizarre how bizarre. In the process of doing some research yesterday, I was going through Microfiche of newspapers from the 70s. Pretty normal, until I realized I had laid out and edited most of the papers I was looking at. Then there were the bylines, my daughter's mother for one. Just seemed strange to go back into that world. I may have to think about this more. Oddly the 8th step of the Alcoholics Anonymous process came up: "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. " I have never been in AA and never really needed it, but know about that one somehow and it has crossed my mind a time or two.