

Walmart to Wolf House: Sonoma County Essays

Rob Loughran

Copyright Rob Loughran, 2015

Published on Smashwords by

BUBBA CAXTON BOOKS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

A Big Box of Hope

Confessions of a Househusband

Talking to Children About Death

What's in Ophelia's Garland?

The 118 Minute Bonsai

A "Groundbreaking" Harvest for the Dry Creek Harvest

The Bench

"The Jung and the Restless": Writing Necessary Things

American Idyll

How to Cheat at the Publishing Game...and Win

Apples and Oranges: Adapting Your Novel for the Screen

Go To Your God Like a Soldier

Silent Lives

Blue Collar

NASCAR and the Art of Human Sacrifice

Two Bicycles

Walking Windsor: "Ahhhhhh!"

First Day

Borrowed

Martha Stewart is Homebrewing

Beercabulary

A Modest Drinktionary

How to Run a Marathon and Still Have Time for Sex

How to Write a Novel and Still Have Time for Sex

Homer Simpson and the Art of Proofreading

The Best View in Santa Rosa

This Stuff We Write

Twice as Fast

The Saga of Gentleman Jack London

About the Author

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INTRODUCTION

Like most people, I began my life as a small child.

I attended schools and birthday parties and family functions. I had broken bones and good grades; triumphs and failures, and life swirled around me. But the first time I ever felt that I was truly myself is when we moved to Sonoma County.

I was fourteen.

Perhaps that was just the timing of geography and hormones. Perhaps if we'd moved to Portland or Denver or Chicago I'd feel the same—and written—about those places. I don't know, can't say, and don't care: for better or worse my life has unfolded in Sonoma County and I've written about it.

What follows is this resultant grab bag of essays; mostly about Sonoma

County but all written by a Sonoma County boy.

* * *

_I went for a walk one day and ended up at Walmart. This essay ended up in the_ Press Democrat:

A BIG BOX OF HOPE

Their little world is self-contained, distinctive, and unlike any other. Although it draws customers from all walks of American life—across any and all conceivable demographic—its core consumers are cult-like and truly fanatical. This Sonoma County business provides not only goods and services but something more important.

Hope.

Is it an upscale restaurant in Sonoma, an organic gardening center in

Petaluma, or an environmentally responsible winery in Healdsburg?

No, it is on Hembree Lane in Windsor.

It is Walmart.

Yes, that big-box symbol of rapacious American greed, consumerism, and worker exploitation resides in Windsor just a few hundred yards from the tasteful, grape-festooned sign on 101 North that reads: "Russian River Valley Winegrowers".

The crass and gauche and materialistic Walmart, the store that looks like the box the space shuttle came in, provides convenient and ironic one-stop shopping for: bulk discount candy and exercise equipment; McDonald's Big Macs and prescription cholesterol medication; true red- white-and-blue American flags made in China.

And of course, ammo and alcohol.

The place is packed to the rafters with stuff that is essential because it is discounted. It is discounted because that's what Walmart shoppers expect. And the place is always busy, check it out at 10:30 PM, any weeknight, the parking lot is always full. That's when I shop (after my PM shift at work) for the discounted essentials that are crucial to modern existence: windshield wipers, lentils, toilet paper, kitty litter, Tabasco sauce, potting soil, Cheerios, vitamins, M&Ms, AA batteries, masking tape, Band-Aids, five-dollar DVDs....

Admit it or not, we all enjoy shopping at Walmart. Don't lie, I see all our identification/status symbols in the parking lot as I walk through: new Volvos and rusty Ford Aerostars; trucks old and new; Nissans and Chevys and Hyundais in varying stages of nurture or neglect. Today as I walked through the parking lot I saw, parked in the same long, packed row, bumper stickers that read: Obama/Biden 2012 and NRA Forever; Planned Parenthood and Focus on the Family; Give Peace a Chance and Go Army. It seems as if the always busy Walmart is the one place we all can get along: our one-stop price-slashing melting-pot. But Walmart isn't just incidentally busy. It thrives because it has what Sonoma County (and America) really wants.

Lower prices.

Whether it is Halloween candy in early September, a Christmas tree in mid October, or swimming suits in blustery November Walmart has it cheaper. But comestibles, video games, tools, clothing, and electronics aren't why people shop at Walmart. The most important product the folks from Bentonville, Arkansas peddle is, again, Hope.

No matter how bad the economy might get we know that we will always be able to afford something useless-and-indulgent or tasty-and- fattening at the local Walmart. No matter how terrible the job market is we know we can always sign on as a Walmart greeter in an effort to make ends meet. No matter how badly you feel about yourself you will always see someone shopping at Walmart who will make you feel better about your weight, grooming, or manners.

Or perhaps all three.

Yes, Hope is always stocked and available at Walmart. And today I provided some for my fellow Walmart shoppers who stared at the crazy white haired guy (me) in the parking lot talking to himself and jotting down pithy fragmentary examples of Bumper Sticker Wisdom. Then this wingnut (me again) went inside and sat down on a bench next to Ronald MacDonald and just watched people, again, occasionally writing things down. It turns out I'm the wit who shows up at Walmart and doesn't buy anything, but by doing so makes my fellow Walmart shoppers feel better about themselves: because they are shopping and buying and keeping America solvent and free.

That's Hope.

That's Walmart. Windsor, California.

* * *

_First piece published in a national magazine,_ Ladies Circle, 1983:

CONFESSIONS OF A HOUSEHUSBAND

"Dad, Nathan won't stop hitting me."

"Hit him back."

"Dad, Addy's feeding the baby dogfood."

"But we don't have a dog."

"Maybe it's that meatloaf you made. It sure looks like dogfood." "Dad, is it lunchtime yet?"

"It's nine-thirty A.M."

"Dad, what does A.M. mean?" "Dad, Nathan's still hitting me." "Dad, the television is fuzzy." "Dad, the baby is out front."

At this point the househusband explodes: "Go to your rooms and

do NOT come out until you're eighteen!"

"But dad, we all won't be eighteen at the same time. When the baby's eighteen I'll probably be almost forty," said Danni.

Danni's addition was a little off. When Elisa (the baby) is eighteen, she'll be twenty-five. Rachel will be twenty-three. Addy will be twenty- two. Nathan (if he lives that long) will be twenty. That will be in 2001.

I can't wait.

I'm the househusband.

My wife Luanne works as a bookkeeper during the day. I'm a waiter who doesn't have to be at work until 5:30 PM. The kids are all mine during the day, five days a week.

The oldest is Danielle Nichol, eight. Alias Danni or Danni-girl. When she was four she marched down the aisle as a flower girl in my sister-in-law's wedding. After a long day of compliments and attention, it was time to drive home from the reception. It was after midnight but Danni couldn't sleep. Lu sat in the backseat with Danni, Lu's grandmother and an aunt. Lu's grandfather was in the front seat with me. Danni leaned over the seat, "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I have a great idea." "What's that?"

"When we get home, let's make some popcorn and stay up all night watching movies!"

"Danni-girl I think you'd better go to bed when we get home."

Danni sighed, sat down and said, "Son of a bitch!"

I stopped swearing (around the kids) shortly after that.

Next in line is Rachel Anne, six. Alias Rachie, Rocket, or Rocky. The kids and I were strolling by some road workers. One of the workers was 5'4" and close to 300 pounds. Addy said, "Look! It's a baby whale!" Rachel, who is very considerate of other people's feelings said (loudly enough for the baby whale to hear), "Addy, it's not nice to tell fat people they're fat!"

Adrienne Lee, the middle of the five, is five. Alias is Addy or Little Miss Blue Eyes. The first word she ever uttered was "armpit". My father (gray-haired, 70+) was helping us move. The plan was to put up the swingset first, keeping the kids out of the way. The slide had been erected and the rest of the swings were being set up by dad and me. Addy was sitting on the slide and pointed her finger at me, "Hey you, work faster!" My dad stopped and laughed at her when she pointed to him and said, "What are you laughing at old man?"

Nathaniel James, three-and-a-half is the only boy. Alias Nathan or Nay-Nay. I'm certain he's the only person in the history of the world to have worn out Velcro. One day he was out front fighting with a five- year-old who had pushed Addy. Since he was winning I didn't break it up. Nathan had him down on the lawn and screamed into his face, "YOU PIG!"

"Nathan," I said, "it's not nice to call people pigs."

Nathan turned to the vanquished bully and screamed, "YOU LAMB!"

The youngest is Elisa Rene, eighteen months. Alias Ellie or "The Baby". She hasn't been alive long enough to do anything funny. Her favorite word is "doggy".

Every morning, Monday through Friday, my task is to dress, feed, play with, and scream at these little people. Danni and Rachel are in first and second grades so I don't have to worry about them once their lunches are made and they're out the door.

My morning usually starts with two or more children pulling me out of bed:

"Mom says it's time to get up." "The baby has dirty diapers." "We want hot chocolate."

But the other morning Rachel comes into my bedroom, "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"There's a big giant rat in our backyard."

"That's nice, Rachel."

Next comes Addy, Dad?" "Yeah?"

"There's a guinea pig in our backyard."

"That's nice, Addy."

Next comes Nathan, "Dad?" "Yeah?"

"There's a kangaroo in our backyard."

"Sure, Nathan."

Next comes Elisa, "Doggy-doggy-doggy."

I decided to find out exactly what was in our backyard. I noticed Danni was calmly eating Cheerios in the kitchen. The rest of the kids were hovering around my legs (for protection I suppose) as I walked out into the backyard. A possum was sniffing around the yard. Looking for possum food. (Maybe it would like my meatloaf?)

I guess a possum does look remotely like a giant rat, a guinea pig, a kangaroo or a doggy-doggy-doggy. "It's a possum," I said.

"I told them that," said Danni, "but they wouldn't believe me. We learned all about them at school. They're not even poisonous."

Second graders are too cool.

After all the strange creatures are identified and the eldest two are off to school I sit down at the typewriter while the remaining three watch cartoons, color, or play. Addy stood very still and quiet one day, watching me type for almost fifteen minutes. "Addy," I said, "what are you doing?"

"I'm waiting for you to make a mistake."

"Why?"

"I need some paper."

If the weather is nice, a morning walk is included on our agenda. On these walks I tell Nathan the Latin names of all the plants and we laugh when he tries to say _Juniperus procumbens_ or _Chamecyperis psifera nana_. One day when I denied Addy a privilege that her mother generally grants her, she said, "Boys are dumb. Girls are better. The only thing boys are good for is naming trees."

Househusbands are used to sarcasm.

After breakfast and a walk it's usually time for the kids to start fighting. If they don't have anything to fight about, they'll fight about who has less to fight about. The other day I was eavesdropping at the door of the TV room. Nathan was playing with his cars while Addy was clubbing him on the head with her doll. Elisa was laughing. Nathan tried to stand up, but couldn't because the blows were coming too rapidly. Now, Addy was laughing. Nathan wasn't crying, but tried crawling away from Addy. She kept bopping him, to Elisa's delight. Finally, Nathan ripped the doll away from Addy. Immediately Addy's eyes filled with tears and she screamed, "Nathan took my doll!"

"That's because you were whipping him with it," I said.

"Oh well," her smile seemed to say, "you can't blame me for trying." She helped Nathan to his feet and they ran outside to swing. The baby started crying.

That kid loves action.

After lunch it's naptime for Elisa. Nathan and Addy help me mow the lawn or do laundry or vacuum. Addy and I have been teaching Nathan how to dress himself and what colors match. (My wife says as soon as Addy teaches me, I should show Nathan.) He continually puts his shoes on the wrong feet. The other day I flew into a rage, "How many times do I have to show you how to put your shoes on! They are on the wrong feet! The wrong feet! You have your shoes on the wrong feet! Those are the wrong feet!"

Nathan started crying. (An unusual circumstance. He has fallen off tables and sliced himself on rain gutters without so much as an "Ow".)

"What's the matter, Nathan?"

He wiped his nose on his sleeve, "These are the only feet I have."

Sometimes three year olds act just like children.

Househusbands like to go for walks. LONG walks. After Danni and Rachel get home we usually walk up to Sonoma State University to feed the ducks and play on the monkey bars.

Househusbands love monkey bars.

When Luanne finally comes home I'm usually ready to go to work. A seven hour shift in a restaurant is nothing compared to caring for five little people.

But I wouldn't trade these long hectic days for anything. Even the days when Addy and Nathan jump through the window screen playing "A-Team". Even when Danni rips the antenna off my Volkswagen as she skates by. There are days when gallons of milk are spilled, quarts of blood flow from skinned knees and knuckles, and a truckload of Kleenex is needed to wipe all the runny noses. But I wouldn't trade these long hectic days for anything.

Why?

Because househusbands are about three bricks shy of a load.

* * *

_Tearing up the national ladies' magazine circuit, unfortunately. This appeared in_ Mothering, _1994_ :

TALKING TO CHILDREN ABOUT DEATH

At 2 A.M. in the morning my youngest daughter, five-year-old Elisa, woke me up. She stood in front of me in the half light of the bedroom. Her hair was mussed and her Flintstones pajamas were ruffled. She had been crying. In a voice that barely trembled she said, "I can't remember what mommy look like."

I didn't say a word. At that moment her grief was irreconcilable. At that moment the world had snatched another thing from Elisa: her mother's face no longer existed as a ready and reliable memory. For Elisa the time to cry and say goodbye to her mother was not at the official funeral, but in her pajamas on a warm August night thirteen months later.

What about my four other children? Did they, like Elisa, have "unofficial" moments in which they felt the permanent loss of their mother? They certainly seemed to. The main dilemma for me was: how do you talk to children about death? On this night with Elisa I did the only thing a father can do in such a situation.

I made hot chocolate.

Elisa was sitting on my lap drinking her chocolate when I asked if she wanted to look at some pictures of her mother. She nodded a silent yes. As I rummaged in the closet for photo albums I wondered if I were doing the right thing. At times over the past year it had been comforting to look through the wedding album, peruse old pictures, and re-read poetry I had written to Luanne.

At other times it was like picking a scab.

Elisa and I sat down on the kitchen floor and soon—it would've been sooner had I not spilled my hot chocolate—pictures were scattered all around us. Elisa latched onto a picture of her mother holding her older sister Rachel. "That's me, huh dad?" she asked.

I couldn't lie. "No Ellie, it's not."

She sat quietly then asked, "Can I have this picture?"

I said yes. So she walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a magnet and positioned the picture halfway up the door. She returned, kissed me, and skipped off to bed. It did not matter to Elisa that she was not the baby in her mother's arms. There was something in the image—Luanne's eyes, her hair, the way she held the child—that resurrected the spirit and memory of her dead mother.

Elisa was four when her mother died. At the time she was stunned and numb. Like most four-year-olds she had little conception of "forever" and could not understand how unalterable death is. A year later, however, Elisa understood that death is a permanent loss and was upset that she could no longer remember what her mother looked like.

Elisa's brother Nathan was six when his mother died and had a different reaction entirely. My wife had been sick for more than two years and the children had been told that her death was imminent. Even so, to Nathan, it came as a complete surprise. On the day of my wife's death I returned from the hospital just before dawn and sat around waiting for the children to wake up so I could break the news. Nathan was, as usual, the first one up. I told him what it happened and he started yelling, "No, it isn't true! It isn't true!" Tears streamed down his face.

"It is true," I said.

He insisted it wasn't. It couldn't be. His mom couldn't die. He cried violently and was soon incapable of speech. He hugged me roughly and thrashed about in my arms gasping in wet, tearful sobs with each inhalation. Then he fell asleep.

When Nathan awoke later that morning he was different. He was calm. He knew his mother was dead and that was that. He cried at the funeral along with everyone else and at other times over the next few months. To this day he asks me to tell him stories of when he was a baby and the stories seem to assuage his feelings of loss. I can only conclude that Nathan's initial, incredulous reaction to the death was a catharsis for the pain and poison of this tragedy, for it seems to have helped him work through a good deal of that trauma.

Contrasting reactions were exhibited by my oldest daughters, Danielle and Rachel. They were ten and eight at the time, had seen their mother in hospitals and wheelchairs and did not need anyone to tell them the cancer was fatal. Immediately following Luanne's death, I did not know what to say to them. I did not know what I could say to them. I said the simple words, "Your mommy died," and we all hugged and cried.

Later in the day when the magnitude of the funeral arrangements was becoming apparent I asked Danielle and Rachel if they wanted to go to the funeral parlor to pick out a casket, a dress, flowers, death announcements and on and on and on. They both said okay.

I thought the pomp and preparations of the funeral would be an initiation; a way for them to ease into the reality of their mother's death. For Danielle this was true. She accompanied me and did everything at the funeral parlor except sign the check. Being welcomed into the adult world of arrangements seemed to help her deal with her own burgeoning adult feelings.

For Rachel, it was different. When we were about to leave for the funeral parlor she decided she did not want to go. I said, "Fine. Whatever you want." Then just as we began pulling away in the car Rachel waved from the driveway. I stopped. She walked to the driver side and asked, "Dad, is it okay if I ride my bike?" I said, "Sure."

Not until two months later did I realize what Rachel was really asking. She was asking for permission to enjoy herself. Even though her mother had died Rachel wanted to be a kid, ride her bike, see her friends. Until I gave me permission to enjoy myself could I understand what riding that bike meant. Despite all that had happened Rachel wanted to be okay.

Whether it takes six hours, six months, or six years you must pass the hurdle of enjoying yourself without guilt over the death of a loved one. The fact that Rachel passed it so quickly amazed me.

My daughter Adrienne, at seven, had a response all her own. She was calm and almost surprised that people were making such a fuss over her mother's death. Days passed, and instead of acting shocked or hurt or angry she became a barometer for my feelings. If I was having a bad day she would spike a fever and stay home from school. If we were at a family outing and I grew sulky or solemn because I missed my wife, she would manage to fall out of a tree or crash her bicycle to distract me. It was as if she were afraid to leave me alone. In effect, she accepted her mother's death immediately and began taking care of me.

The only change in Adrienne was, as with Nathan, an insatiable thirst for stories about her mom: tales of picnics, cooking lessons, birthday parties, anything. I do not know why Adrienne responded in this way. Just as some people are better adapted to certain professions and lifestyles, some, perhaps, are better adapted to coping with death.

About six months after Luanne's death I was helping Adrienne with her homework. She asked, "Dad?"

"What?"

"How come you wear your wedding ring?"

"I don't know. I just want to."

"But," she said, "you're not married."

"I know. But I've worn it for thirteen years."

"But you're not married."

I thought about that, and slipped the ring to the third finger of my

right hand. Sometimes the best way to talk to children about death is not to. You just have to listen.

* * *

_This piece appeared in the_ SF Chronicle _and incorporates two of my favorite things: plants and Shakespeare_ :

WHAT'S IN OPHELIA'S GARLAND?

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts," said Ophelia to her brother Laertes. "There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. You must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died."

Throughout his plays Shakespeare mentioned over 200 species of plants. Twenty-nine scenes actually take place in groomed gardens and well-tended orchards. Plants—and plant lore—were important sources of metaphors for William Shakespeare. Often, as in Ophelia's "Garland Speech", plants served as extended metaphors for the human condition. Here's what the plants in Ophelia's garland would have signified for an Elizabethan audience:

Rosemary has been associated with remembrance since the Golden Age of Greece when garlands of rosemary were worn while studying to strengthen students' memories. Its name comes from the Latin _Rosemarinus_ ; "Dew of the Sea", referring to its blue flowers and rosemary's Mediterranean habitat on cliffs above the sea. In Shakespeare's time it was carried by bridesmaids at weddings and used as a funeral wreath. Robert Herrick, roughly a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote:

"Grow it for two ends, it matters not at all,

Be it for my bridall or buriall."

Any man who couldn't smell the fragrant shrub was considered incapable of loving a woman. Rosemary in front of an English cottage indicated that the woman was master of the household; a folk-belief that caused more than a few uprooted plants. Its special qualities also included the ability to repel plagues and certain types of witches. Sleeping with a sprig beneath your pillow chased away bad dreams. But for Ophelia, distraught and depressed over her father's death and Hamlet's odd behavior, the mention of rosemary indicates to her brother and the Elizabethan audience her brittle self-image and lack of confidence: "Pray you love, remember."

Pansies, as Ophelia states, are for thoughts. The pansy was also used medicinally to relieve cramps, hysteria, and diarrhea in children. In a "Midsummer's Night Dream" the Fairy King Oberon utilizes a purported use of the flower's juice: when applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person they will fall in love with whatever they spy first after waking. This is how Titania, Oberon's wife, managed to fall in love with a donkey. Caution: The pansy's aphrodiasical powers may only apply to fairies, nymphs, and woodsprites. Please consult your personal physician before using in this manner. Results may vary.

Fennel appears often in Shakespeare. Although Falstaff mentioned the herb in "Henry IV, part 2" as a seasoning for conger eels, the plant represented false flattery. Robert Greene wrote in "Quip for an Upstart Courtier": "Fennel I mean for flatterers." During the Middle Ages, fasting pilgrims would eat fennel seeds to stave off hunger pains. By providing some satiation, but no real sustenance, fennel came to represent the type of flattery that simply strokes the ego. Ophelia, with this particular reference to fennel, is probably alluding to her sterile love affair with Hamlet.

The columbine is symbolic of ingratitude and was known as the "Thankless Flower." Perhaps this name derives from the fact that columbine seeds consumed with wine speeded childbirth and, as a result, brought on labor pains more quickly. A newer, tragic and senseless, association with the word Columbine entered our language on April 20, 1999.

Rue, for centuries a symbol of sorrow and repentance, is mentioned by the Gardener in "Richard II" after he discovers the Queen weeping in the garden:

"Here did she fall a tear; here in this place,

I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace;

Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,

In remembrances of a weeping Queen."

Rue has a long, fabled history. It's known as the plant that King Mithridates VI of Pontus imbibed in increasing amounts to protect himself against poisoning. Hippocrates recommended the plant to relieve rheumatic pains, heart palpitations, and menopausal symptoms. The herb's name is derived from the Greek ruta; "repentance". Greeks used rue while dining with foreigners to ward off demons, spells, and spirits. Roman artisans ate the herb to improve their eyesight. Weasels were said to munch the bitter herb to strengthen themselves prior to combat against snakes and rats. Its other name, Herb o' Grace or Herb o' Sundays, refers to the sorrow and resulting grace one feels following true repentance. The suit of CLUBS in a deck of cards has been modeled after rue's fleshy, oblong leaves.

Daisy's English name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Daeges eage; "Day's eye" and refers to the flower's opening during the day and closing at night. The daisy is associated with innocence and purity; in Roman myth the daisy is the virginal nymph Belides who transformed herself into the flower to escape the sexual advances of the orchard god Vertumnus. The flower was symbolic of the Greco-Roman goddesses Aphrodite and Venus as well as Freya, the Norse goddess of beauty and love for whom Friday is named. Daisies picked between noon and one o'clock, according to folk beliefs, can be dried and carried as a good luck charm. Unlike the other plants in Ophelia's garland, the daisy seems only to possess only good connotations.

The violet's scent, said Hamlet, was "Sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute, no more" and reinforced the flower's traditional association with an early death. This tradition arose because the violet blooms early in Spring and fades before Summer and Autumn arrive. This symbolism also explains why Laertes alludes to the Violet and puns on "Spring" in his speech over Ophela's grave:

"Lay her I' the earth:

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring."

What's in Ophelia's garland? In addition to columbines and fennel, daisies, violets, rue, and rosemary there is a world of associations connecting Ophelia with mythology, history, folk beliefs, the echo of her father's demise, and her doomed relationship with the Prince of Denmark.

* * *

_More plants, this time for_ Fine Gardening:

THE 118 MINUTE BONSAI

At 12:03 PM on March 10 my wife said, "Rob, we have to be at your mom's house in two hours."

"Oh no, it's mom's birthday. I forgot. I'll be back in thirty minutes." I needed a present that would impress mom and still leave me enough time for my proper grooming. My solution? Create a bonsai.

Bonsai aficionados may cringe to read this but these potted miniature trees don't have to be created only by those who've taken years to master the ancient oriental art and tradition. A bonsai is simply a potted plant and like all potted plants–geraniums to lace leaf maples– need water, sunlight, ventilation, fertilization and drainage to survive. What makes a bonsai unique is that it is pruned, then trimmed and potted, to resemble a mature tree in a natural landscape. A bonsai does not have to be old. It just has to look old.

Can it be that easy? Yes, it can. Using the techniques outlined below I have made hundreds of bonsai. Although simplified, these techniques are in accordance with the rules of classical bonsai and general horticultural principles.

How do you make a tree look old? The best way to start would be to look at some old trees. Their roots will be exposed. Years of water and wind erosion have swept surface soil away from the roots. There aren't any branches close to the ground. The leaf canopy is opened up; there's not a lot of growth in the center of an older tree. The trunk is thick (perhaps scarred) and the tree has a few dead branches. The older tree, in nature, is rarely on a smooth level surface. If you have a potted plant that mimics the qualities listed above, you have a bonsai. If that potted plant is given proper common sense watering, sunlight, ventilation, fertilizer and drainage, you will have a bonsai that will live a long healthy life. We are not, after all making bonsai for international competition or as a set decoration for the latest movie sequel Karate Kid 15: The Geritol Years.

Ready? Synchronize watches: it's sub two hour bonsai time.

12:01

Okay. Grab some gardening gloves, toss then into the car and drive to a nursery. Plan on visiting at least three nurseries to find the proper Bonsai stock. At the first nursery I buy a bonsai pot and quickly check their five gallon Junipers. Nothing

Second nursery. Nothing.

Third nursery, gloves on, rummaging through more junipers. Junipers, especially for beginners, are great. They are cheap and every nursery has them. They have full leaf canopies and they are easy to care for. Very tough plants.

Remember, you are searching for a tree you can make look old. Check the trunk: Is it thick? Scarred? Any dead branches? The trunk is the bonsai's most important characteristic. You can brush away dirt to expose roots, prune to open the leaf canopy and landscape a rough and interesting surface, but you can't fake the trunk. Don your gloves and dig into those trees: pull back branches, examine that trunk. Knotty, thick, gnarled and ugly: that's great bonsai stock. Also, check out the trees in the corners of the nursery: last year's overgrown and forgotten junipers that are hidden in the nooks of nurseries are your best bet. That's exactly where I found mom's soon to be bonsai: the "Half Off! Must Go!" section. How old is it? I don't know. I don't care. But it has the potential to appear old.

12:57

Back home. All necessary tools assembled: bonsai pot, five gallon

Juniper, pruning shears, fishing knife and a Swiss Army knife. Two points to understand before beginning: I don't know what the bonsai will look like, and it doesn't matter. I'm not shaping the ideal Platonic tree or a work of art. I am making a bonsai for my mom. As almost any tree has the potential for appearing old, I will prune, cut and pot it to reveal that potential. Time for rule #1: "You can't make a bad bonsai!" Have fun: relax.

12:59

Remove the tree from the pot. Don't be gentle. If you picked a good tree it is most likely root bound. Drop the pot or kick it to loosen up the packed dirt.

1:00

Your most important decision: what view of the tree will be the front? The trunk should angle away from the front. If the tree is inclined toward the front, any attempt at perspective (i.e., the illusion of age) simply won't work. Rotate the tree; look. Rotate; look. Then once again.

When you make your decision, stick with it.

1:07

Haircut time. Slowly but decisively use the shears to trim away branches. For smaller branches I use the retractable scissors on the Swiss Army knife. Remove all branches that grow straight out from the tree's designated front. Open up the tree's canopy. What will the tree look like without this branch? Cup the branch in question with your hand and bend it out of sight. Does the tree look bare, sparse and a little worn without it?

Good!

Cut it off: that's what old trees look like.

Now for some trimming. Remove all growth from the underside of any branches that grow parallel to the ground. If you cut off a branch that you should've kept, don't worry about it. This is simply a potted plant. With the proper water, ventilation, sunlight, fertilizer and drainage, it will grow back. Open your eyes on your next drive in the countryside. The trees with the most personality are those specimens struck by lightning, munched by deer, misshapen by the wind. Time for Rule #2: "You can't make a bad bonsai!"

1:28

Time to expose some roots. Use your fingers to rub away some dirt. Poke, scrape, dig. Get your fingernails dirty. Am I being too rough on the tree? Does a a boar or a deer ask that question as they root or nibble

for food at the base of the tree? No.

Expose the roots. What if you scrape away and find nothing interesting? Put the dirt back. Just like a mudslide in nature does to trees in the real world.

1:33

Time to cut back the roots. How much should you cut back? Start with removing half of the root ball. Grab a sharp fishing knife (you want to cut, not tear) and slice right through it. If you come across a thick tap- root prune it as if it were a branch. Does the tree fit in your pot? Probably not. Cut some more. Does it fit now? Probably not. Cut some more.

Don't worry about drastically reducing the root ball. Remember you eliminated perhaps sixty percent of the tree's branches. The root ball can be reduced proportionately and the tree's health won't be affected.

1:38

Potting the tree. Cover the pot's drainage holes with rocks and sprinkle some dirt in the bottom of the pot. Place the tree in the pot behind the midline, never dead center. A little to the left or right creates a much more interesting bonsai.

Why?

I don't really know. I'm certain someone, somewhere, has a convoluted aesthetic theory to explain just why this works. The trees are simply more visually appealing if they aren't situated dead center.

Time to plant the tree. Have you ever repotted an African violet or a cyclamen? Same thing here. Pack the soil firmly around the roots. Do not use bagged potting soil. Gather dirt from the original pot and mix that with good soil from your garden. Being prodded and pruned and sliced is very traumatic for the plant, don't add to that trauma by adding a completely different potting soil. Then make sure the surface of the soil isn't level. The act (not the art, the act) of bonsai isn't trying to replicate the pampered, landscaped tree growing in front of a bank, but attempting to imitate nature in a small but effective way.

1:45 "Potscaping."

Where do junipers grow? Swamps? Grasslands? No, they grow in rocky, arid, windswept places. To make your juniper bonsai authentic don't plant baby tears, Irish Moss, or isotoma as ground cover. Toss on some rocks. Wedge some gravel under an exposed root. Sprinkle on a handful of stones. If you want to place ceramic figures of Buddhist monks or frogs on the bonsai, don't. This is nature in miniature. Leave the tree alone. Save that ceramic junk for your kids' model railroad.

1:53

Final trim. Now that the tree is placed in its landscape check to see if there any branches out of place. Do you see anything incongruous? Visually jarring or disruptive? If so, cut it off. Simple. Time for Rule #3: "You can't make a bad bonsai!"

1:57

Water the heck out of the tree. Soak it. Write Mom a note to place the tree outside in the shade (a little early morning or late afternoon sun won't hurt it) and feed daily with a very light mixture of fish emulsion and water.

1:59

Congratulate yourself. You've just created a bonsai.

2:01

"Rob, have you forgotten about your mother? I know you'll need a shower. And if you don't hurry we'll be late again..."

Mom loved it.

* * *

_There is much more to Sonoma County than grapes. This appeared in_ California Wild: The Magazine of the California Academy of Sciences, _2004_ :

A "GROUNDBREAKING" HARVEST FOR THE DRY CREEK VALLEY

Tektites are being harvested in one of California's best wine-growing regions, Sonoma County's Dry Creek Valley.

Tektites?

Are those red, white, or rosé?

Actually these are dull, black, glassy stones.

Tektites are found in what are known as Strewnfields. There are only five recognized strewnfields worldwide. They are located in Indochina, the Southeastern United States, the Czech Republic, the Gold Coast of Africa, and Australia. However, Professor Rolfe Erickson from Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park has located a sixth strewnfield of tektites. The first ever in the western United States.

In Healdsburg's Dry Creek Valley.

These strange pebbles, ranging in size from an unshelled almond to a robin's egg, are being found in vineyards and roadcuts, throughout the valley. The size and shape of these tektites vary throughout the world (button, teardrop, dumbbell, and disc shaped) but the Dry Creek varieties are uniformly ovoid. The latest hypothesis is that these Sonoma County tektites were formed 2.7 million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth. The impact vaporized the surrounding area, pushing up clouds of gas. As the gas froze in space the tektites fell back to earth and were shaped and scarred (called ablation, resulting in their irregular rutted appearance) by the friction of the earth's atmosphere. This accounts for the worldwide variation in size and shape—no two impacts are the same and the material is ejected at different angles and speeds. "An analogy for this," said Professor Rolfe Erickson of Sonoma State University "is throwing a big rock into the Russian River. Plop! The water breaks up into little drops. In space, then, this incandescent liquid chills down to solid pieces of glass and these glass pieces re-enter the atmosphere in all directions around the impact site and they reheat as they come in through the atmosphere. For thousands of square miles the surface of the earth is covered with these little bodies and that's what we call a strewnfield. What we're looking at here is, potentially, a Pliocene strewnfield."

These glassy tektites superficially resemble obsidian and were previously believed to be—like obsidian—the result of volcanic activity. But Professor Carleton Moore, an expert meteorist from Arizona State University succinctly stated: "Tektites are the splash from meteorite craters. The exciting part is that if Professor Erickson is right it'll be the first strewnfield found in a long, long time. Also, somewhere there's got to be an impact crater." Moore, who recently examined some specimens from the Dry Creek Valley, clarified the origin of tektites, "I don't think there is any controversy. Simply, if they came from volcanoes they wouldn't be tektites. The difference is when they are splashed from an impact crater the energy is so great that all the water is driven from the melt. The way we check glassy pebbles to see if it's a tektite is heat it to red hot, so it begins to melt. A piece of obsidian would froth, because it contains water vapor. Tektites don't froth. Simply, these tektites are of terrestrial origin, formed by interstellar forces."

A SHORT HISTORY OF TEKTITES

These stones have attracted mankind's attention since prehistoric times. Tektite tools from China's Bose Basin date back to at least 5,000 B.C. and they've always been prized as ornaments, charms, and amulets. Erickson himself admits to being bitten by the tektite bug, he carries with him a tektite named Fred.

The first written mention of tektites was in Chinese in 950 A.D. when Liu Sun called them _Lei-gong-mo_ or Inkstones of the Thundergod. The first scientific mention of them was in 1788, when they were referred to as "a terrestrial volcanic glass". They weren't even called tektites (from the Greek tektos meaning molten) until 1900. The name was coined by F.E. Suess who asserted that they were extraterrestrial glass meteorites that weren't formed by impact with the earth, but had somehow survived impact with our planet. This misled scientists, for years, to group tektites with meteorites. This hypothesis was discarded after tektites were found to have no exposure to cosmic rays—showing that they could not have been formed outside of an Earth-Moon structure. Another theory was proposed that they are of lunar volcanic origin and streamed to earth from our sister satellite; but this hypothesis was discredited after moon rocks from the Apollo missions were analyzed and seen to be quite different.

The latest hypothesis—asteroid/meteorite impact—seems to make the most sense. "There is a general idea that they are impact related," said Erickson, "but after the impact what goes on in space and how hot are they?" Erickson, who has taught at Sonoma State since 1966, concluded, "Basically we have a hypothesis that these are tektites. A hypothesis is never final. Rather they get stronger or they get weaker. The main thing that will strengthen the tektite hypothesis is simply finding more and more of the strewnfield."

SO WHERE'S THE IMPACT CRATER?

"One of the exciting things about this," said Erickson, "is if these are tektites they point to the existence of an asteroid impact in the western United States that's relatively young at two-point-seven million years. My own personal hypothesis is that it's probably on the continental shelf; that's why no one has seen it. The continental shelf extends, in southern California, as much as one-hundred-fifty miles offshore. The best way," Erickson joked, "to find an impact crater would be to hire ten-thousand high school kids to tramp around the countryside and look for big circular holes in the ground."

Luckily, mankind hasn't recently experienced a gigantic cratering episode (like the Chicxulub event 65 million years ago which ended the career of the dinosaur) so scientists like Rolfe Erickson will continue to explore and speculate

* * *

_Another piece for the_ Press Democrat _that started out as a walk_ :

THE BENCH

In my visits to Windsor's Riverfront Regional Park, sitting quietly for extended periods on a bench, I've seen waddling skunks, impossibly bright colored king snakes, and on several occasions, a skittering fox. Great blue herons (who nest in the trees) flap and squawk during winter. On the Russian River, which skirts the park's Lake Wilson and Lake Benoist, depending upon the season you can spot ducks or drunken canoers.

A few years ago while walking with my eight-year-old granddaughter

Savana she stopped and said: "I just saw a fairy."

"That's nice Savana," said me, the logical and clear thinking grandfather. "But fairies aren't real."

With the solemnity that only an eight-year-old-girl who truly believes in something can muster Savana said, "They're real. I just saw one."

"I believe you," I said, not believing her.

We continued our walk down Lake Trail, waving at other hikers, studying the clouds, silently condemning a walker who defiled our cozy and accessible wilderness by talking on a cell phone.

We walked past several benches overlooking Lake Benoist, but we stopped at The Bench.

The benches along Lake Trail all have plaques. But The Bench's plaque reads:

Tom Weissbluth

1949 – 2009

Sit down. Rest your legs.

Enjoy life. Take a nice big

Gulp of Sonoma County air.

The view from The Bench is a sudden, tree framed, unobstructed panorama of Mount St. Helena. The first time I saw this vista I was delighted and moved by the, no other word works, grandeur. I was also, perhaps, a bit disappointed. Views like this usually require a sacrifice that involves time off work, a passport, air travel, expense, inconvenience, and mild groping from a government agent. Moments like this should not exist ten minutes away from Tomi Thai Restaurant on the Windsor Green.

But this view from The Bench does.

I've sat on Tom Weissbluth's bench through the years and seasons. I've seen Mount St. Helena cloaked in smoke from Lake County fires, green and washed by rain, and covered in bright white snow. I've sat there—usually alone, always quiet—and baked in hundred degree heat and shivered in fog that makes you feel as if you are the only person on earth. I've had thoughts that have turned into published books and notions that would get me incarcerated if repeated aloud. There is something about being silent and alone and outside. Something primal and soothing. It's a challenging, refreshing, and underutilized activity.

I've visited The Bench in moods ranging from merely antisocial to actively anarchistic and the wind and water; the trees and sky always– magically–calm me down. Not the lobotomy-calm of martinis or wine; but a more natural and healthy state of simple appreciation and acceptance.

But the result of The Bench's infusion of perspective and tranquility isn't one of acquiescence or denial or defeat, it's more reclassifying and realizing that the stresses and irritating activities of daily life are unavoidable but ultimately worthwhile.

Life, with its inevitable ups and downs; triumphs and defeats, is simply and always the best game in town.

"I just saw another one," said Savana. "Fairies," I said firmly, "don't exist." That's when I saw one.

And then another.

And then, a robed warlock.

Gathering beneath the redwoods at the terminus of Lake Trail around long, rough wooden picnic benches that, fittingly, resembled the furnishings of a medieval mead hall were fairies, warlocks, and sorcerers. An assembled group of role players had descended upon the park to enact their elaborately costumed drama.

"You're right Savana," I said. "You saw a fairy."

She nodded with the certitude of an eight-year-old-woman who

knew she was right all along. But she never said, "I told you so."

* * *

_Writers love to write about writing. This appeared in_ Byline:

"THE JUNG AND THE RESTLESS":

WRITING NECESSARY THINGS

It takes a certain maturity of mind to accept that Nature works as steadily in rust as in rose petals.

—Esther Warner Dendel

It began when I couldn't find my diploma.

I had never needed my diploma (BA in English, Sonoma State, 1977) because we'd always had enough place mats when entertaining friends. But I needed proof of having graduated in order to apply for a new job.

And I couldn't find the sucker.

I searched in all the obvious places: in the big desk with the kids' birth certificates and our passports. In the file folder with insurance policies, pink slips, and our living trust. And finally in the Receptacle of Receptacles: my sock drawer.

Nothing (except socks).

Then it was on to my office closet where I keep my jogging clothes, my work clothes and just about everything I've ever written and had published. I didn't find the diploma, but I found a manuscript there that amazed me. It was 287 pages. It was a typewritten (Smith Corona) novel.

And I had forgotten that I had written it. Forgotten?

How can you forget that you've written a book?

I don't know, but I had.

I pulled the manuscript out of its dusty manila envelope, curious yet feeling dread, and read a few pages. It was a mystery novel called _The Jung and the Restless_.

It sucked.

It was so stilted and clunky and self-indulgent. But I started a pot of coffee and kept reading and I must admit that toward the end of the book I had greatly improved my typing.

The writing was worse than drunken-late-night-blog-entry-drivel.

Horrendous would have been an improvement: mixed metaphors, unidentified antecedents, dialog that made Hee Haw read like Shakespeare. All the characters talked the same; the plot was linear, convoluted and confusing; character descriptions dragged on-and-on- and-on. The love scenes read like assembly instructions for a porch swing; the murder scene like a recipe for steak-and-kidney pie.

I couldn't have been prouder.

I wrote a book in 1978!

It sucked like a shop vac and I'd forgotten I'd written it (thank God, wherever She is) but I wrote a book in 1978! Back then I worked two jobs (teaching 3rd grade and waiting tables) was applying to grad schools and interviewing for three-piece-suit-jobs, had three kids, and I knew that all I ever wanted to be was a writer.

And now, in retrospect, I was a writer.

I have the ill-written, graceless manuscript to prove it. Never submitted, but finished. Never read by anyone. (Never will be.) The novel is terribly-embarrassingly-bad, but it was the best that I could do at the time. I made time in my life to write it because it was somehow necessary that I write a book. To prove to myself, despite all appearances to the contrary, that I was a writer.

I learned from the mistakes I made in _The Jung and the Restless_ and ultimately improved my craft by continuing to write badly, earnestly, and often.

I don't think there is any other way.

Like rust and roses, it takes a few decades to realize that life, growth, and creativity are present not only in good writing, but in any necessary writing.

* * *

_This one for_ Writer's Journal:

AMERICAN IDYLL

Rejection sucks.

It hurts and it will never not hurt: salt is salty, sugar is sweet, rejection hurts. But it is as necessary as it is painful. And the lesson isn't (pick one):

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

It's darkest before the dawn.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.

And blah, blah, blah...

The lesson of rejection is, simply, The Words On The Paper Are What Define You. Your worth as a writer isn't, and can't be, judged independent of your talent. You aren't judged by the editor on merit of How Hard You've Worked, How Badly You Want It, or Your Intrinsic Worth As a Human.

It's the words on the paper.

Yes, there are fortuitous circumstances where an editor read a poem on the web and went to the writer's blog, read her first novel and offered her a $1,000,000 multi-book deal. There are also some clunky, less than sterling-silver-tongued writers who succeed wildly. But we all know that these are the exceptions. Most of us labor—honestly, with integrity and fervor—and still can't afford to quit our day job.

A TRINITY OF EVENTS

I am at a point in my writing career where I am simplifying and concentrating my efforts. Instead of writing query letters and articles and a screenplay a year and keeping up with monthly California Writers' Club meetings and my monthly column for the newsletter and my critique group AND finishing my novel _The Tantric Zoo_ I am going to go back to basics.

I work nights in a bar so I have all this energy (frustration) when I get home late after work. Instead of, as I usually do, starting a scene or a story based on something that happened at the bar I'm doing a-lesson-a- day from _Gene Perret's Comedy Writing Workbook_. It's about the third or fourth time I've been through the book and it is a difficult, hands-on workout. A wonderful slap in the face. It is a nuts and bolts approach to writing that stresses perspiration over inspiration. I am, simply, a better writer after doing the course than I was previously. It's like lifting weights and riding a bicycle in preparation for ski season. The work makes you better.

I've also decided that, on a regular basis, I'm only going to write short stories and novels.

That's it.

So I finished up, last week, a last assignment for _Trail Runner_ magazine and edited a longish letter for a local business. All I had to do was read 52 pages of a novel-in-progess for my final critique group meeting and I was free (always somewhat of a curse, because now there are no excuses) to write fiction exclusively.

But those 52 manuscript pages were filled with run-on sentences and split infinitives and passive constructions and all-in-all pretty dreadful writing. The manuscript looked like it was bleeding when I was done with my corrections. I felt terrible about attending the monthly critique group because all I had to say was bad, bad news. I almost called at the last minute, pleading sickness-family-work-weather-bad- horoscope so I wouldn't have to deliver the news about the manuscript.

(I write poorly, at times we all do, but this writing was so flawed most people—certainly not an editor—would have finished reading it.) At the meeting, avoiding eye contact (yes, I'm a wussy who dislikes confrontation) I waded through the work with plenty of "helpful" examples and suggestions.

The clinical tone I adopted only added insult to injury: as if delineating the need for an autopsy on a recently deceased child would allay the mother's pain and make everything just zippy.

Needless to say, the critique went over like a fart in church and we both felt like crap. No happy literary ending here folks. We e-mailed each other the next day and are and will remain friends, but the critique group (a five year relationship that I benefited from greatly) is done.

With that sting still fresh I went to work that night and served drinks for eight hours. After work, physically beat and not wanting to write I channel surfed and found a documentary entitled _Tom Dowd & The Language of Music_. It surprised me that I had never heard of Tom Dowd. He produced records for Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Aretha, Miles Davis, Otis Redding, Booker T and the MGs, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, The Allman Brothers and a multitude of my other favorites. Dowd developed and built the eight track recording system that revolutionized the industry. He was a brilliant, hard-working, humble man—an artist in his own right. And, when he spoke on camera, you could tell he loved his work, took pride in his accomplishments and really never regretted that he didn't have more fame and fortune. I sat in my living room realizing that the pain of rejection is directly linked to my expectations.

I was humbled by this man.

Tom Dowd, who in his life revolutionized an industry, is little more than a footnote on the back of album covers. Yet he lived a full, artistic, happy life. Forget about growing and improving as a writer: I just needed to grow up.

Period.

The third occurrence in this Trinity of Events was watching

American Idol.

I had never watched it before. Watching these poor dolts who couldn't carry sheet music without losing a page I thought: Don't these people have friends?

If my bartender buddy Josh said he was flying to Seattle to audition for American Idol the conversation would go like this:

Josh: "I need this weekend off." Rob: "What for?"

Josh: "I'm going to be the next American Idol."

Rob: "But your singing sucks. Don't go you frigging idiot."

My second thought was: Thank God I'm a writer.

My failings and flubs and faux pas are read privately by an editor and sent back with a polite, if somewhat impersonal note. But I have to admit, when I finish a book or a story and send it off; I crave the same response that American Idol contestants covet: Fame, Fortune, Happiness. This is the American Idyll: being rewarded extravagantly for, simply, doing what we are passionate about.

There is nothing wrong with this; there is everything right in striving for your dreams. But talent is talent, not all of us have it and that's why it is rewarded.

This is not exclusively an American frailty, it's a human frailty that's been encouraged and exacerbated by American Pseudo-Culture. Andy Warhol's 15 minutes have been reduced to a requisite 15 seconds. I don't say this because I feel superior to the poor schlubs who show up on TV with a song rendition that should never have left the shower stall, but because I feel precisely like them. I want my writing appreciated and lauded and purchased because I try hard; because it has always been my passion; because I am a decent person.

But it will never happen for those reasons.

The Words On The Paper Are What Define You As A Writer. Simple. An ineluctable fact of life.

When your story/poem/article/novel is rejected that's precisely what it means. The words on the paper didn't work—this time. The good news is we can improve. Donald Westlake said, "No one is born a pro."

I know, despite what I write here, I'll never be able to dismiss rejection. It will always sting. But it doesn't have to devastate and paralyze my future attempts.

Be strong; I'm trying.

* * *

_This one for_ The Forestville Gazette:

HOW TO CHEAT AT THE PUBLISHING GAME...AND WIN

My name is Rob. I'm a cheater.

Hi Rob!

I'll confess, but I don't want to rehabilitate. I'm proud of how and why I cheated. For nearly five years I tried to get my book _High Steaks_ published. I read _Writer's Digest_ magazine and attended seminars on marketing your novel and laid out thirty bucks a year for an updated copy of _The Writer's Market_. And I did what they told me: I wrote a cover letter outlining my publishing credits and bundled it up with the first four chapters of _High Steaks_ ; included a synopsis and an SASE for the editor's convenience. I marked down the date, the publisher, and the editor in a submissions journal.

The SASEs returned (anywhere from three months to a year; some are still out there in orbit) with a form rejection slip. I did, however get a bite, and sent in, along with High Hopes, _High Steaks_. The manuscript returned with a form rejection slip: Not For Us At This Time —The Editors. That's okay, I'd been writing professionally for over twenty years and I know that rejection is part of the game; it bothers me about as much as the speedbumps in the Safeway parking lot.

My wife, not so calm.

Inserted into a colorful torrent of obscenities (she works with truck drivers—"colorful" truck drivers) was the observation that the manuscript had red wine stains and crumbs all over it. "Not for *#!~ us at this #@!~*& time? It looks like the %$^^+ passed it around at their #`!#**&\+ Christmas party!" She was right. It had made the rounds of some office affair. Other High Steaks manuscripts were requested and returned in better states of repair, but with the same rejection slip. _High Steaks_ is 80,000 words, which is roughly 450 manuscript pages. The cost of paper, printer cartridges, mailers, postage and RETURN postage ain't cheap and I couldn't go ahead like this indefinitely for two reasons. First the cost, but more crucial: I ran out of publishers.

Not every publisher accepts unagented submissions and there is a giant Catch-22: Publishers won't read a novel unless it's agented, but you can't get an agent unless you've had a book published.

Horse puckey!

So after, literally (I actually—not figuratively—know what this word means) being rejected by every English speaking mystery publisher in the world (an Australian imprint almost picked it up) I cheated.

I took my cousin's name, started a new e-mail account, and using my address started the Brad Morrison Agency. I designed (easy on the computer) some BMA stationery and envelopes and wrote a letter about me in the third person, including sample chapters of the book and a synopsis. Two things happened: the manuscript was requested and read. It was rejected—like I said, part of the publishing game—but I (er, I mean Brad) didn't receive form rejection letters. I received personal letters outlining why they couldn't use it. Apparently agents are higher on the food chain than writers. One rejection slip I have framed in my office with the phrase "a tad too sexy and cavalier and explicit for my tastes" Yes! To slightly misquote General Patton: "You read my book you magnificent bastard!"

I admit it was a deception, but a necessary one; what was I supposed to do, give up? Writing a book is hard work, and I knew, in my gut that the book was good enough. Although this cheating opened the door to several publishers, High Steaks was finally published because it won a national contest—Salvo Press' New Mystery Award—where publication was part of the prize.

I've since finished another novel, which is into a publisher, and I'm finishing up my third novel. Perhaps because I can list High Steaks among my credits, doors will be open for me that were closed previously. But if they aren't The BMA will ride again.

Proudly.

* * *

_For my novel_ High Steaks _I took Petaluma Cattleman's—customers, employees, and the building—and plopped down a dead body. It won the 2002 New Mystery Award, then was optioned and written as a screenplay but never produced. This essay appeared in_ SCR(i)PT:

APPLES AND ORANGES: ADAPTING YOUR NOVEL FOR THE SCREEN

When I had an opportunity to adapt my novel _High Steaks_ into a script I thought, much like Union soldiers who thought they'd be home from the war for Christmas: "Great, it'll take a week; two tops." But turning an 82,000 word, 255 page book into a 17,000 word 112 page screenplay was probably the most exacting and arduous writing task I've ever accomplished.

The first thing I did was re-read the book. It had been written over four years ago and there are scenes and characters that you simply forget—even though you'd written them. About halfway through the book the enormity of the task hit me: roughly three out of every four words would have to be removed, but all the humor and action spiced up. It was, almost literally, trying to make an apple pie out of oranges.

So I went for a walk.

When I returned, I dusted off Linda Seeger's _The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film_. That helped greatly as it had a few years ago when I adapted one of my short stories into a movie. But I was still daunted by the size of this writing and editing task. In the next two weeks, I wrote scene-by-scene, and the first 57 pages of the book came in at about 50 pages. At that rate the movie would be four-hours-plus. Much, much too long.

Then I read an interview of Eric Axel Weiss, who adapted Robert O'Connell's _Buffalo Soldiers_ for the screen. Weiss stated: "I find the one thing that I love when reading a novel—whether it's the character, tone, setting, etc.—and that is what I somehow preserve in my script."

When I tried to get _High Steaks_ published (a four year process) I ran out of publishers who read unagented works. So I undertook a mild deception. I borrowed my cousin's name and phone number and created the BMA Agency. I wrote editors about me in the third person and signed them Brad Morrison. This did two things: 1) the manuscript was requested by editors and eventually published, and 2) I received honest and helpful criticism of the book. Instead of the Not For Us At This Time form rejection I (Brad) received truly helpful constructive criticism. One particularly prized rejection slip had the phrase "a tad too sexy and cavalier and explicit for my tastes".

That's exactly the tone I was after and, heeding Weiss' advice, was what I decided to preserve in the script.

NUTS&BOLTS

I went at it a bit differently the second go-round. I made a copy of the original text's diskette, booted it up, and switched the formatting to single spacing. This shortened the book by about a third. Then I went and removed descriptions and my narrative voice. Still, it was—without even being in script format—around 170 pages. Then I remembered a tip: When writing a script always use courier or elite fonts because the script format—designed to be one page equal to one minute screen time—was designed when people were writing on typewriters: in courier and elite typeface.

I changed it from arial to courier and got it down to about 150 pages. I had no idea that simple typeface could make that big of a difference. But I could work with 150 pages.

_High Steaks_ is a murder mystery that takes place in Nightingale, Nevada. The town and citizenry itself is a character in the book. I could show the town; but I had to eliminate and combine so many characters in order to drive the plot forward. The book also has a series of letters from someone who has died, that appear throughout the course of the narrative. I had to eliminate all but three of these letters: too much voice over is deadly. In the book the letters aren't intrusive because, well, you're reading. In the movie I had the characters read the letters during on screen activities (a horserace, a Native American dance troupe performing, and a greasefire in a steakhouse) so as not to lose the audience.

RUTHLESS

A script is rather bare-bones compared to a novel and I had to edit ruthlessly—eliminating some of my favorite characters in order to pass the snooze test. The snooze test is how I double check my texts between rewrites. My wife gets a cup of tea or glass of wine (depending on the time of day) and lies down on the bed. I read in a dull monotone (I want the words to supply the meaning, not any inflection or theatrics on my part) and anyplace I lose her—even if it's slightly unclear—she starts snoring. I mark the spot and—usually she's right; I was too verbose or vague—fix it. She's not a writer, but she has no patience with a slow movie or book.

I also noticed that the killer (I won't tell you who) came across as a lot more ruthless in the script, because I eliminated the narrative backstory about a terrible childhood that made the murderer at least a bit sympathetic. The other fact that amazed me is that with all the cutting and melding of characters that a few minor characters in the book stood out prominently in the movie. Davis, the main character who solves the murder, isn't a cop (he owns the local steakhouse, High Steaks, get it?) so he needs some muscle when he confronts the bad guys. This comes in the form of an ex-Navy Seal who is visiting town. The ex-sailor's role in the book (he doesn't appear until the final 60 pages) is expanded in the movie because everything else is so pared away.

The entire project took two or three false starts, a ton of rewrites, and about three months. So, is the book better than the movie? I honestly can't say; but the script and the book are now completely different entities.

Like apples and oranges.

* * *

The Bohemian _published these thoughts on the Afghanistan war_ :

AND GO TO YOUR GOD LIKE A SOLDIER

I'm a writer and when I'm writing fiction I read non-fiction because if I read fiction I'm constantly comparing and contrasting my work with what I'm reading. That leads to doubt which greatly hinders any progress in my own novel.

Right now I'm reading a biography, _The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan_ by Ben McIntyre. It's the story of a Pennsylvania Quaker named Josiah Harlan who left America after being jilted by his true love. Harlan traveled to India and functioned as a soldier, spy, surgeon, naturalist, and writer. He journeyed up into Afghanistan as an agent provocateur for the exiled Afghan king. He spoke Persian and several other local languages and became commander-in- chief of the Afghan armies. In 1838 he traced the footsteps of Alexander the Great, across the Hindu Kush and—get this—conquered and created his own kingdom. But before Harlan could rule in any significant way he was ousted by the invading British.

This bold and fascinating American became the basis for Rudyard Kipling's short story (and the subsequent John Huston movie) "The Man Who Would Be King."

Fascinating book, but the Epilogue contained a paragraph that made me shiver:

Harlan had been right: the Afghans fought tirelessly among themselves, but when a foreign invader threatened, they united to drive him out. Even Alexander's hold had been fleeting. Macedonian, Mogul, Persian, Russian, British, and Soviet armies had all tried, and failed, to control the Afghan tribes. Harlan's words echoed down the centuries: "To subdue and crush the masses of a nation by military force, when all are unanimous in the determination to be free, is to attempt the imprisonment of a whole people: all such projects must be temporary and transient, and terminate in a catastrophe."

And now, apparently, it's America's turn to learn this lesson.

I know (and it's true) that no other army in history has had such a technological edge over their enemy. We possess the bombs and the planes and the electronics and the drones and the gadgets. Should be easy as playing a video game.

And we smug little Americans also assume we have a moral edge: to stamp out terrorism and bring Democracy to a benighted world. But if you read some British history, written in the 18th century, we Americans were the dirty little terrorists rebelling against Civilization and Propriety, King and Empire.

History. Go figure.

We also have that Twin Tower revenge motive. Revenge: a wonderful and time-honored reason for the invasion of a sovereign nation.

I'm all for making the world safe, if not for Democracy at least for air travel. And the Twin Towers was a blatant chickenshit attack on defenseless civilians, but we have to look, at least for a moment, at the history of invading (surging) Afghanistan.

One example will suffice.

1841, Kabul was ready to explode.

Broken British promises to various tribes had the entire city seething. The son of the exiled Afghan king was in full revolt against the British-installed puppet ruler. More diplomacy (lies) ensued but the Afghans couldn't be calmed.

The situation escalated when the British envoy William Macnaghten decided to cut in half payments to the Ghilazi tribe. Macnaghten was murdered, dismembered, and his body parts dragged gleefully through the streets of Kabul.

It was time for the British to flee the country, through the Khyber Pass, to the safety of the British fort at Jalalabad, 80 miles due east. On January 6, 1842 15,000 soldiers (along with wives and children) headed up through the Khyber Pass. On January 9, 1842 the snows, and the Afghans, descended. The deadly accurate Afghan snipers fired their jezails—long barreled muskets—killing and wounding their country's invaders. At night Afghan women would walk among the Brits, robbing the dead and slitting the throats of the wounded. As Rudyard Kipling wrote:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains

And the women come out to cut up what remains

Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

And go to your God like a soldier.

On January 13, 1842 Dr. William Brydon, the only survivor of the15,000 who had set out the week before arrived at Jalalabad.

One of 15,000.

Do we really know what we're getting into with this "surge" in Afghanistan?

It is said that those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. But William Faulkner said, even more aptly, "The past is never dead. It is not even past."

* * *

The Bohemian _also ran this piece on WWII_ :

SILENT LIVES

My father and my uncle have both been dead for quite a few years. This is neither a tribute to them nor a remembrance. It is the recollection of an event that has eluded and intrigued me for over two decades.

Patrick Loughran, the gregarious Irishman from County Tyrone and Chuck Morrison my taciturn uncle from Albany, New York were united by much more than the fact that they'd married sisters. They were members of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation": my father a SeaBee, my uncle a Marine. Both veterans of WWII they had been beaten and battered by the world in precisely the same way. They'd been through the Depression and then the war and shared in the freedoms and economic booms which followed. They knew what was expected of them. They knew the rules. They knew how to live without doubt or regret.

Or so I had thought.

In 1987 I'd been diagnosed with testicular cancer. Following the surgery, after the abdominal incision had somewhat healed, radiation was necessary to zap any remaining possibility of cancer. Even though Redwood Radiology in Santa Rosa was nearer my house my father insisted on driving up from Petaluma to chauffeur me to my appointment. As often as not my uncle Chuck would accompany us.

It wasn't only a kindness that they provided for me it was something, for them, to do. They were both retired from busy and active careers and there is a limit to how much weeding, watering and gardening a tract-home-sized piece of earth will endure. And so every Thursday for a few months I sat in a car and, more worried about my health than the banter, listened to stories about things that, mostly, occurred before I was born: The virtues of Studebaker vs. Buick. The wild times they used to have in Monterey with my uncle Mario. How America had gone to hell-in-a-handbasket.

Then, one day, my father asked Chuck why he never talked about the war.

Chuck didn't answer.

He waved away the question and stared out the window.

My father had pictures of himself in the Aleutians and South Pacific; I'd seen pictures in uniform of other uncles who had served. But I don't recall any pictures or memorabilia of Chuck. He had fought with the Marines in WWII and Korea; I couldn't tell you where or with what battalion, company, or unit. He simply never spoke about it.

On this day, as well, Chuck just shook his head and didn't answer the question. It was not unusual for Chuck to be quiet. He was the most quietly sociable man I'd ever seen. He never missed a party (they were, for that matter, usually at his house) or a joke. His interjections into conversations were always terse, telling, funny, and conclusive.

But I'd never before seen him so discomfited as he was by my father's question, "Why do you never talk about the war?"

As I said, this is neither a tribute nor a remembrance: it is a furtive tragedy.

My uncle Chuck was a generous and gracious man. A success in business. A loving father; a respected, substantial and loved cog in a large, extended family. A veteran of, probably, the last popularly supported and undoubtedly necessary war this country will ever wage. And yet even an interloper from another generation could see that he had survived this war successfully, but not unscathed. A portion of his life, years, had been ruined to the point that he refused to recall or speak about them.

There are KIA, MIA and wounded, but every war also produces a more tense yet restrained casualty. For every reminiscing veteran that Tom Brokaw or Ken Burns interviews there is another survivor, another hero, another victim whose wartime experience is simply unspeakable. They can't and don't talk about it.

There is a generation at war now who will return to have children, attend college, buy houses and live Good American Lives. Examine and explore the reasons for Gulf War II; reasons against Gulf War II. The cost in political clout and world credibility are important and debatable. But do not forget that beyond the obvious expense in dollars and lives, as with every war, there is another toll, a mute and tragic carnage.

The tragedy of silent lives forever changed.

* * *

_Another one about my father, from_ Parentdish:

BLUE COLLAR

Before Blue Collar became synonymous with a comedy tour or an adjective for ESPN announcers to describe how pampered millionaires play professional sports it meant something specific. It was the color of the shirt you wore to work.

To work as a ditch digger, farmhand, or hod carrier.

My father was all of the above until he worked his way into the building trades and found a position as a plumber's apprentice (this was after years of "menial" labor and a hitch in World War Two as a SeaBee) with Local U.A. 38 in San Francisco.

Paddy Loughran, immigrant from Cookstown, County Tyrone, North Ireland lived to work. He worked for the City and County of San Francisco and was a proud Union Man. On "vacations" as a child we'd drive up to my aunt's in Placerville where he'd work on plumbing for a new cabin or a septic system for two weeks while we kids fished and swam and frolicked.

But what I remember most about my father's blue collar work ethic were his side jobs. Every weekend he'd be at a neighbor's or a relative's fixing a pipe or installing a commode. These jobs would be leisurely cash-under-the-table affairs with lots of chat and several seemingly scheduled breaks for "A wee snort of something or other."

And I remember them because usually I went with my dad.

My brothers are nine and ten years older than me and were in high school when I was seven or eight. If they had ventured along on a side job they'd have been put to work. I had the proper lack of stature and experience that made these trips an adventure. So I would watch, and observe and listen; assist with the occasional request for a wrench or a screwdriver.

I was always amazed that at the end of two hours or a half-day that my dad had done so much. Unhurried but unceasing, puzzling out solutions as problems arose the sinks and faucets and showerheads and toilets would be installed.

Those side jobs taught me not how to be a plumber, but how to work.

When I began college in the 1970s the buzz-phrase for writing teachers was Joseph Campbell's mantra, _Follow your bliss_ and I was immediately suspicious. I saw, thanks to Paddy Loughran, that's not how work gets done. The job gets done by using the proper tools, the correct materials, and measuring twice before cutting once. Maybe I missed out on a few things but when I wanted to write my first book I didn't go to Mexico to eat peyote buttons, wander in the desert and find the meaning of life, I went to my typewriter and rolled in a blank sheet of paper.

Dad never encouraged or discouraged me in anything. When I needed a ride to football practice he'd be there and he didn't attend every game I played (I didn't expect him to) but he made it to most of them. The only time this hard-working man (and I'm not idealizing dad's blue collar life: he had broken toes and fingers and a bad back) said anything to me about any profession was when I was in high school. Dad had arrived home with a load of lumber for one of his projects. (Did I mention that he added on to the house, built a deck, drilled a well during a drought, and had an annual garden that fed the neighborhood?) I was reading at the dining room table and mom told me to go help dad unload. So I did. I walked outside, reached to help, and he asked, "What do you think you're doing out here?"

"Helping you unload the wood?"

He smiled, "Go back in and study. The heaviest piece of lumber you'll ever be liftin' is a pencil."

Thanks, pops.

* * *

_Traffic on 101 sucks. The folks at_ The Bohemian _agreed:_

NASCAR and the ART OF HUMAN SACRIFICE

The automobile is the idol of the modern age. The man who owns a motorcar gets for himself, besides the joys of touring, the adulation of the walking crowd, and...is a god to the women.

—John B. Rae

NASCAR sucks.

I'm not against racing, I run the occasional 10K and half-marathon and I realize competition is a genetic imperative for the human species and we will (and do) race chariots, bathtubs, airplanes, dogs, and frogs.

But the popularity of NASCAR offends, mystifies and intrigues me. Last Monday I read the newspaper and section-after-section of this daily installment (ironically printed on our dwindling paper resources and tossed into ever bigger landfills that leak poisons into our groundwater...) warned, exhorted, and downright accused me of being immoral because I'm not GREEN enough.

I don't drive a hybrid, I eat New Zealand lamb, I refuse to throw away perfectly good lightbulbs so I can save the earth by retrofitting those costly-yet-somehow-money-saving incandescent corkscrews. And I'm certainly not going to buy new appliances until the old ones DON'T FREAKING WORK ANYMORE!

Nearly every item on every page of the newspaper chided me about Global Warming and that I need to be greener than Kermit the Frog.

After being cajoled and pressured by lifestyle, garden, home, and environmental experts to change my wasteful, slothful, unenlightened, Environmental-Armageddon-Instigating ways I opened the Sports Page.

Festooned and emblazoned across the front was the coiffed and manicured and incredibly fresh-looking winner of this week's NASCAR race. I've never been a racecar fan, but I remember the winners of the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 and the Baja 1000 that I saw as a child on The Wide World of Sports looked dirty and grimy and oily and fatigued in the winner's circle. These new guys are simply Salon Fresh. You can almost smell their manicured mint&avocado vivacity.

The Sports Page featured NASCAR pictures and NASCAR race coverage and NASCAR season standings and prognostications and the usual overblown polysyllabic and hyperbolic blather that sportswriters (well, all writers) love.

But there was no mention of the fact that 30 or so high performance 10 mpg (if that) NASCAR racecars just burned an ocean of gasoline to go around an oval for four hours.

Definitely un-Green.

Where are all the Greennecks, all the Holier-than-Thou assholistic prophets-of-doom when it comes to NASCAR?

Why does NASCAR receive absolution (actually they gather praise, adoration, ESPN coverage, and cash) for burning up several tons of fuel—in a sanctioned and celebrated manner—to drive precisely, specifically and intentionally back to where they started?

Think of the fuel (and tires and belts and oil and lubricants and filters and antifreeze and steel and plastic—and occasional human fatality) that are burned through in testing, qualifying, and racing. Think of the greenhouse gases that could be eliminated by outlawing these beastly and indulgent mechanical hedonists. Each of these races attracts a sea of humanity that motor-in from hundreds of miles away driving Winnebagos and cars and vans and trucks.

If you want to reduce dependence on foreign oil wouldn't eliminating NASCAR (and all the subsidiary "Minor League" racing circuits that exist to prepare drivers and crews) be an immediate and definite and substantial savings of oil that American soldiers are, right now, dying to procure and/or protect?

Rather than, say, replacing my energy gobbling incandescent

Curious George nightlight?

Think for a moment: If the engineering acumen and cash backing that goes into making these cars go fasterfasterfaster were dedicated into seeing how far and fast we could go on ONE tank of gas we'd have a car capable of 100 MPH and 100 MPG within two years.

Wanna bet?

Give each existing NASCAR raceteam subsidies and sponsors and just ten gallons of gas every Sunday with the last car running declared the winner. Keep the financial incentives the same and this new LASTCAR racing series would be more popular than American Idol if they actually shot the losers.

But alas, LASTCAR will never happen.

You can't replace NASCAR; you can't even effectively boycott NASCAR. You can boycott the races by not attending or watching them on t.v. but to really hit them where it hurts we should boycott the sponsors. Don't buy a Big Three car—or a Toyota: these are the actual companies that make the cars that go endlessly round-and-round-and- round.

After this it gets tricky because if we want to boycott NASCAR we must proscribe the sponsors and stop eating M&M's, Kellogg's cereal, Burger King, Domino's pizza, and Cheerios. We must stop drinking Budweiser, Crown Royal, Miller Lite, Red Bull, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. We can't use FedEX or UPS for our shipping needs. Shopping at Lowes, Office Depot, Home Depot, Best Buy, and Target would be forbidden. The next time we invade a country that had the audacity to build their Pissant Culture on top of our Precious Oil we can't use, because of our NASCAR boycott, the National Guard or the U.S. Army. And worst of all Little Debbie (you pandering slut!) Snack Cakes are off limits: She sponsors a car in the Sprint Cup.

As much sense as it makes to outlaw NASCAR, reap immediate environmental benefits and retool the industry to the research and development of an Internal Combustion Wonder Car, it will, again, never happen.

If NASCAR were outlawed it would result in a civil war because our entire civilization is currently designed for cars, not people, and NASCAR happens to be the racing circuit by-and-for the people.

These days we humans, minus our Detroit exoskeletons, are the interlopers on our own cities' streets. Parking spaces trump pedestrians and bicycles. Our street construction&repair budgets dwarf human services monies. We have designed a Habit Trails™ for mindless and soulless automobiles and yet we live here—dodging cars, breathing fumes and waiting with blind, compliant stupidity for the WALK/DON'T WALK light to change.

We are absolutely blind—in the same autonomic way we are unaware of our heartbeat and respiration—to our slavish obeisance to automobiles.

Cars are everywhere; we literally can't live or function without them. Our hearts are choked with cholesterol, rumps rippled with cellulite, and foreign-policy whored-to-oil because of our pervasive dependence upon and love affair with the automobile.

Even as we are perpetually hobbled by incessant road construction we deal with the delays knowing that it can't last forever (ha!) and traffic won't be as bad when it's completed (ha! ha!).

But we can't simply ban the car and return to a simpler time. So many things that we take for granted in America: Lifestyle, Democracy, and even Sex are possible because of the automobile.

LIFESTYLE

In order to live where we want to and work where we have to, we commute. To the next city, county, or state. We commute thousands of miles a year to ply our chosen professions and still live in reasonably rural, if not bucolic, environments. We commute to escape the bustle, noise, pollution and confinement of cities.

We like this arrangement.

We enjoy our backyards, lawns and suburban McMansions. And the auto makes this choice of lifestyle possible. We are wedded to the automobile until Death Does Us Part.

DEMOCRACY

There's a joke about being so old that you can remember when

eggs, meat, and sunshine were good for you.

The same is true about war.

World War II was fought to stop some truly bad people from doing increasingly more terrible things. It is an indisputable fact that the Allies won WW II because the United States of America had a huge automobile manufacturing system in place. That auto-making capacity was retooled to manufacture planes, tanks, jeeps, and trucks not only for our armed forces, but on a lend-lease program, for the armies of China, Canada, Australia, France, Britain, and especially Russia.

SEX

Even as repressed and stunted and backward as we are in terms of sex in America (there was also something in the daily newspaper I mentioned above about gay bashing and teen abstinence and abortion and a condom ban deep in the heart of Texas...) but if it weren't for the automobile, waking up in the morning with an erection might be illegal.

This here country, remember, was founded and settled by various religious sects and has fostered and nurtured repressive, uptight, God- fearin' people ever since.

Then elected the uptightest and Godfearinest to office.

It is a simple and obvious fact that Henry Ford is the True Father of the Sexual Revolution. If it weren't for the affordable auto that removed the courtiers from the chaperones for a little pitch-and-woo (or slap- and-tickle, or blow-and-go: depending on your age and orientation) holding hands might be referred to as "Third Base". The liberty provided by the car has, even more than alcohol, afforded sexual freedom to successive generations of Americans.

And so the auto reigns supreme, both present day and in our recent past. Providing for Lifestyle, Democracy and Sex are the four-wheeler's formidable legacy. These are compelling rationale, but not the ultimate reason that NASCAR (and all other sundry types of internal combustion competition—from riding mowers to dragsters) will never be restricted, banned, or environmentally censured.

Auto racing is sacrosanct because the automobile is the United

States of America's One True God.

And we feed that hungry God, with human flesh, on a daily basis. When a traffic fatality is reported on drive-time radio the announcer

doesn't request a moment of silence for the road-martyred victim, she

immediately spouts expected delays and alternate routes so as not to disturb the Sacred Commute.

Yearly traffic fatality statistics, if they were the result of terrorist attacks or airline crashes, would never be tolerated. But since they are the direct result of the fundamental way our culture moves and functions they aren't even viewed as collateral damage: they are an essential by-product of this particular type of civilization. These deaths are tolerated propitiation—properly burned offerings—to the continued existence of our consecrated four-wheeled culture.

Millennia ago when an Aztec priest, with a terrible grace borne of practice, plunged his surgically-sharp stone knife and a still-beating human heart was plucked from the sacrificial victim's chest it was not simply the death of a human. It served to honor a deity who would continue to approve and prolong and provide for some holy aspect of Aztec civilization.

So it is today with the United States and our Car Cult.

Highways are our Aztec pyramids; sacred sites where we practice our incidental human sacrifice. Highway deaths are accepted as the price of keepin' it rollin' down the line.

The unprecedented popularity and cult-of-personality that surrounds NASCAR ("Who's your driver?") has installed those drivers—whether NASCAR likes it or not—as High Priests in this cult. There are millions of Americans who adore and emulate these drivers with a "03", "24" or "88" bumper sticker. These NASCAR boys drive faster and farther and better than we do. They visibly risk death every week and when they survive; we survive. Our cars, our culture survives. NASCAR escapes scrutiny; environmental damage is never hinted at; the word waste is never uttered.

Not coincidentally NASCAR's premier raceday is Sunday. Hundreds of thousands worship in person; millions watch on the tube. NASCAR's popularity is not a fluke, a fad, or a fringe phenomenon. It is a ritual practice that somehow expiates us from the excess of our incessant and indulgent driving; from our dysfunctional, national love affair with the auto.

NASCAR's spectacle rationalizes a plunder economy in search of petroleum. It makes starting a war—neither for liberty, nor to ensure peace—but to secure oilfields somehow worthwhile. Road carnage and the oil-war dead are slickly and stylishly, every week, justified by the NASCAR spectacle and the Art of Human Sacrifice.

* * *

_Then there is bicycle traffic. From the_ Press Democrat:

TWO BICYCLES

While traveling in cars, shrouded in these plastic-and-metal manifestations of our status and self-image, we never see anything fresh; anew. While driving we must observe and monitor pedestrians, bicyclists, autos, and road hazards but this type of road-awareness is a necessary autonomic function. It's impossible to appreciate subtle and unique experiences at 35 MPH.

This is why I walk my hometown of Windsor.

So I can see and smell and hear, directly, the differences between my neighborhood off Old Redwood Highway and a cul-de-sac off Hembree. Between a lively trailer park littered with tricycles and skateboards and an upscale subdivision that's so postcard-manicured and quiet it seems devoid of habitation. This Tuesday evening, prior to the second Presidential debate, I strolled up Old Redwood Highway in perfect 80 degree warmth, kicking at crackling piles of fallen maple leaves. The final desperate trickle of commuters were still zipping and speeding home as I sat on a curb and stretched my back. I relaxed when, across the street, a Sonoma County Transit bus thundered up and wheezed to a halt, disgorging students, mothers, and the one DUI guy in a new suit (with cell phone and laptop) who's slumming on the bus until he gets his license back.

I sat there a minute before walking up past Raley's and Safeway to Los Amigos Road. I always think of Los Amigos as the "Road to Nowhere". It is a flawlessly paved two-lane thoroughfare that is perfectly unpopulated. There are no stores, schools, or houses. It backs up to several high-fenced subdivisions to the east and a cyclone fence bordering 101 to the west. This time of evening it is frequented by strollers from the Windsor Senior Center—always friendly and energetic—and dog walkers: poop-scoop bags at the ready. Shortly after my turnaround (before Los Amigos dead ends at Arata Lane) I noticed a bicyclist—officially decked out for the Tour de California in helmet, shades, team-logo-jersey, shorts, and gloves—flying my way. I waved and he passed without a nod or wrinkle of acknowledgement, which didn't surprise me: I'm a recreational cyclist and I noticed the more expensive the bike (this guy was on a carbon fiber Cervelo, I figure about $3500) the more intense, severe, and unfriendly the rider. So I exchanged passing pleasantries, "Dark early, huh?" "Hard to believe it's fall!" with several retirees and ambled back to Old Redwood Highway. About a block from home, nearly dark now—tonight's debate already begun, I heard a hollow CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK.

It's wasn't a car (no headlights; silence but for the CLUNKs) so I turned and, for a moment, saw nothing. Then out of the dusk I saw a round little man riding an ancient creaking bicycle: the CLUNK CLUNK being the sound of his aluminum lunch pail banging against the handlebars. Walking backwards, I waved.

He smiled.

So, that's Windsor on a Tuesday night in October. One walker; two bicycles.

Two contrary and divergent bicycles: one cost more than the first three cars I bought and the other my son might have owned twenty years ago. One is a dedicated fitness toy ridden by a serious athlete, the other an indispensable mode of transportation pedaled by a smiling grunt on his way home from work.

Leaves are falling, a presidential debate rages inside. I suppose a more thoughtful writer would use the two bicycles as symbols for where America has been in the last twelve years and where we're possibly headed—depending on which of tonight's debaters wins the election. But these bicycles, ultimately, aren't and shouldn't be symbols: there are simply parts of two vastly different lives I brushed up against tonight in Windsor, CA.

* * *

_Or you can always walk. Written for the_ Press Democrat:

WALKING WINDSOR: "Ahhhhh..."

In a light rain on the day before December's "Storm of the Century" I walked my usual running route: up Pleasant Avenue and out Chalk Hill Road. The drought that surprises us every five to seven years had abated somewhat and during the previous month we had received a smattering of rain. Needed and necessary rain.

Overdue rain.

But once it arrived the earth knew exactly what to do with it. Everything looked immediately bright and revivified. Grass sprouted perky green in between the rows of autumn-dyed grape vines. Sword ferns unfurled and waved their primordial fronds. Small scattered cities of mushrooms—gold, brown, and white—had appeared literally overnight. In about an hour, as I ambled out to Roth and Chalk Hill wineries, I walked out past $4100 worth of plump and fresh-sprouted golden chanterelles. (I walked back through $3973 worth of those same chanterelle mushrooms. Apparently you can only stuff about $127 worth of chanterelles into a stocking cap.)

During my rainy stroll this familiar Windsor-scape was thankfully moist and refreshed, different from the sere and flammable brown it had been for too long.

But so was my perception of it.

Usually I run past it; today I walked through it and that makes the difference. Any faster and my attention automatically concerns itself with balance and pace and safety; subsequently, your peripheral vision and depth-of-field diminish.

Try it.

Walk past a familiar stretch of road that you usually traverse by jogging, car, or bicycle and see how your perceptions change.

I'm sure part of today's shift is simply because I'm moving more slowly through the terrain, but there is more to it than that. Not only do you see (and hear and feel) more at walking pace, but it is processed and digested more thoroughly.

This is the key.

Apparently our sensory apparatus functions most optimally at the pace of a brisk walk. A few tens-of-thousands of years of our ancestors' wandering through veldt, seashore, and woodland have tuned it to this precise walking pace. I'm certain a group of cynically and clinically precise scientists—in a lab somewhere—are testing the parameters of human perception at varying rates of perambulation but I don't need to wait for their peer-reviewed paper to sway me. I know in my soul that I smell, hear, and see more acutely and honestly when I walk.

Today's route looked, smelled and even sounded different. When you make the descent down to Pool Creek on Chalk Hill Road the constant-swishing-white-noise of 101 disappears. And today between the wet-tires-on-wet-pavement swoosh of the occasional vehicles that passed me on Chalk Hill Road I heard water traipsing and trickling in streams and rivulets alongside and across the road. I didn't hear the rattle of the wind through dry branches but instead the spattering of drops breeze-teased from the drizzle-soaked trees. There was no birdsong: feathered critters are too smart to flit about in weather like this. And I may be mistaken but alone on the road—no cars coming either way—I thought I heard the hills actually say, "Ahhhhh, it's about time."

* * *

Chicken Soup for the Soul _published this in 2011_ :

FIRST DAY

My daughter Elisa recently emailed me pictures of her daughter Gillian smiling and ready for her first day of school. I'm certain my granddaughter Gillian, with fear and excitement and anticipation hugged her mom goodbye and walked away into a brand new world, just as Elisa hugged me about twenty-five years ago. But I wonder what Elisa did after Gillian disappeared into that swarm of first-day-students? She probably choked back, then wiped away a tear and marveled at how quickly the time had gone: all those natural and sentimental feelings of parenthood.

The day I dropped Elisa off for her first day of school I returned, for the first and only time in my life to a quiet and empty house.

I'd been raised in the crowded, loud and rollicking house of Irish immigrants. A brother or cousins or neighbors or a priest or aunts-and- uncles were always sitting and perpetually eating and drinking at our kitchen table. I married young and had five children of my own, the best way, rapidfire, so you can deal with them when you're young and energetic and stupid. But then my wife died (of a rare, quick, and deadly cancer) and I was now widowed and young and sad and stupid. The eldest was ten when Luanne died and Elisa was three and I was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest waiting tables and wiping noses and helping with homework and driving to soccer games and cooking and trying to finish my first novel.

Thank God for that hurricane of confusion. If I had time to deal with the dread and perplexity of facing a life, alone, with five children I probably would have given up. But if you have kids you can't give up.

I remember when Elisa was about Gillian's age she woke me up at 2:00 in the morning. She stood in front of me in the half-light of the bedroom. Her hair was mussed and her Flintstone pajamas were rumpled. She had been crying. In a voice that barely trembled she said, "I can't remember what mommy looked like."

I didn't say a word. At that moment her grief was irreconcilable. The world had snatched another thing from her: Luanne's face no longer existed as a ready and reliable memory. For Elisa the time to cry and say goodbye to her mother wasn't at the official funeral, but in her pajamas on a warm August night 13 months later. On this night, with Elisa, I did the only thing a father can possibly do in this situation.

I made hot chocolate.

Elisa was sitting on my lap, drinking her chocolate, when I asked her if she wanted to look at some pictures of her mother. She nodded a silent yes. As I rummaged in the closet for photo albums I wondered if I were doing the right thing. At times it had been comforting to look at old pictures and re-read poetry I had written Luanne. At other times it was like picking a scab.

But Elisa and I sat down on the kitchen floor and soon—it would have been sooner, but I spilled my hot chocolate—pictures were scattered all around us. Elisa latched onto a picture of Luanne holding her older sister Rachel. "That's me, huh Dad?"

I couldn't lie, "No, Ellie, it's not." She asked, "Can I have this picture?"

I said yes and she walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a magnet and positioned the picture halfway up the door. She returned, kissed me and hiked off to bed. It didn't matter to Elisa that she wasn't the baby in her mother's arms. There was something in the image: Luanne's eyes, her hair, the way she held the child that resurrected the spirit and memory of her dead mother. All the kids had their moments like this while dealing with their mother's death.

My moment was Elisa's first day of school.

I dropped her off and returned home to a house strewn not only with five children's detritus, but with the overwhelming fact that I was alone. Not suddenly, but finally, the grief had me to itself. Man, it hurt. It hurt beyond pain and tears; it ached to the point of surrender.

You can delay grief with activities or chemicals, but you cannot deny it unless you chose not to heal it. Elisa's first day of school was also the first day I faced, and precisely the time I began to mend, the actual and excruciating emotion surrounding the death of the woman I loved.

* * *

_Two granddaughters make an appearance in the local_ Press Democrat:

BORROWED

My second-oldest daughter Rachel on her last visit from North Carolina opened her wallet in the Safeway checkout line and I noticed her white Sonoma County library card—replete with a faded Hello Kitty sticker— was on top of all the other debit, credit and ID cards. "You still have," I asked, "your old library card?"

"Of course," she said. "It's one of my prized possessions."

I was touched.

Rachel was probably six or seven when I took her to the old library (off Commerce by the old TG&Y) to get her key to the real Magic Kingdom.

Books are essential in our family. We all read them voraciously and I've written, and even occasionally sell a few. I still recall looks of childhood horror and confusion when Rachel and her older sister Danielle had slumber party guests and we'd turn off the t.v. at nine o'clock and pull out books—R. L. Stine or "The Babysitters' Club" series for the girls and a Ross Thomas or Lawrence Block mystery for me—and begin to read while there was a fully functioning television with a state of the art VHS ("Be Kind, Rewind!") in the room.

Books are still paramount in our family's experience and today I had the privilege of taking my youngest daughter, Elisa's, two girls Gillian and Gwenyth to the shiny new library in Rohnert Park to get their library cards.

It involved two trips because I needed to provide ID for the children. In the olden days you could just point to the kids and their physical presence in the universe sufficed. But today you are not official—despite the fact you are standing there—until you've been quantified and verified by a bar code.

But I digress and the double-trip allowed us to squeeze in a trip to both the Fundemonium hobby shop and Baskin Robbins: making an important and enjoyable day even more so.

Gillian and Gwen filled out the paperwork, displayed their health cards, and devised their own four-digit PIN codes. (The years of their births, but please don't tell anyone. I've been sworn to secrecy.) Then we browsed the stacks and ten-year-old Gillian (after proudly pasting her "I Got My Library Card Today" sticker onto her blue tanktop) checked out the YA novel "A Touch of Frost". Eight-year-old Gwen opted for volume one of "The Jewel Fairies Collection" (and saved her sticker for a secret, distant, compelling application). Their pristine turquoise library cards were filed away into Gillian's flowered purse and a tiny pink-and-white wallet with a bow that matched Gwen's shirt. A successful, fun, landmark day. Perhaps, like Aunt Rachel, a cherished Rite of Passage day: an initiation into the world of reading, delight, illumination. But even though Rachel's white, Hello Kitty festooned Sonoma County library card proves that I did, thirty years ago, take her on a similar adventure to obtain the treasured card I honestly don't remember that day.

I'm certain we smiled and joked.

She was happy. I was proud.

But I cannot remember what books she checked out, what she wore, or if an "I Got My Library Card Today" sticker were involved. I didn't remember what color her first library card was until I'd seen it three decades later, framed and prominent, in her wallet. Unfortunately it turns out that memories, much like library books, are borrowed and loaned, not owned.

I don't know how often Gwen and Gillian will use their cards, but if they're like their mom and aunts they will wear them out. I doubt they will save their cards like Rachel but I hope they remember the experience. As for me, like little Gwen tucking her "I Got My Library Card Today" sticker away I am resolved to be more vigilant, less reckless, with today's memories.

* * *

_I worked at Dempsey's Restaurant & Brewery (Petaluma) for seven years. While working there this is one of the many pieces I wrote for_ American Brewer:

MARTHA STEWART IS HOMEBREWING

Hi, I'm Martha Stewart, and today we'll be homebrewing. After savoring the delights of cell-brewed hooch during my stay at "The Academy" I decided, upon my release and the failure of my latest television endeavor, to delve into the art of homebrewing.

Everyone knows that beer is a fermented concoction consisting of water, yeast, malted barley and hops. But all too often the main ingredient, the water, is overlooked. I start my very special homebrewing process by conditioning the water. This consists of bringing the water you will use to a quick boil. In America, incidentally, the greatest country on the face of the earth, we have fluoridated water so that our nation's youth will have the opportunity to smile as brilliantly, and as often, as I do. This added fluorine boils at a much lower temperature than water, so it will evaporate harmlessly into the atmosphere.

Most of our water also contains chlorine, which will mask the subtle fruity flavor of my homebrewed ale. Chlorine also evaporates below water's boiling point. But instead of wasting this precious gas, we'll capture it in this copper coil I've temporarily removed from my backyard sour mash still. Chlorine is, of course, the primary ingredient in mustard gas. This particular gas has been much maligned as a chemical deterrent. It's been confused with those "poison gases" for so long that people have forgotten that it is technically a blister agent, designed simply to cause huge skin blisters that would render an army unable to fight. The huge number of deaths from mustard gas in World War I is as much the result of the crude delivery system as the mustard gas itself.

Mustard gas is one of my very favorite homemade chemical weapons, as it is cheap and can be manufactured while homebrewing or made from everyday household products like Clorox. Although outlawed following World War I, there is still a brisk demand for this natural, homemade commodity on the Middle Eastern black market.

The barley ( _Hordeum vulgare_ ) must be malted for the next brewing step. It is soaked and allowed to germinate. It is dried to halt the germination, the sprouts are removed, and the grain—now technically malt—is stored for six weeks. Malted barley can be purchased, but the only shortcut Martha Stewart ever takes is ignoring that irritating little box on the Long Form 1040 where it says: "List Additional Sources of Income." Plus, I can use the six weeks of downtime to re-grout every swimming pool in the neighborhood, bake some brownies, and knit an all-weather, red, white and blue woolen tarp for Air Force One.

The next step is called mashing, and if this brings to mind my garlicky-blue-cheese-mashed-potatoes, you're sadly mistaken. The malt is ground, mixed with our conditioned water and heated to 155°. When barley cooks, a mucilaginous substance results. This barley milk is a wonderful nutrient source for those suffering from bleeding gastric ulcers. It can also be used externally as a soothing application for herpes. (I'm a naughty, naughty girl...)

The result of the mashing process is called wort. It is a lovely amber color, exactly the shade of the finest Moroccan hashish. On a tangent, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the origin of the English word "assassin." Many etymologists assert that it is derived from the Arabic "Hashshashin," or "Hashish smoking dope fiend," as assassinations were carried out by these depraved dope smoking felons. They are half right; Arabic assassins were given hashish to smoke, but it was so that they would experience the rapture of heaven and not fear death. Too bad those ancient sheiks didn't have my recipe for chocolate blueberry cheesecake; this whole drug problem might well have been averted.

Anyway, the worst is transferred to a kettle for boiling. During this process, dried hop blossoms are added. In addition to preventing spoilage, the hops add aroma and flavor to the beer.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that I've discovered other uses for _Humulus lupulus_ , or our friend the hop plant. The name hops usually refers to the scaly, conelike fruit that develops from the female flowers; hops are most commonly used for their calming effect on the nervous system; hop tea is recommended for nervous diarrhea, insomnia and restlessness. Hops will also help to stimulate appetite, relieve intestinal cramping and dispel flatulence.

Whew! I just wish my cellmate at "The Academy" had consumed more freshly brewed hop tea!

The next step in Martha Stewart Is Homebrewing is the heart of the matter: fermentation. Brewer's yeast is added to the wort, which converts sugar into alcohol and that effervescent by-product, carbon dioxide. Use a top fermenting ale yeast, and you'll be sipping suds in six weeks. Bottom fermenting lager yeasts, of course, take a little longer.

It is almost time to sample a batch of Martha Stewart's Homebrewed ale. But first, we must attend to the one aspect of homebrewing that is often overlooked. That is the Art of naming each individual batch of beer we brew. Whether it's only a few gallons or enough beer to quench the Minnesota Vikings' thirst during a party- barge-orgy, your brewing efforts deserve a name that captures the spirit not only of the beer, but also, with your permission, the soul of the brew-mistress.

I've come up with the perfect name for my homebrewing effort:

Martha's Bitter.

Cheers everyone!

* * *

_Again, for_ American Brewer:

BEERCABULARY

What do the words _honeymoon, berserk_ and the phrases _Rule of Thumb, Wet your Whistle_ and _Mind your p's and q's_ have in common? They are directly inspired by the world's favorite alcoholic beverage.

Beer.

_Berserk_ which meant _Bear Coat_ in the ancient Norse language and today means crazy and out of control literally referred to a specific class of Nordic warriors who were seized with a frenzy, ripped off their armor (down to their hairy chests) howled, bit their shields, foamed at the mouth and were considered invincible. They acted in this berserker mode after consuming two or three bucketsful of a lusty and vibrant brew known as _aul_. The root of our word _ale_. They were called _berserkers_ in honor of a mythological warrior, Berserker. He could morph into wild beasts of every variety; he was impervious to fire; iron couldn't harm him. His twelve sons (each also named Berserker) possessed the same genes and inspired the same terror. Modern historians assert that varieties of mushrooms, roots, and herbs were part of the decoction and more responsible for the frenzy than the beer.

Beer has been around as long as civilization and before the invention of the thermometer brewers would dip their thumb or finger into the vat to determine the right temperature for adding yeast. Too high a temperature kills the yeast; too cool and the perambulating-little-yeasties can't work their magic. That's where we garnered the phrase _Rule of Thumb_.

_Honeymoon_ comes from the ancient Norse tradition of the bride's father supplying his new son-in-law with all the mead he could consume the month following his marriage. Mead, the universal alcohol beverage of that era and locality, is sometimes referred to as a wine, sometimes a honey-beer. This period of time following the nuptials came to be known as a _Honeymonth_ , then a _Honeymoon_. It is also tied into the traditional idea that consuming honey increases virility, ie, _The birds and the bees_.

Centuries ago in English pubs each regular patron had their own tankard for hoisting ale. Some consumers had a ceramic whistle baked into their mugs so they could whistle when they were running low on suds; hence _To Wet Your Whistle_.

_Mind your p's and q's_ (meaning to be precise) originated in inns and alehouses. The bartender kept track of the evening's consumption by marking a p for a pint and a q for a quart.

Off on a bit of a tangent, but still related to beer is the term _Hair of the Dog_. It was recorded in 1546 in Heywood's _Dialogue Containing Proverbs and Epigrammes_. "I pray they let me and my fellow have a Hair of the Dog that bit us last night—and bitten we were both to the brain, alright." The phrase comes from the accepted 16th century medical practice that when bitten by a mad (rabid) dog, your chances of recovery were enhanced if a poultice made from the hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you were applied to the wound. The term was first recorded in the U.S. in

1842, but had presumably been used as a hangover cure for many years, although the term _hangover_ didn't officially appear until 1912.

_Tavern_ and _Bar_ are derived from sacred and legal sources. _Tavern_ is a 13th century English word from the Latin _taberna_. We also get _tabernacle_ (where Jews give shelter to the Ark of the Covenant and Christians house the Eucharist) from _taberna. Bar_ is a 16th century offering, from the actual physical iron bars pulled down at closing time. Courts of law had the same device, hence the term _practicing before the bar_.

The simple word _beer_ has an uncertain etymology. Some speculate that it is such an ancient and pervasive word that it's always been there; kind of like trying to remember when you couldn't walk. (Last year's Superbowl party doesn't count.) The word occurs in Old English, but primarily in poetry. In the 16th century it came into common parlance describing a particular type of strong, hopped malt liquor. _Brewhouse_ has been in use since 1374. _Brewpub_ popped up in the 1980's to describe, well, brewpubs.

Cheers!

* * *

_This_ "Drinktionary" _appeared in_ Bartender _and has been reprinted several times_ :

A MODEST DRINKTIONARY

"Whiskey", "Martini", "Booze", "Vodka", "Daiquri", "Gin", and "Rum": words used in every "Bar" and "tavern" in the U.S. But where did these words come from? Who coined them?

"Martini" was first recorded in 1899, but people were drinking the "Martínez" (half gin, half vermouth) since the 1860s. The Martínez was invented by Professor Jerry Thomas of San Francisco's Occidental Hotel. He concocted the potion for a traveler waiting for a ferry boat from San Francisco to Martinez, California.

"Whiskey" derives from the Gaelic, "Usquebaugh"; literally meaning the "Water of Life". Similarly, "Vodka" comes from the Russian "voda", "water" and means "little water". Vodka originated in imperial Russia, it was first introduced to the world during the Crimean war (1853 to 1856). Vodka replaced Scotch as America's most popular spirit in 1975. The origins of "Booze" (appropriately) are clouded and confused. It may be from the Dutch verb "bosen", "to drink"; from the middle English verb "bousen", "to carouse"; or from the Old English "bowze" which is the falconry term for a hawk drinking. Others contend that it is connected with the 3000 year old Egyptian word "boozah", a type of ancient beer.

"Daiquiri", according to HL Mencken, was invented by the U.S. Army engineers stationed at Daiquiri, Cuba in 1898. They ran out of gin and whiskey and began drinking pale Cuban rum with lime juice. "Rum" has also been called "rumbustion", "rumbo", and "rumbullion". Conjecture is that the name derives from the ending of the Latin word for sugar, "saccarum". "Gin" was created by the Dutch doctor, Professor Sylvius, as a medicinal tonic. Its name comes from the Dutch "Jenever", "juniper berries", which gives gin its distinctive flavor. Gin was first introduced in England in the 17th century as a substitute for brandy, which was, at the time, distilled exclusively by the hated French.

"Tavern" originated in the 13th century and derives from the Latin "taberna", "shed" or "booth". Ironically, "taberna" is also the root of the ecclesiastical term "tabernacle". "Bar" is a 16th-century English word, from the iron bars pulled over the counter at closing time. Similar iron bars were used in the English courts giving us the law term "practicing before the bar". The term "belly up to the bar"?

No explanation necessary.

* * *

_First published in_ Trail Runner _and reprinted in several other running and fitness magazines_ :

HOW TO RUN A MARATHON AND STILL HAVE TIME FOR SEX

The marathon, it has been said, is a lesson in humility. The first marathoner, Phiddipides, dropped stone dead after running to Athens from the plain of Marathon to report the defeat of the Persian fleet.

Humiliation and/or death are not the results we are after here.

There is a proven method of training that will allow you to run a marathon comfortably, safely and enjoyably. And still leave you enough time and energy for job, family, fun, frolic, and, as promised, sex. How? Read on.

How did Jerry Rice prepare for a football game? He didn't play golf. He ran pass pattern after pass pattern after pass pattern. He worked on what he hoped to do in a football game until it became so ingrained that he didn't have to think about it during the game. It was simply a part of his physical arsenal: automatic, seemingly effortless, instant.

Conversely, too many people train for a marathon by running 10Ks. This is like Mr. Rice throwing the ball during practice: it's still football but it's not the skill pertinent to the desired task and outcome.

Other wannabe marathoners err on the other extreme. They follow the same intensive training program that led Frank Shorter to Olympic gold. At that time in his life running was Shorter's job. I don't know (or care to know) about Shorter's sex life before the 1972 Munich games, but the fact remains that all world-class marathoners are monomaniacal runners with little time in their lives for anything except running, eating, physical therapy and sleeping. But, again, that's not the goal here.

THE PROGRAM

It's very simple. How far can you comfortably run today? We are dealing with reality here. It doesn't matter how far you could run in high school.

To illustrate, let's say our Everyman Marathoner, Orson T. Plugger, is 30 athletic, involved in a relationship and gainfully employed. And he wants to run a marathon. He's done a few 5K and 10K trail runs with his nephews and works out at the gym three days a week. How does Orson T. Plugger go from wannabe to marathoner with a minimum of pain and a maximum of enjoyment?

He puts on his running shoes and drives to a trail where the miles are marked off in increments. A circuit trail of 3-5 miles without extreme changes in elevation is ideal. Otherwise, use a marked out-and- back trail and run 2 miles out; 2 miles back, etc.—you get the picture.

Orson T. does not warm up by stretching. (We're not doing Hatha yoga, we're taking baby steps toward a marathon.) Orson T. Plugger starts running. Slowly.

Plugger sees how far he can run comfortably. (Comfortable: adjective, the ability to run without getting so winded you can't carry on a conversation.) He manages (on a three mile circuit trail) almost 3 laps, or about 8.5 miles. Round down to eight miles, and that is our starting point.

In two weeks, Orson T. Plugger will do a ten mile long slow run, again on a marked trail. Two weeks after that, he'll plug out 12 miles. Two weeks following, 14 miles. And so forth until our Plugger is able to run 28 to 30 miles comfortably.

These subsequent and increasing 20+ mile distances don't necessarily have to be run on a trail. Orson T. can, for his convenience (and safety in case of injury or fatigue) use his car to map out courses and distances, running past schools and gas stations for water stops and an occasional use of the facilities. Again, a series of out-and-backs on a six-to-eight mile trail, where the starting point has water and a bathroom, is ideal.

This is only half the program.

"Aha!" Says Orson T. "You sunovabitch! Now is when you tell me about the wind sprints and running stadium steps and squat thrusts and weight training and a carbo loading diet!"

Nope.

This is where I tell Mr. Plugger that the other half of this program consists of that nasty four letter word, R-E-S-T.

Between each two-week, two mile increase, Orson T. Plugger is not to run more than one 6-9 miler, once a week. A little three-mile jog every other day is perfect. Some tennis or basketball or Orson T's thrice weekly gym gig is wonderful.

The body needs time and rest to adjust to the strain of long-distance running. If you don't get this rest you will get:

1)The flu.

2)A large bill from an orthopedist.

The goal, remember, is a marathon without giving up a large chunk of your time. Not to mention your sex life.

If, unlike Orson T. Plugger, you started at four miles, it will simply take a little longer to incrementally increase to marathon distance. If you can run 12 miles at the outset, you'll reach "Marathon Threshold:" a month earlier than Orson T. Plugger. The program works no matter where you start.

YOUR MARATHON

Now it is time for Orson T. to choose a marathon to finish. He gets a throwaway calendar from an auto parts store. He picks up a copy of a running mag and turns to the event listings in the back. On the calendar, he writes an "8" on the day he ran eight miles. (This is not a tricky program.) Then he extrapolates forward, two miles per two weeks, until he reaches the month he'll be doing a 28 mile run. He can pick any marathon he wants in the next six weeks and finish comfortably.

Orson T. Plugger should now do two things:

1) Pick a marathon in a town he's always wanted to visit, or one that has special features that appeal to him.

2) Find the entry form in the magazine or go online for registration info. Then fill it out, write a check and mail it in.

Nothing in the American psyche becomes official until it's paid for. (Except, of course, credit card bills or wars.)

Take the plunge and write a check, Orson T. Plugger! It will make that 18 miler ten weeks from now easier. Next, Plugger tells everyone he knows—girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, bank teller, mother, coworkers, pets— that he's training to run the Rancho de Cumbres Grande Trail Marathon next September. Training for a vague and amorphous race is simply impossible. When he receives his race number in the mail he displays it proudly in a spot where he can see it every day, a simple but effective reminder of his commitment.

Orson T. Plugger is doing the program, he's zeroed in on a specific event and paid for it. He's approaching the 20 mile barrier, a real accomplishment. He's lost a few pounds and feels good about his body. He's thinking about dieting, losing another kilo and fitting into those 501s he wore in high school.

Another caveat: Don't change your diet! In fact, Plugger should be indulging himself in some Ben & Jerry's or a sixpack of his favorite microbrew, as long as he's following the program. I know indulgence sounds contrary, but training for a marathon is a stressful activity. Don't add to the body's stress by going off the deep end with a carrot-and-beet juice macrobiotic extravaganza. The guys who win marathons look like extras from Schindler's list, but we're not planning to be Arturo Barrios or Alberto Salazar here. A few extra calories and a pound or two won't hurt. Remember, the goal is to finish a marathon. If you try to race a marathon you will suffer. I've limped home or DNFed more times than I care to admit. When I backed off from trying to run a PR every time out, I started to enjoy the race. Instead of training being drudgery I began to relish my biweekly long slow run. I also, ironically, ran races faster than before.

Following his race, people will ask Orson T. Plugger how he did, especially if he followed my advice and told everyone—including the guy behind him in the grocery store line—that he was training for a marathon. Orson T. Plugger should tell everyone that he finished first in his division. That's what I say, and exactly what I do. Of course, my "division" is 50-year-old Irish American males with gray hair, eight kids and one testicle.

But I am number one, baby.

EXTRA PREPARATION

Two more nuts-and-bolts procedures:

Buy two pairs of the same shoes. Whichever brand and style you prefer, but two pairs exactly the same. Run alternately in each pair until they're both broken-in, then save one pair for the marathon. Shoes wear imperceptibly; putting on a pair of broken-in-but-not-broken-down shoes is like getting a hug from your favorite aunt. It's a mental boost to don comfortable shoes before the race.

Enter a few local 10Ks. This will get you used to packing for a race. You'd be amazed how many people forget shoes or socks or energy bars on race day. It will help to develop a checklist: water bottle, socks, shoes, Vaseline, shorts, shirt, et cetera.

Warning! Don't start substituting 10Ks for your biweekly long runs and don't race them to see if you can beat your brother's best time. These are minor steps along the way to your ultimate goal. And after every race you get a T-shirt to train in which shores up your self-image as a runner.

RACE DAY

Orson T. Plugger's got his good shoes and the knowledge that he can run 28 miles.

Here's a pre race pep talk for him: Start Slow, Then Taper Off.

Leave the GIVE 110% and the JUST WIN, BABY! bullshit to Dick Vitale and Al Davis. If you've followed the program (which includes not dieting, not exercising every day, not running too much and not giving up sex, personal life or extracurricular activities) you can run a marathon.

My first marathon run in this style was the Avenue of the Giants marathon. The course winds through 26 miles of old-growth redwoods in Northern California. Sword ferns, vine maples, and rhododendrons are the underbrush. I had the opportunity to spend four hours running through one of the most beautiful places on earth. I did not speak to anyone. I ran comfortably and confidently, and kind of felt sorry for the faster runners because they weren't able to spend as much time on the course, as much time savoring the experience.

That's running a marathon.

* * *

_Such a good title I had to use it again. This is also the name—and content—of my writing class. Appeared in_ Writer's Journal:

HOW TO WRITE YOUR NOVEL AND STILL HAVE TIME FOR SEX

Not time for only sex; but for all those things we are obligated to do on a regular basis: job, family, exercise, finances, dumping the catbox. I just used SEX in the title to get your attention.

The first step in writing your novel is to realize no one but you can write it. A writing teacher friend of mine begins each of her seminars by placing a pencil on 300 sheets of paper and saying, "Novels never write themselves."

The second step is realizing that a novel isn't written all at once. Let's dust off some math skills. Say your book will be 80,000 words. At 250 words/page that's 320 pages; or a page/day for 10.66 months. Allowing 5 weeks for research and, outlining, writing up some character background, etc, that's a novel in a year. If you started writing TODAY and wrote one-page/day, one year from today you could be printing out your novel while scouring your Market Guide for publishers.

That's simplified, of course: you must rewrite.

But you'll also have days when you write 500, 750, or 1,000 words. Jack London wrote 40 books by adhering to this simple principle: A daily writing stint of 1,500 words, every day, before breakfast. Ralph McInerny, author of the Father Dowling mystery series, mainstream novels, and books on religion and philosophy recommends getting a give-away-calendar from the auto parts store and hanging it in a prominent place. Then start writing your prescribed-daily-quota (PDQ) and don't go back to rewrite UNTIL YOUR FIRST DRAFT IS COMPLETE. Every day you reach your quota, you X out that day on the calendar. That Xed out calendar will provide a visual, daily reminder to yourself of your novel's progress. And a blank week or two will goad you out of procrastination.

Adhere to your daily stint and you'll have a novel PDQ.

TO OUTLINE OR NOT TO OUTLINE?

There's the story about the backyard inventor who worked for years on this machine that featured electrical and gas engines; wires, screws, bolts, and buckets of every size. One day his neighbor popped his head over the fence and said: "That's a magnificent creation. What's it do?"

The inventor smiled and said, "I don't really know."

Obviously, this anecdote dictates the need for an outline, but, conversely, Robert Frost said, "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader."

Who's right? Should writers depend on creativity and spontaneity or plan as meticulously as an engineer? The answer (as to most of life's dilemmas) is somewhere in the middle ground. If not a strict outline you should at least have a plan that includes genre, length, historical era, basic character sketches, and a short plot summary. All of which you can follow strictly or abandon when those all-too-rare moments of Inspiration dictate that the story MUST take this direction.

But again, the most meticulous of outlines or the most profound artistic inspiration are squat if you don't plop your butt in that chair and write.

HOW TO PLOP YOUR BUTT IN THAT CHAIR AND WRITE

Okay, let's take out pencils and a piece of paper. Seriously, this is the hands-on part. I want you to make a list of the activities that you perform on a daily basis. Try to come up with 10 items. Include job, commuting, chores, school, leisure activities etc.

Now, give each activity a 1 if it's CRUCIAL, a 2 if it's IMPORTANT, or a 3 if it's something that can be put on a BACK BURNER. (Example: 1 = writing stint, 2 = clean office, 3 = watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Don't just read this—try it.)

Okay, you've got 10 or so items ranked in value. Go back through your list and circle all the items you awarded a 2. Now, take these #2 items and make them either a CRUCIAL 1 or a BACK BURNER 3. From my example above, I would take "clean office" and either DO IT NOW, or put it off until tomorrow, not on whimsy, but with good reason! If my office were so filthy I couldn't write or perform another CRUCIAL item (i.e. make the car payment to avoid a late charge) it becomes a 1. If my office were merely in its normal state of dusty disrepair, but I could pound out a writing stint I'd make it a BACK BURNER item and attend my daughter's soccer game.

Now, here's the true impact of this exercise: Did you do it? If not, what does it say about your determination to finish that novel? Please go back and do it. And remember, the circumstances of life are constantly changing. Use this tool as often as you need.

MUM'S THE WORD

Don't show anybody your novel until it is finished, rewritten and polished! The only result of "What do you think of my opening chapter?" will be doubt, second-guessing, and insecurity. Maybe it's too wordy or sketchy. People will point this out to you. But you would have discovered and fixed that on a subsequent rewrite, right? Or worse, the person you've appointed Siskel-and-Ebert will say they really liked it; it was Nice.

Trust your judgment.

But there is a huge difference in hearing advice from a fellow writer and from Auntie Sarah. If there is someone whose opinion you value and honesty you can count on you, then please avail yourself of their input. My wife (who is a voracious reader, but breaks into a sweat when writing anything longer than a Xmas card) and I have worked out a system. She sits sipping tea or wine while I read in a flat monotonous voice (you want your words, not your inflection, to have the impact) from my stuff. At any point where I lose her—for whatever reason— she starts snoring and I mark that spot in the manuscript. I trust her and don't take offence. And she's usually right.

Okay, she's always right.

(But please don't tell her I said that.)

Remember what Gene Perret said, "Nothing is written until it's rewritten." Don't pass an uncooked book around indiscriminately. It's a recipe for disaster.

PEP TALK

I hate pep talks.

I was always mystified and confused when coaches demanded

110%, so this isn't a RAH RAH, YOU CAN DO IT! snappy, snazzy, quotable pep talk.

Just the opposite. Here goes:

How would you feel, one year from now, if your novel is still a misty-someday-dream with not a single word written? Project ahead five years. You still haven't finished (have you even started?). How does that make you feel?

Ten years?

Now, think how you'll feel, if when you finish this article, you put a calendar on the wall, and by this time next week see 5 or 6 X's?

Then a month's worth?

A year's worth?

Writing instructor Lew Hunter wrote: "We all have talent. How we use it and don't use it is what the game is all about in writing and in life itself. We must not get beaten down by those who choose to simply take up space on this planet, by those whose lives risk counting for nothing."

* * *

_Again from_ Writer's Journal:

HOMER SIMPSON AND THE ART OF PROOFREADING

Daerest Marge,

Only inetgenillt poelpe can raed this!

Mrage, you are so vrey srmat so I konw taht you undretsnad waht I

am wtiirng!

The hmuan mind, aoccrdnig to a rseerach taem at Cmarbigde Uinervtsiy, dosne't crae waht oedrr the ltteers in a wrod are in! The only iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be in the poeprr plceas. The rset cloud be slleped like our sutipd boy Brat sellps (a taotl mses) and you can still raed it.

Tihs is bceusae the haumn mnid does not raed ervey lteter by itself but the etirne word as a wolhe!

Phennomeal!

Lvoe,

Hmoer

PS: Pelsae don't tlel Ned Flnadres, he mghit tinhk trehe's smethoing

wonrg wtih God.

For my monthly critique group I sent Linda and Kate a 162 page non-fiction manuscript, _Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow: A Year-Long Guide to Publishing Success_. As usual they examined every nook and cranny of the text with the precision of an anal-retentive forensics team. This was the first time Kate had seen it and it was the third time (under three different titles) that Linda had seen it. My older brother and oldest daughter had read the manuscript in earlier incarnations and had provided spelling, punctuation, and textual feedback. I'd since incorporated those changes and had confidence that I'd sent my compatriots a clean-bordering-on-sanitary text.

"Page 13," said Linda before her tea had cooled to sipping temperature, "you've quoted Homer Simpson and misspelled D'oh!"

D'oh! has been selected, recently, for inclusion in _The Oxford English Dictionary_ and means, well, D'oh!

Only I had spelled it: Doh!

I felt I was-up-a-critique-without-a-paddle.

Despite my seven-part-proofreading-routine I'd mis-quoted Homer and made a host of other faux pas: grammatical sins of commission and omission. It's nearly impossible to get a manuscript operating-theater- clean but following these steps will keep you out of trouble with most editors.

1) PRINT OUT A HARD COPY TO PROOFREAD

You can write on it. Scratch words out, compose margin notes. Erase, amend, and if need be, incinerate an offending manuscript. Not only is it difficult to compare margins and distinguish mis-used homonyms (spell check won't underline: Deer Mom, I'm baroque please send me a Czech four fifty dolors...) but I suspect that we also laze a little mentally while proofing on a computer because it's so easy to change things.

2) READ IT AT A DIFFERENT LOCATION

Get out of your house (the backyard will do) and read with a fresh perspective in a re-freshed environment. You'll be amazed at the bonehead mistakes that will jump out at you.

3) READ IT ALOUD

First, and most importantly...this...will...slow...you...down.

Secondly, reading aloud is the acid test for dialog. A knock-down-drag-out spousal spat you thought sounded like Mamet sometimes sounds like a 2-For-1 Yoplait coupon when actually enunciated.

4) READ SPECIFICALLY

Especially if it is a screenplay or a novel make several passes through the script. Like an orthodontist straightening teeth (while emptying your wallet) it takes more than one attempt and takes time. The proofreads must be methodical and can't be hurried. Our minds have an amazing capacity to fill-in missing words and correct spelling ("Daerest Marge...") in order to glean the meaning from the written word. Take one trip through your novel and read just the dialog, paying particular attention to proper positioning of quotation marks and all the he said, she saids. Make another trip through checking tabs, margins, indents, pagination, and headers & footers. Check for widows, orphans, and proper paragraph spacing. Then read the narratives. Triple-check tables of contents and other graphs and footnotes.

5) USE A STYLE SHEET

If you are writing for a magazine (even if it's a query letter asking for an assignment) download and printout their latest style sheet. If there are two queries, all else being equal, on an editor's desk the query following the magazine's style sheet will get the nod. It's sooo simple. The style sheet tells you whether "1st" or "first" is preferred; "Staff Sergeant" or "SSGT"; accepted abbreviations: "etc, ibid, ASAP" and whether you need to e-query or snail mail with an SASE.

If you are writing fiction just be consistent with all abbreviations and how you use cardinal and ordinal numbers.

6) READ BACKWARDS

Get a #2 pencil and using the eraser end start at the end of your manuscript and, proceeding backwards, touch each word and look at it. Misspellings will jump out at you because you've temporarily short- circuited the Syntax Monster that provides mental White Out while you're reading. The bad news is you need to be aware of Booby Trap Words. There, their, they're can be spelled properly but used out of context. They're, Their There are other Booby Trap combinations; most nettlesome and so often misused are its and it's. It's is the contraction for It is. Its, though lacking an apostrophe, is the possessive.

It's It is an ice cream sandwich: vanilla, mocha, or mint chip.

The word Its', despite the fact it shows up fairly regularly in print, doesn't exist. For more Booby Trap Words check out _The Elements of Style_ by William Strunk, Jr. & E.B. White.

7) UTILIZE CRITIQUE GROUPS

If you can't find one; start one. Post an index card at the local bookstore or a message on-line. Two simple rules: The writing is really secondary; do you enjoy the company and respect the opinion of (not the same as agreeing with) the people in the group?

If you don't the experience will suck and your creativity will suffer. Nuns shouldn't date bikers (actually, now that I think of it, nuns shouldn't date anybody, but you know what I mean) and vice-versa. A critique group is not a competition. Kate, Linda and myself are all together in the same leaky rowboat: fending for our lives. Sometimes I row and they bail. Sometimes they row and bail and I cry. But we're all in it for the long haul. Respect the work that you critique, be honest and when in doubt remember Robert Brault's saying: "Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am what is true."

Rule Two: Give more than you get. The fact that grammar and spelling and proofreading aren't my forte prompted me to write this article. I make a lot of piddling (and glaring) errors that the group catches and I try to repay them with my strong suits: plotting, dialog, character development and, well, catering.

Today we had twice-baked potatoes and a fennel, goat cheese and leek frittata.

The girls brought pastry and copies of _Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow_ that were winnowed and weeded. Proofread and dog-eared.

Thank you.

* * *

_I am an obsessive and dedicated re-writer. I don't trust first drafts. This is the only— ever—first draft I've ever submitted. It just came out right. From the_ Press Democrat:

THE BEST VIEW IN SANTA ROSA

The best view in Santa Rosa, it is said, is from Paradise Ridge Winery. The tasting room looks westward toward the semi-organized suburban sprawl where we live and thrive and call home. There is, however, another view from just a tiny bit down the mountain from the winery.

On Round Barn Circle.

A slightly different view.

Sutter Oncology Clinic has the same view, just not as high on the mountain. And the people who get to see it truly appreciate the vista. Sutter Oncology Clinic is the place where people go to receive a drip, drip, drip that will hopefully cure their cancer.

I have had the opportunity to savor the panoramic splendor of

Santa Rosa, California from the glassed-in aerie of this clinic.

It's a beautiful view. It's a beautiful city.

We, from here, can see the city sprawled out before us. We can also see the clouds and storms from the Pacific bringing us fog, drizzle, rain.

Today as I waited, patiently and hopefully, for the juice to enter my veins for my specific illness I savored the view of this city of Santa Rosa.

From up here, as the medicine seeps into my veins, I have a sense of distance from the ant farm that is the modern American city. There is another community, another city, brought together because we are in the same leaky rowboat, of cancer patients who see this panorama–this beautiful city of Santa Rosa–while accepting the latest and hopefully most effective and propitious drug.

Drip, drip drip.

An impromptu community.

I have been coming here since June for my particular problem and I have to say that I have never been more welcomed, befriended, and accepted as I have been every time I show up for my chemotherapy.

And I think it might be the view.

Today I walked in and two of the nurses greeted me by my first name and asked if the restaurant where I worked, The Farmhouse, was busy. I said yes, indeed, we were. Booked until Thanksgiving. They nodded and efficiently, elegantly, found a proper vein for the drip, drip, drip, that I would be receiving for the next seven hours.

In those seven hours I would learn that I am, indeed, the luckiest guy on the planet. I do have a bit of cancer that's circulating, perambulating, goofing off in my bladder. This little drip, drip, drip, of chemotherapy that I receive will address and resolve that problem.

I wish it were so simple for the people in the chairs surrounding me. I'm here for seven hours and I am one of the few without a port. A port is a plastic junction where the chemotherapy is injected. It is a semi- permanent appliance where cheerful and smiling nurses inject merciless, hopefully effective, drugs for deadly and mysterious ailments.

A beautiful young lady sat next to me and had her elixir administered through such a plastic port. This thirty-year-old woman endured visits from in-laws and friends. Obviously in pain, she perked up whenever someone visited. She was the perfect hostess in English and Spanish as the visitors arrived and left.

Until her children arrived.

The boys, aged nine and eleven, spoke perfect English to the nurses and myself when I said "Hey" but they spoke in Spanish to their mother and their aunt who had accompanied them. Their mother had been on her medication for about two hours before they arrived. I could tell by her breathing that it was not a comfortable situation. But when her boys appeared she became a vibrant and caring mother. She transcended the side effects of whatever drug, whatever poison, for whatever malady was in her system and she became a mama. In Spanish the youngest son said, "My baseball game is at 10 o'clock on Saturday."

Auntie raised a finger and said in Spanish to her _sobrino_ , "There are more important things right now."

The young man fought back tears and said, "You are right."

This stuff that they are pouring into my veins is truly miraculous. Whether or not it snuffs out what is growing wildly within me really doesn't matter. Today, because I had to be here in this place, at this time, I watched a boy become a man.

That is the best view in Santa Rosa. Because of the people who are in it.

* * *

THIS STUFF WE WRITE

_While searching through my office to check publication dates on articles for this book I found four copies of_ Beowulf _, a dusty and almost empty bottle of Christian Brothers Brandy, and this article which was written for_ Runner's World's "Finish Line": _personal essays published on RW's last page. It protruded from a copy of_ Galloway's Book on Running _and was accompanied by a signed rejection slip (returned in an SASE—remember those?) dated March 20, 1989_ :

MENDING HEART, SWOLLEN KNEES

Running has always been an integral part of my life: a mildly successful (but highly enjoyable) high school career, then 10Ks in college, and the occasional marathon. Like most recreational runners I have years of running journals, bad knees, and enough race day t-shirts to clothe a medium-sized Third World nation.

But I never realized how important running was to me until after my wife died.

She died following a three year battle with cancer. Even though you are prepared for the death of a spouse, the reality doesn't hit you until the dirt hits the coffin.

Then it hits you.

Old friends look at you with sad eyes. Fellow workers trip over their

tongues trying to talk about safe subjects. Clergy you've never seen before (or since) call with condolences. Even your children look at you strangely: but that's probably because they now have to eat my cooking.

During the time immediately after my wife's death the only thing that was stable and safe to me was my daily run. My legs burned the same on the hills. My heart beat in my ears during interval work. My lungs still pulled in the cold morning air. Sweat and tears are both salty.

Looking back I see that running enabled me to deal with a difficult situation more effectively than support groups, uncontrolled weeping, or alcohol.

I tried all three.

But I took to running long slow distances. Every Wednesday I routinely ran a slow, easy 20-24 miler.

I work weekends and my Wednesday is most people's Sunday. The kids were in school. I had the whole day (until 3:00 PM) to myself. I would slip off into the morning fog and run to town—eight miles away. Once in town I would run two or three miles on Casa Grande's track then jog cross-town to Petaluma High for another eight to twelve laps. I'd stop at gas stations and the library for water. I'd pit-stop at my cousin's or my parents' for a Seven-Up.

Then eight miles back home.

I got into real good shape, the best shape of my life. I started thinking about taking a weekend off, paying the registration fee, and running another "real" marathon. I thought about adding some fast mile intervals for speed work. I considered a new PR: 2:30? Maybe?

Then I did the only sensible thing and ran my Wednesdays without my Casio.

PRs had nothing to do with this phase of my running life. I loved my weekly runs. They were quietly important and essential to me. They sustained me, emotionally and physically, for the entire week. The exertion was sublime and the accomplishment—every week—was a thrill but the most important thing was that these runs afforded me a socially acceptable reason to be alone.

I craved solitude.

I needed to be completely alone and unfettered for X number of hours a week. In retrospect it wasn't the miles run but the time alone that was crucial.

To view these long slow ambling runs as the means to a 2:30 marathon would be sacrilege. They were important in and of themselves. They were real and alive.

Unfortunately we often see ourselves, not as we are, but as others view us. At work (and by family) I was viewed as a creature deserving sympathy: "Poor Rob," they'd say, "five kids, no wife, up to his eyeballs in debt."

Bullshit.

I am single with five kids and a stack of bills but I will never be deserving of pity. When I am alone and running I am the person I know I am: Quirky but solid. Kind of funny.

Running has allowed me to weather a tremendous storm. It's maintained my self-esteem after my world came tumbling down. It has always been a part of my life. But during these last few years it has saved my life.

* * *

" _Mending Heart, Swollen Knees" was never published; only had, as an unsolicited submission from an unknown writer/runner, a slim and meager shot at publication. But reading it 26 years later I'm kind of proud of the fledging writer who typed and proofed and retyped and sent it away (with an SASE, of course)._

This stuff we write.

* * *

_This was published in Sonoma County's_ Upbeat Times:

TWICE AS FAST

I've been a freelance writer for 27 years and people always ask two things about the profession: 1) "Where do you get your ideas?" and 2) "How do you get published?" The first question is impossible to answer: ideas are inspired by a TV commercial, fall out of the ether, or pop into your head while mowing the lawn. As for the second question, people really don't want to hear about the mundane world of market research, query letters, Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes, keeping track of submissions and making deadlines; I suppose it removes the imagined glamour and austerity of The Writing Life. But the last time my grandson visited he asked me question number two, so I showed him the market listings for several children's magazines in the _Writer's Market_ and he decided to send a joke into _Highlights_. I explained about proofreading and neatness and the importance of an SASE. So he wrote down his favorite joke, addressed both envelopes, and dropped his submission in the slot. He called me last night with the news that the joke was accepted and he's a published author. Then he asked me how old I was the first time I got published. When I told him "Twenty" there was a short, commiserating silence before he said, "I'm ten."

THE JOKE:

How do you make dinosaur bacon? You use Jurassic pork.

My parents brought me to Jack London's Wolf House in Glen Ellen when I was ten years old.

I was mesmerized.

_All I ever wanted to be was a writer and here I was—skinny, whiney little me— walking around this famous writer's backyard. After strolling the grounds my mom bought me_ Brown Wolf and Other Tales _in the park's bookstore. As I get carsick I had to wait until we were back home in San Francisco to start reading. (Question: is there an app on Nook or Kindle "For New Book Smell"? Didn't think so; but I digress.) During those tedious ninety minutes of travel time (yes, there was traffic in the olden days too) I anticipated the delights that this new book by this famous writer might contain._

Turns out it sucked.

_Anthropomorphized (didn't know the word yet, but quite familiar with the smaltzy technique from crappy 1960s Walt Disney movies) animals in impossible situations performing outlandish feats. I gave Jack the benefit of the doubt and read it cover-to- cover. To paraphrase Mark Twain's quip about The Bible: "Those who revere Jack London's writing probably haven't read much Jack London." At St. Vincent's High, Petaluma, I was made to suffer through more of the same in the forms of_ White Fang, Call of the Wild, _and worst of all_ , The Sea Wolf.

_But the more I deplored Jack London the writer the more I have had a lifelong fascination with Jack London the man. In the 1990s I dedicated several years of my life to researching and writing a screenplay,_ Voyage of the Snark, _that tells of Jack's life from his wife Charmian's point-of-view. I actually formed a production company and had industry sit-downs, lined up a Director of Photography but that's another book, another time._

* * *

_I wrote this article on-spec for the_ Bohemian _but they only published a snippet._

_Here's the entire enchilada_ :

THE SAGA OF GENTLEMAN JACK LONDON

I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather

That my spark should burn out in a brilliant

Blaze than it be stifled by dryrot.

I would rather be a superb meteor,

Every atom of me in magnificent glow,

Than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live,

Not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

—Jack London

Jack London did use his time. In his 41 years (1876-1916) he sailed the South Seas, prospected for gold, hopped freight trains, worked as a war correspondent in Korea and Mexico, married twice, fathered two children, embraced (then discarded) Socialism, and wrote over 40 books. But behind the legend of Jack London—children's author, Alaskan adventurer, sailor, hero to the common man—lies a complex, pained and ultimately more interesting man.

The saga of the real Gentleman Jack London involves adultery, grandiose dreams, alcoholism, and the possibility of suicide.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS?

Jack's life began under less than ideal circumstances. Perhaps Jack

was destined to become one of America's most widely read authors since the first mention of his name in print was while he was in utero. _The San Francisco Chronicle_ (which in the 1870's resembled a locally flavored _National Enquirer_ ) ran the headline: "Driven from Home for Refusing to Destroy Her Unborn Child—A Chapter of Heartlessness and Domestic Misery." The headline referred to Jack's mother, Flora Wellman and his biological father "Doctor" William Chaney. Flora and the Doctor of Astrology met in 1874 and after a year of living together unwed, Flora ecstatically informed the charlatan that she was pregnant. Chaney insisted that she abort the unwanted child. When Flora refused Chaney sold everything in their house and left for Oregon. The distraught Flora borrowed a pistol and shot herself in the head. The suicide attempt resulted in a minor flesh wound and Jack London was born January 12, 1876.

Years later Jack discovered not only his birth announcement but the headline quoted above. He located and questioned Chaney who claimed he was sterile and another of Flora's lovers must be his father. Nine months following Jack's birth Flora married John London. Both John, a widower who lived with his two youngest daughters and Flora thought they had made wonderful choices in mates and settled into a comfortable household routine. However Jack's written recollections stress how poor, nearly destitute, his family had been. From _John Barleycorn_ : I had been born poor. Poor I had lived. I had gone hungry on occasion. I had never had toys or playthings like other children. My first memories of life were pinched by poverty. The pinch of poverty had been chronic. I was eight years old when I wore my first little undershirt actually sold in a store across the counter. And then it had been only one little undershirt.

Jack's remarks about his impoverished youth infuriated Flora. Poverty certainly wasn't the case. Jack had toy-boats to play with; his step-father had a family boat upon which John London would take Jack and his boyhood friend, Frank Atherton, sailing and fishing on San Francisco Bay. Frank (who lived in a shed and was taken out of school by his family to work in a Sacramento basket factory) cherished the memories of visiting the London household for dinner and enjoying steak, potatoes and vegetables. Jack's daughter Joan wrote in Jack London and His Daughters, "Out of his awareness from babyhood of the constant struggle, not to get along so much as to get ahead, developed his firm but erroneous conviction that he had grown up in the midst of privation and want. They lived frugally, it is true, but the necessities and many of the comforts were never lacking." Joan said Jack possessed "A faculty for absorbing the experiences of others and living them in imagination."

And then, asserted Jack, it had been only one little undershirt. When it was soiled I had to return to the awful home-made things until it was washed. I had been so proud of it that I insisted on wearing it without any outer garment. For the first time I mutinied against my mother—mutinied myself into hysteria, until she let me wear the store undershirt so all the world could see.

NORTH TO ALASKA

Perhaps the most persistent and famous of Jack's public personas is that of "Master of the Yukon." Even though his writing career began with stories of the great Alaskan wilderness, and Jack London

perpetuated his image as an Arctic adventurer and prospector, Jack spent a little more than half-a-year in Alaska; most of that time huddled in a frozen cabin or discussing Socialism in a frontier bar. Jack wrote of his Alaskan experience "...my sister and her husband grubstaked me into the Klondike. It was the first gold rush into that region, the early fall rush of 1897. I was twenty-one years old, and in splendid physical condition. I remember, at the end of the twenty-eight mile portage across Chilkoot from Dyea Beach to Lake Linderman, I was packing up with the Indians and outpacking many an Indian. The last pack into Linderman was three miles. I back-tripped it four times a day, and on each forward trip carried one hundred and fifty pounds. This means over the worst trails I traveled twenty-four miles, twelve of which were under a burden of one hundred fifty pounds."

However, the Klondiker Edward Morgan said of Jack London, "I believe that he staked a claim but I never saw him working one, never met him on the trail, and do not remember ever having seen him except in some Dawson bar....It seemed to me that whenever I saw him at the bar he was always in conversation with some veteran sourdough or noted character in the life of Dawson. And how he did talk."

Jack London also had the dubious distinction of being taken to task by the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote: "Take the chapter from Jack London's _White Fang_ that tells the story of a fight between the great northern wolf, White Fang, and a bulldog. Reading this I can't believe that Mr. London knows much about wolves, and I am certain that he knows nothing about their fighting, or as a realist he would not tell this tale....Men who have visited the haunts of the wild beasts, who have seen them and have learned at least something of their ways resent such gross falsifying of nature's record."

Although he may never have lifted a shovel to work a claim, Jack certainly struck gold during his half-year in Alaska. He garnered the raw material that became literary gold. His classics _Call of the Wild_ and _White Fang_ as well as _The Son of the Wolf, Brown Wolf and other Stories, Children of the Frost,_ and _A Daughter of the Snows_ deal with arctic themes. John Perry wrote in _Jack London: An American Myth_ : "Jack London exploited the Klondike's white wilderness, it's cult of the cold, frightful sense of the unseen, and remoteness from civilization in handsful of sensational short stories, leading people to believe he recorded his experiences."

In reality Jack was bitter and resentful of the Klondike stating: "I brought nothing back from the Klondike but my scurvy....I'm making up for it though. I'm giving the public what it likes to think Alaska is, and I'm getting gold for it. Writing is my stake."

JOHN BARLEYCORN

There has always been a great deal of confusion and controversy about Jack's drinking. Several biographers have painted him as not much more than a fall-down alcoholic. But the fact remains that he did die at the relatively young age of 41 from kidney failure. His kidney problems may have been caused by the mercury-based medication (Salversan 606) he was taking for his venereal disease, but Jack wrote quite often, usually with unapologetic bravado, about his drinking: "By truly heroic perseverance, I finally forced myself to write the daily thousand words without the spur of John Barleycorn. But all the time I wrote I was keenly aware of the craving for a drink. And as soon as the morning's work was done, I was out of the house and away down-town to get my first drink. Merciful goodness!—if John Barleycorn could get sway over me, a non-alcoholic, what must be the suffering of the true alcoholic, battling against the organic demands of his chemistry while those closest to him sympathize little, understand less, and despise and deride him!"

Jack went long stretches (usually at sea) completely sober. He also built a farm, tramped around the world and was a productive and prolific writer. Was he truly alcoholic or was it just bravado, hype, and his own need to be a "Man's Man"? We'll never know, but his contemporary Oliver Maddox Hueffer succinctly explains Jack's relationship to booze, "Among the apocryphal legends attached to his name, and founded very possibly on his own statements, was that of his almost superhuman drunkenness. That at one time or another he drank too much I can believe—certainly in all the time of our acquaintance he never showed any sign of it. He was by no means a teetotaler; but I never saw him drunk. Nor did he boast of his drinking prowess in my presence."

WIVES AND WOMEN

Jack London was introduced to his second wife, Charmian Kittredge by Charmian's Aunt, Netta Eames. Charmian had seen Jack at their house on an earlier occasion when Jack stopped to discuss a business matter with a local reviewer. Like most people in the San Francisco Bay Area, she had certainly heard of Oakland's Boy Socialist and rising author. But Charmian recalls being repulsed by Jack's shabby appearance and missing teeth. She wasn't looking forward to allotting any of her precious free time to meet the rogue. But Charmian was towed along to Young's restaurant to meet Jack. He'd exchanged his ripped cap and sweater for an ill-fitting suit. They fell into discussion, finding common ground in their love of Rudyard Kipling. Later that week Jack stopped by Netta's house with a Socialist friend. Jack abandoned Netta and his friend and found Charmian playing Chopin. Jack wrote a friend, "Have made the acquaintance of Charmian Kittredge, a charming girl who writes book reviews and who possesses a pretty little library wherein I have found all the late books which the library are afraid to circulate."

Jack proposed a date to Charmian that appealed to both their sense of whimsy and non-conformism: a ride in the Oakland hills. Jack on bicycle; Charmian on horseback. The 29 year old, never married woman agreed to accompany the 24 year old rising-star-author on this lark. The date was set—Saturday.

But in a letter to Netta later that week Jack revealed that he had to break his date with Charmian.

Why?

Because he was marrying Bess Maddern that Saturday.

Bess Maddern, whom Jack had met years earlier, represented everything Jack sought in his ideal "Scientific" mate. As Bess would be linking her fate to the author, Jack would become grounded by the influence of a solid, steady, capable woman. The idea of love wasn't even entertained: love would merely introduce romanticism and sentimentality into Jack's conception of a Scientific Marriage: Love is a disorder of mind and body, and is produced by passion under the stimulus of imagination. We see it every day, for love is the most perfectly selfish thing in the universe. During the time romantic love runs its course in an individual, that individual is in a diseased, abnormal, irrational condition....In all marriages love— passionate, romantic love—must disappear, to be replaced by conjugal affection or by nothing.

Jack London had decided to propose to Bess after he saw her on a ladder hanging drapes at his mother's house. He knew it was a hasty decision but "reasoned scientifically" that it was the best possible match. They were married April 7, 1900, the same day Jack's _The Son of the Wolf_ was released. Almost immediately there was strife in the marriage. Bess and Jack were constitutionally incompatible. Bess' awkward love-making technique caused Jack to send Bess to Charmian's Aunt Netta for a few sexual pointers.

Netta's tutelage must have helped because Bess became pregnant and gave birth on January 15, 1901. But the birth didn't please Jack: it was a girl. Jack, who had expected a son, hadn't decided on a name for his daughter and for two days referred to his child as "It", studiously refusing to call her even "Baby."

She was finally named "Joan" after Joan of Arc. Joan London

wrote, years later, "I was forgiven, I was accepted, I was Joan."

As Jack's career and celebrity skyrocketed his marriage soured. London scholar John Perry wrote, "London resented Bessie's refusal to grant him total sexual freedom, a concession Charmian later made."

"She's devoted to purity," Jack wrote. "When I tell her morality is only evidence of low blood pressure, she hates me....Every time I come back after being away from home for a night she won't let me in the same room with her if she can help it. She wants to make me a house animal that won't go anywhere without her approval. And worse than anything else she's converting that bungalow into a prison. I don't want to live in a prison."

And so Jack left in 1902.

Although Bess was pregnant with their second daughter Jack traveled to cover the Boer War in South Africa. Although the assignment was canceled Jack remained in England to research and write _The People of the Abyss_.

He returned home to his disarrayed and unhappy household to pound out his 1000 words a day. During this time Jack completed, in growing disenchantment with Bess and his daughters, his two most famous works, _The Sea Wolf_ and _Call of the Wild_. He also collaborated with Anna Strunsky on _The Kempton-Wace Letters_. This novel in letters, perhaps an attempt to shore up his failing Scientific Marriage, Jack takes the role of Herbert Wace who argues for Reason; Anna Strunsky argues for Love in the role of Dane Kempton.

Then followed an extended assignment in Korea to cover the Japanese-Russian War. He returned and was greeted on the docks by a process server from the Alameda County Superior Court. Bess had filed for divorce, naming Anna Strunsky in the suit. Jack responded, "That is sheer rot. I cannot imagine how such a report has originated. It seems hardly probable that my wife started it, for she knows that it is absolutely untrue. Outside of the time that we were thrown together as collaborators on the Kempton-Wace Letters I have seen very little of Miss Strunsky, as she and I have been away from San Francisco a great deal. We have not even corresponded, except on matters pertaining to our book."

But Gentleman Jack had conveniently forgotten two items: _The San Francisco Chronicle_ had reported: "...divorce proceedings were threatened about two years ago, when it is said, Mrs. London accidentally found Miss Strunsky sitting in her husband's lap."

The other forgotten item?

In May 1902, Jack had asked Miss Anna Strunsky to marry him, suggesting that they run off and live in Australia.

Charmian Kittredege became Mrs. Jack London in 1905, two years after Jack London had finally left his wife and daughters. Charmian shocked people in the Bay Area by wearing pants and refusing to ride her horse side-saddle. She also bucked the conventions of the day by learning to type, and working in an office with men. Much more than a passive wife, as most historians have painted her, Charmian contributed greatly to Jack's fame and success. She edited much of his work and served as a feminine archetype for many of his female characters.

Jack referred to her lovingly as "Mate-Woman" (Jack called Bess "Mother-Girl"; she called him "Daddy-Boy".) Sonoma County writer Clarice Stasz, in her book _American Dreamers: Charmian and Jack London_ said: "Yet it is hard to imagine he would have tried and accomplished so much without the influence of Charmian. Certainly there would have been no sailing to Pacific Isles. There would have been another woman, to be sure, but not likely one who could master his mercurial temperament so well, who would provide the strength he needed to find his direction. Certainly Charmian's life would have been duller and less useful without his invigorating pull."

Charmian herself wrote, after Jack's death: "I think the difference between others and ourselves was that Jack and I knew what we wanted, and in unison overtook in spite of colossal odds from all sides; while the others had mistaken their desires. The secret of finding our rainbows' ends always, I am sure, lay first and last in our knowledge of what we wanted. The longest search never palled, because the search was an end in itself."

THE MYSTERY OF WOLF HOUSE

Perhaps even more so than his writing, Wolf House symbolized Jack London's life. Jack began planning his Mansion-Lodge in the redwoods of Glen Ellen around the turn of the century. He intended the structure to last, as a symbol of his life and struggles, for 1000 years.

And now to my own house beautiful, he wrote in1906, which I shall build some seven to ten years from now. I have a few general ideas about it. It must be honest in construction, material, and appearance. If any feature of it, despite my efforts, shall tell lies, I shall remove the feature. Utility and beauty must be indissolubly wedded. Construction and decoration must be one. If the particular details keep true to the general ideas, all will be well.

The "particular details" of Wolf House are impressive. It is built on a huge monolithic concrete foundation; big enough to support a modern 40 story skyscraper. London thought that his house could be made earthquake proof by building it on a slab of concrete big enough to move with the surroundings during an earthquake. Wolf House was constructed of five local materials: redwood, volcanic rock, blue slate, boulders, and concrete. The rock wasn't finished, it was set into the foundation exactly as quarried and the redwoods were used with their bark on.

The Wolf House was designed, to Jack's exacting specifications, by famed San Francisco architect Albert Farr. Its 15,000 square feet included 26 rooms and nine fireplaces. Despite the abundant space the Wolf House was built to accommodate only Jack and Charmian. Jack (who had written in tents, boxcars, boats, bungalows, and a cell at the Erie County Penitentiary) now had a huge workroom, 19 x 40 feet. His library, directly beneath his writing room was the same size. The two rooms, connected by a spiral staircase, were isolated from the main house, affording privacy and almost complete seclusion.

The Wolf House's living room was 18 x 58 feet with a soaring two story, raftered ceiling. Unfinished balconies ringed the second story. An alcove in the living room housed Charmian's Steinway grand piano, which seemed out of place opposite the huge stone fireplace that provided warmth and an atmosphere that had to appear medieval.

"My house," Jack wrote, "will be standing, act of God permitting for a thousand years." There is no doubt that Jack planned Wolf House as a monument to his legacy and as a remedy for his imagined lack of a real home as a child.

But he never spent one night in his dream home. On the night of August 22, 1913 the nearly completed, but unoccupied Wolf House burned to the ground.

Theories abound as to what, or who, may have caused the fire. Arson was immediately suspected. Charmian wrote a friend following the fire, "We lost nearly $50,000 net, Jack tells me. But more than any financial loss is the deep hurt that we have felt over the wanton destruction of so much beauty, the deepest hurt lies in the indisputable fact that it was set afire by some enemy."

Despite his carefully cultivated image as "Champion of the Common Man" Jack had no short supply of enemies. A crusader for Socialism at the turn of the century, Jack's fervor waned as his income increased. He became everything that he formerly despised: a wealthy, aristocratic land owner. His Socialist friends who had helped, probably more than any editor or publishing house, to make Jack a popular and widely read author felt betrayed. Jack wrote his resignation from the party: I am resigning from the Socialist Party because of its lack of fire and fight, and its loss of emphasis on the class struggle. I was originally a member of the old, revolutionary, up-on-its-hind-legs, fighting Socialist Labor Party. Since the whole trend of Socialism in the United States of recent years has been one of peaceableness and compromise, I find that my mind refuses further sanction of my remaining a party member. Jack mailed his resignation, citing the party's "lack of fire and fight" from Honolulu, where he was vacationing with Charmian.

Jack had also dammed Graham Creek where it flowed through his property, cutting off water to adjacent farms, making him less than popular with his neighbors. The week before the fire Jack had fired a ranch hand for not feeding his dogs properly. He was also notoriously stingy with the construction workers, docking them a day's pay for any work missed or botched. It would have been incredibly easy for a disgruntled employee or vengeful Socialist zealot to hide in the surrounding redwoods until nightfall and then torch the structure.

After the fire, around the hamlet of Glen Ellen there were rumors that Charmian, tired of Jack's well-documented drinking and womanizing actually started the fire to take away from Jack what he cherished most in this world: his legacy for the future, Wolf House.

There was also some speculation that Jack London set the fire himself. His writing career had stagnated and he was deep in debt. He was submitting previously published short stories, with different titles, to new magazines in order to generate income. Four weeks before the fire, on July 21, 1913 he had taken out an insurance policy. After the claim was settled (incredibly, in eight days) Jack wrote the following letter to the National Union Fire Insurance Company:

Gentlemen:

Most satisfactory and gratifying has been the promptness with which your representatives appeared on the scene of my fire, investigated the matter and settled the claim. So pleasant has our relationship been, that I feel my catastrophe was almost worth while in order to learn that there was such quick, straight dealing in this world.

Sincerely,

Jack London

Hardly the words of a man heartbroken over the loss of a house anticipated for ten years, built to last 1000, and burned to the foundation before he moved in. But perhaps Jack anticipated the fire as well, There is little more to say about this house I am to build seven or ten years from now. There is plenty of time in which to work up all the details in accord with the general principles I have laid down. It will be a usable house and a beautiful house, wherein the aesthetic guest can find comfort for his eyes as well as for his body. It will be a happy house—or else I'll burn it down.

The ruins of Wolf House, gutted and never occupied, serves as an even more apt monument; an almost perfectly macabre and mysterious shrine to Jack London's memory; to his spirit which was never, truly, at peace or at home anywhere.

THE FINAL CHAPTER

At 6:30 P.M., November 21, 1916, Jack London partook of his dinner. He was taken during the night with what was supposed to be an acute attack of indigestion. This however, proved to be a gastro-intestinal type of uraemia. He lapsed into coma and died at 7:45 P.M., November 22.

Dr. W.S. Porter

Dr. A.M. Thompson

Dr. W.B. Hays

Dr. J.W. Shiels

As in life, Jack's death was surrounded with controversy and mystery. Despite the Death Certificate that listed "Uraemic Poisoning" as the cause of death, the newspapers erroneously reported that Jack died of food poisoning several hours after eating a hearty meal. This confusing and contradictory news reports provided fuel for those who believed that Jack had committed suicide. Jesse B. Rittenhouse wrote, "There has been some speculation as to whether London took his own life, but I can say that George Sterling told me that he did...."

Although the jury will always be out on the possibility of suicide, it is highly unlikely. The day he died he sent his daughters a note making an appointment to take them out before leaving for New York City and he exhibited, although he was in terrible, constant pain from kidney disease, no other signs of wanting to end his life. Historian Andrew Sinclair concluded, "That he sped his death unintentionally by taking too large a dose of narcotics that evening. Yet even without that assistance he would soon have died from the kidney disease."

H.L. Mencken said simply, "I daresay Jack London's finish was due to his chronic alcoholism in youth. He was a fearful drinker for years and ran to hard liquor."

After his death, Jack's books became American Classics.

Charmian never remarried.

Wolf House was never rebuilt and was donated to the California Park System in 1960.

Jack London's ashes are buried beneath a stone from the foundation of the Wolf House, just a quarter-mile from his ill-fated almost home.

Ninety years after his death Jack remains a hero, a Sonoma County legend, and an enigma.

APOLOGIA

It requires a blithe arrogance to comment upon and judge the life and actions of a fellow human. Because, in the end, that is all we can be: human. The lives of the greatest and most brilliant are fraught with doubt, indecision and frailty. With all I've said and pronounced about Gentleman Jack London there exists, for me, a bond between us. I've always wanted to be a writer and he's the biggest example of a writer I had as a boy growing up in Sonoma County. I've always been disappointed that the quality of his writing never measured up, for me, to the literary status he's been given, but Jack has always been an inspiration to me, his work ethic (he published 41 books) and his maverick spirit. And I must admit that walking, beneath the redwoods, past his grave; to sit in the shadows of the ruins of Wolf House is the closest I've ever come to treading on sacred ground.

The End

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About the Author

Rob Loughran has published over 200 articles and 40 short stories in national magazines. He has eight children and 16 grandchildren. He has trod, repeatedly, upon most of the trails and beaches in Sonoma County.

_Walmart to Wolf House: Sonoma County Essays_ is his 24th book but he also enjoys a career as a failed screenwriter. Rob's "day job" is waiting tables at The Farmhouse Inn, Forestville, CA.

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