Warren Bull's Blog, page 6

Corn on the Cob and Pepper

Corn On The Cob And Pepper

Love Is Not An Emotion
At least, love is not primarily an emotion, among emotionally mature people on whom love has fallen.

There are many variants of the idea of love including: passionate, altruistic, pragmatic, maniacal, playful without commitment, and trusting with affection. You can, no doubt, construct a list of your own.


As a therapist, I often heard the statement, “I love him (or less often her”) spoken as an excuse. The speaker used “love” as an excuse for staying involved with someone who took advantage of the speaker in one or more of an almost unlimited number of ways. The speaker usually had less than optimal respect for herself/himself. (As a therapist, I grew to hate the buzzwords, “low self-esteem.”)


Tonight I passed the pepper, unasked, to the light of my life because she is arm-reach challenged. (The top of her head is not as far off the ground as mine either. We often hug with her standing one step above me on the stairs. Sometimes in bed I touch the bottom of her feet with the top of mine.) I could reach the peppershaker. She could not. I know she likes pepper on her corn on the cob.



That’s a silly illustration of my belief that love is/can be a series of actions that demonstrate the well-being of the one I love is as important as my own. That’s different from and sometimes mistaken for being selfless. I didn’t pepper my corn because I don’t like eating corn with pepper.


In therapy I often talked to clients about the Judeo/Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/What-have-you concept of, “loving your neighbor as yourself.” Neither less nor more.


I am convinced if you do not value yourself, you cannot find a meaningful substitute in your feeling for another. It’s tempting to try. It’s also tempting to allow another to treat you as a superior being worthy of adoration. However, you are not a superior being worthy of adoration. You are an equal being worthy of giving and receiving adoration.


Over the wall of perception that separates each of us from another you can toss bricks or you can toss roses. There is no guarantee of what will come sailing back at any particular moment. Over time, I promise you, roses get a better response.

How Do I Read Thee?

FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012

HOW DO I READ THEE?

How Do I Read Thee? Let Me Count The Ways




I recently picked up a copy of John Lescroart’s Betrayal, which was published in paperback by Signet

Books in 2009. It was fun to be reunited with the characters of Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky who I

have enjoyed for years. Much of the action took place in the vividly described chaos and horror of the

war in Iraq. I was engulfed in the story, I could not predict the turn of events, and the ending was

satisfying and completely fair to the readers. Now, I’m not just recommending John Lescroart’s


Betrayal, although I do recommend it highly, I am also commenting on my own behavior. Toward the

end of the book I found myself taking time to read my e-mail and putting the book down and trying,

unsuccessfully to guess the end. Much as I wanted to know the ending I stretched out my reading

because I wanted to savor the book, like a gourmet meal.




In contrast, when I read Lee Child’s Gone Tomorrow I did not savor the book. I

thoroughly enjoyed it from the first page to the last. Again I recommend it highly.

Interestingly, a good deal of the back-story was set in Afghanistan during the war

between natives and Russian military forces. Toward the end of the book, if there

was any change in my pace of reading, I read faster wanting to see the confrontation

between Jack Reacher and a small army of fanatics. The clique description for this

sort of book is a “page-turner.” I wanted to eat it up like popcorn.





There are authors whose style I linger over as I read like Carolyn Hart, Nancy Pickard and Louise

Penny, the experience reminds me of extended conversations with good friends. There are authors who

transport me to a different time and place like Babara Hambly and Anne Perry. Reading them is like

watching a compelling movie.





Then there are times when I read a book that fails to launch. My reaction usually ranges from

annoyance like when mosquitoes invade a cook out, to serious anger when I have to restrain myself

from throwing the book against the wall. When I read a really bad book, I etch the author’s name into

my memory in the short list of authors never to be read again.

How do you read?

Small Acts of Kindness

Our everyday actions seem to make shallow, transitory changes in the universe like the ripples in a pond after you toss in a stone. That’s how it looks to the thrower. The pond may have a different point of view. On a number of occasions, strangers have stopped me on the street to ask, “Do you remember me?” I rarely do. It’s usually someone I saw in therapy some time ago. Consistently what people remember from therapy is not some blinding insight, sudden epiphany, or intellectual discovery. What people remember is that I was kind.

When I was at my lowest emotionally and physically during recovery from a bone marrow transplant I remember a cleaning lady in the hospital who went out of her way to be comforting and reassuring. At the time I could not stand on my own, or pay attention to anything as complicated as a half hour television program. I knew time was passing because my wife wore different clothing over time; medical staff came and went. The day and date written on a white board in the room changed. The sky got lighter or darker. I came to look forward to her mopping the floor.

After I was released from the hospital, I attended a cancer center every day. One day a nursing aide who saw me shivering brought me a warmed blanket. That day I had uncontrolled diarrhea. I had soiled the clothes I wore in and several patient gowns. I would have felt thirsty and hungry if my entire digestive tract didn’t rebel at the very idea of ingesting water and food. The medical staff discussed putting me back in the hospital. I did not want to go back. I had no particular interest in continuing to live in unrelenting misery either. But I felt her kindness and it was one of the reasons I wanted to keep living.

We seldom know the consequences of small acts of kindness.

A Fractured Christmas

A Fractured Christmas




‘Twas the night after Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not Dad. He was soused.

Mom pondered and worried

As she emptied a jigger

Why each year her sizes

Got bigger and bigger.

While Justin and Jenny

Counted each separate gift

To see who won Christmas

And who came in fifth

But wee little Tommy

Was filled up with joy

While he played with the boxes

And ignored his new toys.

Uncommon Wisdom

Uncommon Wisdom

Don’t criticize someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. By then you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have their shoes.

Trust me, whatever hits the fan will not be distributed evenly.

When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that you set out to drain the swamp.

Doesn’t expecting the unexpected make the unexpected expected?

Always be nice to the lunch lady.

There are two things a woman should never do on a first date — 1) cook and 2) clean.

If someone calls you a donkey, laugh. If two people call you a donkey, keep laughing. If three people call you a donkey, get a saddle

Don’t post anything on the internet you wouldn’t be willing to have tattooed on your forehead.

If you keep calm while others around you are panicking, you might not understand the situation clearly.

Apologize when you make a mistake it will amaze some people and confound the rest.

The Work isn't Done until the Paperwork is Completed

The Work isn't Done until the Paperwork is Completed


When I was a mental health clinic manager I had one therapist who did not comply with the simple concept stated in the title. She had no problem with seeing clients. Her clients liked her. She was open to feedback about clinical issues and became a better therapist while she worked in the office. But she did not write progress notes about each and every visit as required by every insurance company and mental health provider organization.

Apparently shortly before every chart audit she would hurriedly compose notes for every client she had seen during the time being audited. When the auditors told us in advance what specific charts would be reviewed, she would write notes in only those charts. She wrote intakes, which were always monitored, treatment plans and updates, which were reviewed frequently, and occasionally she would write discharge summaries, which, you guessed it, were seldom reviewed.

I was blissfully unaware of the situation (everybody else wrote progress notes) until she went on vacation. One of her clients had a crisis. I saw the client and smoothed things over until her next scheduled appointment. Then I wrote a progress note and went to put it in the client's chart. I noticed that for a long-term client she had a very thin chart. When I opened the chart to insert my note, I noticed that the most recent note was dated several months earlier. The client had told me she had been coming in regularly. The clinic was small enough that I had often seen her in the waiting room waiting for her session. I pulled other charts of clients she was working with and found that none of them contained current progress notes. All were months behind. I borrowed a key and inspected her office (but not her locked desk.) If she had written but not filed the notes there should have been reams of notes. There were not.

I called my boss. He went through all the cabinets in her office (but not her locked desk.) The therapist had not written the notes. My boss wrote up a plan of correction with the therapist. Under his weekly guidance and monitoring, she did catch up and write current notes. She promised she would keep up the paperwork, and was notified in writing that failing to do so would be grounds for losing her job. She continued to write notes until the day he stopped personally reviewing her charts. Then she stopped.

My boss instructed me to keep closer track of the therapist's paperwork performance. I did. I discovered her lapse. She was eventually fired. The therapist appealed to the powers that be and lost.

At another job one of my duties was to complete internal chart audits as practice for when the real auditors came. I discovered that one of the psychiatrists wrote a progress note for every therapy session. The problem was that he wrote exactly the same note, word for word, each time. I discussed it with him. He said he did not see that as a problem. I suggested it might be. I left it to him and his supervisor to sort it out.

What has this got to do with writing? The novel isn’t done until all the incidental work is completed. Once you finish writing a great novel, you still have paperwork to complete. A publisher may or may not help you find a cover and get the cover formatted. The publisher will not write the description on the cover, front and back. Nobody else will write the one to three paragraph synopses that will be in the publisher’s catalog. Nobody else will write answers to interview questions that will grab potential readers by the collar and have them thinking, “I gotta read this.”

As unfair as it seems, after you worn your fingerprints off typing and poured your very soul into your writing, you need to sweat the remaining details with every fiber of your being. Especially if you are a new writer, the cover art, the words on the outside and your words about your book will have a great deal to do with whether or not someone who has never heard of you will actually put money down and buy your book.

The Kindle Experiment

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2011
The Kindle Experiment







The Kindle Experiment

One of my personal goals for the time I would spend in New Zealand was to get a novel published. I did and for the first time it was self-published. I put my Young Adult novel Heartland on Kindle for $2.99.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Q720EQ

I believe it is well past the time where self-publishing is the same as vanity publishing, Although vanity publish is still around, many authors I admire have published on Kindle. It might not be the smartest thing to publish on a new platform while I am half the world away from home but, for me, I decided it would be part of my adventure.

I knew the story was good. It was a finalist in the 2010 Young Adult Novel Discovery sponsored by the Gotham Writers Workshop. Literary Agent Regina Brooks was very helpful and comments made by the judges zeroed in on some things I needed to change. Thanks to everyone who judged the contest.

I tried to follow the directions on direct publishing with Kindle. I did not find the exact screen to set margins and indentations so attempted to do an indentation for each paragraph by hand.

Living in a university town I thought it would be easy to find a WiFi café where I could check my work before it went into final form. No joy. The university has a wireless system, but it did not allow anything as frivolous as a Kindle download.

Christchurch lost many businesses during the earthquakes. Some have reopened but had to move. Finding out where they are now is not easy. Websites have not always been updated. Information cannot keep up with changing conditions.

In the time I had I was not able to check my work before it went up. Afterward I discovered that the local McDonald’s has a WiFi café that is open 18 hours per day.

The indentations I made disappeared. And the colors of the cover I made could have been brighter, but all in all I would say it was a good experiment and I learned from it.

Preparing for my next upload, I finally discovered the page that allowed me to set margins and paragraph indentations. Tramping through the help pages so I could figure out how to check later work I planned to post, I discovered how to change work that was already posted. I was able to download, correct and re-upload the book. As far as I can tell the indentations worked this time. Having no access to outside help I’ve learned to do more things on my own.

And a small publisher contacted me. We are negotiating a paperback version.

My experiment was a success.

Seance in Sepia

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”– L. P. Hartley

In Séance in Sepia, the sixth novel of historical suspense by author Michelle Black, the author skillfully guides the reader through a world both like and unlike our own. Most of us are not well acquainted with spiritualism, séances and spirit photography but we are all only too well acquainted with loss, love, jealousy and trust that drive the vivid characters in this novel just as surely as they drive us today.

When Flynn Keirnan buys an unusual photograph at an estate sale, an antique dealer suggests it might be a “spirit photograph” dating from just after the American Civil War. At auction the photo attracts so many bids and so much attention that she becomes intrigued to discover the history of the photo before it is sold. Discovering the ghostly images of two men and a woman who were involved in a murder described by the local Chicago press as a “Prairie Avenue Massacre” and the “The Free Love Murders” makes Flynn even more determined to uncover hidden truths, both past and, unexpectedly, in the present.

In addition to giving the reader an engaging mystery, knife-edged suspense and a telling glimpse into post-Civil War American society, Ms. Black presents a fascinating portrait of spiritualist, radical feminist and free love advocate Victoria Woodhull, one of the most admired and despised woman of her generation. This is an exceptional book.

Published by Five Star Books scheduled to be released in October, 2011

The Power of Dialog

The Power of Dialog


One way writers can quickly demonstrate the nature of a character they are writing about is to put that character into a particular situation and simply have him or her speak. I purposefully left out everything but the characters’ words in the four examples below to demonstrate how a character’s speech alone gives a sense of the character’s emotion, background, the tone of the writing, and a hint of possible conflict and/or humor to come. Don’t you get a vivid mental picture from these snippets? Of course the authors amplified and expanded their work in each case, but I wanted to show effect of the dialog in isolation.


Bette Davis is unforgettable as “Madge” in the movie Cabin in the Cotton, screenplay by Paul Green. When talking to a possible suitor, “I’d like ta kiss ya but I just washed my hair.”

Susan Ferguson’s unnamed character in the short story “Pearls” in her short story collection Gaze suggests to her writing group that they have a retreat at her farm. “What do you think? It would be primitive. It would be cold and there won’t be enough water. And flies— this time of year there will be hundreds of dead flies. And no furniture. Well, some furniture, but no beds. Not beds like you’d expect. Sofas. And there’s no phone. But we should do this. It will be fun.”

In Death on Demand, Carolyn G. Hart’s hero, Max Darling, hears his ex-girlfriend answer the phone with the name of her new bookstore, “Death on Demand.” He responds with, “Do you provide a choice? Defenestration, evisceration, assassination?”

In my short story “A Detective’s Romance” from my short story collection, Murder Manhattan Style, the character Mary Beth enters the office screaming and then explains. “Sorry about the rebel yell ya’ll. I thought I spotted some Yankees before I remembered I was in New York. Nearly everybody here is a Yankee. Of course, I’m not talking about Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and their lot.”

Searching for Sergeant Bull

The first time my father traveled to Europe was in the hold of a boat built to haul bananas. He was a nineteen-year old Iowa farm boy sailing on the USS Marine Devil with approximately 1,700 other young men recently inducted into the army. He was assigned one canvas shelf to sleep on in a stack of eight shelves set eighteen inches apart in a frame of pipes. The convoy zigzagged slowly for eleven days while the men on the ship endured seasickness, bad food, and cold seawater showers.

The convoy also carried bombers, gasoline, tanks, weapons and ammunition. All these were thrown into World War II against the veteran forces of Nazi Germany.

My father’s division, the 99th of the 395th Infantry, suffered an 84% casualty rate over the next six months. The war ended for him when he was wounded severely enough that he had to be evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

Forty-five years later he returned to Europe by traveling for ten hours in commercial jets that offered warm meals, drinks, and cozy reclining seats. He traveled with his wife, his two sons and their wives.

Like many men of his generation, my father walled off his war experiences. I remember as a child being fascinated by and frightened of that part of my father I saw in rare glimpses that raged and cried within him. My father never let the monster out and, although it became less ferocious over the years, it never went away entirely. He let me play with his sergeant chevrons and other patches from his uniform. My father could occasionally be persuaded to talk about being in the army. He explained that he still has shell fragments in his lung and showed me where he was wounded in his finger. He told funny stories about training and mentioned one or two minor things that happened while he was in Europe. When I asked my father if he was a hero, he invariably answered, “No. The heroes did not come home.” Even as a child, I had a sense that there were many things he refused to talk about.

However, over the years he had gradually become more active in attending reunions of his battalion. He toured Europe with my mother and visited places he saw as a young soldier. When he asked my brother and me to accompany him to Europe on a second visit, we saw the invitation as a chance to learn something about a chapter of my father’s life that he rarely opened. Maybe his sense of mortality gave him the impetus to show us something of this part of his life while he still could.

Although father was not ready to speak about the battles he was in, to help us prepare for the trip, he gave us books about his battalion written by fellow soldiers who my father profoundly respected (Infantry Soldier by George W. Neill, University of Oklahoma Press, 2000, and Butler’s Battlin’ Blue Bastards by Thor Ronnigen, Brunswick Publishing, 1993) plus a book by the commanding general, Battle Babies by Walter Lauer, The Battery Press, 1985).

We read about the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last desperate attempt to break through the allied forces in Europe and drive toward the sea in hopes of splitting the allied armies and forcing truce talks that might leave him in power. The Germans successfully hid the movement of their forces in preparation for the attack. On December 16, 1944, they threw approximately one quarter of a million soldiers in twenty four divisions against five American infantry divisions (the 99th, 2nd, 106th, 4th and 28th) defending sixty miles of ground known as the Ardennes front.

Outnumbered and outgunned at least three to one, the 3rd battalion of the 99th division held its ground on the north shoulder of the bulge against three veteran battalions. Small groups of men in isolated foxholes and buildings survived by killing the enemy with unfaltering efficiency. American artillery was sighted directly on the battalion positions. Men had been told to dig their shelters deep into the frozen ground to avoid being hit by shrapnel from their own guns. When the battle began the untested Americans held their fire until the Germans were so close that in two cases dead German soldiers fell into American foxholes. In the bitter cold, usually knowing nothing about the scope of the battle beyond what they could see with their own eyes, the soldiers held on through December and to the end of January. There were no celebrations when the front line finally straightened out again. The allied forces were ordered to continue their advance.

…

When we visited the area forty-five years later it had changed from an icy hell to a hilly, forested tourist destination close to the medieval city of Monshau, Germany. Despite construction of a bridge and a highway in the area, my father walked directly to depressions in the ground that he was certain were what remained of foxholes he had stayed in during the battle decades before.

My father said that during the part of the battle that took place at the city of Bastongne, Belgium, American forces were surrounded, seriously outnumbered and short of food and ammunition. In a famous incident they were offered the chance to surrender so they would not be completely annihilated. The American commander, Major General Anthony McAuliffe, answered, “Nuts.” My father said years after the battle he asked his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, if the Germans had offered to accept the surrender of the 99.th He said Butler told him, “Hell, no. They were too busy attacking us to ask for our surrender.”

We read about crossing the Rhine River on the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany. With allied forces advancing following the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans ordered every bridge across the Rhine River to be rigged with explosives and blown up before the allies could cross. The orders also stated that the bridges should remain intact as long as possible to allow retreating German troops back into the interior of Germany. The river would then present a serious natural barrier protecting Germany. There were 22 road bridges and 25 railroad bridges that spanned the Rhine. All but the Ludendorff at Remagen were destroyed before they could be captured.

The Ludendorff bridge was completed in 1918 just before the end of World War I. It was constructed of steel, 1,069 feet long, and wide enough for two sets of train tracks and a pedestrian walkway. It was 96 feet tall at the highest point and 48.5 feet above the average water level of the Rhine. Twin towers three stories high were constructed with gun embrasures built into the walls to serve as defensive structures at each end of the bridge. Construction included features to help the defenders destroy the bridge.

On March 7, 1945 the 9th armored division of the 1st American Army commanded by Brigadier-General William Hoge appeared on the horizon above Remagen. They drove into the town toward the bridge. The Germans used explosives to create a trench, preventing tanks from getting to the bridge. The defenders attempted to blow up supports from one side of the structure so it would slide into the river below. The ignition system failed. A squad of volunteers lit the fuses of the secondary charges by hand. When those charges went off. The bridge was lifted into the air, but it settled back in place, damaged but intact.

The American commander immediately sent his men running across the span, dodging obstacles while under fire. The Germans shelled the bridge with every gun available because it was the only way to get more than a few men at a time across the river.

In the next days they fired V-2 rockets at the span. Bombers tried to destroy the bridge. Seven frogmen went into the river in a futile attempt to blow up the supports. Hitler was so upset that within a week four officers were executed for their failure to destroy the bridge. As soon as they could the Americans sent amphibious vehicles to carry troops across the river while a pontoon bridge was being built next to the Ludendorff. Building the pontoon bridge and repairing damage to the Ludendorff continued twenty-four hours a day despite constant shelling so that tanks and other vehicles could cross. When vehicles trying to cross the span were hit and disabled, they were pushed off the bridge and fell into the river below through holes that shells had blasted in the railroad bed.

By March 11, the 99th division was the first complete division across the bridge. Stepping over dead bodies and avoiding holes from the bombardment, the men worried that the Germans were waiting to blow up the bridge until it was full of GIs. Men were hurried across without regard for organization. McClernand Butler directed them to their units on the east side of the bridge. MPs stood on the bridge directing traffic and urging men along. Some were killed by the shells that landed on the bridge on average once every two minutes. My father said that the combat veterans thought that it was about time someone else had the experience of being under fire.

On March 17 the bridge finally collapsed from the sustained damage. Twenty eight engineers died, and ninety three more were injured in the collapse, but by that time roughly 25, 000 soldiers had passed over it. Crossing continued on the pontoon bridge and engineers pushed other bridges across the Rhine.

…

The Ludendorff bridge over the river is gone now, but fragments remain on each side. The remnants are of various widths and roughly five feet thick like puzzle pieces discarded by a giant. Massive black towers still reach high into the sky. Inside one of the towers a peace museum has been set up that tells the history of the bridge. When we visited my father wanted to see it but he did not want to buy a ticket.

He allowed me to pay saying, “I already paid.”

From time to time, I caught a glimpse of the nineteen-year-old farmer’s son who my father had been. The army drafted him and sent him to an intensive college program to develop needed engineering skills. When the need for combat infantrymen outweighed the need for engineers, the army terminated that program and sent him with many others to the front line.

As we drove through a lush green valley, his infantry skills came back to him. “This is a bad place for tanks – too narrow to maneuver. We’d knock the steeple off that church to keep it from being used by observers and send in infantry with just a few tanks. We’d have to watch for mine fields and for dragon’s teeth set to funnel us into the pre-sighted killing zones.”

At the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, he separated from us to mourn over three graves of friends, men from his platoon. In his words, “They never came home and never got any older. I wonder why I survived and they didn’t.” My mother told me that after visiting the graves my father had nightmares like the ones he had just after the war.

Without a current address and not speaking German or French, we stumbled upon the house where my father and his squad sheltered with a family in Belgium for a few days forty-five years earlier. My father said, “It was the first time in months that I was dry, warm and safe.” Guy, who had been five when my father saw him last, still lived in the house. When Guy figured out who he was talking with, tears came into his eyes. He brought out a photo album with pictures from that time. My mother brought out photos she carried to compare to Guy’s. Two identical photos showed the family with Guy in shorts. Only Guy and his older sister, Josie, were still alive.

Another two images showed my father’s eight-man squad. In the photos my father knelt front and center, a young, handsome man with black hair. My father pointed to the young men in the picture and recounted their fates. “He died a day or two later. This one died a week after that. These three men and I were wounded seriously enough that they evacuated us back to the states. That one disappeared on a night patrol and I never learned what happen to him. This man survived the war without a scratch.”

Guy called his niece who spoke English. She took us to meet with Josie. Josie had a picture of her daughter in clothing that my parents sent shortly after the end of the war. My father asked how many men from the several groups of soldiers who sheltered in their home had made their way back.

She told him, “Only one, you.”

We walked across the Wied River on a pedestrian bridge in a recreation area. My father said he remembered wading through waist-deep freezing cold water in the middle of the night while machine guns fired from the other side of the river. We saw someone parasailing through the bright blue sky.

Not far beyond the Wied, my father had been wounded seriously so he was transported to England and back to the United States. Not long after we crossed the Wied, our vacation ended and we returned to our daily lives. Ever since then, I have thought about that trip frequently and about the teenager who became my father. I don’t think I will ever understand what he went through or how it changed him. I do know that I treasure the memories of moments when I saw an Iowa farm boy in the face of my father.