Alan Cook's Blog, page 3
July 21, 2014
Are You Normal? Do You Want to Be?
In his book, Uses and Abuses of Psychology, H. J. Eysenck, pointed out that psychologists (and others) use the word “normal” to mean three or more different, and often contradictory, things.
One meaning of normal is average, as in, “His height and weight are normal for his age.” So anyone who deviants significantly from the average isn’t normal. The beautiful woman and the handsome man aren’t normal by the “average” standard. That means none of you is normal, because of course all my readers are beautiful.
However, when we refer to physical and mental health, we tend to use normal to mean ideal or perfect. A physically and mentally healthy person is normal. How many people do you know who have no physical problems and no neuroses? Certainly not I. My vision isn’t 20-20 unless corrected with glasses, and my hearing is far from perfect. In fact, I wear hearing aids. When I leave my house or car I obsessively check my pockets several times, afraid I’ll lock myself out or forget something.
A third meaning of normal is natural. “It’s natural for the man to be dominant over the woman.” Is it? There are societies in which men and women are completely equal, and others in which women are dominant. I, personally, have associated with strong women all my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Do we want others to perceive us as being normal? Was anything great ever accomplished by a normal person? Einstein wasn’t normal in any sense of the word. Neither is Bill Gates. Some politicians are all too normal in some ways. I don’t want to be like them.
My suggestion is to celebrate your differences with others. Some people will look askance at you, but so what? If you try to please everybody you won’t please anybody. In addition, you probably won’t accomplish anything worth doing.
I try to remember this when I’m writing. Life shouldn’t be an unending succession of 5-star reviews. If everybody likes you and agrees with you, you probably aren’t thinking or doing anything worthwhile.
So dance to your own music, even if you’re the only one who hears it.
One meaning of normal is average, as in, “His height and weight are normal for his age.” So anyone who deviants significantly from the average isn’t normal. The beautiful woman and the handsome man aren’t normal by the “average” standard. That means none of you is normal, because of course all my readers are beautiful.
However, when we refer to physical and mental health, we tend to use normal to mean ideal or perfect. A physically and mentally healthy person is normal. How many people do you know who have no physical problems and no neuroses? Certainly not I. My vision isn’t 20-20 unless corrected with glasses, and my hearing is far from perfect. In fact, I wear hearing aids. When I leave my house or car I obsessively check my pockets several times, afraid I’ll lock myself out or forget something.
A third meaning of normal is natural. “It’s natural for the man to be dominant over the woman.” Is it? There are societies in which men and women are completely equal, and others in which women are dominant. I, personally, have associated with strong women all my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Do we want others to perceive us as being normal? Was anything great ever accomplished by a normal person? Einstein wasn’t normal in any sense of the word. Neither is Bill Gates. Some politicians are all too normal in some ways. I don’t want to be like them.
My suggestion is to celebrate your differences with others. Some people will look askance at you, but so what? If you try to please everybody you won’t please anybody. In addition, you probably won’t accomplish anything worth doing.
I try to remember this when I’m writing. Life shouldn’t be an unending succession of 5-star reviews. If everybody likes you and agrees with you, you probably aren’t thinking or doing anything worthwhile.
So dance to your own music, even if you’re the only one who hears it.
June 8, 2014
Blaze a Trail: Do Something Nobody Else Has Done
What have you done that nobody else has ever done? Keep in mind that billions of people have lived since human beings were first recognized as such, so this is a difficult question. Or is it?
For example, you may have washed your dishes today using a technique you invented that nobody else has used, at least on your dishes. If you want to get technical, we all do things nobody else has done every day, from getting up out of our own beds to driving our individual routes to work.
However, I’d like to talk about accomplishments that have more cosmic significance and give more satisfaction than just washing our dishes in a unique way. But don’t take offense; I realize that washing dishes is very important in a civilized society.
If you are a writer, or a reader who writes occasional reviews for Goodreads.com, I maintain that you are doing significant things that nobody else has done. You are putting combinations of words together in a way nobody else ever has. If you write something that goes much beyond “Dear Grandma, thank you are the present.” this is true. You don’t have to be Shakespeare to do this. Writing letters, emails and even tweets qualify.
When I was in high school I had to memorize some lines from Macbeth that start, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”. For some reason I can still remember them quite accurately, even though I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Shakespeare’s words are deathless.
So are yours, even if the only people who have read them except yourself are your grandmother or your twitter followers. And not just because all the tweets that have ever been written are being saved for posterity, whoever that is.
Words are important, especially written words, and we should take appropriate care when we write them. The poet, the playwright, the novelist and the nonfiction writer are all creating new combinations of words that express ideas. So are journalists, blog writers, book reviewers, and authors of letters, emails and tweets. Well, perhaps not all writers of emails and tweets. Some of them are mundane, unoriginal and downright boring.
However, if we take pride in what we write, we can alleviate the boredom and raise the quality of our prose or poetry to a higher level. Then perhaps more people will want to read it.
We all want to soar like the birds—
Distinguish ourselves from the herds.
To do it is fun;
You’ll know when you’re done,
You’ve written original words.
See, I’ve just written a limerick I’m sure nobody else has ever written before. I know some of you are thinking, Thank God nobody has written that trash before. But you get the idea. Now put on your thinking cap and write something original.
For example, you may have washed your dishes today using a technique you invented that nobody else has used, at least on your dishes. If you want to get technical, we all do things nobody else has done every day, from getting up out of our own beds to driving our individual routes to work.
However, I’d like to talk about accomplishments that have more cosmic significance and give more satisfaction than just washing our dishes in a unique way. But don’t take offense; I realize that washing dishes is very important in a civilized society.
If you are a writer, or a reader who writes occasional reviews for Goodreads.com, I maintain that you are doing significant things that nobody else has done. You are putting combinations of words together in a way nobody else ever has. If you write something that goes much beyond “Dear Grandma, thank you are the present.” this is true. You don’t have to be Shakespeare to do this. Writing letters, emails and even tweets qualify.
When I was in high school I had to memorize some lines from Macbeth that start, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”. For some reason I can still remember them quite accurately, even though I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Shakespeare’s words are deathless.
So are yours, even if the only people who have read them except yourself are your grandmother or your twitter followers. And not just because all the tweets that have ever been written are being saved for posterity, whoever that is.
Words are important, especially written words, and we should take appropriate care when we write them. The poet, the playwright, the novelist and the nonfiction writer are all creating new combinations of words that express ideas. So are journalists, blog writers, book reviewers, and authors of letters, emails and tweets. Well, perhaps not all writers of emails and tweets. Some of them are mundane, unoriginal and downright boring.
However, if we take pride in what we write, we can alleviate the boredom and raise the quality of our prose or poetry to a higher level. Then perhaps more people will want to read it.
We all want to soar like the birds—
Distinguish ourselves from the herds.
To do it is fun;
You’ll know when you’re done,
You’ve written original words.
See, I’ve just written a limerick I’m sure nobody else has ever written before. I know some of you are thinking, Thank God nobody has written that trash before. But you get the idea. Now put on your thinking cap and write something original.
May 10, 2014
I Sorta Kinda Wanted to Write This
I don’t text or tweet but I can see how using abbreviations and shortcuts while texting or tweeting can be helpful. I usually write complete sentences in emails, but if others don’t want to that’s fine. But as the son of an English teacher, I’d like to complain about the state of oral conversation, from newscasters on down to college graduates.
This situation with the way we speak English these days has been kind of nagging at me and I sort of wanted to write a little bit about it, but I’ve been, you know, kind of busy, and like, I haven’t been able to find the time.
The other day I did something for a man and he said “Thank you” and I said “No problem” and he said “Whatever happened to ‘You’re welcome?’” and I said “No problem,” because I didn’t know what else to say.
I’m pretty good at doing good deeds for people. A woman at the market was, you know, having trouble with a grocery cart and I said, “Can I help you?” and she said, “I don’t know, can you?” so I slapped her since she was being kind of a wiseacre.
The sun was warm and it was a pretty amazing day out so my wife and I went to the museum and we saw the most unique exhibit I’ve ever seen. It was, you know, one of those dinosaurs who was like, kind of big, like a T-Rex, and he was eating this other guy who was laying on the ground. I’m not lying when I say that. But I can tell you that if I met a T-Rex in real life I’d be a little bit scared because he was sort of awesome.
So that’s the, you know, reason I haven’t been working on this English project, because I’ve been, like, kind of busy, but I expect to do it soon, and when you read it you’ll say, “Wow, this Cook writes pretty unique stuff. He is amazing.”
This situation with the way we speak English these days has been kind of nagging at me and I sort of wanted to write a little bit about it, but I’ve been, you know, kind of busy, and like, I haven’t been able to find the time.
The other day I did something for a man and he said “Thank you” and I said “No problem” and he said “Whatever happened to ‘You’re welcome?’” and I said “No problem,” because I didn’t know what else to say.
I’m pretty good at doing good deeds for people. A woman at the market was, you know, having trouble with a grocery cart and I said, “Can I help you?” and she said, “I don’t know, can you?” so I slapped her since she was being kind of a wiseacre.
The sun was warm and it was a pretty amazing day out so my wife and I went to the museum and we saw the most unique exhibit I’ve ever seen. It was, you know, one of those dinosaurs who was like, kind of big, like a T-Rex, and he was eating this other guy who was laying on the ground. I’m not lying when I say that. But I can tell you that if I met a T-Rex in real life I’d be a little bit scared because he was sort of awesome.
So that’s the, you know, reason I haven’t been working on this English project, because I’ve been, like, kind of busy, but I expect to do it soon, and when you read it you’ll say, “Wow, this Cook writes pretty unique stuff. He is amazing.”
March 6, 2014
Giveaway for ICE COLD
Goodreads has a giveaway for "Mystery Writers of America Presents ICE COLD: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War" through March 18, 2014. This anthology, in which I have a story, also features stories from some of the greats: Jeffery Deaver, Raymond Benson, J. A. Jance, Sara Paretsky, Joseph Finder, Gayle Lynds and many more.
Sign up to win your copy while there's still time.
Sign up to win your copy while there's still time.
December 12, 2013
What You Eat May Be Killing You
I believe writers and readers are a step above the great unwashed multitude of people who don’t enjoy the written word, but we are like them in one respect: we want to be healthy. We can’t write our best or receive the most enjoyment from reading if we don’t feel good. I know, I know. When am I going to tell you something that isn’t obvious?
All right, here it is. Many people suffer from an ailment their doctors can’t diagnose. Getting a response such as, “It’s all in your mind,” or “Take some Tums,” isn’t helpful. Doctors are good with problems like broken bones and high blood pressure, but I believe most of them don’t know much about food allergies.
Some food allergies are so severe that people can die from them. Having a patient almost die gets a doctor’s attention. She will act rapidly to find the cause, and if it’s a food allergy (such as peanuts or shellfish) the offending food will be removed from the patient’s diet.
Most food allergies, thankfully, won’t kill us. However, they can make our lives miserable. I won’t include a list of possible symptoms caused by food allergies here, because there are too many of them. A partial list can be found in Wikipedia under the heading “Food Allergy,” but it isn’t all-inclusive. In addition to bodily symptoms, I include anxiety, depression, moodiness and fuzzy thinking in my book of symptoms. One problem people have with diagnosing a food allergy is relating their diverse symptoms to something they ate.
I speak from the perspective of someone who has had food problems most of my life. I haven’t eaten dairy products for forty years. Before I quit, I took tons of a Tums-like product, used eye drops to constrict my pupils, which were always dilated, and had my wife call the paramedics when I thought I was having a heart attack.
How did I discover that dairy products were the culprit? One Christmas I drank several cups of eggnog and got very sick. My wife and I had an “aha” moment, and I’ve been dairy-free ever since.
A couple of years ago I was feeling bad again, to the point where I almost cancelled a river cruise we were scheduled for. We went on the cruise, and one sleepless night on the boat (insomnia is a symptom) I went over all the foods I’d been eating. Everything pointed to wheat. The next day we told the maître d’ to take wheat (gluten) out of my diet (he was already eliminating dairy products).
This worked to some extent. It wasn’t until I also stopped taking a daily baby aspirin that I really felt better. Aspirin isn’t an allergy, at least in my case, but it can do bad things to one’s intestines.
Being gluten-free is popular, nowadays, and many stores post prominent notices about their gluten-free products. This isn’t just a fad; the formula for growing wheat has changed in the last fifty years, making it less digestible.
To net this out, I believe most people are affected adversely by some foods. If these foods are eaten often, they can have a negative effect on one’s quality of life. To feel better and be more productive, find and eliminate them from your diet. Then get out there and write (or read) that book.
All right, here it is. Many people suffer from an ailment their doctors can’t diagnose. Getting a response such as, “It’s all in your mind,” or “Take some Tums,” isn’t helpful. Doctors are good with problems like broken bones and high blood pressure, but I believe most of them don’t know much about food allergies.
Some food allergies are so severe that people can die from them. Having a patient almost die gets a doctor’s attention. She will act rapidly to find the cause, and if it’s a food allergy (such as peanuts or shellfish) the offending food will be removed from the patient’s diet.
Most food allergies, thankfully, won’t kill us. However, they can make our lives miserable. I won’t include a list of possible symptoms caused by food allergies here, because there are too many of them. A partial list can be found in Wikipedia under the heading “Food Allergy,” but it isn’t all-inclusive. In addition to bodily symptoms, I include anxiety, depression, moodiness and fuzzy thinking in my book of symptoms. One problem people have with diagnosing a food allergy is relating their diverse symptoms to something they ate.
I speak from the perspective of someone who has had food problems most of my life. I haven’t eaten dairy products for forty years. Before I quit, I took tons of a Tums-like product, used eye drops to constrict my pupils, which were always dilated, and had my wife call the paramedics when I thought I was having a heart attack.
How did I discover that dairy products were the culprit? One Christmas I drank several cups of eggnog and got very sick. My wife and I had an “aha” moment, and I’ve been dairy-free ever since.
A couple of years ago I was feeling bad again, to the point where I almost cancelled a river cruise we were scheduled for. We went on the cruise, and one sleepless night on the boat (insomnia is a symptom) I went over all the foods I’d been eating. Everything pointed to wheat. The next day we told the maître d’ to take wheat (gluten) out of my diet (he was already eliminating dairy products).
This worked to some extent. It wasn’t until I also stopped taking a daily baby aspirin that I really felt better. Aspirin isn’t an allergy, at least in my case, but it can do bad things to one’s intestines.
Being gluten-free is popular, nowadays, and many stores post prominent notices about their gluten-free products. This isn’t just a fad; the formula for growing wheat has changed in the last fifty years, making it less digestible.
To net this out, I believe most people are affected adversely by some foods. If these foods are eaten often, they can have a negative effect on one’s quality of life. To feel better and be more productive, find and eliminate them from your diet. Then get out there and write (or read) that book.
October 25, 2013
Writing for Your Descendants
I have published one children’s book—"Dancing with Bulls"—but I have written a dozen stories for my grandsons, Matthew and Mason. Thirteen if you count the one I’m working on now. Actually, the new one is more of a young adult or YA story. After all, they’ve become teenagers. Children do that, I’ve discovered. They are the heroes in these stories.
They save the stories and hopefully will still have them to read to their children. I’m not seeking immortality, but I do believe this is a good way to connect with them. I also write poems for them. I suggest that all of you who are writers and would-be writers can do the same. What better legacy can you leave your descendants than something you’ve written.
Many of my stories are available to read free at http://authorsden.com/alancook.
To help get your creative juices flowing, I’ll tell you a bit about some of them. The first story I wrote for them was called “The Case of the Missing Presidents.” Mason, the younger boy, hears some older boys talking about trading presidents in the school cafeteria. He thinks they’re talking about trading cards, but when he tells Matthew about what he heard they figure out that the other boys are really talking about money—bills of different denominations with the pictures of presidents on them. They help to bust those boys who are stealing from the cafeteria.
In the second story, called “Homerun,” Matthew catches a homerun ball at a baseball game and returns it to Tank because it was a record-setting ball for him. When Tank believes the ball has been stolen, Matthew and Mason help recover it for him. In another story, Matthew helps save a boy who has fallen partway down a cliff, and then becomes a detective to find out who pushed him.
One of my personal favorites is called “The Secret of Nim.” I like it because I’m a sucker for games. It starts out like this: “Mason couldn’t believe his eyes when Sue Ellen disappeared from the school playground. One second she was there, walking across the balance beam; the next second she was gone.” This is the first story in which the boys are transported into another time, or, in this case another world. Matthew and Mason have to figure out how to get to this world in order to rescue Sue Ellen, and they have to solve a number of games of Nim, a mathematical game. One of the characters in the story speaks only in rhyme.
Another story is based on a real experience I had. The boys find a box full of money. (No, I didn’t get to keep it.) I also wrote a story based on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus and one about my great grandfather who was in the Civil War. Matthew and Mason have to save his division from ambush at Antietam.
Many of my stories have a cute girl in them, but the one I’m working on at the moment has a genuine romance. As I said, the boys are teenagers now. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
They save the stories and hopefully will still have them to read to their children. I’m not seeking immortality, but I do believe this is a good way to connect with them. I also write poems for them. I suggest that all of you who are writers and would-be writers can do the same. What better legacy can you leave your descendants than something you’ve written.
Many of my stories are available to read free at http://authorsden.com/alancook.
To help get your creative juices flowing, I’ll tell you a bit about some of them. The first story I wrote for them was called “The Case of the Missing Presidents.” Mason, the younger boy, hears some older boys talking about trading presidents in the school cafeteria. He thinks they’re talking about trading cards, but when he tells Matthew about what he heard they figure out that the other boys are really talking about money—bills of different denominations with the pictures of presidents on them. They help to bust those boys who are stealing from the cafeteria.
In the second story, called “Homerun,” Matthew catches a homerun ball at a baseball game and returns it to Tank because it was a record-setting ball for him. When Tank believes the ball has been stolen, Matthew and Mason help recover it for him. In another story, Matthew helps save a boy who has fallen partway down a cliff, and then becomes a detective to find out who pushed him.
One of my personal favorites is called “The Secret of Nim.” I like it because I’m a sucker for games. It starts out like this: “Mason couldn’t believe his eyes when Sue Ellen disappeared from the school playground. One second she was there, walking across the balance beam; the next second she was gone.” This is the first story in which the boys are transported into another time, or, in this case another world. Matthew and Mason have to figure out how to get to this world in order to rescue Sue Ellen, and they have to solve a number of games of Nim, a mathematical game. One of the characters in the story speaks only in rhyme.
Another story is based on a real experience I had. The boys find a box full of money. (No, I didn’t get to keep it.) I also wrote a story based on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus and one about my great grandfather who was in the Civil War. Matthew and Mason have to save his division from ambush at Antietam.
Many of my stories have a cute girl in them, but the one I’m working on at the moment has a genuine romance. As I said, the boys are teenagers now. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
September 18, 2013
James Bond and Me (and a few others)
Pop quiz. Name the only two Americans who have written James Bond novels. No, not Ian Fleming. He invented 007 but he’s British and has been dead since a previous millennium.
Give up? They are Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. Raymond and Jeff have written lots of other bestsellers too, as you may know. And now they’ve teamed up as editors of an anthology of Cold War stories called "Ice Cold" (appropriate, right?), under the direction of Mystery Writers of America.
They asked some of their best-selling buddies to contribute stories for the book, including Sara Paretsky, J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart and Gayle Lynds. Oh, and they also picked ten stories from the hoard of starving but competent writers in the universe. The good news is that I’m one of them.
My story, "Checkpoint Charlie," will be in the book, to be published April 2014. Call it serendipity, but the timing for this book was perfect for me. I found out about it when I returned home from a trip to Germany, including a visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there.
When the Berlin Wall was up (from 1961 to 1989) the only legal way you could get from West Berlin to East Berlin, and vice versa, was through Checkpoint Charlie. Many people tried to cross the border illegally, mostly from East to West. Some of them made it; some of them died in the attempt.
The museum commemorates those attempts. It’s a poignant trip back to the days of the Cold War. People tried to go over and under and through the wall. Many of the conveyances they used are in the museum. The collection includes newspaper articles by the score. There’s a movie about the demolition of the Wall. It’s difficult to understand how valuable your freedom is until you’ve lost it. A trip to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum will highlight that in bold letters.
My wife and I first visited Checkpoint Charlie in 1993, not long after the Wall came down. A piece of the Wall was still there, and small pieces of it are on display today, there and elsewhere. In its prime it was covered with graffiti—the graffiti of frustration. If you ever get to Berlin, be sure to visit Checkpoint Charlie and go through the museum.
And be sure to purchase a copy of "Ice Cold." We don’t ever want to forget those days.
I wrote a poem about the Berlin Wall after our first trip there. At one time it was on display in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.
Over and under and through the Wall they came,
parched with a thirst they couldn't quench.
Tunneling, flying, leaping, crawling, hidden
in car seats and carts, determined to wrench
themselves free from tyranny's stench.
Oppressed, tortured, imprisoned, shot—
still the thirsty would not could not be denied.
The spring of freedom beckoned, so close, so far;
yards, feet, nay inches away they died—
and friends and loved ones cried.
Some made it! a baby hidden in a bag in a cart;
desperate men who leapt on a moving train;
a hollow car seat, tunnels, boats,
a makeshift glider, balloon and plane;
putting an end to the thirst and pain.
And then one day, one wonderful day,
they hammered and shattered and tore down the Wall!
Thirsting, singing, shouting, laughing, hugging,
chunk by chunk they watched it fall—
and the terrible thirst was quenched for all.
Give up? They are Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. Raymond and Jeff have written lots of other bestsellers too, as you may know. And now they’ve teamed up as editors of an anthology of Cold War stories called "Ice Cold" (appropriate, right?), under the direction of Mystery Writers of America.
They asked some of their best-selling buddies to contribute stories for the book, including Sara Paretsky, J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart and Gayle Lynds. Oh, and they also picked ten stories from the hoard of starving but competent writers in the universe. The good news is that I’m one of them.
My story, "Checkpoint Charlie," will be in the book, to be published April 2014. Call it serendipity, but the timing for this book was perfect for me. I found out about it when I returned home from a trip to Germany, including a visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there.
When the Berlin Wall was up (from 1961 to 1989) the only legal way you could get from West Berlin to East Berlin, and vice versa, was through Checkpoint Charlie. Many people tried to cross the border illegally, mostly from East to West. Some of them made it; some of them died in the attempt.
The museum commemorates those attempts. It’s a poignant trip back to the days of the Cold War. People tried to go over and under and through the wall. Many of the conveyances they used are in the museum. The collection includes newspaper articles by the score. There’s a movie about the demolition of the Wall. It’s difficult to understand how valuable your freedom is until you’ve lost it. A trip to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum will highlight that in bold letters.
My wife and I first visited Checkpoint Charlie in 1993, not long after the Wall came down. A piece of the Wall was still there, and small pieces of it are on display today, there and elsewhere. In its prime it was covered with graffiti—the graffiti of frustration. If you ever get to Berlin, be sure to visit Checkpoint Charlie and go through the museum.
And be sure to purchase a copy of "Ice Cold." We don’t ever want to forget those days.
I wrote a poem about the Berlin Wall after our first trip there. At one time it was on display in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.
Over and under and through the Wall they came,
parched with a thirst they couldn't quench.
Tunneling, flying, leaping, crawling, hidden
in car seats and carts, determined to wrench
themselves free from tyranny's stench.
Oppressed, tortured, imprisoned, shot—
still the thirsty would not could not be denied.
The spring of freedom beckoned, so close, so far;
yards, feet, nay inches away they died—
and friends and loved ones cried.
Some made it! a baby hidden in a bag in a cart;
desperate men who leapt on a moving train;
a hollow car seat, tunnels, boats,
a makeshift glider, balloon and plane;
putting an end to the thirst and pain.
And then one day, one wonderful day,
they hammered and shattered and tore down the Wall!
Thirsting, singing, shouting, laughing, hugging,
chunk by chunk they watched it fall—
and the terrible thirst was quenched for all.
July 3, 2013
Arizona Wildfire Burns Yarnell
Yarnell, Arizona is located northwest of Phoenix at an altitude of 4,800 feet. Not many people live there, and the ones who do have been devastated by the recent Arizona wildfire that has burned many of the houses in the town. In addition, 19 firefighters have been killed in the line of duty. Because of this catastrophe, Yarnell, which few people had ever heard of, is now part of history.
I walked from Los Angeles to Denver over a period of almost 18 years from 1978 to 1996. Since this is supposed to be a blog about writing, I will tell you that the story of this walk (and many other walks and hikes) is contained in my book, "Walking the World: Memories and Adventures," available on Amazon Kindle.
In December 1986 my wife, Bonny, and I stayed in a motel in Yarnell while I walked part of my route. The area is so sparsely settled that I wrote in my book about a stretch southwest of Yarnell: “The part of 71 south of US 93 was uninhabited. Literally. I mean, there was nobody there. And we think the earth is overpopulated.”
I read that some people have moved to Yarnell to get away from the expense and the crime associated with living in cities. Unfortunately, they couldn’t escape Mother Nature. I suspect these are tough people, however, and they will survive. We need more people like them.
Mother Nature does provide them with some benefits. Here is another quote from my book: “Yarnell is at 4,800 feet and on the final stretch I coasted down the mountain from Yarnell back to the previous day’s finish. The sun finally came out and with it a never-ending view.”
I wish the best for the residents of Yarnell.
I walked from Los Angeles to Denver over a period of almost 18 years from 1978 to 1996. Since this is supposed to be a blog about writing, I will tell you that the story of this walk (and many other walks and hikes) is contained in my book, "Walking the World: Memories and Adventures," available on Amazon Kindle.
In December 1986 my wife, Bonny, and I stayed in a motel in Yarnell while I walked part of my route. The area is so sparsely settled that I wrote in my book about a stretch southwest of Yarnell: “The part of 71 south of US 93 was uninhabited. Literally. I mean, there was nobody there. And we think the earth is overpopulated.”
I read that some people have moved to Yarnell to get away from the expense and the crime associated with living in cities. Unfortunately, they couldn’t escape Mother Nature. I suspect these are tough people, however, and they will survive. We need more people like them.
Mother Nature does provide them with some benefits. Here is another quote from my book: “Yarnell is at 4,800 feet and on the final stretch I coasted down the mountain from Yarnell back to the previous day’s finish. The sun finally came out and with it a never-ending view.”
I wish the best for the residents of Yarnell.
June 23, 2013
When Fiction Becomes Reality
I wrote Dangerous Wind partly as a cautionary tale. What will the heads of governments do to stop what they perceive as a threat to them? Government officials tell us, “You don’t have to worry (about our information gathering, searches, etc.) if you’re not doing anything wrong.” But what if the laws are written in such a way that every one of us is doing something wrong? Or even worse, what if government is defining what is right and wrong instead of we the people?
George Washington, the president I admire most, said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.”
Since my book was published, stories of malfeasance by the IRS and NSA and perhaps other alphabet agencies have come to light. (Love those initials.) Stories of groups being treated differently, depending on their beliefs; stories of reams of information being collected on everybody. Where has our privacy gone? Where have our rights gone?
Government officials say to trust them; they are collecting information to root out terrorists. How do we know this? They can’t tell us what they’re doing with this information because that would help the terrorists. Oh, I get it. In order to protect us you have to keep us in the dark. Keep us in a constant state of blind panic and we’ll let you do anything.
Dangerous Wind is the story of governments going after a man who they claim is trying to bring about their downfall. Is he doing anything illegal or is he just making governmental officials nervous because he’s uncovering weaknesses in the system? Weaknesses propagated by these same officials? Are they fearful they might be stripped of their power? Power, as Lord Acton told us, tends to corrupt people. Once they have power they will go to extremes to hang onto it.
Dangerous Wind is fiction, but is fiction becoming reality faster than I’d hoped it would? At the end of the Constitutional Convention Ben Franklin is supposed to have said, in answer to a question, that we have a republic rather than a monarchy—“…if you can keep it.” Can we keep it?
George Washington, the president I admire most, said, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.”
Since my book was published, stories of malfeasance by the IRS and NSA and perhaps other alphabet agencies have come to light. (Love those initials.) Stories of groups being treated differently, depending on their beliefs; stories of reams of information being collected on everybody. Where has our privacy gone? Where have our rights gone?
Government officials say to trust them; they are collecting information to root out terrorists. How do we know this? They can’t tell us what they’re doing with this information because that would help the terrorists. Oh, I get it. In order to protect us you have to keep us in the dark. Keep us in a constant state of blind panic and we’ll let you do anything.
Dangerous Wind is the story of governments going after a man who they claim is trying to bring about their downfall. Is he doing anything illegal or is he just making governmental officials nervous because he’s uncovering weaknesses in the system? Weaknesses propagated by these same officials? Are they fearful they might be stripped of their power? Power, as Lord Acton told us, tends to corrupt people. Once they have power they will go to extremes to hang onto it.
Dangerous Wind is fiction, but is fiction becoming reality faster than I’d hoped it would? At the end of the Constitutional Convention Ben Franklin is supposed to have said, in answer to a question, that we have a republic rather than a monarchy—“…if you can keep it.” Can we keep it?
May 22, 2013
Circling the Globe--Travel in a Suspense Novel
While my wife and I were planning our cruise around South America that would give us a total of six continents visited, we were wondering whether we should select an expensive option—a day flight to Antarctica. Our geographer grandson, who was eight at the time, said we should go. Then he could say he knew people who had been to all seven continents.
While envisioning my third Carol Golden novel, "Dangerous Wind," I could picture Carol circling the globe in pursuit of freedom—or perhaps more correctly, in pursuit of whatever people were trying to take away our freedom. At the moment, the earth is all the territory we have to live on, work on, play on. We can’t yet move to the moon or to Mars. If we can’t find freedom here we can’t find it anywhere.
Writing about travel has been popular ever since people started writing books. Homer did it in "The Odyssey," Marco Polo wrote about his travels to Asia, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes."
"Dangerous Wind" is not just a travelogue, however, although Carol gets to visit some of the most famous places in the world, natural and manmade. It has action, adventure, suspense and mystery. Carol is abducted from her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by a mysterious group apparently with the government (remember Reagan’s sarcastic phrase, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help…”) and immediately flown to London.
Here she learns that her mission (which she did not choose to accept) is to find an old boyfriend she doesn’t remember because of her amnesia (her memory was lost in "Forget to Remember"). Then it’s on to Switzerland and the Matterhorn, a mountain every schoolchild can recognize.
The plot thickens as Carol uses her mathematical skills to decode a message that will take her to Cairo and the pyramids. From here she will travel to China (the Great Wall), Australia (Ayers Rock aka Uluru) and various places in South America including Ipanema Beach in Rio (are you old enough to remember “The Girl from Ipanema”?). She also goes to Tahiti and Bora Bora.
"Dangerous Wind" climaxes on the Greek island of Santorini, one of the most beautiful and fragile dots in the world. Santorini, you see, is a live volcano. Originally known as Thera, it blew up around 1600 BCE, sending tsunamis throughout the Mediterranean Sea and leaving the crescent that is Santorini today. A devastating earthquake in 1956 reminded us mortals that the volcano could erupt again at any time.
Oh yes, Carol also gets to visit Antarctica, land of snow, ice and penguins, as my wife and I did, so that she can tell her grandchildren she’s been to all seven continents.
While envisioning my third Carol Golden novel, "Dangerous Wind," I could picture Carol circling the globe in pursuit of freedom—or perhaps more correctly, in pursuit of whatever people were trying to take away our freedom. At the moment, the earth is all the territory we have to live on, work on, play on. We can’t yet move to the moon or to Mars. If we can’t find freedom here we can’t find it anywhere.
Writing about travel has been popular ever since people started writing books. Homer did it in "The Odyssey," Marco Polo wrote about his travels to Asia, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes."
"Dangerous Wind" is not just a travelogue, however, although Carol gets to visit some of the most famous places in the world, natural and manmade. It has action, adventure, suspense and mystery. Carol is abducted from her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by a mysterious group apparently with the government (remember Reagan’s sarcastic phrase, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help…”) and immediately flown to London.
Here she learns that her mission (which she did not choose to accept) is to find an old boyfriend she doesn’t remember because of her amnesia (her memory was lost in "Forget to Remember"). Then it’s on to Switzerland and the Matterhorn, a mountain every schoolchild can recognize.
The plot thickens as Carol uses her mathematical skills to decode a message that will take her to Cairo and the pyramids. From here she will travel to China (the Great Wall), Australia (Ayers Rock aka Uluru) and various places in South America including Ipanema Beach in Rio (are you old enough to remember “The Girl from Ipanema”?). She also goes to Tahiti and Bora Bora.
"Dangerous Wind" climaxes on the Greek island of Santorini, one of the most beautiful and fragile dots in the world. Santorini, you see, is a live volcano. Originally known as Thera, it blew up around 1600 BCE, sending tsunamis throughout the Mediterranean Sea and leaving the crescent that is Santorini today. A devastating earthquake in 1956 reminded us mortals that the volcano could erupt again at any time.
Oh yes, Carol also gets to visit Antarctica, land of snow, ice and penguins, as my wife and I did, so that she can tell her grandchildren she’s been to all seven continents.
