Nearly five years have passed since I last posted on my blog. A lot has happened in my life during that time.
My brother Gerald Names died in February 2015, and my closest friend in writing, Frank Roderus, died on my daughter Tegan's birthday in December that same year. I miss both of them so much.
In between their passings, I tried to pass myself. A mild heart attack hit me when I was in the ER for something else. This led to a triple bypass three weeks later. Four more hospitalizations that year kind of put a damper on my writing.
Then my wife Peg decided 23 years on job was enough, so she retired. That was good for me. No, it was great for me. You see, before we had our son Torry back in 1980, Peg and I traveled a lot. By a lot, I mean we took four trips a year doing research for my novels. Until Torry started school, we continued to travel at least three times a year, taking Torry with us on most of those adventures. When he started school, we were limited to one trip with him in summer and another shorter one at Christmas.
Our daughter Tegan was born in 1990, and traveling time was reduced even more.
Peg started that full-time job in 1992, and our days of adventure on the road came to a halt. Oh, we did travel twice a year, but those trips were limited to visiting Peg's parents in Arizona. We were no longer taking in history on our travels.
Finally, when Peg retired, we started adventuring again, meaning doing research for my books. So during the past two years, we've taken 11 trips totaling 170 days.
We have done a lot of research for several books I have in my project file. Now I just have to write them. So stay tuned, dear readers.
Larry Names - August 21, 2017
PS - Oh, yes, my health. My doctors tell me I'm good for 20 years since they gave me a new knee back in March.