Keep a Theme Song in your Heart

I have been asked often to go places and do things that scare the hell out of me.  I have found it important to have a good theme song playing in my heart when I am frightened while dealing with some of the stuff I have seen on the firefighting / rescue side of my life.

 

I think I will use this song the next time I'm not waiting.

Alone in Alaska Tests a Man's Mettle

Many of you who are following along with my blog are probably wondering...  billy blaze, who did you get that natural poetry writing talent from.

Ka'mya these poems were written by your great - great grandpa Buster. 

The above hand written poem from grandpa Buster proves one thing for sure.  Bitter cold and loneliness can drive a grown man to write some crazy stuff.  I'm still trying to figure out what drives me to write about the crazy things I drivel about.

My own scribblings would probably resemble this if it were not for the magical world of spell checker and the computer.  I was about ten when Grandpa Buster passed away.  My memories of grandpa were cut short by his early death but I remember him as being a very hard worker.  I think he would be very satisfied to know all the guests that he has hosted on the "home place" or as we call it now Beaver Hollow, appreciate his hard work attaining such a restful place for them to enjoy these many years.  What a thrill it would be to have him tell some of his tales around a campfire at the Hollow.

The Fort Lives On

I have always dreamed of myself as being a bit of an adventurer.  I have climbed to the top of several mountain peaks through the years, hiked many miles over backwoods trails, simply stomped out through the brush from point A to point B when I worked for the Forest Service and bicycled thousands of miles all over Oregon.  I too have always been intrigued with the great expedition Lewis and Clark made across western America in the early 1800's.  Since I had never visited the far northwest corner of Oregon, where the mighty Columbia River surges into the Pacific Ocean I thought this writers weekend / mini vacation would give Larrieann and I an opportunity to see some of the country that our brave early explorers visited over two hundred and five years ago. 

On a worn piece of elk hide I ogled the rough drawn fort that Clark left instructions for his troops to build while he was away studying and mapping the northern Oregon coast line.  I had to giggle to myself because it resembled the simple drawing I had drawn just before starting the grand kids tree house last spring.  Some statistics you may not know about:  Cost for the Lewis and Clark expedition, $2,500.  Cost for the grand kids tree house, $2,500.  The site where the original fort was built in 1805 was later logged and turned into a potato growing field.  The few rotting logs left from the original fort site were burned by the farmer to make way for a bigger field.  The land where the fort used to sit was farmed for almost fifty years before the Historical Society bought the land from the farmer and reconstructed the old fort using this original map for details.  The reconstructed Fort Clatsop accidentally burned down in 2005 after a candle making demonstration went awry.  The third Fort Clatsop we visited this weekend is surrounded by a massive forest with no indication that a potato growing field had ever been present.

Writers weekend statistics; only 2% of all the books written are ever published.  I did take a third place in the poem writing portion of the conference. 

Traveling north to a writers weekend at Ocean Park.

It was a journey into the land of Lewis and Clark.

Knowing before hand the new scribes would have a religious flavor.

Which was definitely a topic I did not want to savor.

I gleaned that publishing a profitable book was a myth.

Which was a thought I did not want to be left with.

Can you believe I took third place for that whopper.  Wait till you see my sique.

So you think you are a writer?

Many of you who have been following my blog these last several months know I have been toying with the idea of writing a book about my adventures during the thirty years I have served in the fire department.  I have gotten pretty good reviews from my friends and family who are traveling along with me so I thought I would take it to the next level.

I decided to attend a writers conference held at Ocean Beach in Washington State this last weekend.  {Note to self: If a conference is held at a church camp it probably will be attended heavily by religious people.} I thought I'll go find out what some real writers and editors think about my scribblings.  As you can see by all the corrections and suggestions made by one gentlemen on a single page of one of my stories, he quickly stops, puts down his pen and says "I think you are more of a story teller then a writer".  Laughing out loud to myself, I think whew!  A story teller can wave his arms around in the air, make funny faces and shout when a story needs emphasis.  No more worrying about if I got my adjectives in the right place, if the spelling is correct or if I've used the same word too many times.  What a relief, a Story Teller I will be.  Secrectly I enjoy telling tall tales while warming ourselves around a campfire at Beaver Hollow more then I like writing anyways.

The weekend was not a total loss by any means though, I did win the "Best Opening Line" contest while attending.  The instructions for the twenty five attending scribes was to write the worst opening line you could think of...  "The bright red light on the cardiac machine blares a flat line as your eyes meet the infant mothers and you both know a miracle did not occur here tonight".  I remember that night clearly still.  It was one of the worst things I ever had happen to me.  Writers are a strange breed though.  What amounts to one of the worst things to ever happen to me, they see it differently.  They say the aforementioned sentence was the best opening line because it draws a new reader into the book where they would want to read more about the story... 

After that terrible night long ago, I didn't want to know anymore about the story, I just wanted to go home and cry.