Family Reunion

We go to Beaver to the Family Reunion, gathering together on my father's mountain as we have for nearly 40 years. This year, for most of us, it is a night or two under the pines. Other years it has been several days.


Only four of us siblings remain--our mother dead more than 45 years, our father gone from us 6 years now, our sweet stepmother most recently departed 4 years ago, our other two sisters gone 17 years and 61 years. The other four of us are there, two brothers, two sisters, and some of each of our descendants down to third and fourth generations.


Everything is just as my father would have ordered it. Weather with bright clear summer skies, a snowbank nearby for making ice cream, a view of DeLano with green velvet growing right to the top, the double bare peaks of Baldy behind, deer wandering close enough to show the smallest child up close, wildflowers blooming all across the meadows in yellows and pinks and blues. We are above 10,000 feet here, nestled in the heart of these magnificent mountains where we spent summer evenings growing up, always connected with being together as a family.


This place makes me. . .makes me. . .think of my father. This place exemplifies his giving to us much of what he knew mattered most. Family, relationships, independence, learning to live on the land, all surrounded with his high respect for nature and beauty and wildness, and animals, and the God who created it all for us. . .for us! We are most blessed.


The highlight--outside the several side conversations with this niece or that nephew--is the Saturday midday meal and the family meeting that follows. This year the food is terrific. My father said   when you eat on the mountain the food is always terrific. The meeting is interesting, each family reporting  on each descendant, catching up on what is happening, who is struggling, who is triumphing.


Strangely, this year the world intrudes. The Sheriff's Department comes to tell us to be careful on the roads on Saturday. It seems they are holding a long distance bike race--some 70 miles--from downtown Beaver, up the mountain, over the hill down to the other side then coming along the road by us here on Big Flat and finishing  at the ski resort a couple of miles down the canyon. What? The Tours de Beaver?


Later in the afternoon, as we leave, we pass several of those bikers with their beautiful bikes, professional bike suits, and protective helmets. Amazing. I look at them as we pass them and wonder what drives someone to do that kind of hard thing.

I come away cheering, really, grateful for this family in spite of our particular foibles. Mostly grateful for the fine growing upness I see in young people, grateful for the steadfastness of those a bit more mature, the presence of everyone who chooses to come to be together, glad for our parents who loved this place. Blessings.

Elsa's book

When each grandchild turns 5, they can write their first book with me. Elsa is grandchild number eight, and her book is at the printer as we speak. One more book to go, Liesel turns 4 in September.

The process is delightful. First we talk about what the author-child want to write about. Sometimes I have to encourage in a specific way because of the season, or the setting, or the possible characters.

Next the author-child tells me the story while I capture it in the computer. Along the way I ask questions like, "Why didn't Peter Pan want to grow up?" or "What does a gooey goo look like?" They always know the answers to my questions and I incorporate that into the story.

Then we take pictures. The author-child is always the main character and siblings, cousins, and sometimes parents are the other characters. The author-child also draws pictures of the characters.

Then it is time for me to choose and PhotoShop the photographs, color in the drawings, and enter it all into Quark or InDesign. Ah, the marvels of technology.

I used to print my own copies on an InkJet printer. I had to spray the pages with hairspray-like protectant, realizing little children sometimes turn pages with saliva-soaked fingers. Then I found a local printer who uses a big press with excellent color that doesn't run and I now hire him to print and cut the pages.

In my workshop in the basement I bind as many copies of the book as I want (other grandparents love to get copies) and I deliver the book in a wrapped-up package to the author-child. Oh, the joy of having your very own book that you wrote.

The Princess and the Frog

Here is a peek at Elsa's cover picture. Hope you like it.

Yay! A Project Finished

More than 30 years ago I began writing Tula, a story about growing up in Beaver, Utah. I used an electric typewriter and worked a whole summer on developing different adventures for Tula every day. Way led on to way, life happened, we moved, and with one thing and another, laid Tula aside.


Three years ago, in the summer of 2008, I went searching for Tula in the file, the boxes, the carryall. Couldn't find her. But I did find notes of subjects I wrote about as well as a list of others I intended to write about. So I broke them out and set to seriously writing about Tula again.


That summer I went to a writers' conference and came away eager to return to Tula and her adventures.  Almost a year later I had 100,000 words which I passed out to a few friends who graciously read them, responded quite positively, but were certainly not jumping up and down for joy.


I wasn't far enough along to seek publication and had to set Tula aside again because of commitments I made to a year-and-a-half project abroad.


In August of 2010 I returned and picked up Tula. With my computer and a shorter wait in between, she was easier to find this time. I poured over all 100,000 words and found her dull, uninteresting, downright boring. No wonder my friends had not been greatly enthusiastic! I wasn't either.


A few weeks later I decided--against all advice from the writers' conference--to change Tula's point of view from third person to first person. Suddenly she came alive.


The work was just like starting over. Changing point of view isn't just adjusting the verbs. It is insights, feeling, fears, hopes, dreams, as well as conversations and  relationships. Working nearly every day it took me almost 8 months to get Tula into first person.


That's the project finished this week.


All eight months of rewriting I knew she was stronger, more interesting, more delightful.


Just to check out my thinking I farmed the finished manuscript out to four friends to read. The reviews were positive, delightful, "couldn't put it down" types of comments. I wanted to dance like Snoopy on his doghouse!


This time I'm moving on to the next step. No matter what else happens, I learned a great deal more about writing and I finished! That makes the whole thing sweeter this time.


Hurrah for finishing!