#11 - Building a Fictional Character

Because of continuing problems accessing the www.dennigerbolton.com newsletter mailing list, I’ve transferred the newsletter to the www.javelinabooks.com website.  So until further notice you’ll be receiving the newsletters from Javelina.  I am still able to access the blog which is on the Denniger Bolton website.  All the newsletters are now posted in blog form on that site.  Go to www.dennigerbolton.com and click on the blog page and you’ll be able see archive copies of all 11 of them.

So, that said, on with the show.

In my first few fistfuls of newsletter issues, I’ve exposed the personal side of my life as I discovered my destiny.  I was destined to be a writer.  I believe that everyone here on this plane of existence, here on Earth that is, has a purpose, but it is up to us to run with it.  We don’t have to do our dream.  Sad but true.  But if you can manage to pull it off, life becomes such a pleasure.

Anyway, my focus, newsletter-wise, up to this point has been discovery.  I told you all of the 14 year old hacking away on the second-hand Underwood in mom’s laundry room, of living with Grandma Clara attending college, of the Army years, the vagabond years, and of arriving in Austin, Texas.

Now I’m shifting gears a bit. 

As I began to develop skills as a novelist, as I tell about it, I’m feeling the need to relate some rules of the road about the craft of novel writing..  I’ll personalize it so it won’t be boring for those who have no interest in a career in this field, and will continue to add my personal adventures as I find myself treading up and down my own literary road.

There are elements that make up a novel.  For myself, I feel building the character, or as I call it “mapping out my people” is my key to success as a novelist, the theory being that if I do well with the characters of my story, all else flows easily into place, even the plot.

ELEMENTS OF A NOVEL

There is the genre. 

There is the plot which is another way of saying the story.  There is the setting or location of the story..  

There is the time period during which the story takes place.   And there are the characters.

GENRE

What variety of story is it?  In fiction there is romance, thriller/suspense, fantasy, action/adventure, sci-fi, mystery.

STORY

The Beginning.  The middle.  The end.  The plot.

SETTING

Where the story is located.

TIME PERIOD

Does the story take place some time in the distant or recent past?  The future?  Is it happening now?

CHARACTER

Who are the players and how do they interact with the story?  In fiction there is the protagonist, the antagonist, and various other supporting characters which we’ll get into next issue as we explore major and minor characters..

When I began writing novels, (I’ve written three so far in the B. B. Rivers series, and working on a fourth), as I mentioned in the last edition, I began with the setting.  I wanted my story to be set in Austin, Texas. 

Most everybody, myself included, loves to watch movies and read books that take place in places we know, like New York City  or San Francisco.  I love the City by the Bay and when I recently re-read “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett,  I was happy to walk beside Sam Spade as he strode the mean streets of  Frisco, even though the time frame was 1941.  70 years ago!  A lot has changed since then, but Chinatown existed then as now.  I could see myself there with Spade who looked like Bogart in my mind’s eye, in his fedora with a heater in his trench coat pocket, an impression I got from the unforgettable John Huston movie, with Bogie, Mary Aster, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

Needless to say, I wanted my hero, B. B. Rivers, modern day cowboy – Stetson, blue jeans, white western shirt, Austin-tatious rodeo belt buckle, reptilian hide cowboy boots, striding down 6^th Street.  I wanted him atop his horse, Too Tall, mending fences on the ridgeline at his family’s cattle ranch in Blanco (50 miles west of Austin).  I wanted him swimming in Barton Springs Pool, and floating the Guadalupe River with a sixer of Shiner Bock trailing by a rope behind his inner tube.

Granted, setting is a big one for me, but it is, as I say, one element.  I don’t know that my cowboy would work as well floating down the Seine outside Paris (that’s Paris, France – not Paris, Texas), with a beret on his pate, sipping an absinthe.  Know what I mean?

Characters play off, and with, the setting.

I do a generous amount of one-on-one book signings (selling books) at fairs, festivals, markets, and back-of-the-room sales at the speeches I give to book clubs and associations, and I find one of the biggest pluses for an Austinite is that the books are set in Austin.  People love a familiar scene.

A quick little elevator speech I spout as I sell books is, “My hero is a rodeo cowboy, bouncer on 6^th Street (our prime party scene), turned private eye.”  I’ve worked on that since “Hippie Hollow – Murder on a Nude Beach” came out nearly four years ago.  I’ve recited the “rodeo-cowboy-private-eye” spiel so many times I hear it in my sleep.

We’ll get into marketing some fine time later, as selling a book is as interconnected as writing it, but since this is all about character, let me get it on a bit about how B. B. Rivers got himself all flushed out as a living, breathing, true to life, human being.

MIND MAPPING

B. B. and his pal Maximus Culpepper got built at the same time.  I drew a mind map, which if you’re not familiar with mind mapping, is a great way for a creative person to outline.  It’s not the left brained   I, II, III, IV, A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, 4 type of outline.

Instead you jot a name in the center of a blank piece of paper.  In my case, I put down “B. B. Rivers” and circled it.  From the circle draw lines, like spokes of wheel.  At the end of a spoke I wrote a feature or attribute. 

One feature was that B. B. has bushy red hair, another is he is 6’4” tall in sock feet.  Rodeo cowboy was another.  Mind mapping is like brain storming, you just write shit down without thinking about it too much.

Since he is a big guy at about 240#, I wasn’t going to make him a bull rider who, if you know anything about rodeo, those cowboys are little guys.  So, B. B. becomes a steer wrestler.

My idea was to make B. B. and Max good friends, but total opposites.  B. B. is a Texan.  Max is British.  B. B. is 30  Max is 70.  Both are intelligent but in different ways.  B. B. is an ex-cop, rodeo cowboy for tips and bouncer at a cowboy bar on 6^th Street, while Max is a florist and psychic.  B. B. is a longneck drinking, Texas good ol’ boy, Max is a pinkie finger in the air tea sipping elitist.

B. B. loved that Max had it all figured out and understood what was happening with the big picture.  Max loved that B. B. was honest and actually had the good sense to ask him for help.

The genre I chose to work was Mystery with Humor and Action/Adventure, so the story forming was that B. B. gets a job as a private investigator and Max helps him out with astrological/I Ching advice.

Next Time – Essential characters in a novel

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You may now read the Denniger Bolton Newsletters each month on this blog, and you have the chance now to make comments on each of these blog entries. If you are getting the newsletter now, you will continue to receive them, but if not, you can read them here.

Scroll down to IT ALL STARTED IN A CAVE IN THE HIMALAYAS to start at the beginning.

In the last episode as you may recall, my friend Paul and I hopped a freight train in Missoula, Montana and headed east in the general direction of home, Austin, Texas. Riding the rails was something every vagabond, hobo, shiftless skunk ought to do at least once, if for no other reason than to have a story to tell the grandkids. Truth is it was boring as hell. I read a couple of books, meditated, did yoga, watched several billion trees pass by our open door, as we hung with that damn moving hunk of iron for days with nothing to eat but raw carrots dipped in nutritional yeast. We were afraid to leave the boxcar and had no idea where we were. We weren’t even sure we were even headed in the right direction.

The only people we saw were the bulls, who might just as easily bash our heads in as give us the time of day. Our stomachs got the better of us at last, and we hopped off only to find ourselves in the train yard in Omaha, Nebraska.

I was born in Omaha and grew up there until aged nine when we moved to England. My dad, Sid Bolton, was in the USAF, so he transferred from Offutt Air Force Base to Manston Air Base, which is now Kent International Airport. After three years the UK we moved to Austin.

I spent some memorable moments in Omaha. The first nine years of my life, as I mentioned, plus summer vacations, and the semester I lived with my grandmother, Clara Phifer when I attended Creighton U, which I talked about in an earlier newsletter, “A Slice of Rhubarb Pie.”

Hadn’t been back to the Gateway to the West since those days. I wanted to visit with my relatives, Connie, Bill and Cory, Ralph, Chrissy, Rik and Michelle, who whenever she saw me as a small child, would run and jump into my arms, and sit on my lap as we watched TV or I worked a crossword puzzle. 

I didn’t know that the day we arrived was Michelle’s birthday, although the Universe must have arranged my schedule somehow. After Michelle jumped in my lap, and I shared my adventures, I fished in my pocket and gave her a shiny stone I had picked out of the Snake River in Montana in trade for the coins I tossed in. I’m pleased to say, years later, she has a couple of kids of her own now, and we’ve reconnected because of these newsletters. Thank you internet, god of cyberspace.

After Omaha, Paul and I headed back to Austin, where I’ve been for the past almost 30 years now. Paul also lives here.

Before I continue this saga, I wanted to tell all you readers of this newsletter, that past issues of this newsletters will now be available on my blog which is on my author’s website, www.dennigerbolton.com. So if you get a hankering to read some of the earlier issues of this continuing adventure in writing, check out the blog. That way, if you have any comments about these exploits, you can share them on the blog, as it will be interactive. I will welcome your thoughts and love to hear your adventures.

One additional feature to the blog, will be that I’ll insert some old pictures from those days, so be sure and take a look, but give me a week or so to get it together.

WRITING MYSTERY NOVELS

Since I have always loved reading mystery novels, from Sherlock Holmes to Easy Rawlins, and as well considering myself a humorist, in the mode of Mark Twain, it was natural for me to write a novel that was both funny and a mystery. 

Austin had to be the setting.  Austin is like no other place in Texas, or the world for that matter. If you’re not from here, Texas invoked wide open spaces, barbed wire, cattle – a rugged, dry, desolate, John Wayne kind of place.

But Austin is more like Willie Nelson pickin’ guitar than the Duke punching a cow.. It’s the only blue dot in a big ol’ red state. We have a river going through it, with hills to the west and black land prairie to the east. And we have trees. Our cowboys here in town, like my protagonist B. B. Rivers, are just as likely to smoke a joint and toss down a Dos Equis or India Pale Ale as they are to chug a Lone Star long neck.

Of course, one of the biggest most respected universities in the country is here, the University of Texas, it’s the capital of the state, the live music capital of the world, the spiritual center of the Universe, Barton Springs pool is here, and I have a million folks as potential readers.

So, I thought, and have proved myself correct-a-mundo, that if I wrote a book with Austin as its setting, a book that appealed to the locals, I would have a built in readership. I wouldn’t have to shop my book in New York City or L.A. I could stay right here in paradise. And if I wanted to write a movie script I could get local filmmakers like Linklater or Rodriquez to do it. (I have written the screenplay and am waiting patiently for the movie).

I wanted a title that had Texas and Austin written all over it. It had to be outrageous. It had to be ostentatious, or as we say around here, Austin-tatious. After some time of working on my characters, the title hit me one night as I was sipping on my 6^th Equis (3 bottles of Dos Equis – that is). “Hippie Hollow – Murder on a Nude Beach.”

With permission of the publisher of the novel, Javelina Books of Austin, Texas, what follows is an excerpt from the book which is entitled  -

Epistle to the Non-Austinites

Hippie Hollow is an actual place.  It really is a nudist reserve where real people of many different genders, political persuasions and ages go, with nothing on but their birthday suits.

There, the bake like potatoes on a hot, Texas rock, until they can stand it no longer and jump in the lake.  The politically correct term for this phenomenon is “bathing suit optional,” but to Austin it’s called dipping one’s skinny.

On a recent radio interview, on KOOP 91.7, on their program Writing On The Air irhttp://writingontheair.com/?p=73, the interviewer asked me how I went about writing the book, and I told him I came up with the characters first.  That is not entirely accurate, since I in fact, came up with the setting first, and then the characters, and then somehow the story grew out of that. (You can download and listen to the pod cast of the interview by going to the above website and selecting “Pod Cast Recording.”

My protagonist, B. B. Rivers, is a rodeo cowboy, bouncer on 6^th Street (Austin’s main party drag), turned private eye.  He’s a big ol’ cowboy, who grew up on a cattle ranch in nearby Blanco, Texas, a high school and college football player, and rodeo star, who joins the Austin Police Department after college. For reasons divulged in the story, he gets fired from APD, and takes a job as a steer wrestler for tips, and a bouncer at Kickers Saloon. The story begins as he interviews for a job with a private detective agency.  Fortunately for him, his girlfriend Patricia’s uncle runs the agency.

B. B., who although is as tough as it comes, would rather be at home, sprawling on his couch, boots kicked off, watching a football game, or whatever happens to be on ESPN at the time, chomping on Boulder Malt potato chips and tossing down multiple Shiner Bocks.

Next time – Building a Fictional Character

One of the major things I accomplished during my traveling days, besides discovering that I wanted someday to make a living as a writer, was that I was not only capable of dropping out of society, disentangling myself from the rat race, but that I for awhile at least, extricated myself from the entire monetary system.

That was no simple task.  Everybody in the United States whom I had ever met or ever heard about was dependent on making money to survive.  If you’re not hooked up, you’re looked upon as a nihilist or anarchist or worse.  

“It’s just not done, boy.” 

The homeless person on the corner with his tip jar, will gladly take your currency, and after collecting a sufficient number of quarters and dollar bills, will take his wad over to the nearest fast food joint, or bar, and trade it in for a hamburger or a jigger of rye.

I’m sure there are pockets of humanity in American who get by quite nicely without tapping into the monetary scheme, however, the rest of us for the most part, don’t interact with them.  If we could find them, we give ‘em some spare change to be sure.

I was an on and off vagabond for several years. This might be a good time for me to define what the word vagabond means to me.  A vagabond is not a homeless person.  Vagabonds do not operate in survival mode.  A bum, a tramp, a vagrant, a panhandler, a homeless person is a different animal entirely.  You wouldn’t see a vagabond with a hand out asking for a dollar. That wouldn’t be fun. Personally, I feel the vagabond is not out on the road because he or she has nowhere else to go.  A vagabond is a traveler, leading the adventurous and unsettled life out on the road to experience life to its fullest. 

I flat had a blast living this carefree lifestyle, living on $50 a month, no job, no worries, no responsibilities, being a nomad, being a wanderer.  It felt good to be able to pull it off. 

The money issue.  Disentangling myself from money was a step further afield than mere vagabonding.  Most true vagabonds I met traveling, had a couple of C notes hidden in their socks.

By tossing any money that flowed to me into the lake or passing it on to a true homeless person, who sometimes did not even have a pair of socks to his name. I took it to a whole ‘nother level. 

I don’t know exactly what got me started on this path, maybe it was the disgust with myself for my years competing in the rat race, or maybe it was meeting the Jesus Freaks that I talked about in Newsletter #5.  They managed to emulate Jesus of old who roamed about the countryside being a vagabond, relying on the generosity of others for sustenance.  Of course, later he figured out how to feed the multitudes.  Not very many folks can pull that one off.

Having a tent on my back, I never had to worry about a place to stay.  I could hop a fence and hide myself in a field or behind a tree.  As for food, I was always provided for.  It was amazing to see it in action.  People and meals showed up in miraculous fashion.  I must admit that this worked because I was in the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Canada.  I’ve traveled though Mississippi and Alabama, and it don’t work so good there.  And I always felt I wanted to have some cash in my boot when I went through New Orleans or Vegas too.

You feel a little exposed sometimes, somewhat defenseless since there is no car to zip you out of trouble,  but you get used to that. Get used to sticking it out and facing your fears.

I only was hungry once in all the years I enjoyed this lifestyle, and that happened when Paul and I pulled the plug on that part of our lives and set out back toward Austin.  We got the crazy ass idea to hop a freight train in Missoula, Montana.  We didn’t think to bring any food with us, and found ourselves travelling for days through the wilderness with only a bag of nutritional yeast and a two carrots.  Our meals consisted of dipping a sucked-on carrot into the yeast and licking it off.  Yum.

Getting on that train was going against the stream, against the flow, or at least away from it. There was no benefit to be had from the kindness of the bulls (the guys who police the trains).  There was an illegality to traveling by train going back to the Depression Days of the 1930s.  The bulls seriously didn’t want you on their train.  That is not being in the flow.

Conversely, when one is in the flow, moving easily through the universe, depending on the boon of strangers for sustenance, one recognizes that he or she is part of the river of energy.  You know when you’re in it because all your needs are met.  You don’t have to be a vagabond to feel that.  You can get in that stream in your day to day existence.

 Being in the flow is not something that can be choreographed in advance to play later.  It occurs spontaneously in one’s moment by moment existence.

In hitching rides, you stuck out your thumb, hoping to tap into it.  When someone stops, your plugged in .  Fortunately, only the nicest people pick you up.  There was always an instant connection.  These people were willing to share.  That’s what makes it work.

If you need to have the security of knowing where you are going to sleep each night, or knowing where your next meal is coming from, and what will be on your plate, this lifestyle is not going to work for you.  But if you can let go, and wait for the blessings, plug your thumb into the current of life on the road.

Paul and I did eventually made it back home to Austin.  While traveling I always had a novel to read at the campfire, most of the time it was a mystery-action-adventure-suspense-novel that I picked up at a garage sale or thrift store, or someone left it at a coin operated laundry. 

It was just north of Austin, as we rested in a rest area along the I-35 freeway, when I slammed shut the novel I was reading, that I decided once and for all, that when I got home – a 13 foot travel trailer on some land that my family owned in Dripping Springs, Texas – I would be writing a mystery novel.  That novel has become my first published book, “Hippie Hollow – Murder on a Nude Beach.”

Next time:  Home & Writing In Earnest

If you will recall, my last three newsletters dealt with traveling more than writing, being a vagabond more than sitting behind a desk at a computer.  I did a little writing while on the road, kept a journal for instance, and wrote some poetry which was published in some poetry rags under the name of “River” my forest name.  Mostly I contemplated, meditated, enjoyed my freedom, had zero responsibilities, and thought a lot about my lifelong desire to someday make a living as a writer.

I was afoot without a car, without any visible means of supporting myself, living on maybe $50 a month, and when cash flow was needed, I got a part time job. Painting houses, picking apples and cherries. I could work for a week and support myself for a couple of months.  My expenses were zero for lodging, in that my home was under a tree or beside a creek in the woods.  Very little for clothing since I only carried two outfits, and when a shirt or jeans or boots wore out, I’d just flop my detached sole on over to a yard sale or thrift store to replenish my wardrobe.

Zero was what I allocated for transportation, since I either walked or caught rides.  Leaving my only real expense – food.  Being a vegetarian, and into raw foods at least back then, I was able in the Pacific Northwest to forage off the land.  See my Blackberry story a couple of issues back.  I frequented health food stores and food co-ops, where one tends to meet likeminded folks who often will spring for a meal at their homes.

It probably could have been even more economical if I hadn’t brought with me on my trip a rather expensive addiction. The latte.

Nevertheless, I shall get back to my further adventures on America’s, and Canada’s highways and byways next time.  In this issue I wanted to speak about screenwriting.

Writing a play was probably my first writing desire.  Never thought about writing for the movies in those early years, when I was hacking away on my Underwood typewriter in my cave in the Himalayas (a room off the carport where my family had the washer/dryer and upright freezer) leaving only enough room for a small cot, where I lived and wrote.  At the tender age of 14, I wanted to write a play.

Some of my early readings were of the great playwrights of the American theater – Moss Hart, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, plus the musicals which I never thought I’d write, but loved to see.

I went to every stage play that came trough town, and all the high school productions of “Grease” and “Oklahoma” and “Westside Story” I could keep down.  I wrote a lot of poetry from my cot, and a few short stories, but never started a play.  Don’t really know why.  It wasn’t until about a year ago when a friend of mine told me my novel “Hippie Hollow – Murder on a Nude Beach” would make a great movie, that the old play writing seed blossomed into a big assed sunflower of desire.

“I write visually,” I told my friend.  “I see the scenes and even see my characters thinking in living color.”  I always figured I could write a screenplay.  I love movies.  I know that all American made movies are pretty straightforward.  There is always the introduction to the main character, and the scene that he or she is involved in which will change his or her life from then on.

There is always the place about half way through where the hero has to commit to the plan, and the boy loses girl scene toward the end where he or she is within an inch of chucking the whole project.  But the hero hangs on and saves the day.

I thought about how my novel “Hippie Hollow” was like that too, and since I knew some screenwriter would ruin my book,  figured it  best be me who would adapt it into a screenplay.

I wrote a dozen pages in the screenplay format, and thought, this is so different than novel writing.  Screen writing is all about action, how the actors portray the story, how the scene is set up and unfolds.  You, the screenwriter, only puts on the page that which will appear on the screen.

Earlier this year, someone told me about a newsletter they received covering the subject of screenwriting with the focus on who was looking for what in Hollywood.  Spielberg is looking for another “Jaws.”  Tri-Star wants to buy another football movie. Turns out a major player was looking for scripts that were set in Texas and is inviting writers to submit them.

They wanted full scripts, but on a whim, I sent them a copy of my book and the first 10 pages of Hippie Hollow with a marvelous cover letter, and they wrote back saying, :”We want to see the rest of it.”

I spent this past summer writing the full 90-120 page play.  I found that 110 to 115 pages was ideal since each page of a screenplay represents one minute of screen time.  My 113 page “Hippie Hollow” screenplay would take 113 minutes to run.

My first draft was about five hours long.  I love “Hippie Hollow” the novel, and could hardly bear it when I was forced to cut not only the vast amount of interior monologs that my hero B. B. Rivers had with himself, but I had to cut scenes and even characters.

My second draft came in at a mere “War and Peace” sized three and a half hours.  More cutting.

During this process I attended a one day seminar put on by the “Austin Screenwriters Society” and learned that short stories made idea screenplays, while novels were a bitch to work with for that very same “got to cut” reason.

Almost everyone I’ve ever talked to about novels and movies always says, “I read the book and then went to the movie, and I liked the book better!”

Well yeah.

I gained some interesting insights into the two very different writing careers.  Novels are written alone and when they are bought, are read alone.  Screenwriters on the other hand begin on one’s lonesome, but when the movie is made, there are hundreds of others that get on board with the project, like the Director, the Actors, the Editors, the Key Grips even.  And when the movie comes out, it is seen but hundreds of people at once.  A true community effort.  The writer may come in after it is going to do some rewrites.

The screenwriter quickly becomes the low man (or woman) on the totem pole.  There is a joke in Hollywood – “The blonde was so dumb, she slept with the screenwriter.”  That pretty well sums up where that person fits in.

One of the reasons a writer is attracted to this career is the money.  And the fame.  I ask you, what novelist wouldn’t like to see his or her work on the big screen?

I’ll get back to writing novels and screenplays and keep you readers informed on what is happening with both novels and screenplays as this newsletter marches on into the future.

Next time:  Vagabonding in America, Part IV.

In our last episode, as you may recall, my friend Paul and I sold blackberries and earned our passage across the Puget Sound off the coast of Washington state and ended up spending the summer and part of the fall on Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands.  Orcas is about 50-60 square miles and has a population of a couple of thousand people.  We did some house painting and persisted with the blackberry picking, selling our fruit to a health food store in one of the island’s villages.  The nice folks at the store let us camp out in their back yard, where we spent several weeks painting their deck.  The village movie theater had a new movie every weekend, but mostly Paul and I talked and wrote in our individual journals.

We went swimming in the Puget Sound (Pacific Ocean) every day, ate really well of organic fruits and veggies, went for long walks, and took off for the state park which was located in the center of the island.  It had a small mountain which afforded wonderful views of the madrone tree-covered island, and the sea.  Paul had told me how beautiful Orcas Island was, but it is hard to imagine unless you’ve been there.  The island is a haven for yoga and spiritual centers .  My pal had taken some training with the Polarity Institute some years previously, and thought since he was a graduate, we could stay there with them.  You know, old grad comes back to school to tell his tales?  And gets to stay free and eat their food?  But the Polarity folks weren’t going for that one.  Unless you were enrolling in some sort of program of study, they prefer that derelicts like us would just keep moving along.

Crisscrossing the island by foot on quaint little tree lined black top roads, we came upon a sign that said, “Indralaya. The place looked interesting, but Paul and I had a deal when it came to forks in the road.  I would take a few steps in one direction, along one tine of the fork, and then come back and take a few steps down the other tine.  I could tell intuitively which fork to take.  I got a very strong indication to trek the road less traveled, and take the winding road into the compound.

See www.indralaya.com for more info and pics of this beautiful slice of heaven.

“The name Indralaya derives from Sanskrit and means “a home for the spiritual forces in nature.” Through the application of the principle of “ahimsa” or nonviolence to living things, an atmosphere has been created of cooperative harmony with nature and each other.”  A quote from their website.

The place had a huge ass raised bed garden, with rabbits hopping in and out of it, munching on carrots and other veggies that grew prolifically there in what the locals call the banana belt, sporting temperatures much warmer because of the coastal influence than interior Washington state.

“We let the bunnies run free.  They don’t each much actually,” said John Abbenhouse, the caretaker.  “There aren’t any predators here, so we have many generations of bunny rabbits.”

John was a cool dude, and mentioned on the website as the resident manager.  He worked the maintenance & upkeep, tended the garden, and his wife Dorothy ran the kitchen.  Several times throughout the year, guests would come in for classes and workshops on Theosophy, and during the in-between times, they would let stragglers like Paul and me stay in their cute little one room cabins equipped only with two cots and a wood burning stove.  You got your bathing needs taken care of by walking a short trip to the restroom.

Our cabin was called “Cedar” which seemed appropriate since the Hill Country around Austin is famous for its cedar.  The cabins were named Oak, Elm, Birch, Aspen, etc.

You could eat in the mess hall and check out books from the library which we read in the comfort of easy chairs nestled up in front of a comforting but huge fireplace.

To pay our way, we merely had to give them a couple hours work each day.  So, we worked the garden, did some carpentry, worked on a pathway down to the ocean, pruned some fruit trees, etc, and for that we got a place to crash and three squares a day in one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth.  The hectic pace of bumming around America, slowed down real slow.

When folks came in for the workshops, we got scarce, and came back later after they left.  During those times away, we took the ferry boats to the other islands, worked on an organic farm on the island, camped out in open fields, and once I met a girl and stayed at her house for awhile.

As October arrived, and the weather started getting unfriendly, we left Indralaya and Orcas, and started back toward Austin.  As soon as we left heaven, the way became steep.  The going became hard, and we had to walk down freeways and spend hours at entrance ramps.  It was as if Krishna were saying, “You want to leave heaven, prepare yourselves for hardship.”  And we never even got to eat the apple or meet the snake.

We were hunkered down on a ramp in Missoula, Montana and watching as carloads and vanloads of likeminded folks passed us by going the other way.

“Wow,” said Paul, “maybe we should be going that way.  Whatda you think?”

“I don’t know,” said I, as a VW bus-full of hippie chicks waved at us, going like I said, in the opposite direction.  We nodded to each other, picked up our packs and walked across the freeway to the other side, catching a ride before we had a chance to put our stuff down.  We were headed to a music festival where we got jobs making smoothies for the multitudes, and retook heaven.

I wasn’t always alone during my vagabond days.  Part of the time I traveled with my brother Gregory.  Other times it was with my pal Paul.

Paul and I did the cherries at Flathead Lake.  We stayed on while the rest of our caravan went back to Texas.  We lived in the moment, not planning what we would do in the afternoon, much less the rest of our lives.

“What do you want to do after this?” asked Paul, since cherry season was over and apple picking season was not quite here yet.  “I hear that the Cascades are beautiful.  We could head over that way.”  And that was about all it took to get us packing up our stuff and walking on.  On the way, we stayed a week or so at the Tofu Factory south of the lake.  They grew their own soybeans, had a beautiful house overlooking their fields in the front and a mountain in the back. 

One could walk out the back yard, catch a trail and hike up into the mountains.  That scene has always been one of my visions.  Who needs a car to drive to the trailhead when the trailhead is in your backyard?  Of course, I didn’t have money for a car, or gas, because I kept tossing everything I earned into the river.  Or giving it away to hobos who took my spare change and bought Boone’s Farm with it.

We met individuals and couples who came from all over the world to be there, and would give the tofu folks a commitment to stay on for six months, learn the biz, and receive all the tofu products one could eat.  A bed was included, and a dollar or two a day to take care of some ancillary expenses.

Since this newsletter is about writing, I have to say, my writing consisted of keeping a journal, long since lost.  It was a wonderful piece of art and included drawings and maps and folks’ addresses and so forth, and I have wished a many time that I still had those tomes.  If for nothing more than to reminisce about those days of freedom and light.

“You know,” said Paul, “one of the best experiences I ever had was on Orca’s Island.”  Orca in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state in the Puget Sound.  He told me about his time with the Polarity Institute, and the island itself with a couple of quaint towns and a little mountain in the center of the island.

“Let’s do it!” said I.  My casting-of-currency-upon-the-water days had ended with the homeless man in Missoula that I told you about in the last newsletter, however, since I hadn’t made any money since my bonus when cherry season ended, my not committing to staying six months at the Tofu Factory, and thus not getting any money for the little bit of work I did there, I was broke.  Paul had 72 cents, so between us we were still a bit short of a dollar.

“It costs to take the ferryboat over to the islands, but I think we should just head to the landing in Anacortes, and expect to get on the boat,” said Paul.

“Sounds like a “be here now” type of plan.  Positive expectations and all that.”

We walked and caught rides across Montana, stopped at a hot springs in Idaho where a baby moose woke all the campers early one morning by tromping through the campsite, guy ropes and thus tents being ripped from the ground exposing all sorts of early morning shenanigans.

Someone shouted, “Oh my God, here comes his mother!”  Everyone freaked.

In late afternoon we approached Anacortes, Washington.  We were 20 miles out still, and figured we’d catch a ride, but none was forthcoming.  We walked.  And we walked.  We made it to the ferryboat landing sometime in the wee hours of the morning.  Through the parking lot we went.  Up to the boat.  There was a chain barrier keeping riff raff like us off the boat.

Paul and I didn’t hesitate.  We hopped over the barrier and walked up the gangplank and onto the boat.

“Now what?” asked Paul.

“Let’s see if we can find somebody.  Maybe work our way over to the islands.”

We pretty quick came upon the Purser’s Office, where we saw  a light on.  We knocked, someone said “Yeah?” and we went in.  A half dozen sea faring men were playing poker.  One guy said, “What the fuck?”  We looked a little rough around the edges I’m sure.  Been camping out for months, probably wearing the same “outfit” for a week or more, huge backpacks comprising our entire lives, our kitchens, our bedrooms, our very homes away from home, were piled high upon our backs.

“We were wondering if we could work off our passage to Orcas.  We can clean up, paint, whatever.”

“Joe, escort these assholes off my boat!”  Joe took us to the chain barrier and undid it for us and wished us whatever the opposite of bon voyage is.

“Come back when you have $12 each for a ticket.”

“Thanks Joe,” said Paul.

“Okay,” I said, “sometimes you just have to take it as far as you can, and see where you end up.  Like when you are climbing a mountain and you can’t yet see around the next bend, and then you get past the bend, and find you still have a ways to go.”

We found ourselves very tired and barely made it up to a ridge overlooking the landing.  We threw out our bags and slept under the stars.  The next morning we heard the blast of the boat horn, and we both sat upright.  During the Rainbow Gathering (see last issue) I went on some wild plant foraging excursions, and that morning I went out a-foraging, coming across acres and acres of virgin wild blackberries.  We ate and ate, until we were full.

And then we got an idea.  What if we picked blackberries, put them into some one gallon Ziplocs we carried with us, and sell them to the folks in the cars waiting to get on the ferryboat?

Paul and I collected twelve gallons of the stuff and figured if we got $2 a bag, we’d have the $24 we needed to travel the open seas.  We started at the front of the line of cars, several dozen deep, and made it to the third car in line, a couple of Eckankar dudes going to a conference on Orca.  They bought the whole lot.

We took the money we made, gave it to Joe, who winked at our ingenuity, and got on board, and still had 72 cents for a cup of coffee.

Next time:  An American Vagabond – Part III

They called me River. 

In the days that became months and then years, when I was bumming around the country, very few of my fellow travelers knew me as Denny or Denniger.  River was my forest name, given to me when I was camping at the spot where the Snake River empties into Flathead Lake in Western Montana.  I was there to pick cherries with other migrant workers for gentleman cherry orchardists.  Since the boss at the orchard where I got a job didn’t speak Spanish, he hired white trash and hippies who could at least speak American.

Two years earlier, I found myself single for the first time in ten years, and thoroughly disgusted with the rat race and life in Texas.  There was nothing to hold me there any longer.  In the early 80s a caravan of friends from Austin and Corpus Christi were heading North West to the Rainbow Gathering, a loose convention of hippies held in a different National Forest each year.  That year it was Washington State.  The Gathering of the Tribes had been going on since 1972, and is still happening.  In the Summer of 2009 the tribe will meet in New Mexico.

I got the name River bestowed upon me because of my irritating habit of freeing myself from an unnecessary burden, namely money, and tossing or giving away all currency that crossed my palm.  I figured not only was money the root of all evil, it was just plain not needed to sustain life. 

And by casting my coin upon the waters, I was proving to myself that in America at least, one could get along quite well without the medium.  I watched my quarters skip across the Snake River.  I watched my pennies, nickels and dimes, be caught in the current and sink to the bottom.

“We shall call you River, since you are constantly feeding the River,” said the bestower of names.  All present at that bonfire agreed.  Better than being called Banana Slug, I thought. 

Since this newsletter is about writing, and how my writing has developed over the years, I will say, I wrote in my journal each day, and I penned poetry that dealt with the natural environment.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any of those poems I wrote under the name of River.  I sent some to poetry mags and even saw one in print once.  If any of you readers have come across any River poetry, let me know.  When writing fiction at least, one draws upon past experience.  I am grateful for the experience of those years.

Once while walking alone through the woods in the Cascade Mountains, I came upon a fork in the road.  Coming from one of the tines were a dozen (biblical number, I know) dudes, named David, Joshua, Jacob, and the like.  They called themselves the Jesus Freaks.  They were vegans, did not wear leather, wore burlap robes sewn together and tied with hemp rope.  They were barefoot, traveled light, and carried one bible for the lot, which they took turns reading each night by campfire light.

One pleasant thing they did was to wash the feet of strangers on their path.  I liked the clean feet part, but two hours of Saint Paul was little much for this Southern Buddhist.

They let me travel with them for a couple of days, and like Big Foot, not that many folks have spotted them out and about.  I felt honored that they asked me to kick off my leather hiking boots that I’d paid a couple hundred dollars for, and join them, but I had already asked Buddha to be my personal savior, and according to the Freaks, I should have asked Jesus for that job.  I didn’t have the heart to tell them what Buddha told me in meditation once, that he wasn’t up for the job.  I was pretty much on my own out there.  That kinda of talk though always seemed to work on Jehovah’s Witnesses, who shook their heads and prodded away, pamphlets in hand, onto the next door.

There was something the Freaks did though, that impressed the hell out of me.  They carried no money, and relied on the large hearts of Americans to feed them as needed, or in actuality for Jesus to open their eyes to the abundance of edible plants, and to be directed to the right place at the right time, etc, thus, keeping them alive.

“Try it.  It works,” said one of the Freaks as we parted ways.  So, I did.  I tossed my change into the river, and gave my dollar bills to panhandlers and winos and the homeless.  Now understand, being a vagabond is like being homeless.  I was homeless.  By choice though.  I had a lightweight tent and a down sleeping bag and a Swiss backpacker stove, and up until that meeting with the Jesus Freaks, a couple of hundred dollars in travelers checks hidden under my Smart Wool socks in my right boot.

The definition of the word vagabond  is the leading of an unsettled life, wandering from place to place, worthless, shiftless, having an uncertain or irregular course or direction, nomadic, carefree.  That was me alright.  When the rats started winning the race back home in Texas, I figured I could wander around the country on just what it would cost me to eat.  I’d mostly walk, hitch rides, crash beside the road or trail, and my only expense would be food I’d buy at health food co-ops and farmer’s markets.  If I watched my spending habits, I figured, I could get by on very little money.  I was right.  And then I proved to myself that I could get by on absolutely no money.

I could relate story after story of how I had skipped my last quarter across the watery expanse, and a VW Bus-load of hippies would pull up and someone would say, “You wanna join us for dinner?”  The tradition has roots in the Saddhus of India who merely walk around and meditate away their years.  For me, I found lots of people to relate to, had loads of fun, even new girlfriends that I promised to write to when I could catch up with a stamp and a post office.

What finally broke me of this chucking the cash habit happened one night in Missoula, Montana.  I was a little hungry, in a city, no wild plants to forage, totally broke.  As I walked along the street looking a little gaunt I am sure, a nice lady asked me when last I had eaten, and when I told her I couldn’t remember, she handed me a twenty and said, “Take care of yourself.”

A half a block later, a fellow who I could only describe as a wino (i.e. breath smelled like wine) grabbed my shoulder and said, “Can you spare me some change?  I am so hungry!”  I looked down at my hand at the twenty and I forked it over.  The wino, who the Freaks would call “the least of us” was astounded and grateful, putting his arms around my neck, backpack and all, he planted a huge kiss on my lips,  merely said “Bro…,” and turned and walked into a bar.

Next time:  An American Vagabond, Part II

Being a typical male of the species, one of our prime directives, and an American boy’s greatest challenge in life, has been and I’m sure will continue to be, to pick up a beautiful girl in a bar.  Back in the day, we called it “getting laid.”  Nowadays it’s known as “hooking up,” defined as a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment.  Has a nice ring to it, huh?

Not much has changed, really.

But before I get into the voodoo princess, let me first set up the scene.  After my stint in the U. S. Army, where I was stationed at Fort Polk, Louisiana, for Basic Training and additional training as a clerk, onto Oakland Army Terminal, where I waited to be shipped out to South East Asia, and to Thailand where I spent a wonderful and exotic 365 days, and finally Fort Devens, Mass, in beautiful New England, all of which was covered in my last newsletter edition, I traveled back to the place where I was born, Omaha, Nebraska.  And where my kin hailed from, including my grandmother Clara Phifer, who still lived there on Childs Road.  See the newsletter edition, “A Slice of Rhubarb Pie.”

In Omaha, I landed a job with a plastic, glass and metal container company as a management trainee, and had my choice of assignments.  Minneapolis, Minnesota or Houston, Texas.  I chose Houston, as I wanted to get further away from northern winters, not closer yet to the North Pole, and Houston was a lot more like the tropics, which I had begun to really enjoy in Thailand.  After a few years in H Town, I was transferred to New Orleans, the city that care forgot, and found it even more tropical.  80 degrees and 80% humidity.  Many writers wrote their books there.  Tennessee Williams.  William Faulkner.  Truman Capote.

I opted in for the sales team rather than the office management route, and even though I was considered “shy,” I began calling on the numerous petro-chemical companies that populated the Gulf coast in Texas and Louisiana.  I found I really liked sales, and especially liked being outside, and in particular. out of the office.

The company I represented handled everything from miniature serum vials measured in ccs, used in labs, to 55 gallon drums.  Once I made the requisite calls on Gulf Oil Company, and Slumberger, and Dow Chemical, I branched out to other fields, soap and cleaning products, and orange juice producers who were just getting into plastics.  My favorite industry though was the oyster packers, located in the Mississippi River delta area south of New Orleans.  To cover this market, I roamed the gumbo colored bayous south of Houma hoping to sell oyster cans to oyster packers.

These folks, whose names were Guidry and Thibodeaux owned boats with diesel engines and chugged out to the oyster reefs to harvest the shells.  These family fishermen either had a shed of their own or brought their wares to a packing house.

I liked these people.  They were of the same cut as my relatives, corn farmers in Iowa .  They lived and worked right up on the snake and alligator infested bayous, and took their pirogues on the bayou to the store, church and beer joint.  One day after making sales calls, slurping down dozens of the slimy stuff on the half shell with the men who worked the reefs, I found myself in a remote bayou town.  Planning to crash in a cheap motel, I first went out looking for nightlife.  I found a likely watering hole, which clung, like they all seemed to, to a cypress swamp, in a area once frequented by pirate Jean Laffite.

It was there where I saw the girl who would later become Angel in my books.  Part of what I want to do with this newsletter is to answer the question, “how do you come up with your characters?”  And this is where she came from.

The bar was a redneck dive.  Don’t remember the name, but I can see the place in my mind.  Screened in.  Picnic tables.  Coffee cans of peanuts in their shells.  Wooden floor, with gaps in the boards.  Any peanuts dropped would fall through to the waiting critters under the place.  I was looking for a Clifton Chenier tune on the juke box (not hard in that neighborhood), when I spotted her drinking a Dixie beer, leaning one heel against a far wall.  She was dark, exotic, sultry.  I found out later, she was Creole, and of course I later wrote about her, portraying her as Angel from New Orleans.

One cowboy or one redneck in a gimmie cap after another, would approach her and ask something or make a comment, and be summarily brushed off.  I didn’t want to be turned down as well, so I figured I needed to come up with “the” winning line.

“You come here often?”   Ah, nope.

“You certainly are cute.”  Ditto.  Not going to cut it.

“Can I buy you a beer?  Some Jambalaya?  A dozen oysters?  A muffaletta?  How about a mess o crawfish?”

What I came up with was not to say anything, but to plant one foot on the same wall as she was leaning on, and to ignore her as she was ignoring everybody else.  I figured she must have been bored, and so I said while staring into my long neck,

“Boring, huh?”

To which she replied with merely a glance my way, “Totally.”

I followed her pick up with my company car, on a series of dirt roads, eventually winding down a oyster shell driveway to an island.  I was lost, and knew that there was no way in hell, if I ever got back to civilization, would I be able to find my way back again.  Her house was like a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean.  It was the model for the spooky house in which the Naomie Harris character lived in the movie.  Exuma voodoo music played a haunting rhythm as we made love under a mosquito netting with a ceiling fan sending air across our sweating bodies.  She was beautiful and earthy and did not shave her underarm hair or her legs.  A big turn-on for me personally. 

And I wanted to find her again, but as with the one night stand directive, we never got together a second time.  I stayed in New Orleans for another year and wandered through the French Quarter a lot.  Several times I thought I saw her standing in a doorway, or disappearing around a street corner.

Next time – An American Vagabond - Part I

“”Notlob.”

No one answered. 

Poor Notlob, we all felt for the guy. 

Answer please Notlob, or else the platoon would be dropping for 100 pushups or running an extra couple of miles around Fort Polk.  I figured either Private Notlob was asleep on his feet, which was not a good thing during formation, or he was AWOL.  Also not acceptable behavior in the Army.  During these early days of the Viet Nam era, you could be shot for that.

We’d only been “in” for a day or two.  Surely, one could make it that long before high-tailing it back home to Mama.

“NOT LOB!” The drill sergeant shouted a decibel or two above our comfort level.

“I know you’re here, goddammit.”  He spelled it out for us.  “B O L T O N.  Notlob!”

Bolton?  I thought.  The guy’s trying to say Bolton.  I mean, how hard is it to pronounce my name?

“Here.”

“Speak up, Private Notlob!”  He yelled directly into my face.  I caught a whiff of 4 a.m. breath.  Pre tooth brushing, before bacon and eggs and coffee and Wonder Bread toast, breath.  Yesterday’s breath.  Whiskey.  Cigarettes.  A hint of some bar girl’s behind the ear perfume all merging and fermenting in the sergeant’s mouth.

“HERE!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, firing back some of my own last night’s mess hall right back at him.  They dumped us out of our bunks at that ungodly hour and we had no chance to brush or floss or even take a leak.  Half the guys had morning hard-ons.  Or is that hards-on?  Any editors reading this?

Welcome to the U. S. Army where I could “Be All That I Could Be” or whatever was the latest slogan.  I had come in too early for “Be Army Strong” and too late for “G.I. Beans and G.I. Gravy, Gee I Wished I’d Joined the Navy.”

I’d taken a year off college, where I was an English major, specializing in Creative Writing.  I had a deferment while in school, but once I had dropped out, I had gotten caught.  Drafted.  Most everybody was heading for Nam which didn’t seem so bad at the time.  Nobody knew anything about the place back then.  We were all “Advisors” to the Vietnamese army, but lately we were starting to shoot back.

Remember in “Gone With the Wind” how happy those young boys were to get into the Civil War?  To go off and fight and be a Johnny Reb?  How romantic.  It’s the same feeling then as now, when our next generation is “damn ready” to go off to Iraq or Afghanistan and defend our country.  But that’s another story, isn’t it?

Next agenda after mangling our names, doing our pushups, taking our run, our new best buddy, our drill sergeant, informed us of our shipping assignments.  Most of our “class” would be heading out to Nam, a lucky few to Germany.  I was the only one going to “Thigh Land, more commonly pronounced Thailand.  I’d never heard of it and thought for the first day or two that I was going to Taiwan instead.  Wrong. 

When I found out I’d been spending a one year hardship tour in the country formally known as Siam, it conjured up images of the Yul Brenner-Deborah Kerr movie, “The King and I” with everybody riding elephants and singing Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Whistle a Happy Tune,” as they danced happily through the jungle.

Fort Polk, Louisiana for Basic Training and additional training as a clerk.  I already knew how to type, having written mostly poetry on my decrepit Underwood typewriter I had bought for $2 at a yard sale.  Army machines were top of the line, although it took some time to re-learn using the real “O” again and not the zero, since the machine I used as a kid would stick on the “O.”  (See Newsletter #1 – email me for a copy).  My typing back then had a comical l00k t0 it.

It was at Oakland Army Terminal, where I spent a couple of glorious weeks, waiting around before being shipped out to South East Asia, that I got my first taste of San Francisco.  Some 40 years later, I’ve now written a book set in the City, “Honk If You’re Jesus – Murder by the Bay” which came out this past Christmas.  I wrote most of the book while staying in the City with friends and relatives.

I hit the streets of San Francisco with a handful of new Army buddies, arriving right at the end of its Renaissance period which died sometime in the 1960s.  This was before the BART, so we walked across the Bay Bridge, spent our days and nights there and staggered back to Oakland in time for morning formation.

San Francisco is a true writer’s town,  All the greats I had been reading about at the library where I worked in high school, lived and wrote there.  Mark Twain, my own personal hero.  And my contemporaries from the previous generation.  My fathers in verse, the Beats, were there.

I was dying to feel the vibes of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Bob Dylan and the Smothers Brothers.   I wanted to see Haight-Asbury and go into the basement of City Lights Book Store, and trip out at the Purple Onion. 

My army buddies wanted to eat shrimp at Fisherman’s Wharf, and shop Chinatown for trinkets, and hit North Beach’s titty bars.  We made a compromise, they went to see naked women, and I went to Café Trieste.  And that, my friends, has made all the difference.  At least in my life.

Sitting there, I knew someday, writing poetry, drinking coffee, I would be a writer.  And it has come to pass.  It’s a comfort and probably even essential to find what you are supposed to be doing in life, and then doing it.

Onward.  When I arrived in Bangkok, a bunch of us were immediately ushered onto a bus and transported to the 809^th Engineering Battalion - Construction, at a place called Camp Cahrn Sinthope in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand.  The 809th was building a road, called the Bangkok Bypass road, the largest civic action in the history of the U.S. Army.  Before or since.  The 809^th had a storied history including being in on the D Day Invasion.

My writing during the year I was, there, consisted of keeping a journal in which I wrote my poems, and letters home.

My army job was to be the Colonel’s clerk and confidant, to type his letters and with the side jobs of typing up court marshals, and being Morgan Freeman to the colonel by chauffeuring him around in a jeep.  We worked only ½ a day, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. typing, driving, and lubricating the wheel bearings of the jeep.  I slept in a hooch (do a search for the 809^th and see pics on where I lived), drank a lot of Singha Thai beer, played pinochle, read a lot, sold my ration of Camels on the black market, and engaged in recreational activity we fondly called Jungle Rules Volleyball.

Volleyball, Jungle Rules style, is a cross between regular volleyball and mixed martial arts.  All was fair in love and volleyball, we used to say.  The purpose of the game was to spike the ball into the face of the man on the other side of the net with enough force to send teeth flying.  Over a year’s period, I had a scar tissue build-up across my inner wrists from hitting the top of the net.  We were not allowed to cross the net, but any strike through the net was within the rules.

In Thailand, I took lessons in Muay Thai, a type of kick boxing that is the national sport of Thailand.  I remember learning the “buffalo strike” which would supposedly fell a water buffalo with one punch.  I had to promise the master I would not use it on any of the local animals.  Our camp was located on the edge of rice paddies where water buffalos were used in plowing and hauling out the huge burlap bags of rice.  Just past our camp lay a beautiful hilly green area with huge boulders, that gave way to jungle.

The natives.  The older folks who lived in the village nearby, and who worked in the rice paddies, chewed betel nuts which made their teeth black, looking like they had no teeth.  Like in Nam, or Okinawa, or anywhere the U. S. Army lived, the younger girls were who we army boys were attracted to.  If a local girl liked you, you were Number One G.I.  If you treated her wrong, you were Number 10, G.I.  A simple grading system to be sure.

Thai women were beautiful, and many a G..I. married them and brought them home.  Lots of the Thai restaurants I have eaten at here in Austin, are owned by these women.  Sawadee Cap.

Next time:  Voodoo Princess

A Slice of Rhubarb Pie

Clara Wilcox Phifer, my grandmother on my mother’s side, was old school, had a huge garden, mean ass geese, a couple of dozen cats running around at all times, chickens which she to my dismay, wrung the necks of, and she leased some of her land to land-less farmers who grew corn.  She shared her home with my aunt Doris and cousin Connie, took in laundry, which she starched, ironed and folded, and made and mended clothes on her Singer treadle sewing machine (no electricity needed).  She operated the machine by doing a rapid and rhythmic heel to toe motion, and actually got it going at a pretty good clip.  Every so often she’d change feet. 

One of my first memories of her is getting down on the floor under her floral print dress and pushing down and pulling up on the treadle, trying to get it going real fast.  Her life was that machine, her bolts of cloth, dress patterns, jars and jars of buttons, thread of every color and thickness, thimbles for every finger, needles, and bobbins.  I remember the sharp scent of that fabric as she cut into it, and the smooth hum of the treadle action.

She lived in a genuine grandma house at the foot of Childs Road, named after someone named Childs I suppose, just outside Omaha, Nebraska.  Everybody in my family thought she was a saint, and if she didn’t live so far out in the country, could have been one of those black clad ladies of the Catholic Church, who are nailed to the pews every day at mass.

My dad Sid, was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base, and he and my mom Iola, bought a house up the road on that same dirt road as Grandma lived.  Our abode was at the top of the road, and after school, I’d get off the bus, toss my books in the yard as I passed, and amble down to Grandma's where I’d stay until my parents got off work and came by to pick sister Barb, brother Ron, and me. 

I’d meander as only a 8 year old could, the mile or so down the hill to Grandma’s house.  Those memories of half a century ago are like yesterday.  Like the kid from the Family Circus comic, I wandered in and out of backyards, sometimes though houses and gardens munching on juicy tomatoes or a fresh ear of heirloom corn, which if you haven’t had raw right off the stalk, you don’t know what you’re missing.  I’d climb up trees, and scoot through secret passageways under hedges, pet the dogs and cats, and pick wildflowers along the way.  The flowers were for Grandma.  I’m pretty sure I must have taken some blooms from landscapes, but no one called me on it.

“How pretty,” said Grandma.

Clara Phifer was a heavenly cook, and she made pies which were her specialty, by scratch.  In summer there was always the warm, sweet scent of pies and cobblers set out to cool on kitchen window sills.  Cherry, pumpkin, squash, apple, peach, pear, strawberry and rhubarb, a not so well known fruit that is a prolific grower in the Midwest.  When I eventually arrived at her house each weekday afternoon, there was always a piece of pie waiting. 

"And Denny darling, do you want a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream with that?"  Getting goose bumps at the memory.

Being the Air Force brat, after Omaha, we traveled to the U.K. for three years, Austin for two, and then Arkansas.  Ten years later I came back to Omaha, and stayed with her as I attended college at Creighton University where I had a scholarship basically for being catholic.  The family was living in Little Rock, Arkansas, and it was my easiest route out of town.

As an English Major, Ferlinghetti, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and as I got into college, T. S. and e.e. were my mentors.  I was too unsure of myself to go out on the road, or relocate in San Francisco.  Omaha was as good as the City by the Bay back then.  And I had a place to stay with my favorite person on earth.

Omaha may start with a chant and end with a laugh, but the year I was there, we experienced one of the coldest winters on record.  We’re talking 40 below and parking the car on the hill because it was so cold it wouldn’t start unless you got it rolling.  I bunked in the attic over a heating grate that supposedly allowed the coal heated warmth from downstairs to drift up to my room.  Didn’t work too well, I’m afraid.  I froze my ass off.  Quilts on top of sleeping bags, on top of quilts, didn’t help too much.  It was a long john frostbite sleep, scrunched into a tight ball too afraid to move, with two pairs of wool socks and a stocking cap, where I could see every breath I took all winter long.

One wonderful thought was taking turns with my sister brushing out Grandma’s hair that reached to the base of her spine.  During the day she kept it in a bun, but at night she let it fall.  Sometimes I’d watch a tear drop from her eye and run down her cheek.  A sorrow?  I never knew.  She married my grandfather, Harry Phifer, who somehow broke her heart, and was granted one of the few annulments by the Catholic Church, who did not sanction divorce.  Maybe the tear was for him.  I remember as a child thinking, if I were Grandpa I would treat her right.

Over the years, Grandma continued to sew and take in laundry, and lease her fields for corn, but winters were tough times, and she received the minimum Social Security benefits since she never worked for the man her whole life, starting out as a farm girl across the line in rural Iowa. 

“I made you some French fries.”

I had told her years earlier, that my two favorite foods were ice cream and French fries.  After work, we had midnight conversations around the kitchen table.  She wanted to know about my classes, what I thought of the catholic man, JFK, running for president, how the job was going at Baby Town where I worked after school, assembling bikes, trikes, slides and playhouses.

“And, I made you some homemade ketchup,” she said bringing a mason jar out of the pantry, where she kept her stash of canned foods that helped her make it through the winter when nothing was coming out of the garden.  Her ketchup didn’t look like anything Heinz would have manufactured.  She put a couple of spoonfuls on my plate next to the heaping plate of hand cut potatoes.

The fries were wonderful, but the ketchup was thin and runny, with tomato seeds floating in the soup.  As the dutiful grandson, I could not utter anything that would hurt her feelings.  I dipped the crispy, thick cut fries into the watery concoction and loved it.

“This is great, Grandma!  Home made fries and home made ketchup! 

Yum!”

It was during those huckleberry years, that I first began sending my writing off to publishers.  A poem that I wrote called “Childs Road” was published in a poetry journal.  I kept a copy for years, but was in the soggy box of “early years” writings that I left out in the rain.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the poem anymore, but fortunately I was there and I remember weaving my way down the road very well.  Walking down that dirt road Road, picking lilacs, peeing off tree houses, forever slapping time with my inner child on Childs Road.

Next time:  A Soldier in Siam

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Thank you for subscribing to this, the kick-off issue of the Denniger Bolton Newsletter.  I am supposing that if you didn’t like me and my writing style, or the fictional characters I’ve created, you wouldn’t want to read my newsletter.  I’m feeling you want to know how I got B. B. Rivers and Max and Lucinda and even the evil dudes like El Jaguar, the Rev and Gato (Honk If You’re Jesus bad guy) out of my inner realms and onto paper?  That’s what I’d want to know anyway.

You’ve told me I’ve created something funny and even meaningful, and I do appreciate your appreciation.  So, to make this worthwhile and meaningful, I needed this newsletter to be more than just where my next book signing is going to be, how many pages a day to I write, and what time of day do I do it.  And in that vein, with this on going communiqué, I’m looking for ways to get to a deeper level, but first, I’d like this to be a way to answer the burning questions you may have.  And if you think of something you’d like to know, just drop me an e-mail.  I may not answer all your questions at once, but I promise I’ll get to them. 

Questions such as:  When did you know you wanted to be a writer?  What is your literary background?  How did you get to where you are today, with three published books?  Do you read fiction or non-fiction?  Who do you read?  Who influenced your writing the most and why? 

A PLACE TO BEGIN – It has been said that every good writer was a bad writer once..  When at 14 years old, as I began writing, I had to have been bad.  I don’t think I had the vaguest idea that there was such a thing as editing and re-writing.  It was a tremendous effort to get my thoughts and feelings onto paper, and once there, no way was I going to change those precious words.  Of course, I began with a used Underwood typewriter with the o key occasionally sticking so that once that first key stuck, all the following keys piled up upon poor little o, like linebackers on a halfback, and had to be pulled off before I could start again.  Remember typewriter ribbons?  Did you have one that was red on top and black on the bottom?

After hours trying to clean, lube and tweak my literary machine, I re-taught myself to type a 0 (zero) and carried on.  Back then when you wanted to change something, you had erase it or retype the whole page.  I know.  Primitive.  And s0, I carried 0n.

I wish I still had those words from long ago, but alas, we were doing a family clean up of an out-building-storage-room.  The job stalled out, a football game, a Shiner Bock or a glass of iced tea called, and my box of ancient works which I had hauled around for decades was left outside in the elements.  The rains came and by the time I realized what had happened, Denniger Bolton, the Early Years had become one big glob of paper mache.

KNOWLEDGE - I never thought of myself as particularly intelligent, but I took the money I had saved from my paper route, and instead of spending it on wine, women and song (okay I was 14 in Little Rock, Arkansas, make that R.C. Colas, cheerleaders and Chuck Berry), I bought a set of The Great Books of the Western World, which I read, some 50 volumes worth from my folding cot which I set up in our laundry room off the carport.

ISOLATION – Never would have I tackled such an impossible task as reading the whole of scholarly thought, if I had not being forced to migrate from my bedroom to a cave in the Himalayas.  So to speak.  My two younger brothers and I shared a bedroom with our grandfather, Pop.  Pop was somewhere between 80 and 130, and he slept in a bottom bunk with brother Ron above.  Gregory slept over me in the other bunk.  I took Pop’s snoring, you know the kind with a whistle on the out breath?  Took it about as long as I could.  I bailed the bedroom, to the only available space, a camping cot which I first flopped out on the carport, and later as autumn became winter, in the laundry room.

The cave wasn’t heated, so I piled on quilts and sleeping bags, fashioned the first backpacker headlamp out of a flashlight I strapped to the side of my head, and started reading Homer.  Sometimes I read until it was time go get up and go throw my paper route, after which I could sleep for an hour before school.  Somewhere between Dickens and Twain, I entertained the thought, “You know, what I really want to do in life is to be a writer.”

By the age of 16, I had become a man of letters.  Every letter except “o” of course.  Mark Twain had become my main man.  I put the remaining volumes of the Great Books on the shelf for later, and went about reading everything I could on Samuel Clemens.  It was on a trip to the Little Rock Public Library that I landed my first real job.  Possibly it was my interest in the Dewey Decimal System that intrigued the head librarian and landed me the post.  I just remember spending an inordinate amount of time in the 800 section.

I worked the night shift at the library all through high school and into college.  The young brains of Little Rock, in that era before coffeehouses hit the south, hung at that depository of books.  To pass the time, we discussed politics and religion, sex, drugs and rock and roll, did the New York Times Crossword, and toiled on our homework, wrote poetry and shelved a few books, all the while working on the library’s copies of the Great Books.  It was there, hanging with the boys, that I began forming some of the characters for my later books, characters who can be traced, at least in my own mind, to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

So there you go.  My first attempt at a newsletter.  I hope you like it, and stay tuned for another chapter,  and will tell others about it. 

Next time - A Slice of Rhubarb Pie

The next post will be the first in the Denniger Bolton Newsletter series, starting with IT ALL STARTED IN A CAVE IN THE HIMALAYAS.  Hope you enjoy.  Denniger Bolton

Hi Y'all.  I'm sure you've noticed if you ever came across this page, that I stopped blogging here.  I've moved all my comments and entries over to Facebook.  So if you want to carry on a conversation, please go to this address ---
www.facebook.com/denniger.bolton
Thanks, see you over there.  Denniger

I am really loving working with Twitter.  If you don't know about it, just go to Twitter.com and look through the mini-blog posts.  You can sign up quickly, and begin following folks and have them follow you.

My account is twitter.com/javelinabooks.  It is much, much easier than FaceBook or MySpace.  Check it out.  Denniger

If you haven't signed up for my newsletter, you can do so easily.  Just look over to the left and put in your name and email.  What I'm doing with it right now is answering the question, "How did I get started writing?"  Issue #3 three is out right now, but I can send you the first two issues by email.  Check it out.  I'm covering my time in South East Asia in the U.S. Army right now.  Denniger

Probably the best thing I've ever written was the second edition of my newsletter (sign up to your immediate left), which was a story about my grandmother, and a slice of my 8 year old world growing up in Omaha, Nebraska.  Virtually every subscriber to the newsletter, either emailed or called to tell me that they were touched by the piece.  It struck a nerve that many folks can relate to.  I told my cousin Connie that there were tears welling up in my eyes as I wrote it, and that emotion came through.  If you'd like a copy, sign up for the newsletter or let me send it to you by email.

Like I said, it's the best I've ever written.  A genuine tear-jerker.

If you have any suggestions as to what I could do with it, please make a comment or email me at denny@dennigerbolton.com

Unbelievable as it may seem, I started on yet another novel this week.  #4.  I guess I must really be a novelist.  This one is the 4th part of the B. B. Rivers trilogy.  Guess it doesn't stop at 3 huh?

B. B. goes to Costa Rica to the area around Arenal Volcano and Arenal Lake.  I'll keep you posted on progress.

I went to a seminar presented  by the Future Forum and the Texas Book Festival.  It was a panel discussion made up of novelists who have written screen plays.  Moderator was Sarah Bird, and panelists were Owen Egerton, Shauna Cross, and Stephen Harrigan.  Even though it was touted as Hollywood vs New York, I feel it came across as Hollywood vs Austin, or novels vs screenplays.  Novels and screenplays are two different worlds.