Random Thoughts and Observations as I prepare to Head Out West
First, please know that I am writing steadily and I believe to good effect on the third book in the trilogy. Titled SLIM AND NONE, Eddie Terrell continues to succeed even as he is getting older. But the path is not an easy one and Eddie will be confronted with difficulties hard to imagine and harder to deal within the pages I am preparing. Watch this space for further developments!
Now, here is one of the best lines I’ve recently come across. To me, it borders on perfection.
This is from THE NIX by Nathan Hill. I’ve had the book for years and just neglected to pick it up and give it a go. I finally did and I am very glad I did. It’s marvelous and has a good touch of James Joyce in many of its contemporary streams of consciousness. It is 850+ pages and as I’m only 150 in, will have to leave it here for a while as I am headed to Montana at 5:30 in the morning. Later, I’ll give you a good Recommended Read Report on it. Hint Hint-It’s set in Chicago in 1968.
Now, the wonderful line:
“He thought how his father married to his mother was like a spoon married to a garbage disposal.”
Brilliant!
And a thought from our old friend Mark Twain
-Try Heaven for the Climate. Try Hell for the Company.
Apologies for being morbid but the wheel is turning. As I get older, the inevitability of illness and death scrambles closer. I learned yesterday that a contemporary, a fine Judge and Lawyer up in North Carolina had ‘moved on’. I’ve recently lost a couple of fraternity brothers from Chapel Hill, one to Covid, the other to ALS. There are others now in ‘memory care’ and afflicted with cancer. The Alumni magazines I get from Summit School, Choate, Chapel Hill and Wake Forest increasingly grow their Obituary Notices in the columns of class years near and dear to me. It is impossible for me to not have this news on my mind.
My take on this? Live Your Life Every Day As If It Were Your Last. Carpe Diem!
Did you know (...and I bet you didn’t!) my first job was digging ditches at 11 years of age for 60 cents an hour…I loved it! I was assigned to a crew of 5 enormous black guys and taught me many new words. It would be fair to say that more than a little of our conversations were salacious, graphic and pornographic. I was their guinea pig and was a sponge for their jive and banter. I wanted and got the job so I could earn some money to buy and build model airplanes and ships. I ended up getting a whole lot more than that!
An article in the New York Times the other day was dismaying; of course so much of the news tilts that way. It is hard not to be sorrowful about the plight of Native Americans. Shuffled off to the least desirable lands and neglected and lied to for decades by the government, now climate change is drying up their rivers and burning up their fields. Where do they go now? It is a rotten story of ever-growing desiccation and distress.
And while I’m away, I want y’all to figure out who set the infamous Murdaugh Murders into motion. I already have and have communicated my working theory to a few friends and family members. I promise to reveal in due time how I think it all went down and then we can collectively see if I am on the money or way off base.
And how about that terrible building collapse down in Miami! Proves that the studied ignoring of problems and kicking the can down the road can only lead to disaster, one way or another. It will take weeks and weeks to clear the rubble. They can not and will not let that mountain of detritus be bulldozed away as a mass grave.
Ah, the wonderful esoterica of baseball. Do you know who is the only player in baseball history to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in a single season? The ONLY one.
Chuck Klein, the 'Hoosier Hammer'. Now that’s a great nickname! Did it in 1932 with the Phillies and is in the Hall of Fame. Yes, it’s minutia but useful too. Whip that little gem out at your next cocktail party or bar meet; it’ll be worth it.
So I’m off to the the Big Sky Country early in the morning and am supposed to land in Bozeman about noon their time. And then my friend will pick me up and we’ll drive another hour and half southwest to the little crossroads of Alder, down near the Wyoming and Yellowstone line, where sits the great, big, big, big cowboy bar, Chicks. Biggest assemblage of antlers and horns on its walls I have even seen and by the way, is early featured in the second book of my trilogy, YOU HAVE YOUR WAY. My friend has a house about a mile down a dirt road from Chicks and sits on the floor of the circling Ruby Mountain Range. This is my third foray in as many summers out that way and it is spectacular country. I will pay close attention to what all we see and do and will faithfully report in this space in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, everyone please stay safe, stay upright and work on your ‘Happy’. It’s good for you! See you all on the flip side!
I also send my very best and many thanks to my growing cadre of fans and readers. It is a great pleasure to try and entertain y’all from time to time.
Vernon