And so I decided to celebrate - the extension of my life, and the new hardware, and the increased blood flow, by traveling with my lovely wife, Barb, and visiting boyood friend Jay and Dorothy in New Hampshire for a long weekend of cross country skiing. We had visited with he and his wife years before - our first time traveling together when we were first dating. On both visits, we had a wonderful time visiting with a friend I had known since kindergarten. We skied, snow-shoed, and then had apres ski wine and treats around the wood stove in their 1810 Shaker farmhouse. And on the second trip, we filled them in on the adventures we had been having together in the seven years since we had last visited.
Barb and I have been to 45 of the 50 states [now all 50 as of 2018! Ed.]. We both had been to about 25 or so when we met - and then in traveling together started to acquire more states, and then decided it was a noble goal to visit all 50 states. So we began aiming in that direction - and have gone on spring break to Mississippi, Alabama, Indiana, while others are going to Florida and Mexico. It has been a wonderful adventure.
By our rules, simply landing at an airport and laying over at a place is not enough. We only count the state if we stay overnight at least a night; or drive through a large portion of it and have a meal in it. Your mileage may vary. I don't think there is a national standard for the "Visit Each of the 50 States" club. So we go with our home made rules.
So as we sat around the wood stove and swapped stories, We told Jay and Dorothy about our travels since we had seen them. I am a big history buff, so wherever we go, I have researched the significant events of history that happened there; I always make a note of any cemeteries with the graves of the famous; and my ears perk up when we are at any location and I hear about other events of history, large and small, that happened in that particular place. And we invariably go and check them out. And now with a google search, you can always find "the rest of the story" if you wish.
When I talk about our travels, telling our travel stories, I get all worked up. People who don' like travel or history probably feel captive by these conversation, and seek to end it. Jay and Dorothy are interested, and so we told them about the little things we had discovered - the chapel where Joan of Arc prayed before her execution - now in Milwaukee; a witness telling of Franklin Roosevelt clanking down the aisle of his church, his legs crippled by polio; the last bank robbed by the James Gang, the second story balcony on President Garfield's grave where you can view the lake; the place where Major John Andre was hung for conspiring with Benedict Arnold to betray West Point - now the center point of a housing development; the club where Tony Bennett sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" for the very first time - while a young Bill Clinton listened outside; the table in a B&B where David Greenglass wrote down atomic weapons secrets and passed them along to the Rosenbergs. And on and on.
Jay listened with interest, and finally said "You should write these things down. Would you want to write an article for Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine?"
I have been journaling since junior high. Writing comes naturally and easy to me. I have considered myself a "writer" forever - with lots of potential locked inside. But other than a valiant attempt at songwriting during a blissful period of unemployment, I have never really tried to write for publication. I have done local writing for local causes - my historical society, my community newsletter. And suddenly Jay was asking me if I was ready for the big leagues - writing for a magazine with national exposure. I told him that I'd love to try.
I went home and over the next several months I jotted down short versions of each of these stories, what Jay called "slivers of history". I sent them off to him, to see what he wanted to use. He suggested a compilation - using several of them with artwork to illustrate the stories. I was both enthusiastic and disappointed. Enthusiastic that I was forced to write and might some day see my work published in a national magazine with a large audience. And disappointed in the approach - I had spun the idea in my head into a grander scheme, where each month Southwest would send me to a new destination where I would work on digging out the local slivers of history. How cool would that be? Turns out, I'll never know.
But the project went on, and the article was polished into final form in the February 2013 edition of Spirit magazine (see that blog entry). There is some of me in the article, but mostly Jay. He has been doing this for a long time and knows what he wants, and so his fingerprints are all over over the final piece. But my name is on it as well, and he wrote a thoughtful note in that issue, explaining how it came about. I received a nice check in the mail - the first (and so far only) time I had been paid for my writing. But the most important consequence of writing that first published piece was that it turned me from a "wannabe" into a writer. I had written, and re-written, and experienced the slings and arrows of being edited, and then had been published. And paid! Friends from around the country let me know that they had read and enjoyed the article. That gave me confidence to write again, and I took on a monthly local history article for a neighborhood magazine, and another one for my community, and then the newsletter editor's job for my historical society.
Today, with hundreds of articles under my byline, I can say without too much self-consciousness that I am a "writer". As with my piano playing, I say that I've had a lousy teacher - as in both writing and piano I am self taught. But the writing brings me joy, if not treasure. I disappear for hours at a time into my research. I am always anxious to publish, and so I don't spend as much time as I should with re-writing and editing and polishing. When I post up longer notes on Facebook, I find myself doing my best re-writing then - and so I change the article that I have already published as I think of ways to improve each one. I see the value in it, but writing for deadlines does not give you that same luxury - once you see it in print, it is too late to improve it.
I am still going to an office every day and "working" at the thing that sends money my way. But I am looking forward to retirement, and continuing to use my research and writing skills - to share with others, but mainly for my own benefit. When I complete an article, I read and re-read it, with the joy of being the creator. It is not "War and Peace". I don't aspire to the heights of the writing gods. I don't have that talent level, but instead a modest gift. And, as in this mornings efforts, I am too often in a hurry to get on with the next task in life, and so need to close.
I actually wrote the third blog entry, on Christ Church, this morning. It was a Facebook effort, but then I remembered that I had started this blog with good intentions years ago, as another outlet for my writing efforts. So I came here, and found this entry - half written. I am not sure where I was going with it then, but as with the Christ Church steeple, I found that it needed work and so have now renovated the posting and am sending it off into the world. Maybe someday, some other "wannabe" will find it and be inspired to take on an actual writing task, and see it published in some way, and be encouraged and emboldened to take on another one. My interaction with my old friend Jay set my particular stack of dominoes in motion, and I am grateful for that. May each of you who feel that urge to write find your own mentor, your first opportunity, and follow the path where it leads you. And along the way, find out that you are a "writer". Welcome to the Club!
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