Do You Hate Piñatas too?

You are blindfolded.

You swipe and hit nothing.

You figure out where the Piñata is, and give a mighty swing. The trouble is the game is rigged. Just when you swing, some sadistic person pulls the rope holding the Piñata. It jerks up out of your reach, and you hit air—again.

Finally some smart or macho or small child they feel sorry for is allowed to hit the Piñata.

It breaks—they are so tough they take quite a beating--there is a mad scramble for the candy. The aggressive kids grab the most, the timid ones get a measly amount. Sharks and guppies--again.

Wow. Isn’t this fun?

Is this to teach kids about life?

And what might those lessons be?

When my kids were young, and being in San Diego where Piñatas were abundant, we would often get one for a birthday. Usually I chose a cute animal, and my first born child wouldn’t let us break it. Instead, we performed a cesarean section. We would open a small hole in the belly, the candy would pour forth, the kids got the candy, and Viola' the Piñata lived to see another day.

It lived out its life as a bedroom decoration.

Well, see, there is a solution.

We can make our own rules.

Isn’t it about time?!

P.S. Okay okay, I love Piñatas, I just don't like hitting/breaking them. Look at that cute donkey face.

This is for The People Who Haven’t Given Up

This is for the people who still believe that the Universe conspires to do them good.

You are the ones who know we have problems, but as John Kennedy said, "Man's problems were created by man, and can therefore be solved by man." Did I quote him correctly? You get the gist.

You are the people who are not numbed by naysayers, by the doomsday ones, the media, television, periodicals, books on horrors. We have heard so many horrors they doesn’t shock us anymore. We can have endless hours of brain-numbing television. Do you watch some of those commercials? Cars that turn color, fly, suggest that they will improve your sex life, and your family life, yet, cars these days are boring, with few exceptions they all look alike. Talk about sizzle and no steak.

Oh yes and movie previews are so gross I forget what movie I came to see. “Can you amp it up a bit I ask sarcastically after I have endured ear-splitting sound, computer generated monsters, mechanical gear, space ships so complex you know that the special effects people are trying to out-do each other, and shootings, poundings. Amp it up. Be bigger, bolder, more shocking.

We can spend hours on video games that keep us addicted to movement and challenges that are not solving the situations outside our doors. A great amount of brain power here, but people feel stymied—they try to find jobs, they try to be entrepreneurs, they try to sell, to market, to create the life they want, and after awhile give up in frustration.

Are we supporting our arts? Are we supporting the scientists that are giving us a better day? Have you heard that with 3-D printing they can take a 3-D printer to third-world countries, and fabricate an artificial limb especially suited for that individual? Whoa. Let’s not sit around with our fingers up our noses.

We hear of space aliens, solar flares, vampires, chem-trails, and any number of conspiracies—don’t get me wrong I believe some of the conspiracies, we just can’t let them demoralize us into zombies, needing constant influx of food, drink, sodas, medications, anything to sooth the savage beast that threatens to take us over. You have heard the old joke, “Died at 35, buried at 85.” Don’t do that.

And stop dinking with our food! Turn your genetic engineering brilliance someplace else—like curing cancer. You are making us fat.

Okay, okay, I know I am preaching to the choir—no, I’m venting, and yes, I am motivated by the movie Tomorrowland. See it and decide that you are the ones that have not given up.

“Homo sapiens,” said Dr Who in The Ark in Space, “what an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to out sit eternity. They’re indomitable.”

"But I Make Excellent Rembrandts."

Title could be: “We See What We Want to See”

Two days after I ranted on my writer’s blog*about how much data was on the Internet, and that books were dying faster than bugs on a sheep’s back after a good dipping—no  I didn’t use that analogy, just thought of it. Have you ever seen sheep swimming though a trough of sheep dip? Anyway I wondered why the government, the banks, anyone with personal critical data trusted it to the Internet. And then yesterday I heard on the radio that the IRS had been hacked.

Brother.

It appears that the hackers gathered personal information, but haven’t yet used it. “Authorities” figure they are waiting until next year to intercept any refunds entitled to certain taxpayers. And to add insult to injury, the burden of monitoring falls on the one who was hacked. These poor people need to keep checking to make sure their data is clean.

And then this morning I checked in on #Craig’s list, as I had placed an ad there, and they informed me that their site had been “compromised.” They assured me, however, that it had been fixed.

This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.

We might as well laugh at it I suppose—I wouldn’t laugh, though, if my refund went to someone else. And I’m mad as hell that people aren’t buying books, but are reading on the Internet or Digital devices, or not reading.

Fahrenheit 451?

There was a funny post on #Craigs’s list—see we do love the Internet, just don’t trust it to keep our culture alive. (Book were once burned—remember? How easy would it be for a Hacker, or an on purpose “Authority” to erase us, our culture, our literature, our personal data. Think about old scrolls, good old papyrus, or leather, or clay tablets, or engraved rocks that have been found buried—that’s how much some wanted to preserve old writings and sacred texts.)

About the Craig’s list story: Someone bartered up from a cell phone to a Porsche.

How?

Beats me.

The topper, though, was that someone bartered up from a red paperclip to a house.

Yesterday I was sharing with my friend June who is an artist and would appreciate the movie we had seen the night before. It was Arts and Crafts, a documentary about Mark Landis, one of the most prolific art forgers in US history. This eccentric man copied the masters, didn’t sell them, but donated them to museums and galleries. The museums were happy, and greedy, to get their hands on such “valuable” works, and even their “experts” couldn’t tell they weren’t authentic. Landis was using gels and acrylic and colored pencils, and instant coffee to age them—modern day materials, imagine, on such artists as Monet. Because he didn’t receive any money from them it was not a crime.

June told me about Uncle Buds. I had heard about this eccentric old man she knew many years ago, but not this story: Uncle Buds was a master engraver, and he could also copy Rembrandt to a T.  The FBI often investigated him, for with his skill he could easily be a counterfeiter.  One day the FBI visited, inspected his work, found that no money was being created, and paid no attention to the many Rembrandt engravings scattered about over this table.

 “You always seem to have money,” June once asked him. “Do you make it?”

“Oh no,” he said, “never. But I make excellent Rembrandts.”

                  http://www.thebestdamnwriterbloggerontheblock.com/

A Fifty to One Long Shot

I don't limit my wishing to white horses--sometimes I bet on the bay.

Last night I was so inspired I almost fell off the couch.

How I missed it the first time around is beyond me.

I have been a Kentucky Derby fan for years—chose the winner three years running,--on paper, didn’t bet, but I stopped watching for a time after they kept breaking horse’s legs. I was mad that they race three-year olds whose legs are not fully formed. They race them because as youngsters horses are fast.  So, race them as older horses that have strong legs. It’s idiocy. You still have an even racing field. People, though, are concerned with numbers and speed, and sometimes they miss the big picture. And if you want to race in the Derby you must obey the rules.

So, in my discouragement with the Derby race, I missed the 2009 Kentucky Derby where Mind that Bird, was a 50 to 1 long shot. Mind that Bird won the race for two cowboys who didn’t even know the horse qualified, and it was the biggest shock in Kentucky Derby History. Mine that Bird came from dead last, way last, way behind the pack, but in a burst of speed passed every horse on the track, and won by 5 lengths. The announcer wasn’t even watching the horse, so discounting him he was.

I watched the movie last light 50 to 1, loved it, and decided not to be discounted, and to encourage those around me to do the same.

So how do we motivate people? By crititiques? “By criticism?

"Develop a think skin," they say.

Charles Schwab, United States Steel Company, 1927, said, “I have yet to find a person, however great or exalted his station, who did not  do better work and  put forth greater effort under the spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”

Schwab was not paid a million dollars a year (in 1927 yet) because he knew a great amount about the production of steel. He was hired because he knew how to motivate people.

They say that the second most need in people, behind health, is to be appreciated.

I appreciate you here. I appreciate that you stopped by. I appreciate that you continue to read my flimsy words.

If you choose to share what you are up to, or say what you would like to see here, you are invited to copy and paste my personal address. That way it will not go to a robot, and you will not need a password. Don’t you have more of those than you can shake a stick at?

JDwritersblog@gmail.com 
(Copy and paste if you do not want to go through the rig-a-mo-role of a sign-up.)

Now, I expect greatness from you.

Carry on,

JD

P.S. 50 to 1 is available on DVD. It was a labor of love for the director who directed Dances With Wolves and Bodyguard, and the jockey was played by the real jockey who won the Derby on Mine that Bird—a horse with a personality.

Note:Wish on a White Horse has a new address it is http://www.wishonwhitehorses.com

On the Wings of...

“Each book is Lazarus, yes? And you the reader, by opening the covers, bid Lazarus to come forth. And he lives again, it lives again, the dead words warmed by your glance.”

I came upon this in Ray Bradbury’s book Somewhere a Band is Playing, and it struck me that there I was raising Lazarus, just as he stated in his book. I could see him, hear him, his words swam, circled, soared. I was riding a Pegasus. Visions came, lessons too.  

"The great ‘medicine’,” he wrote, “was finding that we were alive and loving it. We have celebrated every day of our lives. The celebration, the exhilaration, of worshipping the gift, has kept us young. Does that sound impossible? By simply knowing you’re alive and looking at the sun and enjoying the weather and speaking it every moment of your existence, this ensures our longevity.”

I know someone such as he is describing. She is 92 with a phone message that says, “I may be here or I may be out in the Universe having fun.” It’s hard to get her on the phone for normally she is out in the Universe having fun. She takes painting lessons, and has a weekly movie date day, and walks her dog, and drives her car.

I think of a story I read told by Deepak Chopra. A man wanted a son more than anything. God gave him two choices: one the son would be healthy but not too bright. The other, a bright son, but the son would die on his 21st birthday.

He took the bright son.

He never told the son about the agreement with God. One the son’s 21st birthday the father told his son to stay by his side, but in fairy tale fashion, the father was called away for a few moments.

The son, as was his honor to do so, went to the church to thank God for his life. Unbeknownst to him the angel of death was behind him and ready to throw a noose that would snare him and thus take him to the other side.  As the angel threw the noose, the son bowed, thanking God for his life. The noose feel upon his back and slipped off.  In that manner, thanking God for his life, the son cheated death.

And the people in Bradbury’s story, with their celebration of life, stayed young.

And children sit by on the stone floor

And draw out their lives in the sand.

Remembering deaths that won’t happen

In futures unseen in far lands.

Somewhere a band is playing

Where the moon never sets in the sky

And nobody sleeps in the summer

And nobody puts down to die;

--Ray Bradbury

Why Did I Start Blogging

Why Did I Start Blogging?

I was asked that question this morning, and now I’m stuck.

Why did I?

Who wants to read me anyway?

And why am I doing this?

When I was fresh out of high school, or maybe still in high school, it was so long ago my memory has rusted; I took the Famous Artists correspondence course. In the course someone spoke of “The Painter with the Pen.” They were speaking of pen and ink drawings, and although I loved oil painting, and even more water color, this painter with a pen idea stuck. That’s what I wanted to be.

In college there were a slug of artists more skilled than me—and taking biology I made more drawings of various microbes, cells, and plants than you could shake a stick at. I really didn’t care if I made drawings anymore. Good thing I didn’t fancy myself as a writer then, but it was then I found I liked writing papers. You figure.

It took me years to get a psychiatrist’s words out of my head, “Writing is self-aggrandizement,” he said. With that statement he wiped literature into an ego trip. And I suppose he could have said the same about any other artistic endeavor.

And then there is that other fellow (Bulwer-Lytton 1839) who said, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

I think I’ll go with the second fellow.

Why do we write, paint, garden, make mud balls, beautify our homes, play a musical instrument, sing, build, carve, sculpt, go fishing, do calligraphy, write letters, cook fantastic meals, perfect our sport?

We are all artists at heart, we just need to find our venue.

So why am I blogging? I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I like to write. I wanted to reach out to people. I want to make a difference.

When my second daughter was in the first grade I asked myself what I wanted to be when I grew up.

“A writer,” I said. “If I had anything to write.”

But I began. I put words on a page…and blogging seemed natural since I am a cryptic sort, who likes to make black splotches on paper.

You will never Find the Time—Make it

The Magic of Believing--http:www.thebestdamnwriterbloggerontheblock.com

Success is...

Two blog posts in one day? One here, one on that other site. http://www.thebestdamnwritersblogontheblock.blogspot.com  

There I shared a link that totally inspired me. Jon Morrow’s blog, “How to Quit your Job, Move to Paradise, and Get paid to Change the World,” went viral.

Sounds like a plan.

Yep, change that dead-end job into something you love. What if we could all do that? What if it is really true, “Do what you love and money will follow?

I consulted the oracle. The oracle is opening a book and reading whatever page exposes itself. Earlier this morning I pulled David R. Hawkins book Power vs. Force from the shelf and thought I would look at it later on.Well, now is later on. I opened it and found this: “True success,” he said, “enlivens and supports the spirit; it has nothing to do with isolated achievements, but instead relates to being accomplished as a total person, and attaining a lifestyle that benefits not only the individual but everyone around them.”

I am a fan of #Pinterest, for I see that most of the people there are upbeat. They post what they love. They post quotes that inspire. See how people want to share and uplift?

"When I opened Hawkins book it dawned on me, I was writing about success.. If we think about what the tabloid world considers to be success, it is a success that often erodes the successful person’s health and relationships. Drugs are rampant, marriages and divorces are in serial. Spiritual collapse is common in the lives of the rich and famous.

According to Hawkins, it is not the wealth and success or the fame and attention that causes the erosion. It is the “small self” vs. the Big Self.” The small self is vulnerable to flattery. It feeds on accolades and applause. The big self is more evolved. It is humble and grateful for its success.

It is striking to see how many powerful figures of our world, captains of industry, presidents of co-corporations, Nobel Prize winners and members of legendary families are open, warm, sincere, and view success as a responsibly or a ‘noblesseless oblige.”

Long ago In college I read Theodore H.White’s Pulitzer prize winning book, #The Making of The President. It is the story of #John F. Kennedy’s rise to power. One thing that struck me was that the family had money-- that was not an issue, the issue was that the kids were expected to carry out the family mission. And that mission was to serve.

Make Your Soul Happy

My daughter and I have found that when life seems to be a struggle the beach can go a long ways toward fixing it. Rituals, too, have a way of putting cares at rest. Put the two together and Viola’ magic.

Last week daughter and I drove to the beach. The closest to us is about an hour’s drive away in Florence Oregon. Often whatever the weather is here, it will be the opposite over there, so we didn’t concern ourselves with the weather, we were going no matter what. True to form it rained in the coast range, but popping out the other side brought us into a perfect day, sunny and warm.

We wrote affirmations on the soft wet compacted sand. We were in a sheltered cove, where the tide was out, and a little water, perfect for wading, sat behind the breakwater, a dam of boulders the size of small cars. We knew when the tide rolled in and back out it would take our words and concerns and wash them into the sea, the great cleansing system that is that purveyor of life.

Little Boy Darling ankle high in ice water, pushing bare toes into soft said, “This is the best day ever.”  

We were alone until a man and his dog entered the beach about a quarter mile away. There the man threw a ball for the dog over and over, and you know about dogs and balls, more is never enough.

Presently a little lady, all bundled up, sauntered slowly toward us.  She stopped and offered a bite of apple to Peaches.  Some dogs like fruit, but definitely not Peaches. “Lips that touch apples will never…” Well, you get the drift.

The lady was wearing a cannula, with a plastic tube running from beneath her nose to her back where she wore a back pack carrying a small oxygen tank. She said good bye and left. Later on I saw her making her way in the opposite direction. I commented “Wow, you do good.” She said on days when the tide is out she makes four trips down this long expanse of beach. 

I watched as she slowly moved away doing her laps, and I stood there chiding myself for not running after her and asking if she would tell me her story.  Would she have done it? And what might her story be?  She carried the experience of years. She appeared upbeat in spite of her limitations. She could breathe.  She was making good use of it.

That night I read a little of Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles. He said that when he and Mark Hansen were contemplating their book Chicken Soup for the Soul, they realized there was an untapped market for upbeat, uplifting stories.

And the media thinks “If it bleeds it leads.” Imagine.

Do you have an upbeat story?  A happy story?

Send it to me. I will print it here.

We could continue Canfield’s movement.

A kiss for showing up.

I Won't Talk About it Anymore

I won’t talk about it anymore.

After today I won’t talk about the book I am writing, Song of Africa, until it is published then you will see rockets in midair. I hate it when authors promote themselves to the point of nausea.  I’m just saying the way it is, what I am doing, and where this particular life is going.

In doing research for this story, though, I found the vacation of my dreams. I have to show you.

I have for a long time wanted to go to Africa, but decided against it, figuring it would not be my fantasy, but a heartbreak I could do little about.  

Abraham keeps telling us that the world doesn’t need saving. Saving? Maybe not, but some of the things we are doing to it need to be stopped. Listen to your elder, get a grip, stop dinking with our food, our air, our environment, and the rabid use of chemicals. Move your bodies, eat good honest non GM foods, and not too much of it. Drink a little wine for your stomach’s sake. Celebrate every chance you get. Be grateful whether your glass is half full or half empty—you have a glass and something to put in it.

My soap box offering for the day.

Now back to my fantasy vacation. Its local is in Tanzania and it is a mobile camp operated ts owner—not many are in Africa. Alex Walker's original camp is open all year, but Walker moves his other tent-camps twice a year to follow the migration of the animals. Many hotels, and Safaris are corporate owned, some offer luxury beyond belief. Now, I tell you, I like luxury, but if I were to go to Africa, this one suits my fancy.

One might think that I got my fill of roughing it with Solar Power and generators living off the grid in Hawaii, and could not tolerate spending $800 a night living in a tent. Imagine though watching 1.8 million Wildebeests on migration. Imagine watching 500,000 Zebras trotting along behind, or experiencing the thrill of seeing a wild elephant meandering through camp…

They say at the end of their day Walker's guests, there are only about five tents, gather for a communal dinner--for people, like the animals they came to see, are a social group. At the dinner table the people share their stories. It is a re-living of events. It  makes their experience more vivid, and it is a way of processing the day.

That is what I am doing here. 

Okay, I’m out of here. I still have about 35,000 words to write. 

Now, that's my story, what's yours?

You Can’t Go Home Again

I’m horseless. 

The five hour drive to Hermiston took seven hours (fog), with a stop for dinner, and the rest of the journey with Little Boy Darling sounding like Donkey in the movie Shrek.  “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

This trip was a birthday present from my daughter. In years past we had such fun at the Hermiston Horse auction that we decided we ought to do it again. This time we had a child to take, Little Boy Darling, her son, now six, a child that had never heard the cadence of an auctioneer ringing in his ears. 

And we drove through my old home town of The Dalles, Oregon.

I remember The Dalles as a 50’s “Happy Days” sort of town with a Catholic Church in the center—its steeple being a high point, and serving as a navigation set point. There was a café in the middle of Main Street with jute boxes at the tables, where, while sipping a cherry Coke we could flip through the music selections, drop in a dime and hear Elvis, The Great Contenders, The Everly Brothers, or any number of others.  The town had a Penny’s store where people of moderate means shopped, and Williams Store where the high-rollers shopped, and in high school the girl’s sweaters told the difference.

The Granada Theater was grand, it showed a new movie most every weekend, and on Saturdays Ready Kilowatt, presented a free show for the kids. From the open door of the saddle shop the scent of leather drifted out into the street, and the inside sent me into peels of longing, for in those days I was an avid horse person. We cruised the gut in whatever vehicle we could get our hands on, and a “Hand out” on the east end of the main street was a meeting place where we could get “grinders” and fortify ourselves for another cruise through town.  My mother once worked for a couple of “rich” people in town so we had access to some grand homes, and a school mate's parents were doctors who used more than one fork with each meal, and served split pea soup for lunch to two third-graders, and harped at my friend about practicing the piano so much I decided that was not for me.

In the spring The Dalles and surrounding areas popped alive with fragrant blossoms as fruit trees pushed forth pink or white flowers in such abundance the hillsides virtually vibrated. The scent of harvest--of cherries, peaches and apricots, lingers in my nostrils still.

The town was once called Fort The Dalles, where barges floated lazily up and down the Columbia River, and great flotillas of logs followed tug boats to the mills. Celilo Falls, a tumultuous portion of the Great Columbia River, was situated a stone-throw away, where, it is said, that at one time you could walk across the river on the backs of the salmon fishes. Yes, I have written of this before, but I want people to remember what the river once was. The government had signed a treaty with the Native Americans stating that they could fish there forever. That didn't happen. The Corp of Engineers built a dam in front of Celilo Falls, flooded out “The Narrows” which gave “The Dalles” its name, flooded out the fishing grounds, put the Native Americans on government care, and was virtually death to the salmon.

Before 

After 

  

Now a drive through this once quaint town of The Dalles looks like many others, first comes a Walmart, then The Home Depot, then Staples, and the freeway bypasses the town, so you can miss it altogether.

A drive down the Columbia River gorge, though, continues to be, for me, the most beautiful drive in the world.  And I consider The Dalles to be the “jumping off place,” for beyond it the topography of Oregon drops its trees, and replaces them with rolling hills and sagebrush. The highway through pays homage to the ingenuity of the human being, built in a basalt gorge, constructed after much use of dynamite, and much hauling of stone, was built where there was no land before, virtually in the river.  A trip from The Dalles to Portland used to be a day's trip, winding through mountains. Now it takes one hour. The highway is straight, fast, and with few cars.

The Columbia River Gorge

The Native Americans have some revenge from their washed out fishing grounds. Their Casinos rake in great amounts of money mostly from white people. 

And regarding the horses we went to Hermiston to see, the sale ground was switched to the Fair grounds, it didn't have the quaint atmosphere it once had, and the horses had not the character or the variety.  We did find one horse we liked. It was short, white, and speckled with black spots as through black paint was blown from a pea shooter. He was a Gypsy Vanner/Arabian across.  I figured that while he had the look of a Gypsy, with that Arabian blood he was probably smart. Arabians are known for their brains and stamina. Their blood flows through the veins of most all breeds--even Thoroughbreds.  The bidding went up to $1800, but the young girl rider, held up her hand. “No sale.” She wouldn’t take less than $3,000.

When we left the horse was still for sale. There was no fog on the highway, we got home in five hours, The Columbia River Gorge was still beautiful and little Boy Darling played video games never asking if we were there yet.

Truth in Marketing

This is the way I feel today.

The other day, coming out of Fred Meyer’s grocery store, I looked across the street to an Office Max. The store was closing. Rats, I liked that store.

There in huge red letters about two feet high was a sign: “50% off Entire Store.”

Check it out, I thought, so I did, and wandering through the store, I chose a package of particular pens I like, some colored marking pens, some tabs, not much, but something. When the check-out clerk rang me up the discount was 20% and 30%. “I though the entire store was 50% off,” I said.

 “Oh,” she said, “it’s a marketing ploy. It’s ‘up to’ 50% off.” Sure enough, there in small letters about two inches high were the words, “up to.” I had missed it.

 I left feeling taken.

It’s true I didn’t read the small print, but I wondered, “Do you have to trick people to get them to buy something?” I don’t want to do that. And then I realized I had done the very thing I was railing against.  I mentioned in the last blog that I sent a query to an agent stating that the manuscript was 90,000 words in length. (I had only written 35,000 words, but in my arrogance, I thought I could bring it up to 90,000.) 

They want a further look-see—first 3 chapters and a synopsis, and they will take a 75,000 count.  

So while I’m scrambling to write another 40,000 words for the manuscript; I'm having trouble paring the synopsis down to the required 5 pages. 

This is a Laurel and Hardy movie.

Now here is real truth is advertising:

“Wanted, young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”

--1860 Pony Express

(These fellows could deliver mail in 10 days while covering 1900 miles and using 75 horses. Imagine.)

How to Get Your Husband to Buy You a Horse, and more...

 Couldn't resist--just for fun...

And now I'm going to get serious--dammit.

On the last blog I mentioned my novel Song of Africa, and that I had 35,000 words to go--still have almost. I don't think I can do it. I’m too cryptic; to afraid I will bore people, too much to the point. I've been discouraged all week, and here I am wanting to spread good-will and a happy life. (Don’t count on me.)

Yesterday I looked up the Gambia online--one editor told me to never use google in your research for people will laugh at you, yeah, like everyone googles everything. I just wanted it to spark something in me. When I began this novel I had no pictures same the Encyclopedia, and talk about cryptic, but there are pictures online. Don't know if I want my romanticized view of Africa clouded with facts, but I looked up The Gambia, a river in West Africa. To ride that river is my character’s dream. She heard it looks like the Hollywood stereotype of an African river—and so that was her choice, her river. (Now it is called The Sara Rose by her lover.) The adventure begin at the river.  Well, no, it began on the first page where the postmistress tells Patrice and her mother that her grandparents are dead—lost on what the world calls the Dark Continent. Strange to call Africa dark when the sun shines for nine months of the year, but isn’t the light level that has motivated the word, “dark,” it is the mystery.

I got to thinking about my characters. The book ends in 1996. That means Patrice, the young 15-year- old girl in Africa would be 34 years old now. And Sara, my heroine was 77 in 1998. I have fallen in love with my characters, which is the way it ought to be with a novel, but I’m feeling sad about them, for with them, like with me, and those around me, time marches on. I wonder what they have been doing for the last 19 years. 

The Gambia River flows through Senegal West Africa.