Hiding vehicles and avoiding calls

The three most irritating sounds are a doorbell, the knock, and a phone ringing. They mean someone is about to bother you, and usually uninvited.

How do we handle the strain of knowing our cellphones – an inhumane tool of intrusion that we carry around with us - could go off at any moment?  No wonder people have such short attention spans! They’re slaves to the knowledge that their dentist, child’s teacher or hair stylist could interrupt their life at any moment via a ring, buzz, beep, or annoying pop tune.

A few days ago my prehistoric cellphone was dying. Normally that would be a crisis of near apocalyptic proportions for the modern-day human enslaved to technology. I cast about halfheartedly for the charger, but all I found were the revitalizers for my kids’ tablets.

I figured my dumb phone would pass with dignity into temporary night. Instead, it kept emitting death yelps every few minutes for more than an hour, persisting like an opera tenor who keeps singing despite the improbability of drawing deep breath after stabbing himself. Eventually, I began screaming at my phone during each mournful beeping, “Just die! Die already!”, while wishing for a rubber mallet to help it along.

Thankfully, my husband’s number has its own ring on my cellphone, and it’s the only sound I truly welcome from it most of the time. But even then, when he calls from the store one too many times with a silly question, I want to remove him from my contact list.

I blame my aversion to being bothered on my dad.

On many Sundays of my childhood, Dad drove our car into a little hollow in the field behind our house to hide it. If someone unexpectedly knocked at the door on the weekend, Dad gave the silent, urgent command for us to stop in our tracks and crouch down out of sight of the windows. Then he held a finger to his lips with the intense look of a hermit. It was like freeze tag, only more tense. We dared not move or make one little squeak, no matter how our hamstrings ached, until the intruder gave up his efforts to bring us to the door.

Maybe that’s why I got into trouble with the law several years ago when my oldest son Berto called 911 by mistake as I was vacuuming. When I took the receiver from my laughing boy and hung it up, I thought it was merely a telemarketer - until a policeman banged on my door a few minutes later.

I wasn’t expecting a policeman, so I didn’t answer the door. I interrogated him through the wood, asking why I didn’t see his patrol car (around the corner, apparently) and what precinct he was from. Eventually, however, he tired of my evasive maneuvers and quite dramatically threatened to knock down the door if I didn’t answer it. At wit’s end, I called my husband at work and cried, “Honey, there’s a man at the door who says he’s a policeman! What should I do?”

“Answer it!” was my pragmatic man’s reply.

The thought had never occurred to me.

I’m this close to parking my minivan in the backyard on Sundays.

Short thoughts in the last of September...

Can you believe such a huge flower can blossom from such a little cactus? I've been wanting to share that wonder for a while with someone. This one grows in our front yard, and we've witnessed it sprout a tiny fur ball from its side every so often. Just a few short days later, the fur ball has grown into an incredibly long, hairy stem with a tight bud at the end. We check on it regularly, anticipating the morning when we'll walk out and be greeted by an enormous, pristine blossom. It's a marvel we have yet to grow weary of.

************

I recently had the opportunity to read the manuscript of my dad's latest book, Darkness Manifest, that will be out mid-October. Dad claimed it was a draft, but the text was very clean (as in, not rough draft) and flowed so well; I'm a little skeptical. If it was a draft and not the final version, I told him, than I really wished I could write as easily as he does. I finished the nearly two hundred pages he sent me in less than a day. Considering that it is about Dracula (as this character was known once), is suspenseful, and the story takes off to dangerous territory immediately with "history" thrown in for such souls as myself, it's not surprising that I ate it up. I'll admit there were a few scenes toward the middle that made me nauseous and caused mysterious pains in my arms (I don't even like reading about blood and certainly not people who no longer have it), but I went through a slight depression when I reached the end of what he'd sent, feeling deprived without the conclusion.

Dad's Kelven's Riddle epic fantasy series is selling very well on Kindle, and is in the top #500 for epic fantasy in that format. And he just released a sixth book this summer called Doomtalon: The Legend of Ayrfel, a quick, enjoyable fantasy read that stands alone.

Bravo, Papa! You know how long I have loved Kelven's Riddle. I've discussed all my favorite scenes from all five books with you and Mama at different times, and it makes me amazingly happy that others are discovering it and Doomtalon, and more and more each day. You deserve it! You have worked hard for years, been diligent in your craft even when it was difficult to find the time to write, and you are now officially not just my mentor, but my hero. I am so immensely proud of you.

************

This beautiful time of year called fall, when at least the mornings are cool and refreshing in this desert town, makes me nostalgic for trick-or-treating, watching the leaves change in Tennessee, and spending time with families in the Moms' Group that began at my church when my daughter Analisa was not even a year old. 

The children in this group have known each other since they were babies; some of them are in middle and high school now! The parents have babysat for each other in emergencies, sponsored each other's kids for confirmation or stood in for absent family members. The families have celebrated many birthdays, holidays and baptisms together. Many of our children have continued to grow up near one another in this desert town, though some have moved away, and I thank God that my kids have these friends far and wide that they may never have found or known if our community hadn't existed.

I become wistful sometimes, because, getting busier as the kids get older, the families don't see each other as often as we once did. But Autumn is that time when we reconnect as Halloween approaches. May we never grow too far apart!

*************

The other day when my husband was pulling a splinter out of our six-year-old's hand, I bent down and kissed my Daniel, rubbed his blonde head, and thought with immense gratitude, This one is still little, thank God. He's still our little boy. 

Those days have not yet passed us by. We have many more moments to treasure with each of our kids. I hope we will always be mindful of that.

The Wise Men Found Him in a Manger; But He May be Found Anywhere - by Daniel Hylton

Over the centuries, there have been many discussions, questions, and even arguments about the Three Wise Men who attended the birth of Christ, such as; did they actually attend His birth, or did they arrive as many as two years after that event, when He was a child?  Who were they?  Whence did they come?  How did they know about the advent of Christ?  Were they Persian, Babylonian, or Zoroastrian astronomers, perhaps?  And if Zoroastrian - did Zoroaster himself learn of the prophecy of the coming of Christ from the Hebrew prophet Daniel, as some believe?  Or were the Three Wise Men Chinese, as the Chinese - and many others - claim?

And, in modern times, the arguments continue - did the Three Wise Men even exist, or is the whole tale just a Christian fable?

Well, I frankly don't care.  In fact, for the purpose of this post, I will not address any of the traditions, questions, or doubts that attend the tale of the Three Wise Men. For; I know in my heart that they lived and that they saw the Christ Child.  And that is what matters to me.

They came from somewhere to the east, in that vast landscape of Asia that stretches from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean.  It had been understood by most of the eastern cultures for several, perhaps many, centuries that the King of the Universe would someday come down and be born upon earth, as a man, specifically, as a Jew.  They knew that a special never-before-seen star was to herald his birth. The Three, like generations of wise men before them, diligently watched the sky for the sign of the advent of the King, hoping against hope that they, in their generation, would be the ones fortunate enough to witness the marvelous event.

And one day - or night - there it was.

Unique, bright, like nothing else in the heavens, it hung low in the western sky.

They had no doubt of its significance.

Their hearts bursting, their minds alive with anticipation, the Three loaded up their camels, gathered their servants, accumulated supplies for a long journey, and set out toward the west, following the Star, seeking a King.  And, at the end of two years, they found Him.  Astounded and awed by their immense good fortune, they presented their gifts, worshiped Him, and then, being warned by an angel of God of Herod's deadly animus toward the new-born King, they avoided the Israelite usurper and "went home by another way."

But they took with them an amazing gift; they had seen the King of Kings, born upon earth as a man.

Now, Jesus Christ is variously described as the Son of God, the Son of Humanity, a prophet, a kind and gentle Teacher, a Healer, the Savior.  And He is, of course, all of those things and more.

But I see Him, first and foremost, as the Wise Men saw Him - the King of all.

I was raised by Godly parents, good Christian people who taught me to live by His teachings.  I read the Bible completely through as a young man, many parts of it I read more than once and studied much of it diligently.  I even memorized at one time or another several passages of scripture.  Even so, I never had that deeper experience to which so many spiritual folk bear witness.

For me, for much of my life, belief was based not so much upon spiritual experience as it was upon intellectual reasoning.  It was faith founded upon the pragmatic underpinnings of knowledge and of all that I had learned about the various belief systems of humanity.

In the year 1986 I found myself living in an extremely rural part of Tennessee with a wife and four young children, and I experienced a startling, and rather abrupt comprehension that being a parent was not just about providing food, shelter, and clothing.  I needed to understand the meaning of human existence if I was to impart anything meaningful to my three daughters and my son.

So I set to work, educating myself on the subject of the Great Question; Why Are We Here? Learning what I could of every theory about the existence of life on earth - and I mean every theory - I eventually dismissed all of them except the Bible.  But all my dismissals, at the time, were based solely on rational thought, and upon those things which I had discovered of each theory or religion, not on any particular spiritual experience.

Understand: I am not touting myself as an authority on anything, especially religion.  I do not care what anyone else chooses to believe, and I long ago passed the point where any human can claim influence with me as it concerns the most basic questions of existence.

By late summer of 1987, I had decided in a rather cold intellectual sense that Jesus Christ was the answer, and that His teachings were the way to understanding.  So, I read the New Testament once again, this time as if I was reading it for the first time, without any preconceived notion of what any of it meant.  And I found that it satisfied, in a purely logical sense, all my questions.

But I wanted more.  I wanted empirical evidence of my Maker.

Then I happened upon a very old book called Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians.  Admittedly I was skeptical of many of the things expounded inside that book; nonetheless, after reading it, I craved an experience of my own - a personal meeting with God.

To that end, I made my way one day out across the field behind the house, down through the hollow and into the forest beyond.  Searching through the woods, I found a small clearing with a large rock jutting from the ground near its center like an altar.  I knelt and prayed.  After praying for some time, it occurred to me that, rather than yammering in God's ear; it would benefit me more to listen.

So, I listened.  And I heard - nothing.

After that day, and for every single day thereafter, in all kinds of weather, every evening after work, I went faithfully into the woods to that little clearing, knelt down, and told God simply; I am here.

Nothing.  Ever.  Nothing.  I never heard His voice.  There was never any kind of sign.

Through all those days, while awaiting a sign from the heavens, I read the New Testament again.  And yet again.  I spent an hour every day alone in the forest, listening.  Days turned into weeks, weeks became months.  After eight months of this, summer had cooled into autumn, autumn became winter, winter turned into yet another spring.  And I had had no experience.

I grew discouraged.  Discouragement eventually devolved into a sort of rebellious anger.  But, in fact, something had happened to me over this time period which had nothing to do with my earlier studies.  Nor was it related to any experience.  It was, in a very real way, miraculous.  The words of Jesus had passed through my eyes, worked their way through my brain, and had settled in my heart.

I knew now, without any doubt, that I was a created being.  I knew that God created me.  And I knew that Jesus Christ was His Son.  I knew now the reason I - or any of us - exist.

So, then - I wondered rather petulantly - why didn't He speak to me?

One fine spring evening in 1988, I had finished my supper and was about to make my way, once again, into the woods behind the house.  But as I went out the front door and onto the porch, the rebellious anger erupted.  

I am done with this, I thought.  It is pointless.  He will never speak to me.

Turning the other way, I abandoned any thought of going to my "altar" and I tromped down the lane toward the bridge over the creek.  As I walked on, and on, through the dappled sunlight that cast long shadows across the lane, my dark mood gradually lifted and after a while I began to quietly laugh at myself.  Who did I think I was, anyway?  In the great scheme of things, I would barely qualify as a worm; likely something even less.  Why then would The Almighty feel compelled to speak to me?  He would not, of course.  For in a vast universe of humble servants, I suddenly realized, I was among the humblest; perhaps the humblest of all.

I stopped on the bridge, gazed down into the sparkling stream, and smiled to myself.  The dark mood, its attendant anger, and the weight of needing to hear the Voice of God were gone.  As was the need for an experience.

I was abruptly and rather acutely aware of the warm spring evening and all the life it contained within it, all of it a testimony to the Creator of life.  Birds chirped in the thickets, wildflowers burst through the ground along the creek, the heady scent of honeysuckle filled the air.  The earth itself was bearing witness to its Maker.

Never again would I need to go into the forest, find an altar, seek a sign.  Every day of being alive was in and of itself an experience, a sign.  Nothing else was - or would ever be - necessary.  At last content, I turned toward the house.

And then, right then; when I expected - and needed - it least, He was there.

Right there.

With me, on the bridge.

Did I see Him?  No.  Did I hear an audible Voice?  No.

Yet He was there.  And He was there for me.

I have never related the details of that moment to anyone; nor will I ever do so.  It is meaningful only to me, is highly personal, and it can have no bearing whatsoever on anyone else in their striving after God.

Over the years, I have referred to it privately as my Three Wise Men Moment.  For in that moment, upon that bridge, I, far less wise than they, far less clever, far less deserving, was given a great gift that has sustained me throughout my life.

I often find myself distracted by the cares of this life: the need to make money, the frustration with the contemporary state of politics, the anger over man's inhumanity to his fellow man that is daily seen, the worry over this or that or some other thing. And I more often than not forget that which matters most - that which, in fact, alone truly matters; living a life that pleases the King.

I lose my way.

So then, every so often, I must push the world aside and go back in time to that moment on the bridge, to touch that moment, to remember it and its meaning.  To remember what really matters.

Then, my priorities properly restored, my mind and my heart lifted, my feet back upon the right path, then, and only then, can I get on with my life "by another way."

Merry Christmas.



Daniel Hylton is the author of the Kelven's Riddle fantasy series.

Freewrite of sorts: Letter to Papa, because I can

Dear Papa,

It's been really, unexpectedly busy lately.

I know you're probably wondering why I'm not writing more, Papa....well, unless you're so busy writing your book that you haven't noticed my pitiful output of words. That's probably the case, so I'm good.

You told me to treat this writing business like a job and not to piece meal my time away. What you told me not to do, I did. I gave away a ton of my time. The kids' school needed someone to do copier pool this week, and the better part of three days I've spent there. Eventually while waiting for that mightier-than-thou copier to spit out 3,020,500,019 copies, I realized I should be using the wait time to write, so I scrawled on a scrap piece of paper. What I wrote wasn't very good, though. And the copier kept jamming and moaning, asking for more toner and begging for coffee, lunch, and nap breaks and just in general being an attention hog. We now have a toxic relationship, that copier and me. I hope I don't see it again for a while, but I'm not betting on it.

Oh, funny aside: that copier can copy several pages at once into a packet and staple each one, but I didn't know that, so I copied a bazillion two-sided pages for a teacher, and then had to sort them into individual packets by page number and staple each one by hand. 75 packets of several pages each, it took me a couple hours. Not very efficient of me.

Also, your grandkids have been terrible stinkers on and off. Berto is stressed out in middle school, and snapped at me all the way home yesterday afternoon about television and homework, mad because his siblings got a half day, and he didn't. Daniel throws fits, demands stuff, and tells me I'm mean for getting after him for treating me like carp. Gabriella smarts off. Ana is fine besides putting too much pressure on herself. I do alot for those little rapscallions; they should appreciate me more instead of complaining about what I pack for their lunches.

I still want to write that mystery novel, but I'm going to check out a book at the local library on how to write a mystery novel first. I never had your gift with plots, and it would probably be best if things happened in this book instead of everybody milling around and talking to each other or getting lost in their own heads.

Right now I have three humor posts I'm working on, but I may have to ask your help with editing. I can't seem to wrap any of them up or get the tone or punch of certain lines just right. I would really hate to lose my momentum there, and that's what I fear: that I can't perform again, that I'll backslide.

Annie's visit this past weekend was wonderful. She was awesome with the kids, even letting them each paint a part of her face and buying them craft supplies for Halloween costumes. They'll never forget that! I hope she got all that paint out of her hair. We went out to eat twice in two days which amazed the kids, because they're so used to their parents being cheap.

Annie gave me a wonderful gift. I'm sure she told you about it, but I was shocked when I saw what it was: an original Beatles Abbey Road record. I couldn't wait to listen to it, and I'm also thinking about getting a really cool frame for it, so I can stare at it regularly on the wall. "Oh Darling!" is on there and "Octopus's Garden" and "Here Comes the Sun" - do you remember when Freddy died, and I listened to that one all the time? Annie gave me some of our childhood back; we used to listen to that record constantly together. It was my favorite. I even called that beautiful maple in the field on the north side of the house my Abbey Road tree, remember?

(Why is it, Papa, that my siblings always give me such amazing gifts, and I just really stink at giving them something incredible back? I never seem to find the personal and memorable treasures they do. They spoil me, and I don't deserve it at all. Maybe I'm amazed.)

One last thing about Annie's visit: I bet you'll never guess what we did? We argued and debated and almost ran for our boxing gloves. And guess what we did after that? We made up, and we laughed our heads off about how we are as a family (it all comes from your side, you know). We were drinking some Muscadine wine, the kind that Vinca introduced me to and that tastes like those muscadine grapes we used to pick in the lane, and Annie kept cracking me up by imitating how our family is when we're together like some big, crazy Mediterranean family as in Big, Fat Greek Wedding. She was witty in describing how we take someone else's business and rub it into our faces (It's not uh my business? It's not uh my business?! There! *rubs hands all over face* Now it's my business!), and how we leave our business on the other's doorstep, waiting for them to step in it. I'm starting to laugh just thinking about it. Matthew couldn't survive the debating/fisticuffs phase, so he missed out on the awesome after party. I think he goes into a temporary coma induced by exposure to overly emotional people.

Well, now you know what I've been up to. Oh, that reminds me; I want to write a humor post about our crazy family antics during reunions, too. I might have to steal some of Annie's material; I hope she doesn't mind.

I promise to work harder on my writing. When Danny first went to school, I was beside myself, craving company in the silence, and now I just wish I had the time and the quiet back once more. We always want what we don't have in the moment, huh?

Give Mama a big hug and kiss for me and tell her I miss her and often wish I could talk to her about "woman issues". She's such a calming influence, just like Matthew, Dave and Keith - haha! We really need them, all of us passionate folk.

Love,

Hoodoo

Family Music

When Daniel, my youngest, was just over six months old, I took him with me when I flew up to Idaho for my grandmama's funeral. My parents drove up, and my sister Vinca flew in from Virginia. We all had to do plenty of commuting between two small towns in Idaho, the epicenters of both sides of the family. That road was very familiar to my parents, for it was their slice of the world, where they had grown up, gone to school and church, where they'd met. They told stories and pointed out special spots from their courtship.

But my little guy hated his car seat and therefore hated the drive. Like his big sisters before him, he treated it like a torture device and cried inconsolably for most of the time that he was strapped into it. The flurry of family visits and family business that was sometimes comforting, sometimes heartbreaking but a necessary part of saying goodbye and preparing the funeral for Grandmama was hard on him.

One night we stopped at a gas station on our commute, and I comforted and nursed my distraught baby before we headed down the narrow, paved road again. Of course, he was already crying again within moments, overstimulated and exhausted, sick of being confined. My dad felt especially bad for his namesake.

Then Vinca started singing softly to soothe my Danny. It was melancholy and quite beautiful, accompanying the hum of the car and the stillness of the passing rural environment, swathed in consoling darkness.

As Vinca and I sat by my son, holding and stroking his hand and hair, he fell quiet. We were all feeling very sad, and the songs didn't serve to distract us, but simply gave voice to our grief and let us dwell in it together. I listened to Dad, Mom and Vinca sing spiritual songs, completely captivated by their voices as I gazed at my little boy's face and out the window at the trees, fields and streams, my own thoughts hushed.

The five of us on a dark road, grieving and singing hymns to my baby and for our comfort, is one of my favorite memories from that time.

It is not the only memory encapsulated in and kindled by music.

The last night of my visit with my brother Nate this past April, my friend Holly, Natie, my sis-in-law Natalie and I sat at their dining table playing cards, eating pizza and drinking wine. We told family and personal stories, debated a little (something without which my family can't survive), and Nate had a playlist on his smartphone through which he skimmed and skipped. A Gordon Lightfoot song came up, and I asked," Natie, you still like Gordon Lightfoot?"

"Of course."

My heart swelled with familial pride. Dad raised his four kids on Lightfoot's music. I knew my sisters still enjoyed it, but to know that it was honored by Nate, too, made me feel that the years with no visits and the thousands of miles between us, the distance from our own childhoods, was not so great as I sometimes felt.

Natalie and Holly didn't feel the same. Holly said it was sleepy music, and Natalie called it Country.

Nate and I protested. "It's not Country. It's folk music."

But no hard feelings. Nate and Holly sang along to 1990s tunes and made me laugh with their vocal interpretations. Natalie told a story about discovering the true meaning of a song she used to love as a young girl. I confessed that 1980s music made me nostalgic, and Natie pointed out it should be that of the 1990s, when I was a teenager. When Holly said, "Just don't play 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'," by Deep Blue Something, Nate and I banded together again. We have always loved that song.

There are songs and albums that remind me of my parents or make me think of my siblings as soon as I recognize them. "Superman (It's Not Easy)" by Train never fails to remind me of my sister Annie and all the time we spent together when I was first married and still living close to her. Gordon Lightfoot's album, Waiting For You, reminds me of going through the Blue Ridge Mountains with my sister Vinca as she drove fast and sure on those twisty roads. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day will never fail to make me smile and say, "My mom loves this song!", or if I'm speaking to my children, "Grandmama loves this song!" And, of course, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" reminds me of Nate and of our time in Idaho with relatives before he left for the military. As for Dad, many Credence Clearwater Revival and Gordon Lightfoot songs connect me to him. The songs that bring Dad most to mind, however, are the ones he wrote himself and the ones I sing myself with great appreciation.

I could not name all the songs that remind me of special people or specific times in my life. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Music powerfully binds people together, weaving our memories into its melodies and lyrics by capturing our emotions, embracing, even enlarging our experiences, and expressing our culture. It transports us back in time and keeps us forever young, reminiscent of time with family and friends.

I, for one, am grateful for the memories.


 

Offering It Up for Dad

On that day, as evening drew on, he said to them, "Let us cross to the other side." Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was. And other boats were with him. A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, "Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?" He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Quiet! Be still!" The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, "Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?" They were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?"

Mark 4:35-41 (NAB)

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35, 37-39 (NAB)



I have been very worried about my dad. In March he had a terrible fall - just from standing up too suddenly after crouching on the floor to watch his grandson play. When he regained consciousness and the paramedics were called, it was obvious he had broken both his jaw and nose, broken teeth and had bitten his bottom lip nearly off. He was a little disoriented and probably suffered a concussion, but he refused to go to the hospital - just like that time in Tennessee when he was bitten by a copperhead on the foot.

Since then, it seems like it has been one thing after another for Dad - all while trying to finish the last book in his Kelven's Riddle series. He was ill in May with a serious ear infection. When he came to visit our family in early June, he had a lingering headache from his fall and then got terrible nausea and a fever from some kind of virus. He became sick with a bad cold during our trip to San Saba, Texas for my sister Annie's wedding, and just this past month during a visit with his family in Idaho, that headache grew and exploded until he endured a miserable flight home and then didn't get in to see a doctor until more than three days later. Now he is suffering from an acute bacterial infection of the head and neck.

My sister Vinca, who saw how sick Papa was in Idaho and has been very troubled, called to give me an update yesterday, for which I am so grateful. I didn't know how ill he was. Dad's immune system has been wrecked by all the assaults on it, so he can't see anybody, on doctor's orders, but Mom for two-three months at least. Talking on the phone is excruciating for him, because his ears are in terrible pain.

I can't physically do anything to help, can't even talk to him to gain reassurance for my own selfish comfort. It is my lot to worry. Yet I can't just fret and agonize and do nothing at all.

Yesterday, I offered it up in prayers. I offered it up. My worry is nothing compared to the suffering of my dad these several months, but if anyone can use all this anxiety, this sorrow, this regret and this love I feel to help Dad, it is Jesus.

I'm not expressing this well at all. I had never encountered the idea of offering it up before a few years ago, but I like it. I like to think that if I give something to Jesus Christ - no matter how little - to use to help heal someone I dearly, dearly love, that he won't turn me down, that he'll let me help in this small way, uniting myself with His love for that person, with His love for Dad.

Pray for my dad, Daniel, please if you would. God bless you, friends, and thank you.

(Seemingly Endless) Days of the Condor

My daughter Hillary is on vacation, visiting her sister Vinca in Virginia this week and asked me to write a guest post.  So, while she views the monuments in D.C. and tromps the fields of Gettysburg, I will sit at my desk and slave away, dredging up old memories, just for her.

When I was younger, I worked in powerline construction; you know, those giant steel and cable behemoths that crisscross the country delivering massive amounts of electricity.  In those days, we built EHV powerline mostly out on the great plains.  It was an attempt by the government to connect the entire country on a grid and eliminate the plague of blackouts that were then occurring in the NE United States.  (If you live in the NE and are old enough to remember those days, well, you're welcome.)

One of the most dangerous jobs in what was overall a very dangerous profession (the only professions with a higher mortality rate in those days were combat soldiers, astronauts, and race car drivers), was cutting in dead-ends.  A dead-end is a structure constructed at a point where the line has to make a turn so sharp that it won't facilitate continuous conductor cable.  The conductor must be cut at this juncture after it has been connected almost horizontally to the dead-end structure by strings of insulators (or bells, as we called them, because of how they look).  Great loops of aluminum conductor are then slung beneath to connect up with the phase running off at a new tangent beyond the structure.

We all hated and dreaded cutting in dead-ends.  It required the lineman to sit on the wire while maneuvering extremely heavy six-bolt stays onto the bundled conductor and attaching them by screwing them down hard onto the conductor with a torque wrench.  The six-bolts would be fastened to the structure in order to keep the line under strain so that it would maintain its proper sag.  Then the conductor would be cut between the six-bolts and the tower and the groundsmen would send up another extremely weighty hydraulic device called a press.  With this, the lineman would press a sleeve with a ring on the end onto the conductor by which the conductor could then be permanently attached to the structure.  

Sometimes the line would be lowered after it was cut (though kept under strain) and the pressing of the sleeve done on the ground, a much safer and easier method.  Just as often, however, usually because of the configuration of the right-of-way, the pressing had to be done in the air.   

All this while, the only thing holding millions of pounds of aluminum and steel in place was an operator's foot on the brake of an immense machine known as a puller.  Oh, yes, there was an emergency brake, too, but this was a huge cumbersome thing and seldom used.  Men in a hurry to build big things tend to cut the corners where they can.  Besides that, our company's puller was an out-dated, even ancient thing, which we all suspected had been first built thousands of years ago and used up and worn out by the Romans or maybe even the Hittites.

I personally knew four men that died on the job in those years and two of those deaths occurred while cutting in dead-ends.  Believe me, when tons of thick aluminum cable, held under tremendous strain, comes loose, it tends to ravel and twist as it recoils back up the line, seeking the drum from which it was unreeled.  Gathering up the unfortunate lineman's remains for a funeral is a sad and often messy task. 

Eventually, someone from OSHA came by and forced our company to come up with a better solution for cutting in dead-ends than simply hanging a lineman out there in perilous space where old man death could draw a good sharp bead on him.

The company's solution was to acquire another incredibly ancient Hittite machine - a high-lift truck capable of extending a bucket containing two men up to eighty feet in the air.  The massive truck had once been called an Eagle by the manufacturer - we knew this because those of us with better eyesight could just make out the smudges of painted letters that had long ago faded into the metal.

The Eagle was a loathsome beast, contrary, undependable, dilapidated, and scary.  Sometimes, as if on a whim, with two lineman stuck up there at the end of its fully extended boom, it would decide to re-adjust the pressure of its hydraulic fluid and drop its boom three or four or sometimes ten feet.  You know, just for the hell of it.

Needless to say, this peculiar habit of the ancient animal made us all more than a bit skittish.  (And caused us all to heap abuse upon the poor operator, who of course never had a clue as to why the machine acted like it did.)

We finally decided that it wasn't an "Eagle" at all, but something extinct or at least nearly extinct.  So, we renamed it the "Condor".

Those of us on the clipping crews, responsible for permanently attaching the conductor to the structures, came to fear and despise the thing and our skittishness eventually devolved into terror.  How we all hated to see a dead-end structure show up on the line!, especially if it might be our turn to take a ride in the Condor.  That ancient beast became the stuff of my nightmares, and by the haggard, weary look of my comrades most mornings, I knew that it haunted their sleep as well.  We even began to long for the old days, when we sat on the wire while we wrestled with six-bolts at dead-end structures.

One day, it fell to Wamsley and me to take our lives in our hands, ride up on the end of that worn-out, bouncing boom and cut in the dead-ends.  It actually wasn't too bad that day, for the way that the truck was situated, the upper arm of the structure was right to our left, within reach, and most of the lattice-work mass of the lower half of the structure was directly beneath, fifty feet or so below our position, cutting off our view of the ground even further below where the ancient beast might seek to deposit us in rude manner at any second. 

We had the six-bolts positioned on the wire and were working to secure them to the conductor when the Condor decided to have one of its moments.  

Abruptly, the bucket dropped.  I stared at Wamsley, wide-eyed, and he looked back at me in like manner.  He was a lean, wiry fellow, with a tendency to squint, which made his eyes appear small.  Usually, all one could see of Wamsley's eyes was only about half of his brown irises with little triangles of white to either side.  This day, however, I could see all of his irises, plus a fair amount of white all the way around both of them.  His eyes, I realized, were actually quite large when one got a really good view of 'em.

We expected the bucket to stop, as was its wont, but it kept going.  In a fraction of a second, I realized that this was it - the machine had utterly failed and wouldn't stop until it, and we, were buried upon impact deep in the earth.  Somehow, we had to get out.

Dead-end towers look rather like big X's, with the feet splayed out to hold the structure up and the arms, to which the conductor is attached, reaching up and out to either side.  The upper part of the structure was just then passing by the bucket on my side.  Instinctively, in a spasm of self-preservation, I leapt from the bucket, catching the lattice-work with my left hand.  At the last instant, I thought of Wamsley and reached for him as I took my leap.  His safety strap was hung over his shoulder and my fingers caught it, grasped it, and my hand formed a fist.

The bucket of the Condor continued to fall, finally grinding to a shuddering halt on the leg of the structure thirty or forty feet below.

There we were, seventy feet in the air; me hanging onto the steel lattice of the tower like grim death with my left hand, and Wamsley dangling at the end of his safety strap, suspended in space from my right.

He gazed up at me as he twisted slowly back and forth and his face grew sad.  "We're all gonna die, you know.  Sooner or later that damn thing will kill us all."

"I know," I replied through gritted teeth.  "But not today."

We decided after that episode that the Condor wasn't a condor at all.  I mean, there are still a few of those birds extant out in California - right?  No, our beast was something more ancient still, something truly lost in the deeply layered age-old dust of history.

It occurred to us that it was, in fact, a pterodactyl.  Truly extinct, a denizen of pre-history.  So we re-named it.  The Pterodactyl it was from that day forward.  And still, though a member of a species that hasn't been seen on earth in many multi-millennia, it persisted in terrorizing us endlessly.

One day, I'd had enough.  I went to the shop and found a can of black spray paint.  After work, and after dark, when the crews had gone home, I hung around til the show-up yard was deserted and then I painted its new name up along the side of the boom.  In great, bold letters. 

Pterodactyl.

Later, when I became part of management, I understood that companies that construct powerlines have clients - the various power providers in the various states, and an image of professionalism must be maintained.  Having your men deface company equipment, especially when that defacement can be construed as demeaning to the company, is really not a desirable thing.  But at the time I did it, I didn't know this, and truthfully, might not have cared.

The next day, the general foreman of our crews, a huge man named Marlatt, found me where I was clipping in a phase up on a structure and yelled up at me, ordering me to the ground immediately.  Now - dammit!

Once I was on earth, he proceeded to chew me up one side and down the other for defacing company equipment.  He threatened to fire me.  I believe he even threatened to kill me.  I took it all as stoically as I could.  Finally, he paused and asked me what I had to say for myself.

I struck as casual a pose as I could muster.  "How do you know I did it?"  I asked.

He went red (redder) in the face.  "Cuz you're the only one of these lost souls with enough education to know how to spell a word like that.  And it is spelled right - I checked."

My penance consisted of painting over my offense with white paint and even sprucing the old beast up a bit.  It didn't matter.  The guy from OSHA eventually came back around and ordered the thing off the job (our theory was that this particular inspector was actually thousands of years old and had first encountered our hapless machine in ancient Mesopotamia or perhaps the land of Uz).  So, the Condor went away, its days finally over.

I seldom have nightmares these days about those days of the Condor - in fact, the nightmares may have stopped completely. I haven't had one now in, oh, I don't know, ..... four or five days.

Have fun in Virginia, Hoodoo.

Buck Up, Boy; It Isn't Normandy (guest post by Dad)

The first time my grandfather said those words to me, I must have been about eight years old and had no idea what the heck he was talking about.

Normandy?

What? - a place where everybody was named Norman?  I didn't know.

Nor can I remember now what it was that was causing me to complain - okay, I was eight - whine. It must have seemed important, but then, at that age, everything is terrifically important, especially if it pokes at your young psyche in a negative way.

A couple of years later, I came to understand just what Normandy was all about. I studied the history of those horrifically lethal early morning hours of June 6, 1944, when a small stretch of Omaha Beach became the bloodiest piece of battlefield since Cannae.

And my grandfather's admonition came into sharp, clear perspective. He was right - I have never been subjected to the terrifying thump-thump-thump of a Krupp Arms 88mm that was aimed at me. I have never waded through pounding surf while strangers in bunkers on the clifftop above make every savage and desperate effort to end my life. I have never had to breath air that was more lead than air, while my friends and comrades are cut to pieces around me. I have never experienced the dark carnival of death.

No - whatever ailed me in those years of my youth - or anytime since - pales in comparison to that which far better men endured at Normandy.  My life has been, as they say, a piece of cake.

Nevertheless, every life's road has its share of bumps and potholes. Becoming an adult, or even an older adult like myself, does not negate the opportunities for life to disappoint and dismay, or even dispirit one's soul. The only thing that changes is the substance of the disappointments. And the quality, of course.

Lately, I have experienced a fairly long string of disappointments. I am a self-published author that has been recently, and accurately, described as obscure; only a few hundred people know of my work. The story I tell is an epic heroic fantasy, quite long. When finished it will contain more than 900,000 words, about 520,000 of which are now in print. It is one long book, told in five volumes. The problem for the reader is that none of the books are episodic; nothing is resolved at the end. The story is linear, so the ending of one book simply leads into the beginning of the next.

As a consequence, most readers of fantasy are reluctant to get involved, knowing they will have to wait for the next installment. And the wait between the first three, which are out, and books four and five has been unbearably long, not just for the readers who have taken an interest in my work, but for me as well.

It takes time and money to produce a book. For the past couple of years, my family has been rocked by one difficulty after another - difficulties that inevitably steal away time and money. But since family is of incomparable more value than a book, I have willingly set the book aside time after time, and gone to see to more important things.

I admit, however, that at times I have been disheartened and dismayed. Even dispirited.

Buck up, I tell myself, again and again and again. After all, like my grandfather said - it isn't Normandy.

No, it certainly isn't.

It's just a book.



Daniel Hylton is the author of the Kelven's Riddle fantasy series.

How I Found My Life (guest post by Dad)

Many, many moons ago when I was just a rotten teenager, I remember watching my dad trying to slick back his hair and comb his beard in preparation to pick up my mother from work. He examined the results in the mirror for a brief moment and asked me:

"Do I even remotely look good?"

I responded without thinking, "Yeah, sure - very remotely."

I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I meant to say, "Yes, very good", but I couldn't convince Dad of that. Still, he laughed good-naturedly, gave me a pat on the back for my home run sarcasm, and left to pick up his lovely lady.

But now, just look: these many years later when I am still rotten but no longer a teenager, it makes for an introduction of sorts to this tale of how he felt he was a dweeb's dweeb as a young man, but he still managed to meet my beautiful mother.



My mother always told me that I probably wouldn't marry before I turned thirty, I suppose because of the fact that I've always been disposed to deal with the exigencies of life in a  pragmatic manner rather than a romantic one.  In general, I was inclined to agree with her (I found teen-aged girls to be confusing, exasperating, and less interesting than a game of chess or even a good book).

In the summer after I turned eighteen, however, I found myself living alone.  My parents were traveling in the east with my younger sisters, my older brother was also in the east, at college, and my eldest brother had long since finished college, moved away and started his own life.  I intended to work for a year before going on to some sort of higher learning myself.  So – there I was, alone, working six days a week, maintaining a silent residence at night.

Now, I have always thrived on routine.  All that summer I went to work at seven every morning, got off precisely at six every evening, and twenty minutes later was seated in my car at the drive-in, ordering the same meal – hamburger w/ketchup, mustard, and pickles only, medium fries, and a chocolate shake.

One evening, I pulled in and parked as usual.  Before I could lean out the window and punch the buzzer to order, I found my meal being delivered.

The girl shrugged.  “The manager says you always get the same thing at the same time, so why make you wait?  Here it is.”

After she walked away, I looked down and considered my meal, and the thought came into my head uninvited.  I'm far too young to be in a rut like this – I think I want a wife.  Yes, that was it.  No lightning bolt, no shock, no rumble of thunder; just an abrupt urge to not be alone – and maybe get the chance to eat a home-cooked meal again.

So, every evening for the next week or so, I went to the library and read books on marriage.  And women.  Yes, I read books on sex, too.  I mean, you never know, I might actually find a wife and there were things I would need to know which, until now, I had been disinclined to learn.  My research taught me, among other things, that for a young man of my disposition to find contentment in the marital state, my ideal bride would be exactly seven inches shorter than me – in other words, I needed to find about five feet, five and one-half inches of woman.  After thinking about it, and as a purely personal preference, I also decided that I wanted her to be a stunning beauty.

Armed with knowledge, I set off on my bride-finding search.  First, I scoured churches, then hunted through shopping malls, drive-ins, department stores – any place where a young and unattached woman might work or frequent.  Despite the fact that many people, including myself, considered me to be a total dweeb, I had surprising good luck.  Across the course of that summer, I dated twenty-five or thirty different girls, aged sixteen-to-eighteen.

I discovered that all the girls that caught my fancy were invariably pretty, fair-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed.  I also discovered, usually after just a single date, that after catching my fancy, most of them did not hold it. In a couple of cases, I don't know why the girl didn't interest me for the long term; she just didn't.

So, inevitably, I moved on.  You see, I wasn't looking for a fun time, but rather for a serious relationship that would last a lifetime.  Ultimately, I set seventeen as an absolute minimum age (sixteen-year-olds would require too long a wait).  And I eventually had to widen the scope of my search to take in distant towns and cities.  As a result of my rapid movement through the available young women in my region, I soon acquired a reputation as a “wolf”.  Now, seriously, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who is less of a ladies man than Yours Truly.  Cary Grant, I am not.  Even Cary Grant's ugly cousin, I am not.

Summer turned into autumn, autumn became winter.  My nineteenth birthday approached.

The day came when my endeavors ground to a halt.  You see, I was born and raised in one of the least-populated regions of the nation, where the countryside is vast and towns and cities are few and widely spaced.  The distances eventually became too great, and there were mountain ranges or broad rivers between me and any new territory – as well as tons of snow.  I became despondent, for by now my quest had become an urgent thing.  I really wanted a wife.

At the time, I was working with another young man who, if anything – and sadly – was even dweebier than I was.  And he was just about the last person I thought would be on first name basis with any eligible – or pretty – girls.  But I was desperate.  We had been carpooling and it was his turn to drive.  As I exited the car after work one night in January, I turned back and looked at him.

“Carl,” I asked.  “Do you know any girls I could date?”

“Uh, yeah,” he replied diffidently.  “You know the Asher girls?”

I frowned at him.  “Asher?  Any relation to Jim and Art?”

“Yeah, their sisters.”

“They don't have sisters,” I protested.  “I know – I've been to their house a thousand times.”

Carl shrugged.  “Yes, they do – Karen and Stephie – younger sisters.”

Now this was interesting for two reasons, both of them connected to Jim, the eldest of the two Asher brothers.  Art and I had been friends, working together in the orchards the previous summer.  He was a year older than me and had gone into the Navy after graduation.  Jim, two years older than Art, had been in the Navy for three years now, but had left behind a local legacy.  While Art was known as a tough guy, Jim – well, Jim was a Greek god.  Tall, golden-haired, well-built, and handsome, he had broken every young female heart in the valley at one time or another.  To us younger guys, Jim was everyone's elder brother, but to the girls?  He was more than Cary Grant – he was Dash Riprock.  In fact, that's what we all called him.

His charm and irresistibility to females can be easily demonstrated by a single incident.

One day, a few years earlier, I had been working in an orchard beyond the outskirts of town.  My old car had refused to start and I was walking into town to get one of my older brothers, both of whom knew more about cars than I did, to take me back out and try and get the old beast going.  A mile or so from home, a car pulled up alongside and stopped.  It was Dash.  He leaned out the driver-side window, his broad, handsome face lit up with beautific smile.

“Hey, Danny – need a ride?”

I stared in disbelief.  “Are you kidding?”

I mean, besides Dash, there were 8-12 girls in that car, a '58 Chevy two-door sedan.  I couldn't get an accurate count, for there were arms, legs, and pony-tailed heads protruding from every one of the car's window.s.  The young ladies didn't seem to mind the crush of numerous rivals for the object of their affection, so long as they could be close to Dash.

I pointed at the front of the car and laughed.  “Should I ride on the hood?”

He glanced around.  “I'm sure we can get you in.”

“It's okay, Dash,” I said, shaking my head.  “It's not far now.”

He shot me that dazzling smile.  “Suit yourself, kid.  See you later.”

So, my thinking (remember the two things?) when Carl told me of the younger female Asher siblings went like this: If good looks like Jim's ran in the family, at least one of Dash Riprock's sisters was bound to be very pretty.  The second thing was that – as the girls were his sisters – I wouldn't have to be in competition with him, a contest I would lose on every level.

I looked at Carl.  “You know these girls?”

“Sure, I go to church with them.  I've been trying to date Karen for the longest time.  If you could ask out Stephie, Karen might agree to go along with me on a double date, 'cuz Stephie's too young to go out alone.”

“Wait – how young is she?”

He considered.  “Seventeen, I think, or pretty close, anyway.”

“That's okay, I guess.  When can we meet them?”

Carl brightened.  “I'll set it up.”

He did set it up, for the following Wednesday evening.  When he came by to pick me up, however, his mood was glum.  He looked over at me with downcast eyes.  “Your reputation tripped me up,” he stated accusingly.

“What do you mean?”

“You're something of a wolf, remember?  Well, Stephie's too scared to go out with you – so she wants to go out with me.  Anyway, Karen agreed to meet you and see what she thinks.”

“How old is Karen?”

“Eighteen, I think – I'm not sure.”

“You wanna forget the whole thing?”  I asked.

His eyes went wide.  “No – hell, no!  Any time I can get a girl to go out with me, I'm not passing that up – and neither should you.”

I shrugged.  “Alright – let's go meet 'em.”

I had never met Jim and Art's parents despite having been at that house several times in the past.  Mr. Asher turned out to be a handsome, suave, sophisticated, knowledgeable sort of gentleman that I liked right away.  Basically, he was just an older version of Jim.  Within minutes, we were talking politics, local affairs, even global affairs.  I could tell that he liked me well enough, too.  Mrs. Asher was a sweet, gentle soul, dark-haired, very pretty.

After a while, Stephie came down the stairs and into the room.  She was tall, slim, blonde, and pretty; obviously Jim's sister in every respect.  Strangely, though, she did nothing for me.

She glanced doubtfully over at me, and then made for the couch where Carl sat.  “Hi, Carl,”  she said brightly.

“Oh, well, hi,” he replied, blinking, trying to stand, failing utterly.  Evidently, dressed up and dolled up, she did plenty for him that heretofore he hadn't noticed.

Mr. Asher turned to his wife.  “See what's keeping Karen, will you, dear?”

Mrs. Asher went over and called up the stairs.  “Karen – your young man is here.”

A moment later, she descended the stairs, rounded the corner, and entered the room.

I don't remember standing.  I mean, I always stand in the presence of ladies – I had stood earlier when introduced to Mrs. Asher – but this time I was propelled upward as if by an unseen, unknown, very powerful force.

Never had my eyes beheld such stunning, absolute, exquisite beauty.  Top to toe, from the soft, dark hair that fell gently about her alabaster face, from her enormous, dark eyes, perfect nose and rose-petal mouth to her delicate hands and feet, she looked like God's finest, most perfect creation.

My bones abruptly assumed the consistency of over-cooked pasta.  My heart caught its breath and held it, and my brain froze.

“My daughter, Karen,” Mr. Asher said.

I tried to speak, but I doubt if it was a successful attempt.  My mouth seemed to be filled with an immovable wooden substance where my tongue should have been.

She tilted her head slightly, smiled and spoke.  “I'm pleased to meet you.”  Oh, what a marvelously sweet and pleasant voice!  When she spoke, it was like the sound rendered by the lilting breezes of Spring as they move softly through the branches of the willows along the gentle, sun-dappled waters of the stream.  Well, sure, I can wax poetic now.  At the time, I must have appeared the complete dolt, stupefied, unable to speak, or think, or even blink.

I do remember feeling utterly deflated.  She was so far out of my league that I might as well have been a Martian stranded on Venus.  For me to ask her out would be like asking the Princess not only to kiss the frog but to do so with the understanding that there was absolutely no chance he would ever turn into a Prince.

Finally, Mr. Asher tired of my mute immobility.  “So – are you kids going out Friday night?”

Astonishingly, Karen looked at me, smiled again, and said, “Sure.”

Are you kidding? I thought.  I mean, you must know what you look like – have you taken a really good look at me?

Well, we did go out.  She even sat close to me in the back of Carl's Thunderbird on the way over to Boise.  During the movie, the original Poseidon Adventure, there's a scene where a man unexpectedly falls to his death into burning oil.  Startled, Karen jumped and moved closer.  Instinctively, I slipped my arm around the back of her chair and found myself willing to sacrifice every single actor on the screen.  Let them die horribly, if it meant that this lovely creature would turn to me for solace.

Crossing the parking lot after the show, I drew in a deep breath, screwed up my courage, and reached down for her hand.  As her fingers intertwined with mine fire shot up the length of my arm and sent my heart racing.  Forty years on, it still hasn't slowed down.

Seven months later, to my utter amazement, she agreed to marry me.

Here she is today, as beautiful as ever, tilting her head slightly as she smiles at me and melts my heart.

 

 

Oh, yes, and by the way, she is exactly five feet, five and one-half inches tall.  Don't tell me research doesn't pay off.

Go to Paris...

I am very excited to inform my readers that today Dad's romantic and smashing post on Paris is featured at A lady in France. She read it and fell in love with it, and you will, too. Even if you have read it before, pop over to Lady Jennie's blog and read it again; it's worth it. Then look over all the excellent posts by Jennie herself. She's funny and down to earth and makes living in France sound like it's something any of us could obtain (if we happened to marry a French man/woman, found a company to work for that was willing to transfer us to their Paris office, or became a famous ex-pat writer like Hemingway). I have read A lady in France for a long time, and I promise that you will find lots to love, including French recipes that make it all look so attainable, even for cooks like myself.

So travel now to Paris, and then explore more of the sights and sounds of France through Lady Jennie's eyes. Plan on a pleasant journey - enjoy!

End of the line, end of my rope, end of the world as we've made it

I've started to take the road less traveled a couple days a week now, religiously. And I don't speak about the road in my mind; that was always a strange, meandering path that only I could ever fully be friends with, and I venture down it continually. No, I'm speaking about my now firm habit of driving to the end of the line, just like in that Traveling Wilburys song, only...not in a train.

The road less traveled begins after picking up my daughter from preschool. Her brother's asleep, and I've stopped fighting his habit of dropping out of the bustle just as we go to pick her up. Instead I've taken to ambushing friends to watch the car while I dash in to fetch my little girl. I tell her to be very, very quiet (we're hunting wabbits), and then I throw some snacks and coloring books her way over her sleeping brother's golden head, and we start out.

I have a minimum of 45 minutes to kill. I could park and read, but inevitably my little guy will wake up, and then I'll have to pitch my newspaper aside with all due haste at that first cry and hush and drive, hush and drive, hoping to heaven he falls asleep again. So I drive the whole time. I drive in a minivan with a poor engine, squeaky brakes and a bad turn radius down a promising road, hoping to reach its end and always hoping for a good result. If the road just happens to have a fetching view of my beautiful behemoth, South Mountain, it's a bonus.

South Mountain as viewed from the south

(Yes, I'd probably prefer being home writing during my mischievous toddler's naptime, but it's a no go. He no longer makes the peaceful trip from carseat to bed without turning into a little goblin of malcontent. And I can never do without that peaceful midday break.)

Sometimes I'm disappointed with where the road leads. It ends behind a shopping complex or in the private roadway of some manufacturing facility or it curves and merges with another thoroughfare. Once I was scared, because I took a lonely road west, and I had a fantastical feeling it was going to smack into the side of some sheer and intimidating mountains. Instead, the street merged onto a highway headed south into the emptiness of this desert where the Sonoran plants thin out and things get plain and ugly, and there were no stoplights anymore and no streets to turn around on, only a few fast, soulless vehicles going around my hesitant van. For the world, I couldn't comprehend where they were headed to clutch civilization's last straw. For my part I felt I was being swept away from all human warmth, from my family and my home, led astray out of Phoenix by a highway from which I couldn't escape. On that day, at last, I ended up turning aside onto an Indian reservation's private lane.

Sometimes, though, the buildings drop away, and it's not at all scary when the stoplights become less frequent. The saguaro rears its proud head, other cacti dot the brown earth and the desert scrub kisses the road. The pavement is lonely, and the road noise keeps my young one asleep. Best of best, I'm driving toward more mountains, and I just might reach their flanks before I have to pick up my eldest kids from school, or at least before my baby wakes up. As for my precious preschooler, I glance back her way in the rearview, wondering if she's satisfied with the silence, the books and the journey and whether the scenery captivates her at all.

I found the foothills of South Mountain on a naptime excursion. There the road ends; here the hiking trail begins - no wheels, just feet please.

I had hoped in such a way to approach the mountains behind South Mountain. They little resemble its friendly, expansive slopes. I don't know their names, but I look at them and think Sheer Rock; they rise with purpose from the earth's floor, peaks like arrow heads. Their color is different, less earth tone, more sky reflecting blue. To reach them I began on a fairly young highway which turned into a road with human construction on the north and nothing but desert to the south. Stands of trees with yellow blossoms lined the middle of the divided street, stark against the smoky grey of the mountains and the unusually overcast sky.

I drove west (it's my new east) until I saw an all too familiar reflective barricade with a sign that read The Road Ends and No Stopping. The mountains were still a long way distant, the end of this road several miles shy of my destination - wilderness.

Dad off the ground, way off the ground

On the turn around back to the highway, I contemplated  power lines, their tall towers far removed from the road and their poles adjacent to it. I recalled how my parents told me that on the day Mom went into labor with me, Dad was out seeking work, and he found it in building power lines across these Western United States. That was also the day he stopped shaving and began growing out his hair, because he worked "light to light" and was often exhausted with no inclination to maintain a smooth face or a cropped mane. I never see power lines against the vast open sky or silhouetted against mountains without thinking about my Dad hanging out way above the earth with a smile on his bearded face, about the stories he told of that dangerous work, some hilarious and some sad, and of the great friends who shared it with him. The names of those friends inhabit legend for us kids because of Dad's storytelling.

A drive to the end of the road is a perfect retreat for exploring the wilderness of such memories and reflections. So thank you, my little son...for the nap, the memories and another quiet drive to the end of a line.

Book 4 of my dreams

He comes from the west and arises in the east,

Tall and strong, fierce as a storm upon the plain.

He ascends the height to put his hand among the stars

And wield the sword of heaven.

Master of wolves, friend of horses,

He is a Prince of men and a walking flame

- Kelven's Riddle from Kelven's Riddle by Daniel Hylton

Daniel Hylton, my dad, is experiencing a problem with a certain plot thread in Book 4 of Kelven's Riddle, a fantasy tale of Aram, a slave thrown into extraordinary circumstances when he bucks his lowly existence. The book will be delayed a few weeks perhaps, and though I can't help but understand, I also can't help but be disappointed. I've been waiting for some time now to put my life on hold, to sit like a slob in the recliner with a scone flaking and a cup of cocoa dripping on my pjs, to shout at my kids to give me a break so I can read, and truly just read, for the first time in months.

Somehow when it's Dad's book I don't feel the guilt of letting the house become a den of disorder, of letting the kids amuse themselves, of telling my husband it's frozen nuggets and canned beans for dinner - again. After all, though I may be enjoying myself, I'm also responsible for giving Dad my opinion after I read that last page of the manuscript.

But, well, why wait this time? Why wait to give him my opinion until I have that long-looked-for Book 4 in my hands? I say this with all due respect to the author and the father; I have my expectations for this story, for these characters. So, while I wait for the first 60,000 or so words to reach me by mail, I'm going to make my hopes for this tale's characters known, and here I go:

The Astra (or Guardians of the Call of Kelven)  - These incredible beings were barely palpable in Book 3. Not once did they come to Aram's aid; they did not even defend Aram when he faced the beast in the Lost, and he and several others were in real danger of being butchered for a meal. Why were the Guardians silent? Granted, Book 3 is essentially about exploration and the aggrandizement of Aram's armies, but Aram was threatened several times, and the Guardians were a no show.

     These mysterious and strangely beautiful beings so fascinate me that I really, really don't want to spend Book 4 without them, though I will if I have to. The exchange that happens between them and Ferros, a god, at the end of Book 1 and then especially that which occurs with Aram at the end of Book 2 both blew me away. The Astra are obviously more powerful than anyone we've yet seen. Bring back the Astra! I want to know they're at Aram's side waging war. It'd be great if I could hear them speak again, too.

The Lashers - flat-eyed monsters with horns curved forward over their faces toward those they mean to kill. When Aram finally learned how to annihilate them with Thaniel's help, I almost felt bad about it, because I found them immediately interesting when they showed up in Aram's village. They're a mash-up of species, an experiment born of human mothers. Perhaps there is something better for them if Manon, god of mankind, can be destroyed. Regardless, I've always found them compelling, evil or not - even the way they look sparks imagination. I see them clearly. I'd like to know more of their history and their future.

Aram - I feel I am Aram when I read the books, very strange I guess considering I'm a woman and Aram is a man. But because I feel I'm at least walking by his side, I don't think of him as being eligible to be my favorite character. Someone on Goodreads lauded him, however, as one of the best components of the book (well, one would hope so for the main character) - fierce yet humble, a warrior yet compassionate - something like that.
    Aram really isn't a muddy character like those often popular now. He makes mistakes; he has a bad temper, but he is good and working toward the good. At first all his effort is only for his own freedom, then to restore the right order to the world, and finally because he loves Ka'en. Unfortunately I feel he has a long, sad road ahead of him, and in Book 4 I want a clue about how the hell he's going to use that unusual sword he gained to destroy Manon. It wouldn't be so bad if he and Manon came truly face to face at last...well, actually - it might.

Thaniel of the horses - Thaniel, my Thaniel. I love Thaniel, and I would find it hard to say exactly why. He becomes extremely loyal to Aram after their shaky start. They are brothers in war. Thaniel is reticent by nature, but he gives council to and is open with Aram. At the end of Book 2, he needs to remain by Aram's side even in the most dire conditions and even when he is told to abandon the situation, and we understand the depth of his commitment when he finally obeys orders.

     For Thaniel, I want life, because I love this character, but I do wonder what Thaniel can become when all the war is done. To me he is a tragic figure. This is mostly do to his personality and what I feel he is willing to do for Aram's sake. It is very hard to imagine what Thaniel can be without the strife and risk of bloodshed in battle. The idea of it is somewhat reminiscent of Frodo after the ring is destroyed, though Thaniel is more imposing than a hobbit. Perhaps my dad has an extraordinary place for Thaniel reserved at the end of it all. Perhaps he'll be a family man (or horse). Anyway, his loss at any moment in the tale would break my heart, but tragedy feels inevitable to some extent.

Ferros - Ferros is as mercurial as one would expect a god over the engines of the world to be. What I want from Ferros is simple: I want him to keep the promise he made to Aram. Technically, he already kept it when Aram discovered the fellring and dragon's egg in the cave, but I want it kept in real crisis and at Aram's demand, if you will.

The Laish (or dragons) - Well, I just hope they'll be as schizophrenic and strange as they were in Book 3, and though it has already been (the evidence in ruined ships near Seneca, Book 3) and would be disastrous, I want to see what they can unleash when provoked. I feel sure they're about to be provoked.

Marcus of Elam - I just want him to stick it to his SOB Uncle Ram. Ram seems to believe that selling poor men's daughters into a vile slavery is for the good of Elam, a wealthy city, and definitely for his own. Marcus is honorable, and his uncle wants him dead. I have a feeling Marcus will bring Elam back into the light, join Aram's forces after some contention, and the uncle will be dead. I hope I'm right.

Borlus the Bear - Okay, I have no illusions here. I know Borlus was always truly a minor character, but I want him to have an impact for the good. Honestly, any way that Dad finds to use him in Aram's campaign against Manon will surprise.

Kelven - If Kelven can rise above his bitterness and do something grand, it'll be pleasing. He seems so mired in the realization of what he gave up (and for little) that effective help for Aram seems iffy. My dad meant for Kelven to be a disappointment in Book 2, surprising in his rancor and detachment from hope, and Dad succeeded.


There are many more hopes I have for Kelven's Riddle and its characters - Joktan, Ka'en, Alvern - but rather than writing them, I'd prefer to be reading Book 4 and 5 to see if my wishes for the story are valid or not. Order the first three installments on Kindle (or traditional paperback if you're like me) and anticipate Book 4 with me. Dad has promised it will be out this spring despite the small delay. Until then, I am reading his short story based on Bram Stoker's Dracula at  The View From The Woods . It's a good anecdote to the current glorification of vampires in fiction and television, back to the original monstrous tale.