Childhood friends

Being an adopted person, I am always interested in those reunion stories where after many years of wondering and puzzling over the issues of adoption there is a coming together and I have had one myself. I know both my maternal and paternal origins. I have actually written a book, well a manuscript, about the journey and hope someday to go back through it enough editorially to get someone interested in it. Anyway, I just saw a story about how Facebook caused the reunion of a family after they had gone through various ways to try to find one another. Facebook has created some reunions for me as well and strangely enough I have been reunited with not one, not two, not three, but four of my boyhood friends named MIKE. The reunion with one particular Mike is the focus of this blog, but more than that, it is about going back in time and remembering those building blocks and people that contributed unknowingly to what one would eventually become. The point of my blog is to encourage you to think about reconnecting with someone that you are not sure how you disconnected with in the first place. Sometimes friends are for a moment in our lives and sometimes they are for the duration. Sometimes they are both.

I have always been accused of being the nostalgic one in my family. I'm not ashamed of it. I use it to write, so there... it is handy. This blog is a bit nostalgic.

Do you have someone in the past who periodically comes up because of a memory, a dream, a scent of simply just pops into your mind now and again and you wonder what they may be doing, why you lost touch or why at 3:00 A.M. are you thinking of something so long ago, so seemingly irrelevant to today's business? (Or do you simply wonder if I might have made that last sentence just a bit longer?) Just such a person over time popped in and out of my consciousness for no apparent reason. (I cannot believe I spelled consciousness right the first try!) A person who owns "real estate" in the deep inner reaches of my brain.

When I was a boy I developed a wonderful relationship with another kid in my sixth grade class. My most vivid memory of my early school days was on the very last day of sixth grade when Mike and I walked from our school to his house. It was a very hot day and Mike and I couldn't have been more excited to be out of school! We stopped at this wide ditch near Mike's house to wade and cool off in the shade of a giant cottonwood tree as the chocolate milk colored water flowed through our sleepy little college town. I remember pulling my shoes and socks off and hurling them down into the water as a way of saying, SUMMER is here! Let it begin! The time of being a little kid is over! It was my personal right of passage from school to summer, but more importantly it was a letting go of childhood and from elementary school to enter the big world of Junior High, the BIG TIME! I also remember wading in that ditch later when mom came to pick me up and demanded that I fetch my shoes from the deep. I just don't remember if I ever found them... Some things you just block out.

One of the things I liked and remember most about Mike is that when I got him laughing, which I did a lot, he smiled with his entire face. His eyes turned up as much as his mouth when he smiled and laughed. I've always enjoyed seeing someone's entire face get involved when I am being Mr. Funnyguy! Mike and I rode the ski bus together every weekend and cruised the slopes until the very last possible run every time and then we would tuck and cruise all the way past the lodge and down into the parking lot where inevitably we were the last to load our skiis under the bus and head for home.

When the weather was good we rode our bikes everywhere. We were "best friends", we had each other's backs. We were two mismatched peas in a pod and mostly we both had really cool long hippie hair that flowed behind us as we tooled with summer abandon through the town and country. We spent almost every day together that summer, meeting at one another's house to go on another fun adventure and share another carefree hot summer day.

I remember thinking Mike was one of the coolest dudes I had ever met. Mike was a gentle giant of a kid. He was easily my size and then again half. He had a sweet and gentle nature, yet he was tough, played football and wrestled with the best of them. He was my favorite bike and ski buddy and the dude could carry on a good conversation and challenge me in some of the grossest eating contests. I remember once he came to my house and we endeavored to try EVERYTHING in the kitchen. We did fine until we hit mom's spice rack and the dog food bag.

We had many sleepovers and mom let us stay up late into the night watching Creature Features then we'd sleep out in my backyard tent and gaze up at the stars and talk about aliens, girls (sometimes those conversations seemed identical back they) and wondered where life would take us. I thought then that Mike and I would be best friends for life. I simply couldn't imagine a better friend anywhere or anyone! At the heart of it, I always respected and liked Mike a lot. I always cherished that summer we had after sixth grade when Mike and Eddie and I would move like a herd from one to another's house and got into a little mischief together. Mostly it was my first band of brothers outside of my small country neighborhood and they meant the world to me.

Then we went to different Junior Highs and by the time we ended up in the same High School we were sadly kind of strangers. I would see Mike in the hall and we always nodded and acknowledged the bond we once had, but peers, circumstances and changing interests took us in different directions.

In my series (Go Ask Mom) Gabe, my protagonist has a very best friend named Andy. I have been asked if I ever had such a friend. Andy is a very cool kid. Andy in many ways embodies the Mike I knew when I was Gabe's age. So there you have it. Authors take what they know and knew and sometimes unknowingly import that into people and places that inhabit the world of fiction, at least this one does.

Now, many, many years after that sixth to seventh grade summer I am pleased that Facebook brought Mike back into my life because of the preparation for our high school reunion. Over the year or so that I have had a Facebook account Mike has sent me some very thoughtful messages, especially when my Dad died. His mom is a friend of mine on Facebook as well as his sisters. For years I wondered about them and what they were all doing and I am so pleased at how wonderfully life has turned out for a family that once accepted me as just another one of the kids underfoot.

The first time Mike and I talked prior to the reunion for about an hour on the phone he told me that his mom saw me on a national television show years ago promoting my first book. I think he said she was "proud that weird kid you used to hang around with turned out so well... WHEW!" Actually some of the nicest comment I have received on Facebook have been from Mike's mom, congratulating me on my career and family ( I think she is a bit surprised, ha ha). The world is so small.

Mike and I still share the passion we once had for biking, but now we both mountain bike. Perhaps some day Mike and I will bike together again. Though from the looks of his blog, I might not be able to keep up with him anymore (his blog is mostly about his mountain bike team, the races he competes in and some other pretty groovy stuff).

At the end of it all, it is friends and family that make this a richer world to travel through. I will always be glad about the place my friend Mike holds in my memories and thank him for being such a great friend back in the day when I really, really needed a buddy I could hang with and depend on. Mike was one of my mom's very favorites of my friends and my mom had very good taste!

If you had a friend like this that you have wondered about over the years, reach out and find them. It really is pretty easy now with this wonderful world of web. If you find a person of great character and when they laugh you basically still hear that kid you hung out with, you will be a richer person for it! And if you don't and there is no happily ever after, at least your curiosity will be sated. Thanks Mike for being my buddy back in the day and now! By the way Dude, you STILL smile with your entire face!

What a difference ONE DAY makes!

I am waiting for something big. Over the past few weeks I have had some MAJOR disappointments and rejections (agent, book related stuff). Everyone goes through this in some form or fashion in life. Sometimes it is hard to wait, to learn, to grow and sometimes simply accept...

My Dad used to remind me when I was a kid that "one day can make all the difference." He would also say; "tomorrow's another day" when the day we were in was at a close and wasn't the best.

The iris is a lot like the caterpillar. It doesn't really look like much until it spreads its "wings" and takes flight. So along that line my manuscripts don't look like much, just paper and words, until they take flight in the mind of a reader... I just need those manuscripts to transform into books... oh the waiting, the waiting...

The bud all wrapped up out there has all the potential to become the flower, you just have to wait until it's ready. Did Dad say that? No, I did.

DAD

This year, this time of year is particularly bittersweet for me. I have grown used to not talking to Dad every Saturday morning since he died last fall, but I haven't and likely never will grow used to not sharing the wonders of our world with him.
My Dad's favorite day was the day of Winter equinox, because it meant the days would grow longer and the sun would burn brighter. His mood lifted on December 21 and joy, as it was interpreted by him, would begin to creep back in and melt the ice around his heart (truth is he got pretty grumpy on cold, dreary, cloudy winter days) the way the sun begins to do on permafrost and regular above ground frost.

I have always LOVED spring the most of all of the seasons. It is something I learned from Dad. He loved Spring so much. He loved to talk about the emerging garden, the animals awakening, the new babies in his barnyard, the poems and stories written in tribute to spring. He would sometimes just launch into a poem he had long before had committed to memory. No matter what he was, he was always the English teacher with a PhD and depth of understanding about language which he loved as much as his simple iris.

My flower gardens are sprinkled with Dad's Iris. That man could grow iris like no one I have ever seen. His house was on a busy corner in my hometown and was surrounded by gardens and in those gardens literally thousands of iris blooming at once at the onset of Spring, scenting the air and bringing a cornucopia of color to the world that passed by.

Often when Dad was weeding or tending someone would just stop to compliment his artistry. He would lean on his spade, share a class or ice water and on a few occasions a shared ice cold beer and soak in the praise, then promising the admirers that on a weekend coming soon, they could come and get some of the iris for their own yards. Cars pulled over daily when the iris were in bloom to take lover's photographs amongst the tall beauty he cultivated and more than once photographers came with tripods and cameras to tour his gardens.

Once a high school senior had her photos taken in his lovely front border garden (he was so proud of that). He would tell me in detail, usually several times the specific quotes he heard about how his handiwork brightened what according to the woman would have been an otherwise fairly bleak day (for her, he cut some of the beauty to take with her, my Dad was often a very thoughtful man).

When the iris flowers were spent and needed to be separated he would set the rhizomes out along the sidewalk with labels of what color the lucky recipient would be receiving. Within hours every iris start was gone. Often people would ask my Dad if they could pay him but he always refused, just reveling in the idea that he had spread something beautiful that day. My favorite thank you story, one he told me during one of our Saturday morning talks, was about an anonymous someone who had come and gotten some of dad's iris and in the place in the garden that held a rare empty spot had left a six pack of premium, expensive signature brewed beer and a note thanking him.

Dad shared his art this way every Spring season and I know this Spring people are saddened that Dad's once rich and beautiful border garden is no longer. Some people when they buy a house, don't understand the treasure that is just under the soil and cover it over with rocks to park on (though this crafty son saw it coming and when the house was selling went up and helped myself to a pick-up truck load of Dad's rhizomes which are now in various gardens in my neck of the woods). But it sure makes it easier to drive by his old house not to see the gardens that only Dad could tend the way he did.

The beauty is that now Dad's iris are in border gardens all over my old, beloved hometown and beyond. My personal gardens are beautified by them and they are just now beginning to bloom. Perhaps someday in the not too distant future I will set some rhizomes out on my curb with a note to denote the color and Dad's legacy will spread just that much further.
Now Dad is gone. The flowering spring trees and my tiny plants pushing there way up through the sleepy winter-kissed soil in my vegetable garden are reminders of dad's passion for soil. He gave me the gift of loving the earth and toiling in it through the seasons. I miss my Dad!

my son enters the blog world

My son doodles all the time. His art and music are just an extension of his personality like everyone's right? I encouraged him to share his sense of humor with the world and he is now posting, scanning and sharing.


For those of you who have enjoyed my book The Tails Tales of Mr. Murphy, it is this son who illustrated it. You will recognized some similar styles in some of his work.



Please follow his blog, you won't be sorry...


http://radicaltheblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/why.html?showComment=1274287864439_AIe9_BHA15J4URZNZ5TeUYf5oZQ4DxP2SFdTdPPYVAH3pIiJA6NMp3hzODoAQtS6K6XiR6OyUtxZoLFjl-NFtXnmyER7x9hVKwz6zl0MwTfFpzmT81gTjdHIY7PbdNlQVqZqqYlzAN9tybTitw-ae4OWnW1xtTHWLnFbyLsoSBdzj2XesF_LCBflDs_cRTf76ob6w0UrjfhkMP7qtia3zsKiLLm9YDo79w#c5203045298662493415

WHAT PART OF SQUIRREL DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND????

A facebook friend of mine asked me if I would repost this post this entry. She told me of all the things I have written (does that include my books?) that this is by far her favorite and should somehow become a book.

What do you think?

As my trees are so heavy laden with blossoms and I envision a HUGE BUMPER CROP of peaches and apples this year, as long as the squirrels don't interfere, I am wondering if I should again set the trap out there???

The post below was originally put up last summer. The reason I have reprised it is that it has happened again... Who knew raccoons would fight squirrels for a cinnabon? For you, my readers, there is one thing I want to make totally clear; I LOVE ANIMALS and the reason I am trapping is to give them opportunity for a better life (there is an awesome field nearby where the cottonwood trees shade my favorite running path and a creek burbles noisily into a pond all summer long. Food is ample and the opportunity to meet the opposite sex is much better! The digs there are much more squirrel friendly than my back yard. So I carefully move them from my yard to what to a squirrel has to be heaven on earth in my wife's SUV, much to her dismay...

"Why don't you ever use your own for this?"
"Well, your SUV is wider and it is easier to move the trap in and out..."
EYE ROLL, SHOULDER SHRUG, DISMISSIVE LOOK (come on, you know the one my matrimonially embarked friends)

My new neighbors have a BIG, new dog who loves to torment the critters in our adjoining yards (and stomp all over my newly planted seedlings, perhaps I need a bigger trap?) So the mother squirrel (a leftover from last year) protects her next by jumping from tree to tree, chattering angrily and tossing pine cones at his head. He is so enamoured with her that he sticks around, usually long enough to ahem... relieve himself. Did I mention he is a BIG dog? Further reason to simply get the critters that draw him to our yard out of here!

My own Italian Greyhound cannot stand to have the squirrels in our backyard and of course the mother squirrel has built her nest in the pine tree right off of my dog's favorite window so there is no doubt she is moving about back there. I work at home and my dog DRIVES ME CRAZY RUNNING FROM WINDOW TO WINDOW when they move about in the yard. But the BIGGEST reason I simply must move them is my "peach orchard" which is bound to have a bountiful harvest this year (still eating peach smoothies from the peaches I froze last summer). The squirrels have a very annoying habit. I actually wouldn't mind sharing a peach or two with them, we have plenty, but what they do is climb the tree take a bite, toss it down to the lawn, take another bite, toss it down to the lawn. Who wants to eat a peach a squirrel slobbered on?

I think now that I am up to 10 peach trees in my suburban neighborhood, I can call it an orchard, so there must be squirrel memos that go out "PARTY AT THE MATOTT'S! Peaches, all you can eat! Come on by for the open house!"

By the way, I got a postcard from "RICKY", the dude pictured above. He recently honeymooned in Cabo and is looking forward to getting back to the "awesome place I left him" last summer. He will be happy to know he is to be joined by another relocated raccoon today!

We had a bear within a mile of our house yesterday. I wonder if he/she knew about the grill (mentioned within this blog) and was coming back for more. If there are going to be bears in the hood this summer, I better get a bigger trap for sure!

Though I didn't get comments on this posting last year, I got numerous emails about it, all positive. I hope you enjoy it and LET THIS YEAR'S TRAP TALLY BEGIN!


If you read my earlier blog about catch and release you might not recognize this little guy as the subject I was hoping to catch and release and neither did I. This dude or dudette was apparently hanging out in my backyard, unbeknownst to me likely feeding off my compost pile and decided that he or she would rather enjoy the wonderful toast and peanut butter spread I had left for one of the three million squirrels already taking the peaches off our trees.

I awakened one morning last week earlier than the sun and from my office window, looking out over my back yard, I could tell that the trap had closed during the night. It looked like something larger than a squirrel was in there, but it was too dark to tell. I had visions of SUPER SQUIRREL, a strange thirty pound Guinness World record holder being held captive in my backyard. As the sun came up it became apparent to me that I had likely caught one of my neighbor's cats and not Super Squirrel. I was trying to write a chapter for one of my upcoming chapter books but my curiosity kept my mind wandering. Then when I walked out into the garden realizing simply by the sound coming from the area where the trap was that this was no cat and this was no squirrel. No, this was a hissing, angry raccoon who simply wanted a little PBJ and then was hoping to be on his way... but got caught my amateur trapper-bonehead yours truly.

Having loved where the red fern grows and being permanently scarred by what a raccoon will and can do to a dog or anyone else it decides to have a beef with and having heard stories about how vicious these critters can be when trapped I decided I needed help before I did anything about this predicament. I went to the most reliable source I could find to determine what to do... google.com. As I perused the page, it first said: "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE SHOULD YOU TRAP YOUR OWN RACCOON, HIRE A PROFESSIONAL AND DON'T BE A CHEAPSKATE!" Okay, I wasn't being cheap, I didn't intend to trap this dude. Then the warnings about the likely outcome of letting this angry dude go scared me even more. The website actually tried to tell me the preferred method of relocation would be to heaven. I am NOT going to harm an animal that simply wants to eat a free PBJ and live freely, but that I don't want simply living in my backyard, eating my garden's bounty and my orchard. SO... as I read on, the website chided me further about being a cheapskate (it must have been posted by someone who makes his or her living relocating animals and doesn't like the novice trapper-releaser-relocator) and told me if I insisted on doing this myself I should arm my self well and wish for the best.

After sufficiently feeling belittled and a bit frightened, I headed out into the already 80 degree morning wearing heavy boots and socks, jeans, a flannel shirt, heavy leather work gloves and a bandana tied around my face (to ward off the websites warnings of distemper, plague and many other possibilities if this dude simply coughs in my SUV as I am relocating which can relocate me to heaven). As I lifted the crate, he or she lunged at me, hissing and making sure I understood that once released, he or she was aiming for my carotid artery and I just might be spending my last summer moments on earth.

I carried the cage with a wildly gyrating and noisy raccoon as outstretched from my body as possible and set it gently into the back of my SUV. Did I mention the website also mentioned that it was illegal in most states to relocate a raccoon? SO, here I was setting off to commit a possible felony with a very angry, plague ridden animal in the back of my SUV. I had all the windows down and the back door open so air could flow backwards and keep his plaguey breath away from me. I intended to do only California stops (a potential misdemeanor) so the air couldn't double back and descend upon me in the way plague tends to do, at least in my overactive imagination. I headed to a wonderfully wooded area, near an elementary school where I imagined my angry buddy living the good life and actually appreciating my thoughtfulness. Perhaps he might even send me a Christmas card with a picture of his new wife and family, all thanks to my kind desire to simply relocate him to a place better suited for wildlife.

As I eased my way down in to the elementary school parking lot and readied myself for what was to possibly be the last moments of my life as I knew it, I noticed another car descending into the parking lot too, the difference between that car and mine was that it had sirens and the words SHERIFF on the doors as well as a burly man in a uniform with a "don't mess with me" look on his face. Here I was on an early-getting hotter by the moment-morning, in the outfit I mentioned previously and the bandana now tucked up into my hat to protect not only my airways, but to pull up over my eyes in case this particular varmint preferred eye gouging to simply chewing of skin and arteries. The sheriff pulled around the parking lot and nodded at me like this was something he saw every day. I nodded back and he looked at me like the next move was mine.

SO I waited a sufficient amount of time since our last eye-lock and started my engine slowly easing my way out of the parking lot, having pulled the bandana down as though just a neck decoration and holding my breath for somewhere around ten minutes, he pulled up and stopped near the exit to the parking lot and as I glided past him, back doors of the SUV open, a chattering, banging raccoon giving my stereo a run for its money, I gave him the "guy nod" and started into a neighborhood, where I figured at the next vacant stop sign I would gift these people's pesky squirrels with a little buddy to play with. It seemed like every four way stop sign had four way busyness to keep me from exporting my little friend so I drove on for what seemed like hours, sticking my head out the window every time I inhaled through my bandana, taking huge gulps of fresh, non plague or distemper tainted air.

Finally I came to a HUGE open space with a running stream, lots of tall trees and what seemed like the perfect place to let this dude out. Did I mention that during this entire episode, the little guy was banging, bending and screaming at ever increasing in volume intervals? I pulled over, checked my mirrors and backed into a little dirt drive. I went to the back, pulled the cage out, while holding the clawed garden hoe that was to be my defense against the raccoon's attack. He was hissing, jumping, banging and screaming at me. I got into the back of my SUV and pulled the door as closed as I could in this awkward position, sticking the hoe out through the few inches of open door and imagined him running around the side of the vehicle and leaping into one of the open windows, thus trapping me inside for my flesh tearing session. I grabbed the catch that holds the trap shut with the hoe from inside the SUV and pulled back, it went up about three inches and then crashed down loudly clanging further enraging the possibly rabid raccoon, who must have thought I was just toying with him.

Thoughts of bullfighters and viciously angry bulls came to mind and how a trapped bull will turn on the matador and then gore him, throwing him ten feet into the air. Suddenly it seemed that this large cat-sized raccoon could do just that. I pulled with all my might holding the cage door open and he just sat there. I waited for what seemed like an hour, my arms falling asleep, my heart beating so loud he must have heard it, reminding me of the things I had heard about animals sensing fear and capitalizing on it by tearing their captors in two.

Then I did what anyone would do that wanted the raccoon to be calm when he finally emerged from the trap, I began screaming at the top of my lungs, "GO YOU BIG DUMMY, MOVE! GET OUT OF THERE!" Suddenly, he sprang into action, he began to scurry out of the trap like a bat out of H-E-Double-Toothpicks! A sense of relief overtook me as he emerged and ran the opposite way of my SUV. Then just as I thought this little mistaken episode was over, he stopped and turned, his yellow fangs glinting in the sunlight and looked right into my eyes, which were just slits behind the bandana. Did I mention I was drenched in sweat from the heat, now approaching 110 degrees in the SUV covered by more clammy sweat from sheer ice cold fear?

He looked at me with intent. Suddenly I saw his little masked face and couldn't help but think that he was awful darn cute. He nodded up and down as though to say "Hey thanks a lot dude, this place is SWEET!"

He jumped down the little concrete curb and scurried off into the tall grass, his funny little body bumping up and down heading across the field headed right for the tall cottonwood trees I had intended for him to find. I pulled the bandana off my face and jumped out of the SUV and shouted HAVE FUN DUDE! Then I stripped off the flannel shirt, pulled off my boots and socks and headed for home (driving barefoot is at least a misdemeanor).

That night I had about three hundred dreams that the raccoon was on my front porch, back porch, garage, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and pretty much everywhere else I frequented including my regular Starbucks! Believe it or not, he was behind the counter waiting in cahoots with my regular barista to size up my tip and attitude deciding if it was going to be the carotid or the face that got attacked first.

Several days passed and no signs of him returning, but alas, I thought, another squirrel was in there that I would have to find a new home for (this is getting old) No, not a squirrel, I awakened to something strange in the cage. Sitting there staring at me in my office was a huge black bird, trapped by my peanut butter treat. That relocation was the easiest; I opened the cage, the bird flew away and all I lost in the deal was some bread. Come to find out, it didn't like the peanut butter after all.

SO, the current backyard count is 4 squirrels, 1 raccoon and 1 bird all happily living elsewhere. My next door neighbor, amused at my early morning Daniel Boone forays, said something yesterday that terrified me, "What are you going to do if you catch a skunk?"

Do skunks like peanut butter? Back to google, I'll let you know. Oh and by the way, after further research I have found out that I wasn't breaking any laws, Colorado is one state where you can, by law, relocate a racoon, but not a fox? And that thing about driving barefoot. I don't know if that is urban legend or if you really have to have shoes on to drive a car.

Did I mention that a few years back a black bear disassembled my backyard grill partially? Then she left her footprints in my next door neighbor's kid's sandbox. How did I know she was a she? She was on the news. She had fallen asleep in a tree a few miles away. Perhaps the heavy grease from the drippings in my grill made her tired. I just hope her babies don't like peanut butter.

Some great comments from friends at Flynn!

There are many choices for schools when it comes to authors, illustrators and presenters. I have really enjoyed the visits I have done over the past years to hundreds and hundreds of schools. I thought it was time to share impressions others have of my visits.

There are two reasons I am not getting my chapters finished...

SPRING HAS SPRUNG! It is my favorite season as it is many peoples. Colorado in springtime is just a cul de sac from Heaven!

The robins are busily tending to their young hatchlings. The other birds are singing merrily in all of my trees. The bees are gathering pollen from the wonderfully flowered out fruit trees and lilacs. The sun is shining and warming the earth. The dandelions are popping up in assorted polka dots across my otherwise beautifully greening lawn. The mountains to the west, just outside my office window are snow-capped and beautiful and the air is perfumed with the essence of new life!

Ahhh... it is perfect... almost, with the exception of my new adult onset allergies... mating, noisy, destructive woodpeckers who have an affinity for the wood around my chimneys, Mama raccoon foraging in my yard (I compost) for goodies, and the doggone squirrels who seem to love to ravage my vegetable garden, steal the bird seed in the feeders, make weird screeching sounds in the trees just outside my bedroom, run and play noisily on the warm roof tiles and DRIVE MY DOG ABSOLUTELY CRAZY!!!

My dog, Tootsie aka Batman, is going nuts again! Some of you who have followed my blog in the past have read about my squirrel situation. I have many, many peach, apple, ash, fir, pine, crabapple, aspen and other assorted trees in my yard which is a lovely playground for pesky varmints like these two. In the past I have had a pretty good relocation plan for them, moving them to nicer habitats where they can run free and not worry about my dog constantly running from door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window, well you get the idea. Tootsie aka Batman is already high strung because of her Italian Greyhound background. My Italian friends talk with their hands, Tootsie talks with her entire being. Squirrels are her nemesis. Just the mention of the word SQUIRREL (dog gone it, just typing it made her spring off the couch in my office and run from door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window door to window to door to window to door to window to door to window, well you get the idea. It's funny, even the word girl or any other word that rhymes somewhat with squirrel, there she goes again, will make her spring to attention, stick both ears straight in the air and ruffle her spine "fur". After talking to others who have relocated the squirrels like me, I have found now that it is true. If you move them, others will come to take his or her place. SO, what are Tootsie and I going to do to make peace here? SUGGESTIONS?

Other than her manic behavior about those furry, brown creatures in the yard, Tootsie is a good girl, NO! NO! BATMAN, I SAID GIRL!

The New Frontier... Author + School visits = School Fun

When I was a schoolboy, like every other schoolboy and girl, I was subject to numerous assemblies. We would all line up, (in kindergarten holding hands with a girl and then in sixth grade wishing we still held hands with the girls) and with "our best behavior" we would find our way down to the gym, where someone would either entertain and educate or frankly they wouldn't. The truth is, most of those assemblies I saw were boring and forgettable, but two of them stand out in my mind to this day and in their own ways those assemblies formed, shaped and changed a part of my direction and path. One was actually an author who was funny and made me want to read (soon after I began my first chapter book series with excitement and have never stopped reading them) and the other a group of prisoners who came and told us their personal and raw stories of what drugs did to lead them each down the wrong path. I remember one man, who looked a bit like my dad catching my attention because of the likeness (envisioning perhaps what my dad, an accomplished English Professor might have been if he had chosen this man's direction) and then holding my attention with his stories of horror and sadness and lost potential. That was in sixth grade and the next year as I entered the "scary world" of Junior High I was given several opportunities to partake in illegal substances and because of that assembly alone I refused. I have been to hundreds and hundreds of schools sharing my stories and whenever I prepare to visit a school, as I pull up into the parking lot I remember those two assemblies that made a difference and an impact on me and I set my mind on one goal for that day; LEAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT AND GOOD BEHIND!

In my quest to spread encouragement, fun and lots and lots of stories I have begun to ask teachers to video her or his impressions of what I do for other educators to evaluate, who might be considering a visit from me. After all, it is what THEY think about my impact that matters. With two main goals in mind presently (anti bullying story and getting those hard to reach non readers to read) I am planning a coast to coast reader-writer-nomorebullies-thon by doing school visits). My books Go Ask Mom and the sequels are my tools to make the stories last and to further the impression.

This past week I had an AWESOME time in a school in Colorado Springs called Frontier Elementary School. I spent the day with the K-5 storytelling and doing creative writing workshops with them. Then I stayed for their evening event with other artists, parents, kiddoes and told more stories, trying to encourage the parents to share their own life stories with there children. It was a fun day and we agreed that I WILL BE BACK! These video clips and photos chronicle one of my favorite school days!

The two women in the videos in front of the "tree" are lovely, gracious, hospitable fourth grade teachers who made me feel very welcome while visiting Frontier.

Then I asked the Principal and Vice Principal if they would lend their voices and they did! Great people all of them!

The Gabriel World Book of Records, coming this summer!

Justin Matott has teamed up with David Schiedt again (previously collaborated on Drinking Fountain Joe) http://busteryork.com for the third book in the Go Ask Mom series! With a new vision for design and illustration, it seems Gabriel had taken the reins here and through Mr. Schiedt is drawing us in to the new book. There will be 6 books ...in the series and a comic book series as well, based on Glenn The Sea Monkey, who makes his first appearance in the third book titled The Gabriel World Book of Records - Stories from the tree house. If you haven't read the first two, it will make for great summer reading as a family or for those young uns.

The books will and are available on line at www.justinmatott.com

My son and his buddies in their new video: If guys were like girls...

My son is a broadcast journalism major at CU and spends a lot of his time in front and behind the camera. His friends first put together this video to assist Freshmen in learning the wonders of the ladies... The video is entertaining and well produced. (My son, Ethan, is the one who first introduces the video from under his SUV and then later in a plaid shirt.) Please forward the youtube to your friends on both of these videos. The race is on. Who will get on Ellen first, me or them?

How to get girls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2paLkR6KEZc&feature=watch_response

Then they put together this tongue in cheek look at what it would be like if guys were like girls. (My son is in the bright blue shirt.) It was posted on youtube.com about a week ago and within days was a featured video on the front page and is now heading toward half a million views and beyond.

This is true viral video. Who knows where it goes next. I just keep thinking that Justin Bieber (now a household name) was picked up by Usher because of a youtube video he made for his grandma. Perhaps my son and the 835 Crew are headed toward fame? You watch and decide. And before anyone calls a foul for potential "sexism", please remember the girls from their youth group at CU made 'If Girls were like guys'!



If Guys were like girls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ6WpVSutrM