Sometimes we just need a little HELP!

This picture reminds me of what kind of a kid I was.  It seems apt because my post is relating to some of the building blocks of my personality that were brought back to me because of a great book and movie called THE HELP which brought out many feelings and sorrows and joys for me.  My hope is this is a reflection of something important and a reminder to go back to those touch points in our life that made you who you are today!

Having grown up in the sixties/seventies with an uncle who was African American myself, it was a real treat to observe inbred prejudice in my own neighborhood (sarcasm intended). Most kids were just extremely curious (some in the white bread neighborhood I grew up in) had simply never been up close with a person with dark skin and someone so "different". But I got into my first real fist fight when one of the boys called my uncle the N word and related a comment his parents had passed on about us "letting him stay in our house", WHAT IGNORANCE! When I won that fight I felt in some ways as though I had lost. My uncle pulled me aside and told me he was both very proud and very ashamed of me. He was raised in Alabama and saw too much fighting over racial issues, thus moved to Europe to a more tolerant atmosphere. I never raised a fist against racial prejudice afterwards, but I NEVER remained silent when someone was subject to racial bullying and never will.

The next summer however I got into another fist fight when one of the kids made fun of my VERY overweight auntie who was visiting. She was JUST PROUD of me.

Having been raised with "dark features" myself and having been an adopted child with little heritage to draw from, I was called names because of my very easily tanned skin.

I was very, very fortunate to be raised by parents who "loved all" regardless of color, political bent or even sexual orientation. I say even because in those days there was VERY little tolerance for this, but it was my mother who invited those college students into my childhood home and I am richer for having known so many different people.

I LOVE SKEETER and pray that I am just a tad bit like her. The Hilly's of the world are always going to be there, but if we each raise our children to simply "LOVE ALL GOD'S PEOPLE" the world will be better for it AND THAT INCLUDES the accepted prejudice against Muslims that so many are now embracing.

COME ON FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, let's just get rid of the scapegoats and start to find our own security so we don't have to subject others to the PUSH DOWN that makes some feel bigger... temporarily.

Recent School Visit Synopsis

Please click on the link below to read a great synopsis of a recent school visit.  The writer caught the true essence of what I try to do when motivating a school during my visits.  

http://www.thebrightonblade.com/content/comedic-author-and-storyteller-motivates-students-put-pen-paper

Newspaper debut!

I found this old newpaper article in a drawer with a bunch of old stuff.  

Two things stand out about this article: having been in numerous newspapers for my books and writing, I could count on my left hand how many times my last name has been spelled correctly.  ALWAYS two T's in the middle, when the proper spelling is MATOTT!  

Also, funny about this article is that the teachers of the Montessori school I went to figured out how to call something a "method" when in reality they were just getting around child labor laws and getting their silver polished for free... SHEESH!

Squirrels checking in...

LET'S ALL GET OUT AND SEE SOME OF THAT AWESOME WORLD OUT THERE! GREAT ADVENTURES AWAIT IN 2012!




It has been a looooong time since I blogged about squirrels, so I thought we'd check in with some of those we moved to greener pastures.
If you go back into the annals of my blog you will see that Tootsie (my beloved Italian greyhound) and I have been fighting a squirrel situation for many years. We finally got the best of them and they seemed to have moved on (for the most part).

We relocated them to greener pastures and had some funny trapping stories (no animal was hurt in the relocation process).



Then I find out they not only went on to a better place to live, but took up some awesome activities. This Christmas I got some postcards from them, thanking us for getting them out of their humdrum existences and onto exciting lives, all of them.
















Here are just a few shots of their new adventures since they left my back yard. I hope 2012 brings GREAT ADVENTURE to you and yours. I know I plan to go on some and will surely blog from some exotic locales as I "research" my next books.











Go to the right hand side of this blog and find the word cloud down aways.


Hit Squirrel and it will bring up all of the entries about the
'GREAT SQUIRREL ERADICATION PLAN'. Some have gone peacefully
and some have been "drama kings and queens."

Guess which one this dude was????

FACEBOOKERS CHECK IT OUT!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1016679907#!/pages/The-Works-of-Justin-Matott/213624096290

They are giving away signed copies of my books at my "fan" page on facebook. I think someone took the power of the movie SOCIAL NETWORK a bit too seriously.

But the fact is it is pretty easy to win a free book AND you get to choose which of my books you can get.

I will do whatever it takes to encourage readers and if that includes giving books to get them hooked on my stuff, so be it... my only hope is it works like a gateway pill and gets them to come back again and again...

CATCH THE READING BUG!

THIS IS A READING BUG! I'LL EXPLAIN...

So, I was having a meeting at The Tattered Cover and as I prepared my stuff, in my overstuffed vehicle, one of my new books hurtled to the ground. I had to put a bunch of stuff together so I just left it sitting there on the ground (actually three moms and four reading age kiddoes were heading down the sidewalk right toward the book and I thought, "Hmmm subtle marketing technique! They will see it, pick it up and realize I dropped it!", since it looks just like the case full that was sitting still opened up in my car trunk and maybe ask why I had so many of the same book."

I continued to ready myself for the meeting, pulling things together when one of the kids yelled, "WOW, HOW COOL!!"



I started to smile and my eyebrows wiggled up and down as if to say, "OH YEAH, THE NEW BOOK'S A HIT!" I closed my car door and said, "Pretty cool cover huh?" The four kids looked at me like I had two heads. "LOOK MOM!" The sole girl pointed down at a Praying Mantis slowly walking across the sidewalk. Soon it was walking right over my book, seemingly pausing to admire the artwork by the stellar David Schiedt!

I wanted to say, "Well, the bug IS cool, but check out the book!" But I didn't. No, instead I whipped out my iPhone in modern fashion and started to snap pics of the beautiful bug and the beautiful book. The green beauty held my attention long after the kids walked off far enough now behind their moms not to worry that I overheard, "Jeez, you'd think that dude'd never seen a bug before."


Well, at least my initial reader paused long enough to see the cover. After the Mantis' long journey, it, he, she, headed toward the parking lot. I picked it up and carried it to a nearby grassy knoll, thinking it would have taken it the rest of the day across the hot, busy parking lot and set it on a nice clump of flowers. I walked back to my car where the book was still sitting squarely in the middle of the sidewalk and people were just walking around it, not really giving it much of a look... I shrugged my shoulders and went into the great coffee shop at my neighborhood Tattered Cover and had a great meeting. I kind of forgot the whole incident until I plugged my phone into my computer and the photos uploaded.







That very night as I came home in the twilight after a nice evening walk with Andy and Tootsie, right next to my front door was this dude. Apparently the Praying Mantis had spread the word and the other eager readers were trying to get a glimpse of my new book. At least someone had caught the reading bug!

THIS IS A READING BUG.

What are you reading?

Last night... magic...

I did a talk for a group of kids, teachers and parents at a school I have visited numerous times not far from my house. It was a pleasant evening as I mingled in the library and then was eagerly greeted by a young girl who clutched her copy of Ol' Lady Grizelda, which I had signed for her five years ago, when she "was a little kid, in 3rd grade" and now she was in middle school and "still really liked the book". She insisted I update her copy with another note and signature and then informed me my signature had changed (aka, gotten sloppy) and said, "See you in another five years." after we talked about the fact that she wanted to be a teacher. I envisioned another five years which meant I could see her again when she was student teaching in a classroom. WOW, time does keep ticking... I imagined her copy of Ol' Lady Grizelda going from a bedroom bookshelf to a classroom bookshelf and smiled. Maybe I would work on my penmanship, so my third signing of it would show improvement?

Soon we gathered in the music room where I told some stories, primarily stories upon which my books are based. As I explained the GP series and where the ideas came from I talked about how my main character Gabriel Peters (GP) begins in book one, Go Ask Mom, with some "strikes" against him, mostly physical, which draws attention and wrath from some school bullies and as a result Gabe is bullied and must find some solutions.

As I told the story I became quite aware of a young man sitting in a wheel chair listening intently to me talking about physical "shortcomings" that were causing Gabe some problems and wondered what he was thinking. He was holding a copy of Go Ask Mom so I knew he was very aware of the conflict in the book. He nodded in recognition as I told stories about Gabe's narcoleptic cat, his mean big brother who Gabe chased out of their shared bedroom one night with nothing more than a lot of imagination and a good, scary story and other adventures.

At the end of my talk it was question time and then it was time to go back to the library, to the book fair, to sign some books. My friend on wheels chimed in as did his mother, but more one on one as the others filed out to go back to the library. He, a really good-natured boy and a social ease recounted parts of the book he really liked. Mom and son both told me how reading Go Ask Mom together had brought them a lot of good times, where mom could recount her neighborhood adventures and how similar they were to Gabe's. My young friend told me how he had used the idea Gabe used to do something different to catch a bully of guard, using his words "like Gabe" to baffle. He simply said "sparkly wheels", because his wheelchair has a cool lighting gizmo, kind of like those tricked out cars that light the undercarriage at night and the bully didn't know how to react. He continued to just say that simple phrase whenever the bully would approach and it seemed to properly keep him off guard because soon it appeared as thought he bully wanted to befriend instead of be mean.

Later in the library, as they had me sign a copy of the sequel, The World According to Gabe, mom told me more stories about how they had connected to Gabe and she thanked me numerous times for writing the book. It seemed at that moment as if the reason for writing that book had been to help a young man in a wheelchair learn how to make the world work a little better and I felt a sense of pride nothing else could have brought. When my young friend wheeled up eagerly holding several toys (does every kid in the world think the book fair is a toy fair?) he was delighted to see mom had already had me sign the second book for him.

As he clutched the book close, he wheeled away, but over his shoulder he said, "I can't wait to see what happens next." I thought he was going to burst when I told him The Gabriel Book of World Records was coming out next week. I imagined mom and son cracking open his new prize at bedtime in just an hour or so and the "new" adventures of Gabe once again filling his bedroom.

As I drove home in the dark, with probably the last of summer evening warmth flowing over me, I was filled with a sense that I was really doing what I was put here to do: Writing stories, telling stories, living stories.

You never know when something you share with the rest of the world is going to make a difference. So, what story do you have that could be shared that would change someone in a small or big way?

Once upon a time... there was a very fast car, a long, long highway and a cop..

"What is a totally cool thing that has happened to you because you're an author?" A kid asked me at the gym yesterday (He was waiting for me on a bench as I walked out. Didn't even introduce himself, just jumped up and asked me this question. His mom, a woman I recognized from the gym soon came along and told him to stop bugging me, which he wasn't. After all, HE is the reason I write!)

I didn't come up with anything too stellar for him. I think I said something dumb like, meeting kids like you. An eye roll later the kid's expectations unmet, I slinked (or is it slunk) away and rode my Hawg (a very loud, SUNBURST YELLOW with double pipes and totally chromed out macho ride) out of the parking lot. THAT he liked. I could tell by the double thumbs up as I blazed out of there, the MACHO RIDER WRITER or is it MACHO WRITER RIDER? Neither really that even though I myself didn't impress him much, my ride did.

BUT, it did remind me of this yellowing page from the front page of a Wyoming newspaper up in Green River, WYO that I have kept in a drawer all these years after "the incident". SO, here is the story behind his inscription "To the nicest guy I have ever written a ticket to."

I was coming back from a mini book tour through Utah and entered Wyoming on a very long, straight highway. The kind of highway that takes so few turns you could steer with your knees and your eyes half-shut. A highway that runs horizontal, cutting through Wyoming - West to East and East to West. I was REALLY in the mood to be home and so was John, the illustrator riding shotgun on the tour, in my convertible M3 BMW. Now, I mention the car specifically because there is one very specific purpose for having the M3 engine and that is SPEED. Having been away from home for a bit and knowing at the time there was NO speed limit in Montana, the bordering state, I decided to see what the car could really do... 65... 75... 85... 95... 105... 115... and I still hadn't come out of third gear.

The "scenery" was zipping past us in a blur and we were like the male version of Thelma and Louise, hair blowing, car going.... 125... Man Oh Man was that fun! 130... up ahead a little town called Green River, Wyoming... Maybe I should slow down near a town?

NAH! 135... WHEWIE!!!!!!! YOWSA! THIS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! THIS IS WHY I HAVE THIS CAR! I'VE NEVER THOUGHT TO DO THIS BEFORE, AND WHAT A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. NO ONE CARES ABOUT SPEED LIMITS HERE, RIGHT? WE HAVEN'T SEEN ANOTHER CAR FOR A HALF HOUR AFTER ALL...

The look on John's face was a mixture of elation and fear. I was just having a blast and we were covering territory FAST! We'd be home in no time! Man oh Man, what could be better? As we blew by Green River in a blur of liquid silver something felt a little off to me. I wondered (to myself) if possibly I should have let off a little for the duration of town passage, thinking logically about the fact that a State Highway Patrol Person would likely hover near a town in this desolate part of Wyoming for snacks, coffee, fellowship or simply because that's where he or she lived.

By the time logic hit me it was just a bit too late. I think I let off the gas and watched the needle begin to plummet from somewhere in the red or was it blue. As I felt the little nervousness creeping up my spine, out of reflex I looked in my rear view mirror. All the cars we had passed going upwards of 150 miles per hour had only owned the real estate in my rear view mirror for a few seconds. But what caught my eye was a car that wasn't retreating... it was advancing.

Just then, the advancing car turned on an assortment of lights that looked like a very sad Christmas for this celebration. I eased completely off the gas, thinking that if I didn't abruptly hit the brakes I might just fool him or her as they advanced. DESPERATION will allow the mind to think anything. As I realized a State Patrolman with a very red face was sitting on the shoulder behind me, I realized also that I had likely been doubling the speed limit when he "clocked me".

He advance very cautiously, hand on his gun and at the ready, as though there was something very insidious that I was fleeing from and now trying to put miles behind me because of. As though he had possibly come up on one of the Ten Most Wanted. As though I had stolen the sports car and had a kidnap victim next to me... as though, well maybe I watch too much television?

As he came to the driver's side door, he demanded in a very gruff tone that I hand him my driver's license, insurance and title... oh yes and then he said, "and your keys." and then as I glanced over at John with a little bit too much desperation on my face, he said something like , "and you are under arrest" and that is when the entire world went into slow motion.

I handed him the information he demanded and didn't even hear the lecture he was giving me. Well, bits and pieces of it bore their way into my cerebellum for sure. I heard "dead bodies all over the road" "absolutely stupid to drive that fast..." "You have no idea what happens to the human body in a small car like this when it collides into the ground at that speed." "If you saw what I see weekly..."

I wasn't a reckless person. I had responsibilities at home. I was a respected member of my community. I felt like a mega-dummy, then right before he walked back to his patrol car to end my life as I knew it, he looked in my backseat where three identical boxes of books were sitting on the seat. "What are those?" he asked in a super grumpy voice.

"Books..." I squeaked.

"Why so many books?" he asked."

"I wrote them. He illustrated them." i nodded in John's direction. John looked like he'd rather remain anonymous.

"What? Really? I'm a writer too!" He said proudly, already a changed person toward me. The grimace replaced by a wide smile. "So, you are really published?"

"Why yes officer, I am. Did you say you are a writer too?" I poured on the charm. John rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'm not published yet, but..." He paused, looked reflective for a moment as if he were caught between two worlds. The world of, I want to hand this guy the best lesson he's ever gotten world and Hmmm, I wonder if this guy could help me get published world?

"Well, Officer, since we are going to be spending some time together, why don't you tell me about your writing. Maybe I could give a bit of advice...?" I said with a certain growing confidence. John said under his breath, "Only you could get out of this one. I bet you do..." he was smiling and I felt a bit of a challenge.

"Mr. Matott, please step out of your car and come back to mine with me." The officer said.

My heart sunk a little. This is where I sit in the caged back seat and am driven to the police station, to the lonely one cell jail where three hairy chested, tattooed, angry muscle men who are on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Violent Criminals are going to use me as a human punching bag all night as I rot waiting for the one lawyer in town to finish his brunch before he meets with me..."

As we neared his car, me expecting hand cuffs and a rough push on the top of my head into the back seat, he motioned for me to walk around the car like a buddy would after I called shotgun. I was a bit confused, after all, I had never been under arrest before. He motioned for me to sit in the front seat with him. I opened the door and slid in. "Now, tell me, what is it like to be a real published author?" he said with almost childlike zeal.

I did what comes naturally: I launched into a full blown, exciting, embellished story about the prats and pitfalls, sprinkling my story liberally with statements like, "...after all the experiences I have had, I feel much more able to help people who are struggling to get noticed and want desperately to have their dreams come true like mine and be able to travel anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat, ride one of their fleet of motorcycles anytime anywhere, visit their homes on sandy beaches and have dinner with people most only read about in People magazine..." okay, I mentioned embellished previously...

He sat mesmerised, like a fan more than an arresting officer. After I felt I had set the hook adequately, I asked the question that spelled his doom, "Now Officer B____, am I pronouncing that right?" nod. "Tell me about your writing and your dreams for it..." Suddenly, very excitedly he pulled a newspaper out from under his seat and I noticed with it came about four more copies of the same edition, "Check this out! They just wrote about me in our paper. Look at that picture!"

"Whoowee, I've never had a full shot like that in any of the articles written about me..." I buttered him up. The newspaper, opened up to the picture of him leaning on the very squad car we were sitting in sat faced up on my lap as he launched into a story about his idea for his novel for about ten straight minutes. His excitement was palpable. Mine was growing.

After he had told me about his "book", which actually sounded very interesting, I said, "Wow, it's too bad we met under these circumstances. We seem to have a lot in common... Oh, well, doesn't keep us from being friends."

At that point he launched into a very heartfelt appeal to me to NEVER drive that fast again. He told me about the heartbreak people go through because of reckless decisions like mine. He told me one of the saddest stories I have ever heard about a teenage girl with so much promise, dashed because of one split second mistake at 100 miles per hour. "YOU WERE GOING MUCH FASTER THAT THAT! YOU HAVE KIDS, YOU HAVE A WIFE, YOU HAVE A LIFE! IT ISN'T WORTH IT TO RISK ALL THAT FOR A LITTLE FUN."

So, there it was. Our bonding moments a thing of the past. I was a criminal and soon to have a record. Yes, we could still be friends, but it would be on opposite sides of jail bars.

He interrupted my mind drift, "Promise me Justin..." (note the first name basis now) "...that you will NEVER drive like that again." He held his hand out for me to shake on it and seal a promise.

I am a man of my word, so I said, "I promise." and shook his extended hand. Then I bowed my head and waited for what was next.

He said, "You know I called in your plates before I pulled you over... I have to give you a ticket." He said it somewhat apologetically which let me know, even though I was a criminal, I was a nice guy.

"I know, I know. Shoot, wish I weren't so dumb. But do me a favor. This has been nice up until now. So I have something positive for this whole experience and since you have your pen out... would you do me a little favor?"

He nodded blankly.

"Would you sign a copy of the article about you, so someday when you are a famous author, I can say I knew him when and maybe by then I will forget the pain of what you are about to do?" He laughed and scribbled out the inscription on the picture. Then he scribbled his autograph onto the bottom of my ticket and handed it to me to sign along with my keys, driver's license, registration and proof of insurance. My eyes went to the line where it described my offense. DEFECTIVE HEADLAMP. I was stunned. I looked over at him and he smiled and said, "I meant what I wrote about you on the picture and you made me a promise. I expect you to keep your promise."

I said I would and I have. Right before I got out of his car I thanked him and knew he had indeed given me one of the best lessons of my life. Compassion and a promise made.

So, if I see that kid at the gym again, maybe I'll tell him this story. It has all of the elements a boy looks for in a good story, suspense, danger, criminals, speed, fast cars, police officers, friendship...

On the other hand, I think I'll keep my law breaking practices just between me and you.

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!

Squirrel # 9 for summer '09

After days and days of rain and the trap being out of commission, I was
working in the garage, set the trap outside with NO bait...WHAM! COMES FROM THE BACK YARD--- Curious George Gets A New Home!

Critter Count Summer 09, 4 Squirrels, make that 5, NO WAIT 6! 1 Raccoon, 1 Bird

This dude or dudette seems to be mooning me...

MORNING NEWS: Squirrel # 4
So, no kidding, when I let this dude or dudette go in the open space he or she sprinted toward a huge blue spruce and as my eyes followed him or her I saw that he or she was joining two other squirrels foraging beneath the tree for pine cones. With peanut butter and apple breath he or she joined them. Bet they are jealous.

Here is something that strikes me odd: everyone that has talked to me about my little squirrel relocation process (adults) have been perplexed that I would take the time to move them. I have heard very creative and brutal methods of dispatching them and I am curious to know what you, my reader thinks about this. Would you relocate or ahem... remove them?
Is it a coincidence that this dude or dudette had a greeting party? Are they playing me? Spying on me? Setting a bigger trap for me?

Trivia Question: In my Go Ask Mom series, who is the villainess that gets her corn stomped down by Gabe and his friends?


LATE MORNING NEWS: Squirrel # 5Now I am just plain lazy. I am putting a little peanut butter on a disposable plastic fork. No more bread for these critters! WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM???? WE BETTER HAVE A TON OF PEACHES THIS YEAR! I am supposed to be writing, not relocating varmints!!!!! By the way, is this interesting to anyone other than me? Is Critter Count something I should be blogging about? You tell me, but I will tell you that in book 4 of the Go Ask Mom you will see squirrels and bees... inspired by real life events!

NOON NEWS: Squirrel # 6

Okay, I surrender. Wife says, "Well, you don't have to keep setting it!"
I say, "But, if I don't think of the peaches..."
Wife says, nothing, just an eye roll.
I say, "You wanna go with me to let this one go?"
Wife says, nothing again, death stare.
I say, "Be back in a few..."

Free Rice for words!

www.freerice.com/index.php

Play this word game and feed people who are hungry, EVERYONE wins!