Here in Nebraska, a state which has followed the national guidelines but it has not locked down, we began to open up this week. We are still advised to follow the guidelines, yet businesses are coming alive again. Our church will be celebrating Mass each day, however, we will continue to watch Sunday Mass streamed from the Cathedral. Old goats are being asked to hold out at home a little longer. All-in-all, I can’t find anything to complain about.

Editing of Resurrection Runner continues at a steady pace. This is a new experience for me, and, frankly, I find it refreshing and instructive. It is a process that takes a great deal of thought, both in the editor’s work and in the author’s willingness to consider the editor’s suggestions. I have found that I can handle this process pretty well, especially when the edits improve the story’s clarity.

I would like to have the editing completed by mid-June if I am to keep my July 15th publication date. However, I will happily reschedule the book launch to assure the writing is the best it can be.

…And now, a bit about me (Part Three)

In the beautiful rolling countryside of south-central Minnesota, I attended Shattuck School. Shattuck, then, was a prep school with an Episcopal foundation and military emphasis. It was a school that resembled its English predecessors both in stony architecture and disciplined philosophy. I had a rough first year, as did all the third formers, but the remaining terms saw me learning the ropes and falling into a cadence which I thoroughly enjoyed. By graduation, I had been molded into an astoundingly naive know-it-all.

About the time of graduation, my parents decided to move to Los Angeles. I thought that was great. I had learned to play the guitar, as every one of my acquaintances had, and I was ready to enter marvelous Hollywood – there to pursue stardom of any sort. I was not without talent beyond the rhythm band. I had a good voice and a certain look that I thought might be of value. Yet these were dreams and conceits that remained outside the immediate requirements of my education.

I was accepted at U.C.L.A. in 1963. At Shattuck, we had military instructors who had been deployed to Vietnam. It was evident that US troops were active there even before 1963. However, the Vietnam War was being ignored in L.A. One northern outpost of the U.C. system had a few people concerned about Nam, yet at U.C.L.A., there was no such concern that I saw. It was a two year period of blissful naivete. At the end of those two years, I was out on my ear, having enjoyed too many things more that I enjoyed studying. With my blessing, my time had been consumed by folk music, a non-paying stint with a performing group called The Young Americans, and a wild courtship with my lovely wife.

We were married as my first college career ended. I went to work for IBM in downtown L.A., working in the publications department loading training manuals on trucks while wearing my required black suit and tie. I was pleased that Mister Watson had rescinded his mandate of hats for all employees. Our dear daughter was born.

Not six months later, I was rehearsing nights with a group of kids who soon became the Doodletown Pipers, a group that gained some fame and little fortune. I went on the road for three years, returning every so often. Our dear son was born, and within another year, I’d quit singing, and had become the manager and booking agent for a small nightclub in Westwood It was a position I was totally unsuited for, though I did have some success in booking acts like Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Bonnie and Delanie, Rudy Vallee, and Hoyt Axton, a man who gave me some very good and private advice. After the club shut down and a flirting relationship with hippiedom and destitution, I decided to go back to school.

With immense help from my brother and sister-in-law, we moved back to Nebraska; this time to Omaha, there to live the protected, mostly stable, mid-western life. I attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha (U.N.O.) where I learned to be a greasy grind. At first, I fulfilled my undergraduate requirements and I worked at Boy's Town as the Assistant to the ceramics instructor. I took up the study of ceramics, art history, drawing, and engraving. Most of all I enjoyed geology, but, I wondered, where would a geologist find work? Gold, oil, and coal never entered my mind. I never questioned the possibility of an art student finding work. It never crossed my mind.

We stayed in Omaha for three years while I became a ceramist and a student of some merit. I was absolved of my earlier failures when I was accepted into the honorary academic society, Phi Kappa Phi.

When I graduated, we moved back to the Great Basin of Southern California. There I took up graduate study at Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University). It was during these years that we graduate students placed a great deal of emphasis upon the questions of art, of philosophy, and the specific meaning of our efforts. It was also during these years that I began to write.

To be continue.

So, there it is for now. I hope you are all healthy and are finding your way back to work if you have been laid off. May good fortune shine upon you, your families, and friends.

Please help me get the word out about Resurrection Runner by sharing my URL with your friends your friends. And please post to your social media.

All the Best in days to come.

-rwa