Pastures Gone Barren

It was an experiment born out of a crisis, enriched by isolation and then crippled by life’s return to normal. As the cliché goes, all good things must end sometime. It’s just too bad it had to be this because I think we all needed it back then and still do today.

At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, I was stumbling around trying to figure out how to stay connected with past friends and acquaintances. Turns out that at about the same time, there were rumblings among the mental health community about a relatively new phenomena called: male loneliness. Google said it best:

The "male loneliness crisis" refers to the increasing number of men, particularly young men in the U.S., who report feeling profoundly lonely and isolated, often due to a lack of close friends and deep social connections. This crisis has serious health consequences, including increased risks for heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression, and premature death. The problem is linked to rigid societal expectations of masculinity that discourage vulnerability and help-seeking behavior, a decline in the number of men with close friends, and the lasting impacts of social media and pandemic lockdowns.

My idea was simple enough. There was a pandemic and people couldn’t gather together. Even as a certified in good standing introvert, I missed those unplanned, casual encounters with friends that always brought me some great writing ideas, insight into their lives, and the feeling that we were all sharing something between us. It was safe, secure, and honest.

Sharon and I were in Palm Springs that Spring. Fear of contact with others prevented us from flying home so we rented a mini-truck (SUV) and began our trek back home. It was during that long journey across miles of nothingness that I thought about reconnecting with friends back home. Truth be told, I’m not a group-kind of person. I’m much more comfortable with a one-on-one situation. I find those conversations deeper and more enriching rather than group chats.

So, my idea was a pretty simple one. We would meet outdoors where distance was assured. It could be park shelters, coffee shop patios, lake front property and/or my own porch. Anyplace convenient for the other party. The goal was just as simple. A chance to connect or reconnect with friends, on a one-on-one basis, safely distanced apart and share our lives. Simple in concept, hard in reality.

At first everyone was all in.  Almost ten folks, male and female, who seemed to embrace the idea and were willing to give it a shot. The conversations flourished in the absence of communal gatherings and friends apart. It was safe, convenient, different and richly rewarding for most of us. Older adults just being themselves. Sharing and caring and openness seemed to be the order of the day. At least that’s what I thought. But just as quickly as the idea was accepted, its duration began to grow tired and slow down after a couple of years.

Calm placid waters in the early morning stillness weren’t enough to hold some people’s interest and attention. Life began to creep back into their lives. Even as I felt our intimate conversations grow and evolve, some of my salon compatriots began to show their cracks as their respective lives began to regain some kind of normalcy. Nothing ever remains as it is. So, too it was with my coffee and chat encounters.

Like ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream,’ it was there and then it wasn’t. The reasons were many and varied and each carried with them a glance into lives returned, lives changed and lives moving on. Dementia, cancer, elder care, work (didn’t have to) and work (had to) were just some of the variables that began to scratch away at this good idea. I don’t blame anyone for dropping out. Life just got in the way.

Fortunately, a few old stalwarts remain; still willing to challenge the early morning chill and quiet of dawn for a chance to connect, reconnect and solidify their bond with fellow life travelers. I intend to ride this pony for as long as I can and my friends are willing. There’s still nothing like the early morning stillness to open up one’s mind to a kaleidoscope of possible topics and verbal banters to exchange.

Origin of Birth

My roots come from the fertile farm fields of Sterns County, Minnesota. They go back for generations when my ancestors, unnamed and long since forgotten, arrived from Germany in the early 1800s. It was a strict German Catholic culture with time-honored rules and regimentation that hadn’t changed for centuries. It was what my mother, grandparents and their grandparents understood and accepted without question.

To be very clear, I’m not talking about the class of white Americans covered so thoroughly in Nancy Isenberg’s new book ‘White Trash.’ My roots were poor white working class; an agrarian society that lived for and off the land. Skilled artisans in the arts of land cultivation, animal husbandry, soil management, raising livestock, veterinary basics, dairy and meat processing and so much more. Only the hard-working survived.

Growing up in the one church town of Saint Marin, my mother, as the youngest of eight, had her chores and responsibilities chosen for her. Education was seldom a part of that equation. That meant stenography school for her three sisters and cleaning out the chicken coop for my mother. So, although Hildegarde’s education ended in the sixth grade, her lineage was about to experience profound changes; even if she didn’t know it at the time.

My mother’s early years were documented in a hand-written sixteen-page, rambling oration of her youth, early years on the farm and frequent travels to the Twin Cities for work. She had often lamented to my sister and I that she stopped going to school after sixth grade because someone had to stay home and care for her aging parents.

I have no idea what kind of education my father had although I doubt it went past the eighth grade if even that far. His ancestry, lineage and time spent on earth have long since been shrouded in mystery. There were rumors that he was an itinerant musician and laborer but that has never been confirmed. His name was never mentioned in our home when I was growing up and he’s remained an enigma all of my life.

Sharon’s parents were in pretty much the same situation in terms of their education. Sharon’s father went as far as the eighth grade and her mother had two years of high school. Pretty normal for that generation at the time. For that social-economic agrarian class of people, education wasn’t as important as hard work and feeding the family. It truly was another time and place.

Fast forward another generation and things were very different for Sharon and I. Because of a lucky break in eighth-grade, I was able to attend Cretin High School and then St. Thomas College; on my own dime. In both my family and Sharon’s family, it was understood that our parents had neither the means nor the inclination to fund any advanced education beyond high school.

Sharon’s lucky break came when a nun at St. Felix High School in Wabasha, Minnesota told her she should attend college, more specifically, St. Catherine’s College in St. Paul. That was a radical departure from the pathway most of her classmates intended to follow. In small town Wabasha, it put her in league with the banker’s daughter and the lawyer’s son. You know; those folks in town.

I have a BA in Journalism and Sharon has one in Education along with some credits towards her master’s degree. Our kids have done even better.

The rule for our kids in high school was that they couldn’t work during the school year and had to have either classes, camp or jobs during the summer months. It taught them both a lot of good lessons in life. Brian went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame and has a master’s degree in business/computer technology from the University of Colorado. Melanie excelled in Speech and Debate in high school, winning a number of awards on a local, regional and national level. She went on to the College of Saint Benedict and was awarded a full scholarship to attend law school. Their spouses also have advanced degrees.

Not surprisingly, this fourth generation is doing even better. There is an unspoken understanding among our grandchildren, prompted more by example than lecture, that education is more important than ever before. They’ve seen through their daily lives what hard work and a solid base of knowledge can do for a person’s career. It hasn’t escaped their little pea brains that much is expected of each of them.

Maya, the eldest, is a sophomore at the University of Colorado at Greeley. She’s a psychology major and understands the next steps will most likely include a master’s degree and perhaps a PhD.

The other four grandchildren are all in high school now. The Colorado twins as well as Brennan and Charlotte in Minnesota are actively engaged in extra-curricular activities. Three of the four are in NHS (National Honor Society) and are taking AP (advanced placement-college) courses. The youngest, Charlotte, just entered high school as a straight-A student all through grade school.

So, from a rural agrarian society to post-collegiate studies in four generations has become our mantra. Each generation propelled by an accumulation of knowledge that proved critical to their success in the real world. Fortunately, for Sharon and I, education was the key to our own success and that of our children. We believe it will be the foundation upon which our grand-children will grow as well-informed and involved citizens of the world.

Learning to be a Writer

“Have Gun – Will Travel.”

Paladin was the first to grab hold of my fertile imagination and inspire me to go out West and face those bandits just like he did. Every Saturday night, in stark black and white, the old man dressed in black faced down his opponents and always won the gunfight. If I couldn’t be him, I could at least tell his story. Or so I thought.

It didn’t work out quite that way.

Writing long hand on that yellow legal pad wasn’t the same as my trusty LC Smith typewriter that came years later. So, after toiling for weeks, I ended up with a great story (or so I thought in my 7^th grade imagination) but no idea what to do with it. Paladin ended up with a stack of other disjointed attempts at storytelling and was forgotten by the challenges of 8^th grade math.

After Paladin grew stale and went nowhere, I turned to the jungle and tales of Tarzan. He then morphed into Conan, the Barbarian. Unfortunately, none of these super heroes (before there were real super heroes) ever came to fruition. They all withered away on the vine called distraction, lack of patience and total ignorance of this thing called the craft of writing.

After youthful efforts at cartoon drawings, poetry scribbles, comic book rough cuts and very short stories, there came a long period of nothingness. Then, after entering the real world of work, I ever so slowly began adding writing projects to my side hustles. Most of them were educational television scripts. They proved useful fodder for conversation when I met my future bride who was an education major in college. Gradually more writing projects became a standard part of my own video production business.

Fast forward many years and I found myself giving workshops on ‘How to Become a Writer.’ After years of stumbling around the world of writing, I was finally getting a grasp on the task ahead if I wanted to cross the Styx and add the handle of ‘writer’ to my mantle of achievements.

Statistically, something like eighty-one percent of the population would like to write a novel. In reality, only six percent ever finish the task. There are many and varied reasons why so many people fail. I try to emphasize in my class that it’s really just a series of simple steps to climb that Everest called writing.

First and foremost, remember that writing is a craft, an art form, a learned skill, and a discipline. Like anything else worth pursuing, it takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts or magic pills to take. You need three things to become a writer:

            Desire…you won’t know if you have it unless you try.

            Perseverance…you won’t know if you have it unless you try.

            Talent…you won’t know if you have it unless you try.

Believe it or not, writing is one of the easiest things to learn to do no matter if it is a novel, a play, a screenplay or anything else. You just need a process / a routine / steps-to-take to do it. Too often, beginning writers focus on the end result and are intimidated by the thought of completing a novel, an essay, a blog or even a short story. As the old Chinese proverb goes, a long journey begins with one small step.

Where can you get your ideas if you have no idea what to write about? The caveat here should be: what is your passion? what drives you? what topic would make you want to get up each morning and write? Remember, you are not writing for anyone else but yourself.

The source of ideas is endless: newspaper and magazine articles, books, movies, television, conversations, people you know, your past experiences, other people’s experiences, things you have witnessed, etc.

So then, how do you organize your ideas?

First step, find a place to write and only write. It will become your magic place and will set a mindset for you. If you can set up a time schedule, a routine, that’s great. But just having a place (only for writing) will help adjust your mind to the task of writing.

When I began writing a long time ago, I had an office in the basement of my home. At the time, I was working fulltime for public television, running my own business, managing two apartment buildings and trying to be an involved father. That office was where I conducted my business. But right around the corner in the laundry room was a countertop and that was my writing area and I only wrote there…nothing else.

Everyone has their own body clock. Only YOU know when the best time for YOU is to write. This has to be the best time for you (and not someone else). My most creative time is early in the morning or at least by 9:00am after my quiet time and breakfast. When I was still working fulltime it was whenever I could find the time.

Organizing your ideas is the next step.  Begin by just putting ideas, phrases, dialogue, facts, etc. on paper or the computer screen. Two things will happen:

1.      First, you will have captured your thoughts and ideas. Do whatever research is necessary.

2.      Secondly, they will organize themselves.

Then build a Treatment / Outline. Once you have enough information then begin to organize it with a beginning, middle and end or by chapters, or chronologically, sequential order.

Take that treatment to final written form.

1. Once you have an outline you are ready to begin.

2. Begin by filling in each scene with your notes already written.

3. Once that’s done, let it cool off. Walk away for a period of time then go back to it.

4.  ALL writing takes place in rewriting, not the initial first pass at writing.

Surrounding the art of writing are universal standards and truisms:

It’s all about story-telling

The essence of good drama is conflict

Focus on the story itself and character development verses sets, casts, scenes

Don’t preach (be very careful with your message or you’ll turn off your audience.

So far, over a period of roughly eighteen years, I have written: 14 novels, 2 novellas, 18 plays, 8 movie scripts, 2 children’s books (each in four languages), a comic strip, a book of poetry, 700 blogs and 9 original songs (for one of my plays.) Now comes the hard part. How do I get my product out into the ‘real world?’

Writing is step one, sharing it with the world is step two. Yet, even if I am not able to produce more plays (eighteen so far) or expand my reach of novel readers, I still have to soul-soothing satisfaction of knowing that while Paladin got away, I’ve corralled a whole lot of other stories and they’re pretty darn good, if I say so myself.

Good luck on your journey of becoming ‘a writer.’