Bits & Pieces

Forward

Why Bits and Pieces?

The writing of this manuscript started as an idea that I conceived a month ... or two ... or three before the end of 2016. I was 78 in 2016 and caught up with evaluating my decision to take up creative writing as a post-retirement activity in June of 2001.

Overall, I was pleased with my late-in-life plunge into writing creatively. I have published magazine articles, short stories, and novels. Several Northwest newspapers and internet blogs have interviewed and reviewed my work. My essay on Moscow, Idaho made the short list in the University of Oregon’s 2008 Northwest Perspectives essay contest. My Novel Black Wolf’s Return was nominated for a book award in 2014. My short story Son won first place in Idaho Magazine’s 2014 short story contest. What pleases me most is the bevy of loyal readers from distant points around the world: Canada – Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan; Finland; Germany; England; Australia; New Zealand; and twenty or thirty of these United States come to mind.

While sales weren’t great, they were sufficient to keep the cost of publishing (editing, proofing, and cover design) either slightly above or slightly below the zero-profit line. Profitability was never a goal of my retirement writing adventure, and growing my sales was less important to me than advancing my writing skills and developing relationships with the writing/reading network.

In short, profit was never my goal. I had two: self-actualization and sharing my work with my family and readers. With Bits and Pieces, I have a third: I have a few things I want to be sure I say while I have the attention of my family and my readers.

The genesis of creating this book was buried in my sense that some of my never-published writing deserved a better fate than languishing in my reject drawer along with the other pieces of my failed-to-get-published work. Today, almost seven years after I first put my fingers to the keyboard and began to write Bits and Pieces, the manuscript has evolved to a grander scale than what I first envisioned. In addition to the best of the never published short stories and essays, it now includes annotated excerpts from longer pieces as well as new pieces, mostly prose, but a bit of poetry.

The writing that I’ve resurrected for Bits and Pieces has been overhauled by me to make sure that what you’re reading has the full benefit of what I have learned about the creative writing craft.

Is Bits and Pieces to be my signing-off publishing event? Perhaps, but that is not my intention. Whenever I have time, three or four prose themes and a few poetryideas ricochet from my mind to my lap-top screen. That said, I am closing in on my eighty-sixth birthday; Father Time has the ultimate say about my intention.

A lot has happened in my life since 2016, and those events slowed me down and deprived me of the impetus to bring Bits and Pieces to a conclusion. Chief among them was when my bride of sixty-four plus years passed away in early 2022. Our children and grandchildren produced a celebration of her life shortly thereafter. They asked me to kick off the event with an original piece of my writing.

It is appropriate that it appears first in Bits and Pieces.

Here it is:

My Sandy with a y and the Winding Canal

First read by our grandson John Clarke Meindersee at the celebration of Sandra Strawn’s life in Brush Prairie, Washington.

Copyright July 16, 2022

by Dan Strawn

What a grand day to honor a loved one!

Do you know her as

Momma or Grandma?

Or friend, bridge partner?

Or sister, aunt, or Gee-ma?

For me, in the spring of fifty-seven

She was Sandy with a y not

Sandi with an i

In early May, my Sandy with a y

And I pointed our horses west

We rode the bank of a winding canal

Its water would soon wet a thousand roots —

Those of thirsting naval orange trees

The two of us reined our mounts south and crossed

The wooden bridge that spanned the waterway

Before long, our tethered mares munched on grass

While Sandy with a y and I chased down

P & J sandwiches with warm Pepsis

On that lazy sunlit spring midday

When she had barely become eighteen

I took my Sandy with a y – your Sandi

With an i – in my arms and pledged to her my love

Until...death do us part...

Marry me, l said. "I don’t know why you should

I have no idea what our future holds

All I know is I want to grow

Old with you"

Your presence this day defines what our future

Became when Sandi with a y said, Yes

May we embrace her love for us this day

And honor Her who inspired this grand gathering

Let the celebration begin – ENJOY!

DEDICATION

plea to offspring

© 2009, Original. Dan Strawn

© Rewritten February 21, 2024

Listen for messages in my words

You say words are just things that are

I say words live

Words let people climb inside each other

See worlds through different neurons

Observe the structure of my words

See the contracts of verbs and nouns

See them sprinkle hope on blank pages

See them spice the crucial issues

The unsung hour finds you alone

Reality is tolerable...barely

The day’s demands...dull

Reality is livable...barely

There is urgency in my dreams...

Listen!

Sense my presence!

Dream on!

Grab that flying-past-you ring

Twist it...shape it to your liking

Steel your backbone...face tomorrow

See then the promise of my words

Feel vigor: my world that was

Sense power: the me who labored

Recall visions: my merit’s realm

Embrace your talents: Endeavor’s children

Act on my words

They tell of days gone...a life lived

They affirm your father’s hope

They foresee your fruitful days

If you act, this old man lies down

I have fulfilled my purpose

I can rest now

****

Short Prose (Less than 1,000 Words)

Matriculation

©05/02/2017, Dan Strawn

Revised 11/15/2021

Maria Esperanza sits at a small table and reads the first sentence on the opening page of the pamphlet the receptionist had given her.

The faculty and staff of the University of Southern California welcome you.

She has no difficulty making sense of it. The second sentence is just as easy and the first few words in the third sentence, but then she runs into matriculate. M – a – t – r – i – c – u – l – a – t – e?

She retreats in her mind to the language of her Peruvian birthplace.

¿Por qué, en las clases de inglés de la universidad, nunca me encontré con registrar matriculate?

She reaches into her briefcase, pulls out a pen and journal from a zippered pocket, opens the journal and finds a blank page. The pen hangs in air while she recalls her mind’s words. Satisfied, she writes.

Why, in the English language classes back at the university, hadn’t I run across matriculate?

She studies her newly created translation and sees potential in putting into English words from her mind’s Spanish creations.

Across the room is an old thirty-three-and-a-third turntable. The power cord droops out the back and lies on the floor. There aren’t any records and no speakers.

¿Por qué un tocadiscos? ¿Recordando el ayer?

She forces her mind to think in English.

Why a turntable? Remembering yesterday?

She writes her English translation.

Yes, she decides, writing in English reenforces her conversation skills and makes her appear less hesitant when conversing.

She raises her head and surveys the room. A plugged-in portable color television sits on a stand next to the turntable.

Estos americanos, hacen un montón de cosas extrañas

Again she translates the words but this time forgoes writing them.

These Americans, they do a lot of strange things.

A middle-aged man in a suit and tie steps out of an office. He’s carrying a clipboard. He looks first at it and then around the room.

Watkins? he calls out. Charles Watkins?

A pimply boy stands up and saunters over to the man. His uncombed blond hair, a poor excuse for a beard, and a pack of unfiltered cigarettes rolled into his T-shirt sleeve go well with his lazy swagger.

Whether his age approaches or surpasses twenty, she decides adulthood for him has yet to arrive.

I’m Watkins.

The man gives him a quick visual appraisal.

So, you’re anxious to get a college education?

She’s focused now on this interchange in English between the man and the boy, and can’t help noticing how the skepticism in the man’s voice corrupts education. A simile comes to mind. She works the words around and translates them to English – like spilled wine soils a clean Spanish-lace tablecloth.

The slouch in the boy’s shoulders forces him to look askance at the counselor.

Yeah...right...an education.

The counselor looks down at his clipboard. It says here you’re Chuck Watkins’s boy. You play football too? You going to be the next Trojan to win a Heisman?

No. The boy stares at the floor and shuffles his feet, then looks at the counselor. They look at each other, a silent battle to see who can make the other talk first. The boy wins.

Well, come into the office. Let’s see if we can find a program that will make your Trojan daddy proud. The counselor turns and walks into his office. The boy follows him.

She’s perplexed by the way the boy’s pants ride below the curve of his buttocks yet manage to stay up. She wonders if that's why he shuffles rather than walks.

The counselor’s door closes. Her mind rambles to what brought her here: her business degree at the university in Madrid followed in a year or two by her appointment as secretary to the president of Peru. Her family was proud of her. Her life was good...until the Shining Path came to Lima.

Some said Castro financed them and sent his lieutenant, Che Guevera, into the jungle to inspire los Revolucianos, the Shining Path. She didn’t know about Che Guevera.

She inhales again, hopes it will make the hollowness go away and allow her to focus on the present – this world of smoking boys, Heisman, and English speaking.

It does no good hoping. Her mind fills with memories of that awful day in Lima.

She had gone downstairs to see the new baby in the apartment below when the bomb went off in her apartment. Here in Los Angeles, at the University of Southern California’s Student Union building, she relives the explosion – the flakes of plaster falling like snow on the brown baby’s cheeks.

So much happened: spirited away, hiding in La Paz, hardship visa, a new name, secret instructions from the President to go away – to America – to build on her training – to bring her knowledge back to Peru when it’s safe.

Miss Lopez?

Lopez? Ese soy Yo! She stands up and steps forward.

That is me. I am Miss Lopez, Miss Marta Lopez.

The man smiles.

Ah, very good. Welcome to the United States. Welcome to the University of Southern California. It says here you have a degree in business from the university at Buenos Aires and are here for an advanced degree in economics. Is that right?

Right? She wonders what right or left, right or wrong have to do with it.

Is that correct, Miss Lopez?

Correct?

Sí – yes, that is correct.

Good. You have come to the right, that is, correct, place. He smiles, turns and beckons her into his office.

So, he says, how long have you been away from your home in Argentina, and why did you decide to matriculate at the University of Southern California?

****

Traveling with Ponce de Leon

© 06/24/2017 By Dan Strawn

Revised by author 07/17/2021

The old man liked Serrano peppers. The doctors said he shouldn’t eat them. He ate them anyway. He liked the way they convinced tired taste buds that each sip of store-brand coffee was one of the custom roasts he couldn't afford.

He laid his knife on the counter, used a spoon to spread the chopped pepper over scrambled eggs, and slid his breakfast onto a plate. After pouring a cup of coffee, he sat down, ate, looked out the kitchen window, and watched squirrels frisk fig trees for residual fruit. Between bites, he brought the cup of hot brew to his lips, closed his eyes, and sipped. Exhilaration borne on caffeine spread to aged neural networks.

He didn’t blame the squirrels. He too raided the fig trees. Before he picked the pregnant sacs of seeds, he felt their purple, sticky skins and judged their firmness, their eagerness to burst when touched. Only when they were just right did he break them off the stems, wipe the milky blood on his sleeve, and eat. Now the figs were gone. The squirrels nibbled on leaves.

He finished his coffee, put on his sweater, the burgundy one with the gravy stain on the front, and grabbed his cane. He opened the front door and walked down the stone path that led to the street. He stopped and surveyed the rose beds. Each red blossom called forth recollections of youthful rendezvous, each green bud of unrequited love.

It took him the better part of an hour to work his way out of the cul-de-sac and up the boulevard to the high school, where boys and girls in green shorts and white tops ran the track.

The wind came up out of the north, across Suisun Bay.

He wandered onto the football field, lived again the linebacker’s deed: the cracked bone...dashed dreams strewn among the too-slow linemen...Sarah in the grandstand.

He turned and walked southeast.

He came to Bailey Road, the one he and Sarah had used to cut through the low hills when they picnicked in the river delta or spent weekends among sequoias in the Sierras.

He walked up all late morning, into the afternoon, tarrying often to survey his world, eat the apple in his pocket, drink from the water bottle attached to his belt, ease his aching hip, relieve himself by the side of the road when he saw no cars coming.

At the top of Bailey Road, he watched the sun begin its descent behind the Oakland hills.

He struggled between two strands of barbed wire and wandered onto the hillside domain of cattle, red-tailed hawks, an errant rattlesnake or two. He rested on a tired trunk of a fallen oak tree.

Two suburban coyotes sat on the brown slope across the road. They watched with him until the sun disappeared, leaving nothing to survey but commuting headlight herds migrating home.

The old man stood, leaned on his cane, and looked skyward. A slivered moon struggled to shine, it and night's starlit speckle diffused by glowing suburbia.

Yesterdays rose up from memory's cache. Pools formed in the corners of his eyes. Wet spilled down weathered cheeks. He took out his old blue handkerchief and wiped his face.

Sarah, I miss you.

October’s cold crept under the edge of his sweater.

He shivered.

His cane probed the hidden, uneven ground.

He spread the taught wire strands, untangled his sweater from a rusty barb, and took the first of seven-thousand shaky steps