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I could barely read when I was a kid. I was
repeatedly embarrassed by teachers insisting that I read out loud to the
class just to prove this fact. I think I was borderline dyslexic. I just
couldn't figure out these complex little letter patterns and put them
together with the sounds and thoughts. Even simple stuff like seeing Dick
run, Jane with a ball. Did they have a dog? It was much too complex for a
little kid who was perfectly happy playing out back in the dirt. There
were too many rules and just as soon as you learned one they were
explaining that there were exceptions to the rules and you
were wrong again. I didn't have a chance. Hey, I was just a little kid.
Don't bother me with your problems. The other kids would laugh and pick
on me, well, yeah, because I was stupid and couldn't read out loud.
So I gazed outside the window and lost myself in drawing. They weren't happy
about that either.
Somehow I managed to learn how to read and even spell, though I still
very much rely upon spell checkers, which, by the way, the editor I am
typing this on doesn't have!! But somehow I went from barely being able
to read to not only writing, but editing. Would you call it
semi-professionally? I volunteered to edit (me? an editor?) the Northern
Pacific Railway's Historical Association's quarterly publication The
Mainstreeter. And as a technical writer of my modeling articles,
instructions for my kits, my catalog, my advertisements. And these crazy
short stories.
I think my writing sort of started in high school when Mr. Rubble, our
government class instructor. Besides teaching us to question authority, he
had us all keep a daily journal. He told us we could write anything, he
wasn't going to read them. Only my parents hadn't agreed to those terms
and they freaked out when they read some of the things I had written about
then President Nixon. You can't write those things! We could talk about
them all the time but it wasn't to be written down. Freedom of speech
only goes so far.
When Sue, my 10th grade girlfriend, dumped me I wrote letters to her.
Actually, I wrote volumes to her in an art book journal, full of drawings
and hopelessly love sick messages seeking her back. She would speak her
reply and return the book, and I would write another foolish chapter. I
tried to employ logic. Of course it didn't work. Poor fool. But I think
she was entertained.
So I tried art. Pam got a wonderful set of pin and ink watercolors. Nope,
that didn't work. Amie got one. Still no good.
Writing has never worked with any of the women I have known. It is a
useless art. At least practiced the way I do. Apparently my drawings are
equally as worthless.
I know, I know, I should get a real job.
In 1983 I took my first long motorcycle tour. Actually, I had taken
two shorter ones the year before but I had not kept a daily journal of
them. I began to do so with the 83 trip, dubbed The Stray Cat Tour,
picking up on the name of popular song at the time. The entries in that
first trip were rather rudimentary but they developed over the years not
only to record our daily activities, meals, and trivia but also to include
some of my personal observations and feelings. Some of the journeys are
very appealing, perhaps even exciting. Some are full of romance and adventure.
Others are just plain funny.
So, what should I do with them? Write a novel? Post them on the
Internet? Sure, why not? At least a taste of them. Who knows, maybe
someday I'll publish them. That is if enough people like them. I've been
told they are good. But I don't know. We'll see.
At any rate, listed below are a few of my odd tales and strange stories.
Some are fiction, some are non, I'm not entirely sure which is which. I
tend to be semi-dyslexic that way too. Does it matter?
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