How I Improved the USMC and other fables from Stork.

Pictured is my memoir. No. Me holding the cover of my memoir. I’m attempting to smile, sort of.

Two women and I gleaned stories from my blog, “Insearchofbud,” arranged and rearranged them into a sort of timeline, then edited the hell out of them until every last comma, semicolon, and dot had been scrutinized and chased from one clause to another. Even then I misspelled the word “excreta” (but we caught it before press time). We finally agreed it was done. Well, almost agreed. Actually, we disagreed.

Publishing a book has been like . . . sitting with a laptop for many evenings, summer and winter. Making diagrams on a yellow legal pad. Researching by phoning and emailing old friends. Good times, really.

Who cares about the life and times of an anonymous pharmacist (like me) in eastern Montana? I kept asking myself. On the other hand, who much understands the answers to the deep questions. Sex, mainly. Dogs, too. And women! What is common sense? We have way more questions than answers. Why do I have such persistent feelings of depression? 

More and more God looks like a wise old black woman. The Book of Changes tells me the Creator’s image is the sky, or a strong horse, or a dragon, permeating everywhere, all the time. I’m good with stopping at “the sky.” I’ll take a rain check for the others. What is the nature of reality?

Who cares about the life and times of a retired, anonymous roofer in Phoenix? Truth is, he’s way more than just a “retired, anonymous roofer.” I’d like to tell his story next. Also of his dog, and his guitar collection. I mean to tell about his friend who took our hero’s ten dollars for an ounce of weed, and forty years–no fifty years–later, no weed. Not even an apology!

My friend in Phoenix is a Trumper. He started out like me in Dillon Montana, was a hippie, played rock and roll music, liked cannabis, hated the thought of hurting another person, so successfully became a conscientious objector during Vietnam. He is the same good friend as before, but his reality and mine are poles apart.

He claims to have forgiven our friend who absconded with his ten dollars. But neither of us can forget what may well have been a small lapse of memory, inconsequential. Well, not inconsequential. I went from Seattle to Fairbanks with only ten dollars and my charming wit.

My book. I’ve been through it so many times, I hope you can find something new in it. I don’t have it yet. The printer said it’d take 10-15 days. Business days, then they’ll ship it to me if I send them hundreds of dollars. It’s good.