In those pre-Watergate days of innocence I first remember writing in second grade when the teacher showed us how to make a little book out of manila paper stapled together. She gave us crayons to illustrate and I remember the coat had a plaid pattern of fall leaf colors which I drew on the book’s cover. It was the "Mystery of the Missing Coat" inspired by the lady who thought our coatroom was part of the thrift store across the hall and filled her bag full for a dollar. When she brought her bag to the register it included my coat. Shoot, now you know the ending. In fourth grade I remember Mrs. Wadsworth sent home a note about my language in an essay. I thought that the word friggin' was an acceptable substitute for another f-word. Not so for a fourth grader in 1970. That summer the town recreation program took a bus of us kids the 50 miles along the Mass. Pike to Boston for the day. From that day I carry two vibrant memories, smushing my banana on the seal engraved into the floor of the state house rotunda and being offered some cool-aid from a group of disreputable looking revelers on the sun-baked common. I left the banana behind to be trampled until a kindly janitor mopped it up and we refused the kind invitation to imbibe.
A few years and several school compositions later the Watergate story broke and coincidentally my life was never the same. Our father died at the age of 40 leaving my mother and three siblings to mourn. I grieved far too long ignoring consoling voices. I took time off from grieving to write a few essays and speeches about the natural world for agriculture classes and graduated from high school. Jump ahead to State College freshman composition where the professor said to me after reading my first composition "You're not such a clown after all.” I was positively inspired.
Regan got elected for the first time that year as I transferred to the small liberal arts Marietta College on the banks of the Ohio River across from West Virginia to study geology. I remember the story of Regan campaigning at the campus with snipers manning the rooftop of the field house where he spoke. American Literature professor Ms. Steinhagen encouraged me to pursue myself into that dark wilderness place I wrote about in a Hemingway essay. I do not believe I really have reached those wilds on paper. What I really began writing there were scientific papers. My senior project took 40 or so pages to report findings, measurements of footprints in lithic sand, and compilations of past scientific literature on a 300 million-year-old lizard named Dromopus. After graduation I wound up in Orono as a graduate assistant in geology where I earned a master’s degree with a thesis all about dirt bands on an Antarctic ice shelf. That thesis process gave me enormous confidence in writing and presenting technical and scientific work. That year of 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and many died in Tiananmen Square. The geology field camp I worked at that summer had a few extra openings as Chinese scientists were barred from travel. After graduate school I landed at the state Department of Environmental Protection where I wrote countless reports, presentations, letters, emails, standard operating procedures, and memos for the next decade right through 9-11 and to this day.
On 9-10-01 I was interviewed by the Bangor Daily at the site of a gasoline spill along the banks of the Penobscot River just north of Indian Island. The electronic media visited to interview us; it was big news that day. After the next day they never modulated another wave or a spilled a drop of ink about our project, which was just as well. My post 9-11 writing life took an imaginative turn when I enrolled in a creative writing class at Searsport adult education with Steve Allen, enjoyed that and took Steve’s advanced creative writing. That continued as a writing group meeting at members’ homes. The group gave me confidence in writing then reading the work for others and accepting criticism. Two years ago we moved house to Orono and I lost touch with that writing group and my creative writing. Fall 2008 started a new chapter with a web course in creative non-fiction writing with Professor Goldfine.
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Mercy--there's a ton of stuff here.
First, your teacher is a humble instructor--no academic ranks whatsoever at EMCC, though we're making noises about it. I hope I'll have retired before it happens.
Second, double space between grafs as you write on blogger, so that I can see paragraphing--not that it's a part of your grade, but it is part of a writer's logic and style and needs to be apparent to the reader's eye quickly. Technical point and minor, but worth noting.
Okay--did you ever see the first assignment--the three part writer's autobiography, way down at the bottom of the site?
In a way you've done that--told me about yourself as a writer, an immense help to me as I think about you and your writing. You haven't exactly done the assignment, mind you, but, functionally, the goal is met. Still, go back and look at that assignment.
YOu've also done week 2 for sure and in style. Just as I pegged events or years to shoes (dunno how that happened), you've pegged events to various writing assignments. Makes me smile with Englishteacher pleasure that you can remember so much writing, as well as so many memories.
And clearly you see how history and you intersect--even a detail like kool-aid on the Common brings back all the hippie stuff....
Paul, you're right to be confident--I hardly know what to say to help or advise you with this week 2 theme.
Are you satisfied with it? What do you want from the course--do you want to find or explore a different voice than the one you deploy here so effectively? Take writerly risks? Or polish to an even more glittering shine what already is pretty bright?
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