CAN BS BE STACKED ANY HIGHER THAN 6 FEET?

Another milestone in literary drivel is fast approaching and as it nears, its seems more unbelievable. What I thought was a failing mind, and what I was encouraged by others to believe was (a slipping clutch) cannot have been all that bad. Over the course of the last 9 months, I have pried 200,000 words of gibberish out of this old gearbox and put them to paper. Most of these words are related to parts of my life from the time I left Canada in late 1977, up to a point about midway into my travels to modern day. I have also touched, to a small degree, on the early years of my life and a bit on the history of our family and the family of Deysi, my leader and inspiration. To add to everyone’s boredom, including myself, I spilled out some pages related to my opinions of world problems and world peace, my time spent in isolation, and things that set me on fire.

All of this started out in an effort to get some of my memories in print, while I still had enough of them left to fill a page. For anyone else, that I thought might be interested, like Deysi (who says she is), I was trying to write something that might show who I was and am; through a look at the journeys that shaped me over time. Somethings, like my ability to keep myself in trouble, and my lack of verbal control, with which, to stifle myself on some issues, have never changed, and I expect never will. For this I offer no apology and in the way of an excuse, I can only say, it’s age that makes me seem somewhat random and more annoying now, than in my youth, if that is possible.

Putting this mountain of verbiage in perspective, it could be seen as approximately 675 pages in a “novel” size book. Geezus, that answers the question raised by the title of this post. It would appear the BS can be stacked about 675, crumpled up, manuscript pages high; say about 6 feet. Now further looking at this feat, which in my mind seems staggering, a famous writer of my youth, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) wrote 250,000 words for one of his popular books, while travelling by ship from New York to Paris. Of course, the ships were somewhat slower than they are today, however, even then, it didn’t take longer than a month. Unbelievable, is all I can say.

It makes my task pale in comparison. So I guess what I’m saying is that my measly 200,000 words, with possibly another 200,000 left, until my head implodes, is a rather insignificant achievement. Only when you look at the fact, that I never thought I would get ten pages on paper, does it make any kind of statement. Not only that, but I bet there were not many of my readers that would have bet on me exceeding ten pages, either. Additionally, I would also bet that not anyone, other than Deysi, thought they would have read each of those 200,000 words, without using my rope in a tree. It may come as a surprise but at least a few of you did. I know, I know, it was probably out of sympathy that you stayed with me, however I can live with that.

Writing, for me, was a response to a lifetime of reading books and wondering what it would be like to see your own words in print. I believe my love of reading was passed to me by my mom in my formative years. My dad was a great reader of cowboy books. Zane Grey stories being his favourites. I also feel that some of my love for the written word may have rubbed off on those closest to me.

Ron is an avid reader and now devours books in a period of time, that I could never have hoped to achieve.

Ange is also prolific and reads many professional, fact based, career and success mentoring books.

D2 is also an avid reader and a writer. His education based teaching aid is a good solid read.

M, my granddaughter, devours travel guides and sightseeing books as fast as she can get them.

Benhameen is constantly reading of the universe and beyond.

Deysi, has a “book on tape” playing for most of her waking hours. How many dozens and dozens of books she has “read” in this manner is beyond me.

A, our daughter in law, spends almost all of her happy time curled up around a good book, with her attack dog “Fang, Dog of the North” at her feet.

Our son in law, a self admitted, non-reader has now started to find books that interest him and is starting to build a head of steam.

My oldest boy D1, took after his grandad (my dad) and was a voracious reader of westerns. He has had his eye on my western collection from a time when he was young.

I’m not saying any of my family got their love of reading from me, however, I cannot but help to think, that my interest in books, surely must have affected one or two of them! Enough of the self congratulations, I now need to get on with the next 200,000 words, or at least as many as I can while the old clutch hangs on.