How and when did the memoir writing start for me?

Late summer 2018, Eric and Amalia stood with me on the bluff overlooking the windsurfing lake, called Lake Floras, on the southern Oregon coast, near Langlois, Oregon.  It was dusk, and we were watching the sun set.  We could hear the Pacific Ocean waves pound the shore 200 yards to the west.  We could see both the Lake and the ocean just below the sinking orange ball.  

“So why do you keep working?” Amalia asked me.  “You don’t need the money, do you?”  Eric looked at her and smiled with a wince.  OK, that is really a nosey question.  Do we really have to get this friendly?   Eric lived at the Lake campground during the summer windy season and worked part-time writing software and other projects for the new robotics industry.  Amalia was his beautiful 20-year-old daughter, who lived with him, and her mom, in their camping trailer.  A college student, home during the summer, she was a “kite boarder” who had progressed quickly, because she lived on the Lake during the summer.  

I didn’t mind her question at all.  “Well, I think it is a job I am supposed to do.  The work has some meaning, and the pay is decent.”  

She was talking about the City of Bend, Oregon, engineering work on public water and sewer projects, which kept me 6 hours away from the whistling wind at Lake Floras.  I was flattered that she was politely trying to make conversation.  

“Hey!  Seems like you’re here a lot, and we really like this stuff – ‘high winds blowing sails and kites with people hanging on for all they are worth.’”  Then she laughed.  

Amalia was too polite to say, “Looks to me like you might be ‘running out of summers,’ so why not do what you really enjoy?”  She didn’t say that, but it was on my mind.  

“So, don’t you like windsurfing better than working?” she asked.  

“Yeah, you bet.  But maybe I would be bored with it if that was all I had to do.  Say I windsurfed here like your dad, but when the wind stopped, then what?”  

“Hmm,” she paused, looking at me full on.  “Say uhhm…, say you write your memoirs during the lulls?”  

Floras Lake Campsite, my office, summer 2020.

“Memoir” was a word I didn’t use at that time.  Days later, the sound of Amalia’s voice, her kind beautiful face, and what she said resonated in my mind.  Some few years before, I had a taken a couple of short “get started writing” courses with the Gotham writers’ group, so I logged back on to their website, and saw the “Memoir” classes offered.  I looked at one offered in the near future, bought the teacher’s book, “The House on Bear Town Road,” and read it.  Stirred, I signed up for the 10-week Gotham Memoir-1 class in August 2018, then I followed up with the Memoir-2 class in October 2018.  

So that’s how and when it started for me.  Three beautiful women, Amalia, Elizabeth, and Deborah.   Amalia queried me on the cliff overlooking Floras Lake; Elizabeth, a published author, taught me 30 weeks of Memoir writing classes; and Deborah, my wife, read the drafts and encouraged me to keep going.  

Why?  

Floras Lake, Skip windsurfing, summer 2021

Short answer is that maybe this was something I could do during my waning retirement years.  

Some years ago, I felt invincible.  For my 60th birthday, I did 60 pull-ups.  I was working on firm business in the Afghanistan war zone leading logistic and engineering teams to drill deep water wells for 15 Army Forward Operating Bases in that uncivilized country.  Most every day, I worked out at the military gym with Shawn, who was a former marine.  He was a former weightlifting bench press champion, so I could only lift about half of what he did.  We worked out with the young soldiers, and I liked hearing them say, “That old codger has got some endurance.”  

Back home in Oregon, my favorite saying in those days was “I am going to peak at 80!  I will be my fastest, my strongest, and my best looking then.”  

My wife, Deborah, who was the “eye-rolling” champion of world, and she still is, said, “Sorry, Honey, that isn’t even funny anymore.”  Then she would shake her head sadly and roll her eyes.  

OK, these days, maybe I am NOT feeling so invincible; and I’m still a few years from 80.  But I am still windsurfing, and I am seriously trying to learn some writing skills to write stuff that might be fun to read.  

As a matter of record, I followed Amalia’s advice, quit the job in Bend, and set up a 40-year-old Airstream trailer at Lake Floras and completed writing the first slice of my life in 2020.  

In November 2020, I was contacted again by a literary agent representing “Christian Faith Publishing.”   “How is your book coming?”   She had called me about twice a year since late 2018.   I kept telling her I thought it would be 6 more months, then I reneged when the target date came and went.   Finally, I sent in the draft in December 2020; and it was accepted in January 2021 and published about 6 months later.  

Editor’s note: If you would like to read Skip’s book, it is available on Amazon.