So it goes...

My memoir in progress (MIP) is coming along well. I'm just over 70,000 words into it andI've got the chapters roughed out. Now the hard part of slogging through edits comes into play. Tenatively titled, Cretin Boy, it is about my teenage years in an all-male, Catholic, military (JROTC) school in the late '70s. The book is not solely about the school, but also about all that comes with being a teenager and all the changes that life brings. One of those changes of course is a kid's introduction to the working life. Once you hit 15 back then, you were expected to start looking for a part-time job. It was in part to keep you off the street but also a way of teaching you work ethic and helping take the load off of Mom and Dad's need to supplement your income (or lack of it). In the book I talk about my first job at Tu-Way Car Wash on Cleveland and Randolph in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was a freshman in high school and my brother Tom worked there and got me the job. I ...

This past weekend I had to make the trip up to Minnesota to pick up my daughter from the University of Minnesota. I went up alone because Donna had to work. I sort of like these trips alone to get her for a couple of reasons. First, I get five hours of time alone to think, listen to music and ponder life. The other benefit is that it provides me with quality one-on-one time with Sarah both during the packing and on the drive back home. I miss having her around, so this is a great way to get us back on the same page after months apart. But there were a couple of other benefits this time. The first one was taking a side trip into downtown to drop off a copy of Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir  at   Subtext Books . They not only purchased a copy, but the owner mentioned that if it sold, she would order more copies through Ingram, a large distributor. Furthermore, it turns out she lived in Milwaukee for a time, so we had a bit in common outside of books. She told me she mig...