Williston, ND

The picture on the front page of the Williston Herald shows a high school aged girl in a cap and gown, receiving her diploma from the principal of Williston High School.  The bold print above the picture reads: "Welcome The Oil Generation."

Williston is a city of 14,000 people, located in northwest North Dakota.  Formerly unknown, and still unknown to most, won't stay that way for long.  The Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers meet at Williston, and agriculture, along with the Northern Pacific Railroad, were the only reasons one might have heard its name.  Being the ninth largest city in North Dakota isn't saying much.  Any other town with a population of less than 15,000 in a thousand miles would be begging anyone to buy property or a house, but why in Williston does a studio apartment go for the same price as a studio apartment in San Francisco?  Black gold.

Oil was found in dem dar hills.  Well, technically under the hills, but the amount of estimated oil continues to increase with each count.  First count, in 1995, a U.S. Geological Survey estimated 150 million barrels.  In 2008, another survey found 4 billion barrels.  In 2010, the last estimate doubled to 8 billion.  In 2012, the most recent survey found a lower shelf of oil, bumping the barrels to 24 billion, with the possibility of 500 billion barrels.  By the end of 2012, Williston, North Dakota will overtake Prudhoe Bay, Alaska as the U.S.'s top oil extractor.

The population is growing faster than the temperature on an August day.  The "Oil Generation" is a more than appropriate title, and some welcome the change, while others don't.  Twenty years ago, teachers made more money than than the average resident, and lived a comfortable life.  Now, with housing and mortgages soaring, teachers have been relegated back to working summer jobs and relying on their spouse's incomes to  live the life they have become accustomed to.

Roy Sherman, a handiman and regular at the Blue Moon Tavern, remembers the days not long ago when he didn't think twice about his weekly bar tab.  Now, the tavern is packed every night, with a much different crowd with a much different taste in music.  Earl Guthrie, the Blue Moon's owner and businessman, has reinvented the tavern to cater to the new crowd.  The new juke box blares Taylor Swift while oil workers, being paid six figures to relocate to Williston, throw twenties at Earl for shots of Grey Goose.

Vanessa Johnson was a big supporter of more oil drilling in Williston.  She and her husband Jerrad, owned three housing developments, each 60% vacant before the boom.  The housing developments, Willow, Oak and Arrowwood, were on the far north side of town, near the air strip.  When the air strip turned into an international airport, thanks to a significant loan from Chevron, the housing developments not only filled up, but have now tripled in price--with a waiting list.  Vanessa Johnson didn't live long enough to enjoy the boom, because her body was found in a dumpster behind the Blue Moon Tavern.

Teaching

((Bleh, 1,000 words because I missed yesterday, PS: Motivation to write is hard.))

The quiet classroom.  Ah.  I must be getting old!  The quiet of a classroom brings me a smile?  What am I? A grandpa?  Nope, last I checked I was still 29, going into my second full year of teaching.  Well, three if you count a year of subbing, and yes, I count it, because I taught something like 130 days out of the 180 possible.  Substitute teaching, man, that was an interesting year.

Woken up by the phone going off every day at 5am, an automated voice telling me about a wonderful opportunity to substitute teach for a half day kindergarten class in South Seattle.  I live in Bothell.  That's a two hour commute in the morning, for 4 hours of snot-nosed kids?  I'm a math teacher, well, at least I wanted to be a math teacher at that point.  I declined many sub jobs.

It became a kind of cat and mouse game between me and the friendly automated machine.  She'd tell me about all of these wonderful positions--I mean, who wouldn't want to work with special ed. kids in a high school self-contained classroom for the day?  Just think of the joy they would have in seeing a new face!  Or, the fear, and spit on me, hit me and try to run.  Or that.  I declined.  But I declined hoping for that perfect job to come along.  What was a perfect substitute job?  I enjoyed substituting for gym classes, that was pretty hard to screw up.  Unfortunately, my worst substitute experience came while subbing for a P.E. class.  The money in my wallet was stolen, along with my iPod.

The middle school had an on-duty police officer, which I found a little funny at first, but I was definitely thankful for the fact come lunch time.  I had sent two Hispanic kids to the locker room midway through class, and they were really the only suspects in my mind, but they seemed like good kids and I really didn't think it was them.  After a brief interrogation by the officer, the two kids said they saw a Russian kid in the teacher's office when they went back to the locker room.  The police officer called in the Russian, who denied everything, but eventually cracked and said that he took it, and gave it to a girl to hold until after school.  The girl gave me back my iPod.  Quite the operation for middle schoolers!  I was kind of impressed.

High school was fun to substitute for, because most high school teachers like to show videos when substitutes teach.  I, too, like videos.  I got in pretty good with a few high school teachers, who realized the class was still intact after a day of subbing from me, and the kids didn't completely trash me to the teacher when she got back, so it was nice to have some normalcy every so often.  I started to realize that a lot of what brought me back to a job was the student response, and I tried to make sure the students were both learning and having fun.

Another memorable substitute day came while I was in my most frequent class.  It was a high school science class, taught by a woman who I had been in my teaching certification program with the year before.  She obtained a secondary teaching certificate, and a job, while I had neither.  I could still substitute for her class, but just not teach it full time.  This particular day she was on one of her many new teacher training days, and it was a pretty normal day of worksheets and lab work.  The difference today was that a person had pulled up out front of the high school, fired a few shots into the air with his pistol, and drove off.

The school went into lock down, which had been reviewed with the teachers and students, but not with the substitutes!  The kids did a great job of locking the doors and rolling up most of the windows.  We got briefly yelled at for one of my students sticking his head out the window to see what was going on.  Nothing much seemed to be going on, and I entertained the students holed up in my room for two hours with card games and we eventually played some Mafia and heads up seven up.

Maybe that is why I like an empty classroom?  No, I like an empty classroom because it is filled with potential.  A silent classroom is boring.  As much as my students probably think to the contrary, I love a lively classroom, with debate and discovery going on.  Yes, I give tests, and yes, I make sure it is quiet, but tests aren't fun for me.  It isn't fun to sit and watch someone else take a test, believe me, I would much rather take a test than proctor one.  It could even be a Latin test.

I have a pretty good idea of who my students will be next year.  Most returners from the previous year, as I teach 6-8 math.  But there will be new 6th graders, and likely a few new 7th and 8th graders.  Limitless potential, really.  Do I like the way the class is arranged?  Do I like table groups, or would I rather make some sort of U-shape?  How do I want to do grading?  How will I get on top and stay on top of parent communication this year?  How will I challenge every student?  Does splitting the classroom up by ability make sense?

Why is it so much easier to write about my life instead of fiction?  I realize if I do ever write a good fictional story, there will be plenty of me in the book.  I will likely twist real life events and weave them into the book. I have a hard tie thinking that I will write anything besides an adolescent book.  Perhaps starting as an adolescent, but writing mostly while an adult?  I feel like one of the largest impacts on me in the past few years has been seeing how much parents affect their children.  It seems like a no-brainer, but it is quite remarkable to me how much that bond affects things.  Not always, but I think Dennis Rodman's dad is a good example if you don't believe me.  Look him up.

Dialog: Bad Day At Work; 2 responses

"Hi honey, how was work?" she said as I entered the front door.

"Ugh! I don't want to talk about it."

"That bad?" she said.

"I had to cover gym class this morning, because the gym teacher didn't show up on time, which meant I didn't get my planning time.  I forgot that I had a visitor coming in to give a presentation, which cut my math class time in half, and I was prepping for a quiz tomorrow, so now I can't give the quiz until Monday."

"Well, that's not all that bad."

"What's good about it?" I asked.

"I'm not saying anything is good about it, I'm just saying other people have got things much worse."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better about my day?"

"Kind of, yes?"

"It's not working.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that I was all set to leave early for a change, but then the principal stuck his head in my room a minute before I was about to leave, and reminded me that my grades from last quarter were due yesterday, which is why I didn't get home until just now."

"Oh, I'm sorry, baby.  Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No, I just need to stew for a while."

"Oh, well in that case, I am going to go have a few drinks with Sasha.  Left overs are in the fridge, I shouldn't be out too late, but you know how Sasha can get."

---

"Hi honey, how was work?" she said as I entered the front door.

"Ugh! I don't want to talk about it."

She walks up to me and kisses me.

"Mmm, I'm going to make your favorite for dinner tonight. Why don't you take some time for yourself and dinner will be ready in an hour."

"You're amazing, how do you do that?" I asked, stunned.

"Do what?" she smiles.

"I was in a rotten mood just a foot outside this house, but as soon as I see you, you... you exorcise the anger out of me."

"If it makes you feel any worse, I had already picked up the fixings before I knew how shitty your day was."

"Hah! You're unbelievable."

The Hummingbird

The sun is slowly setting on this beautiful summer afternoon.  Early fog whisked away in the mid-morning, revealing the reason why Pacific Northwesterners put up with ten months of rain each year.  The two-story house has blocked sun from reaching the front yard for the last few hours, and all of the cats on the street find spots on the east side of houses.  Ichi is no different.

Ichi's favorite spot is under the thick bushes in front of our house.  He sees the entire front yard from this spot, and with his entirely black coat, unless you know precisely where to look, he simply isn't there.  Another reason his favorite spot is under the thick bushes out front are the flowers above these particular few bushes.  Long stems reach upwards from the mass of bushes, blossoming a lively red flower irresistible to the human eye, and even more so to the tongue of a hummingbird.

I have witnessed the aftermath of Ichi's encounters with hummingbirds, and it never favors the birds.  One time when I pulled up to the house around dinner time, Ichi was crouching in the tall grass.  I wasn't sure what was going on until I got closer, and realized he wasn't about to pounce, he had already.  What was left when I got there were the intestines and a few feathers.

Last week I saw his first stalk of a hummingbird up close.

My parents, a guest, and I were eating dinner out front, and Ichi was laying on the front steps grooming.  We had all finished our dinners, and we were in the process of catching each other up on our lives while finishing our drinks.  All of the sudden, a hummingbird appears a foot to the side of my dad's head.  He saw the bird and glanced to the side as the bird hovered and diagonally flew to a safer distance.  It then must have caught the sent of the red flowers and meandered over towards them.

We had all forgotten about Ichi, but in the two seconds it took the hummingbird to fly from our table to the flowers, Ichi had quickly slinked into position.  From the steps, he lowered to an near-prone pose, following the hummingbird with his intense wide open eyes.  As soon as it moved towards the flowers, Ichi moved without a sound through the tall grass at a crouch.  The hummingbird was blissfully unaware of Ichi's presence, and decided to check out the lower hanging flowers to see what smelled so good down there... no wonder the lower flowers still had juice for the taking.

Ichi, perfectly still, crouched less than two feet from the hovering hummingbird, who was hovering a little ways out from the flower, still inspecting.  With the speed that the bird reacted to my dad's sideways glance, if it had any suspicion that a cat was within ten feet, it would bolt.  Ichi simply wasn't there.  The moment the hummingbird went for the flower, blinding itself to the hunter below, his fate would be sealed.  Unfortunately for Ichi, I put a stop to the game by running up to both the hummingbird and my cat, scaring away the bird and leaving Ichi wondering why on Earth I wanted to pet him at that precise moment.

Bonneville Part 2

The entryway at the Bonneville Hot Spring and Resort isn't as swanky as some of the ritzier hotels I have been to, but the lobby/lounge area is at the top of the list.  Huge chairs, a cobble fireplace in the middle of the lounge, with glass sides so you can see through to the other half of lobby, and book shelves filled with books lining the outside of the lobby.  The lobby also opened up into a two-story space, so the room feels very large when you walk in from the front desk area, which is much smaller.

I didn't bother checking in at the front desk, and plopped down in one of the large, black leather chairs, which seemed to be nearly a love-seat.  I set my laptop bag down next to me and pulled out my laptop, hoping to find the hotel's wireless network, but thinking about writing if I couldn't.  The network popped up immediately and I did a little web surfing before settling in on a fun little side-scrolling game called Super Meat Boy.

I was situated so I could see the front desk, in case they had any questions about why a man would come in and sit down in their lobby, also so Sarah could see me when she arrived.  A few blondes passed by the entryway and none were Sarah, so I went back to my game.  About ten minutes later a very striking blonde catches my attention, wearing a tight grey shirt that complements her tight torso.  She walks up to me and kisses me.  Sarah is a catch.

We inquire at the front desk if we can check in, even though we're an hour early.  Seeing how it is a Sunday afternoon and the place is empty, we think we might have a chance, but apparently the resort was full last night, so the cleaning crew is still getting our room prepared, and we should be able to check in in an hour.  We made our way to the bar and dining area, finding the dining room prices to be a little steep, but the bar having a decent lunch menu.  I grabbed Sunday's Seattle Times on my way out of town this morning, so I brought it out while we waited for food and we quickly found the games section.  It took us a while, but we eventually finished the 6-star sudoku together during lunch, and most of a crossword puzzle in the hour we spent eating some very good Focaccia bread with cheese, mushrooms, tomatos and greens.

Checking in went quickly and we checked out our room briefly.  Having spent the last hour in a dimly lit interior bar struggling over a difficult sudoku and crossword puzzle, we were itching to get outside and active.  We decided to head out for a quick jog, but as we were leaving the hotel, we realized that neither of us grabbed a room key.  Five minutes after finishing up checking in at the front desk, we sheepishly returned, admitting that we locked ourselves out already.  The staff didn't roll their eyes, which was impressive given our display.  It reminds me of the time I bought a motorcycle, not knowing how to ride it, and within seconds of touching it, it had fallen over and the foot peg cracked the oil gauge, spilling oil all over the side entryway to the dealership.  I could see the sales people pointing at me and laughing.

Bonneville Hot Springs Resort

I parked in the east parking lot, a lot mostly void of cars on this cloudy Sunday afternoon.  We had decided to book a Sunday evening at the resort two nights earlier, because Sarah and my schedules are flexible enough that neither of us had anything pressing on Monday.  Bonneville is located about 45 minutes East of Portland, which is conveniently located between Seattle and Corvallis.  She picked out the spot, and claimed she hadn't gotten me anything for my birthday last month.  I could have sworn she did, but she doesn't mind using my poor memory as an excuse to splurge for both of us—I like this about her.

I call her when I arrive, and she is still about a half hour behind me in getting to the resort.  The drive from Seattle took about 3.5 hours, and I am ready to take a nap, but more interested in getting out of the cramped car seat.  I grab my backpack with my laptop in it and lock the car doors behind me.  Not many other people around the resort this afternoon, so I decide to take a look around the grounds.  I walk counter-clockwise around the building, which is three stories high and shaped like a big U.  Along the back side of the resort is a little stream, and I stumble upon two outdoor bath tubs placed side by side, with a trickle of water from pvc pipes filling the tubs to the brim.  It reminds me of the bath tubs in the ending scene of “Maverick”.  There is a sign resting near the tubs that reads “Not for Public Use.”  I wonder if the tubs are usable by guests at the resort or not.

Walking along the west wing of the resort, I find an open door leading to the pool and hot tub area.  I take a quick look and then continue my scouting.  There is a white pickup truck, parked by itself in the middle of the west parking lot.  Under the truck is a large tabby cat.  It brushes up against the underneath of the front bumper, and then another car enters the parking lot and the cat hunkers down near the tire.  It watches the car pull into a spot about 30ft away, and stands up from its crouch.  I get closer and the cat notices me watching it.  The tabby walks into the grass away from me, heading towards taller grass and what looks to be a few houses just off the resort property.  I slowly follow the cat, making a few chirps for attention, but not getting any positive response.

Along the south side of the resort is a stone wall about 8ft high, with water cascading over the top.  The wall is probably 100ft in length, which makes for an interesting rectangular waterfall.  I imagine a huge hot spring in the interior of the “U” formed by the building, with the stone waterfall connecting the tips of the “U”.  I see trees on the other side, so no big hot spring for me.  The road just to the south of the waterfall separates the resort from its mini-golf course, which looks fun, but without too many obstacles.  I finish the loop of the resort, but not before getting a whiff of propane gas from the south east corner of the building.

Ski Patrol

The first step outside is still always a shock to Neal’s body.  At 5am it is five degrees farenheit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Neal is covered head to toe in ski patrol red and white, but he still coughs sharply after his first icy inhalation reaches his lungs.  He likes the pain and smiles in return to the bitter coldness that said “good morning.”

Neal has been worked ski patrol at Jackson Hole for the last three winters, and maybe only one day has felt like work.  He gets to be outside, he gets to help people, and best of all… he gets to ski.  Neal has a picture on the night stand near his bed of him and his dad skiing, when Neal was only two years old.  It is one of those pictures where size is comical.  Baby Neal can’t see under the rim of his fluffy orange hat with a big white cotton ball on top.  His clothes make him look like a starfish, and baby Neal’s skis resemble two butter knives.  Starting so young paid dividends, though, and now Neal moves effortlessly through any condition on the mountain, from heavy powder days to slick icy days and slow spring rain days.

Tuesday mornings are usually Neal’s favorite, because he is on avalanche control Tuesday mornings.  He gets to man the cannon that shoots torpedo-shaped shells filled with TNT into cornices ready to fall on unsuspecting skiers.  Much like a firefighter creates a burn zone to starve a forest fire, avalanche control induces an avalanche before the ski day starts, so it doesn’t slide when skiers are around.  Neal likes to shoot the cannon, but he prefers the treks like he is on today, up on the ridge above avalanche-prone areas.  Last night, he worked to fill a backpack with various sized sticks of dynamite, and he fashioned multiple fuses of varying length.  Depending on the snow pack, he might need a bigger boom, or more time to get to a safe spot.

There’s something about carrying 40 pounds of explosives on your back, up to the top of a mountain and being the only one up there.  Neal is atop a chute known as “Andre’s Chute” re-named recently for a skier who passed away due to a self-caused avalanche ramming him into the jagged and rocky side wall, and then tumbling him 1000ft further down the mountain before he came to a stop.  Before Andre, it was just named “Chute 3”.  Neal prepared the smallest of his sticks of dynamite, with a short fuse.  The first blast is always a warning blast in case birds, rodents or even the occasional mountain goat was in the chute.  Before Neal learned the ins and outs of avalanche control, he had wondered about the animals in and around avalanche-prone areas, and what the ski area did, if anything, to protect them.

He lit the fuse and let the crackling of the fuse warm his hands for a split second before chucking the stick out over the chute.  It spun end over end for two seconds and then exploded in a loud BOOM.  Neal’s gloves were over his ears long before the explosion, but he still felt the shockwave on his face and chest.  

Ramshackle

*1000 words, since I missed yesterday
*this was a pretty fun write, took about an hour
*I won't even look through this before publishing, I'm thinking about maybe spending a day a week or more out from when I first write to go through and edit old posts that I want to.

Ramshackle is a zero stop light town.  It does have two taverns, though.  Ramsey’s is on the west side of main street, and the Owl & Thistle is on the east side of main street, a few hundred feet south of Ramsey’s.  The Owl & Thistle is a fine establishment, classy bar stools, a nice felt pool table and a juke box with a wide assortment of music for the patrons listening pleasure.  This story takes place at Ramsey’s.  It isn’t a nice establishment.

First time I walked into Ramsey’s was on the night of my first day in Ramshackle.  I jumped at the offer of staying in Montana for a summer, lending an extra hand doing work on my uncle’s farm the summer after my senior year in college at the University of Washington.  I wasn’t getting paid, but I didn’t have to pay rent and most meals were provided by Aunt Clara.  “What’s another mouth to feed?” she said unchallenged, with three kids, herself and big Uncle Reggie to feed already.

It had taken 15 solid hours to drive out from Seattle in the middle of June.  On my trip I got to see the blue of Lake Washington, the rich green of the Snoqualmie forest, the white cap of Alpental, and the remaining 500 miles of brown in Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana.  When I pulled up to the farm around 8pm in my 93’ Toyota Corolla, my uncle was on his way out.  He gave me a big bear hug, introduced me to his family who I had only seen in Christmas cards, and invited me out with him to meet up with a few of his buddies in town.  I was tired enough to decline, but I had told myself during the UW commencement speech that I would try to be more outgoing.  That, and a cold beer sounded amazing.  In hindsight, I really should have just crashed—I could have saved myself a lot of money.

He drove his pickup truck the five miles into town, giving me some quick information about the town and his two buddies we were heading to meet: Rusty and Pat.  I remember my uncle telling me how Rusty was a wise-ass, and Pat was quiet, but someone you wanted in your corner when things got rough.  It didn’t occur to me at the time that things would get rough, but now I understand why Uncle Reggie chose to mention that little factoid about Pat.

We rolled into town just as the sun was setting, and looking back west towards the setting sun, I couldn’t help think of Seattle and how my girlfriend was doing.  She would be leaving on a year-long fellowship to study the cultures in well-known lake-monster towns all across the world.  I shit you not.  She won a $30,000 fellowship to travel the world and go swim with Loch Ness.  She was sad to see me go the night before, as I was sad to leave her, but we both knew our travels were what we wanted to do right now.  The last night with her for a year was memorable: I made dinner for us at my place, and then we spent the next 12 hours in my bedroom.  I was surprisingly well rested for the drive the next morning, but by Spokane I realized that most of my awakeness earlier in the day was excitement for the unknowns of my summer, and less due to good sleep.

Uncle Reggie didn’t help by parking directly in front of the Owl & Thistle.  I began walking into the tavern when my uncle yelled, “No, kid! We’re meeting down at Ramsey’s. This bar is for pussies.”

The three gentlemen with leather jackets, smoking just outside the tavern doors didn’t appreciate my uncle Reggie saying those words, nor the stare Reggie gave them while saying it.  The three bikers didn’t do anything, at least not right then.  We walked a few minutes north to Ramsey’s and I would have missed it, because all I saw was “amy’s” in neon lights, with a little gap between the “am” and the “y”.  In Seattle, there are dive bars, but they wouldn’t have a word for the type of place this was.

The entrance dropped down a flight of stairs into a basement, and the entrance steps were all at varying degrees of slant, which Reggie floated down with ease and I stumbled on like I was wearing flippers.  Even though it was getting dark outside, it was so dark in Ramsey’s that I could barely make out the bar—I just followed my uncle.  He high-fived a few guys, kissed a few women on the cheek, and waved his hand at the bartender as he passed by.  I’m not sure how the wave translated to “Three pitchers of MGD and six shots of vodka”, but it seemed to without much trouble.

Having that much booze in front of the two of us at a circular table in the middle of an otherwise sparse crowd, seemed like overkill.  I asked my uncle why we had six shots, thinking there were only Rusty and Pat joining us.

“We’ve got to catch up, they’ve been drinking since 5pm.” He said as he handed me two shots.

My uncle grabbed two shots himself, clinked them with mine, then clinked his own shots together and said, “One for the dick, two for the tits!” and promptly pounded back one shot after the other.

I sat with two shots in my hands while he slammed his empty glasses on the table and picked up his last glass and yelled to the entire bar: “And three for the…” at once, with a noise that reverberated through the entire tavern, everyone else in the bar shouted, “Holes!!!”

“Did they just say holes?” I asked, two shots still in my hands.

“You get it?  Chicks have three holes you can…” he hinted at.

Before I could respond, someone came up from behind me and grabbed both shots out of my hands and pounded them both, and then gave me the loudest, spit-projectile laugh in my life.

“Hah!!  The name’s Rusty, you must be… oh Goddarnit…”

“Ma” I began.

“Matt!  I knew your Goddamn name, don’t rush me!  Good to meet you!” Rusty said as he shifted the shot glass from his right hand to double up in his left, and extended his right hand to me.

“Good to meet you, too.” I said.

“Whoa there, sonny, you better watch your drink.” Rusty said.

“I suppose I should have!” I said with a laugh.

“No, I mean right now.”

I turned around in my seat to find my third shot being slammed back down onto the table by a short, balding man to my left.  Reggie and Rusty laughed.

“You must be Pat.” I said.  He gave me a nod.

Vincent Sandstrom

Embrace the suck!  So, so bad. I swear I tried to write poorly in some cases, so I can edit it later, honest!!

At the market on Saturday mornings, people of all shapes and sizes made their way down to the riverfront.  Makeshift shops sold mostly produce and trinkets, but regulars knew where to find good slices of meat and some of the more specialized services available in Petoria.  Jammed with people from 9am to noon on Saturdays, empty the rest of the week, Vincent Sandstrom sat and waited for the throng of people to come.

Vincent, 13 and an orphan of 26 days, knew better than to steal—he knew it wasn’t “right”, but starving or the being abused in orphanary seemed a lot worse.  The Saturday market was the first place he had ever stolen anything, three weeks ago, and now he knows that he couldn’t have picked a better starting spot.  So many people and enough food around that merchants wouldn’t notice a missed apple here or a banana that split.  The atmosphere of the market is such chaos, especially in the first and last hours, when people are scrambling to get the best goods, or scrambling to take home the last available ear of corn, or last bottle of milk from the Johnson’s dairy.  Bodies are brushing and bumping into one another, people aren’t paying close attention to their belongings, and merchants are too busy keeping watch over their money to also keep tabs on their goods.

By the end of the morning, Vincent rendezvoused with his new friends in Saint John’s Park, located on the other side of town from the market.

“If this isn’t the best apple I’ve ever bitten into… oh I love Saturday mornings!” a tiny boy named Cael said, while sitting under the shade of an oak tree in the middle of the park.

“You say that ever week, pipsqueak.” Jane, a tall blonde girl with ratty hair, rattier clothes, and sleepy eyes said.

“Oh, hey Vinny, didn’t see you at the market. You sleep in today?” Cael said with a smirk. “And jeeze, what’s with the jacket, it is summer!”

Vincent opened his jacket with a smile, revealing a half-dozen self-sewn extra pockets, filled with various foods from bread to carrots, and even a few milk bottles.

“Whoa!” Cael said.

“You’re getting greedy.” Jane said.

“Here you go.” Vincent said as he tossed Jane and Cael each a piece of bread.

“You must have been doing this longer than just the last few weeks, Vinny. Come on, you can tell us.” Cael pried.

“Maybe he’s just a fast learner. I’d be a fast learner too if I had rich parents and grew up in a mansion like he did.” Jane said.

Vincent squinted, hurt by Jane’s mention of his parents, and his past comfortable life.  His life had been shattered 26 days ago, when his family car crashed through a guard rail and fell into the river.  He swam to shore, but his sister and parents did not.

500!

I played the game "500" growing up, or the name my friends and I usually called it: "Flier's Up".  Up on Sucia Island, with a very appropriate Nerf football, a few guys and I played 500 for the first time in a decade--and it felt amazing!  These weren't the same friends I played with in elementary school, but the game is still the same--the thrower tosses the football towards the other guys and yells out a number, usually something between 100-500, and if any of the lucky, skilled, or just tall catchers catches the football, they get said amount of points.  The catchers continue adding their individual points until one person gets 500, and becomes the new thrower, and everyone's points reset.

The game up on Sucia Island was special last weekend because it had been so long since I played, and playing the game instantly brought me back to my youth.  Also, the fact that Ben called out "-100!" and Chad still caught the ball, losing 100 points... ah youth.

Sucia is an amazing place, only accessible by boat or kayak, and we got to witness the lightning and thunder storm of the millenium... so far.  Sitting on a piece of driftwood with my girlfriend, looking south over Shallow Bay, we saw lightning strikes to the East, to the South and even a few to the West.  Not to mention the rainbow and the picture perfect lighting (not lightning!) on the boats in the bay nearing sunset.

500, the game, isn't actually the reason I started out writing this post, nor the reason I titled this post "500!".  Funny, how the mind starts on one path, with really only one goal in mind, and then out jumps another thought like a laser pointer in front of a light-obsessed cat, and after a few minutes of chasing the light you can't remember what the original path was, nor the only goal intended.  I struggle remembering why I went to the grocery store, I know it is usually one very important thing, but god damn those Cheetos look so good!

Anyways!  Luckily enough, this time I DID remember why I titled this 500.  I intend to write 500 words a day between now and the end of my summer vacation--I have a few ideas of stories I would like to get down on paper, but really who knows.  Every other time I have tried to strap myself into a seat and write, it has failed miserably.  I know I shouldn't care about writing everything perfectly the first time, and I know I should just write, write, write, and then if I like something I've written, I can polish it up later... but that is SO HARD to do!  500 seems like an easy number to hit, but I know from experience that if I set too lofty of goals, I will crash and burn--unless I really get into this!  No harm in over-achieving, self!

Any tips?  Should I edit after I publish these posts?  Should I never edit unless something is good?  Should I post and then wait a few days and edit?  I'm new to this!  Also, I realize this post probably shouldn't count, as it is just an introductory post saying I will be writing later... but hey, words are words!  Also... do I use the trial version of Office on my computer to write, or do I write in a web space, be it Google Docs or Blogger? Hrmm....

(Got distracted before posting and realized that my second most recent post... now third? or whichever post is two behind this... also deals with the very northern San Juan Islands, Waldron Island, which is about two miles from Sucia.  Coincidence that I have creative juices flowing after visiting the islands?  Coincidence that the Washington Poet Laureate once resided on Waldron?  Perhaps...)