Wrong Guess

My guess is Kerouac went from Herb's Chevron at 224 W. Ferry St (became Herb's Chevron in 1959 but sounds like it was a gas station prior), to the Bingham Bank at Metcalf and Woodword if the building next door - 806 Metcalf - was a bar? Haven't been able to find its history yet. Anyone else have guesses about which gas station, bank and bar Kerouac would have gone to in 1956?

Desolation Angels - Sedro-Woolley, 1956

Here's Kerouac's description of Sedro-Woolley in 1956: He gets dropped off outside, then "I walk across the hot road towards the town ... first I comb my hair in a gas station and come out and there's a goodlooking woman busy at her work on the sidewalk (arranging cans) and her pet raccoon comes up to me ... then I start off - across the curving road is a factory plant ... I keep moving ... out across tarns and oil-meadow distches between superhighway macadams, and come out and lope ... into Sedro-Woolley proper ... there's a bank ... there's the saloon next door... I get a beer at the big shiny bar and sit at a table, back to the bar ... I go out to buy my shoes ... Main Street, stores, sporting goods, basketballs, footballs for coming Autumn ... I go in a store and clomp to the back and take off the clod-hoppers and the kid gives me blue canvas shoes ... I buy em, leave the old shoes there, and walk out - ... Squat against a wall and light a cigarette and dig the little afternoon city, there's the hay and grain feed silo outside town, the railroad, the lumberyard ... I cut off, back to the highway, over the tracks, and out on the bend getting traffic three ways ..." Desolation Angels

Desolation Angels - Concrete, 1956

Jack Kerouac's description of Concrete, WA, driving through in 1956: "Here we come into old Concrete and cross a narrow bridge and there's all the Kafkaean gray cement factories and lifts for concrete buckets a mile long into the concrete mountain - then the little American parked cars aslant of monastic countrified Main Street, with hot flashing windows of dull stores, Five & Tens, women in cotton dresses buying packages, old farmers pitting on their haunches at the feed store, the hardware store, people in dark glasses at the Post Office..." - Desolation Angels

Thunder Knob, April 2021

Penny's a model!

Charles L. Jackson

I think I should have started a blog to put stuff like this in when I started writing my book, but it's too late now.

Charles R. Jackson published The Lost Weekend in 1944. It was made into the great Ray Milland movie of the same name in 1945, which was maybe the first movie to depict the realities of alcoholism.

Yesterday, by chance, I found a 1950 paperback collection of Jackson's short stories called The Sunnier Side, which I had missed when I collected his other books, one about a married, gay man in the closet and the other about a nymphomaniac woman. The story The Sunnier Side appears to have been inspired by a letter asking Jackson why he chose topics from the darker side of life. In a 69 page response to the letter, Jackson explains how all lives have dark and sunny sides and when you write about life, you have to write about both, so that is why he chooses his topics: they're real.

My book does have a lot of the darker side, but it's written specifically to bring light and understanding and hope to those places.

Here are most of the topics included: Alcoholism, Animal rescues and fatalities in national parks, Animals, Armenian holocaust, Bears, Beat writers, Body recovery, Breast cancer, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Climbing, Covid-19, Death, Demonic possession, Difficulties of missing bodies, Drowning, Grief, Human rescues and fatalities in national parks, Losing a loved one to suicide, Meditation, Mental health barriers to services, Mules and pack string, North Cascades National Park, Outdoor safety, Park Rangers, Park Ranger trauma and suicide, Psych meds, PTSD, Rape, Rattlesnake wrangling, Recovery, Relationships, Religious disillusionment, Search and Rescue, Search and Rescue attitudes, Search and Rescue techniques, Self-soothing techniques, Sex and love addiction, Shoot-out, Sisterhood, Spiritual experience, Spirituality, Suicide, Therapeutic techniques, Veterans, What happens after death, Women in the military

In The Sunnier Side, Jackson also wrote several pages about the complications a writer faces gathering the details of his stories from what he sees and experiences. Though everything in a story is a composite, people can sometimes recognize bits of themselves and are offended or worried. It was something I needed to hear since I've been worried about that. He wrote: "And if the writer should suffer a qualm about putting his best friend in a story ... his next thought will be 'Okay, I'm a snake, but first there's a story to tell.'"

I read an Anne Lamott quote: "If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better" in an article Christopher Schelling wrote about being a character in Augusten Burroughs' books that is also helpful. Article here: https://medium.com/.../i-am-a-character-in-literature...

It's funny I came across a Charles Jackson book that addresses my concerns about a book I wrote that mentions Jack Kerouac several times, since Jack Kerouac mentioned The Lost Weekend in Dharma Bums.

After I read The Lost Weekend 10 years ago, I had to work hard to find Charles Jackson's obituary to find out if he stayed sober. I found it on microfiche at the Portland Library. Here it is:

Women Writers

Glad to have these awesome women writers back in my library. Sold most of my library to Powell's a decade ago, and am slowly rebuilding it.

Ode to Teachers

AN ODE TO TEACHERS

What I've learned by writing a book: I feel like it's good, I feel like it has worthwhile things to say, but I have no idea whether it's actually publishable. I can't identify the quality of my own work.

I also became extremely grateful to my writing teachers over the years. Since getting published is a long shot, I'm going to use this forum to thank them now, even though most of them won't see it.

Chronologically:

Larry Vardiman - my dad, who has actually published multiple scientific books and articles and is now writing a hilarious series of murder mysteries that I get to proofread, which helped warm me up for writing and showed me how to weave varieties of experiences into the main narrative.

Dean White - my first college English professor, who gave me my first writing assignments, encouraged me, and seemed to believe in me more than I felt I deserved. RIP

Jack Flynn - English professor who introduced me to composition and creative writing. He was so enthusiastic, so knowledgeable, and gave such great feedback, that he sparked something in me that still burns.

Glenda Richter - mythology professor who gave rich lectures and writing assignments that injected the history of storytelling into my bones.

Rob Crowther - best friend, who taught me about endurance, perfectionism, imagination, and the use of intricate details during thousands of hours of conversations about writing and life and by letting me read his horror.

John Granger - my favorite college professor, whose love of American literature, in particular, astute analysis of it, and thoughtful commentary in response to my own reactions to it shaped the way I read and, therefore, the way I write.

Stephen-Paul Martin - creative writing professor who facilitated students critiquing other students' writing in constructive and useful ways. The original members of the writing group that is so important to me met here.

Harold Jaffe - literature professor who made me feel like I belonged in the literary world, that I might have something worth saying, and that I might someday be able to say it at an adequate skill level.

Victoria Featherstone - a really good poetry teacher, who taught me the basics and made it fun.

Sandra Alcosser - another poetry teacher who pushed me to step up my game, even though I'm not really a poet.

Peter Herman - a literature professor who bequeathed me with his love of the Romantics and gave detailed, thoughtful, encouraging and useful feedback.

Roberta Borkat - Restoration and 18th Century Literature professor, who taught old-fashioned, difficult pieces of writing with such love, perspicuity, and relativity to the present that I was able to enjoy, appreciate, and learn from writing I would have otherwise dismissed and missed out on.

El Cajon Boulevard - the writing group of SDSU students that formed in 1998 and lasted, off and on, until 2003, providing feedback, motivation, and most importantly, comradery between aspiring writers. There were too many members to list here, and they were all important, but thank you, Chandra Howard, for co-founding it, and thank you Abbie Berry, Maya Shafer, and Chris and Holly Norton for being the reliable heart, and Eric Sacks, John Deese, Janelle Anderson, and Steven Panther for sharing yourselves and your stories.

Joe Schneider - my obituary copy editor who taught me so much about accuracy, proofreading, research, and the technical skills of journalism. He was also extremely kind and generous with his knowledge.

David Coddon - friend, co-worker, teacher, and editor, who taught newspaper feature writing with a sparkle and a penguin, giving excellent instruction, and pointing me toward my first "real" writing opportunity, then helping me publish several articles.

Lidia Yuknavitch - my friends' favorite writing professor, who gave a weekend writing workshop on the beach that I went to, then went on to write beautiful, incredible novels that make me feel humbled to have been in her presence. Yes, they are that good.

Chuck Palahniuk, writer who generously shared his and his teacher Tom Spanbauer's writing tricks with his fans in a free online writers workshop. I especially liked his tips on rhthym and symmetry.

So, FB is a weird place to say thank you, but where and when do you acknowledge all the teachers you were fortunate enough to have learned from?

Thank you all.