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The Sharing of Some Very Private Thoughts
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by
Edward L. McClendon
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| About
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The writings in this small book go back several years. I’ve always found a deep satisfaction in writing, especially in the working-out of my feelings about significant life experiences, and about my still evolving personal philosophy.
I’ve added commentary on each writing, to help the reader better understand what I was trying to say, and why I was saying it. The writings cover a number of thoughts about the human value system (on which I have written another, small book), about the feelings I’ve had – and seen others have – concerning the death or illness of loved ones, about the wondrous joy of children and grandchildren, about my wonderful wife, … and about so many interesting aspects of the state we call “life”.
I know that I wrote to please myself, first, and only then did I consider sharing my thoughts with others. I gather that this is true for most writers – perhaps nearly all of them. I hope you enjoy my observations, and that you are motivated to set-down your own thoughts in prose and poetry.
ISBN 1-58909-106-x |
| Number
of pages:116 |
| About
the Author: |
I was born in San Diego, in 1933. My father was a farmer, and an expert in: running bulldozers, wiring and plumbing, carpentry, auto and heavy equipment repair - and several other specialties I have probably forgotten about. As a young boy, I helped around the farms - Dad’s and Granddad’s - driving both a car and a tractor by age 9, irrigating and picking a wide variety of truck farming crops, running a plow behind the biggest horse I had ever seen, milking a cow or two, and tending to several off-the-ground pens my folks commercially raised chickens and rabbits in. And I read - read a lot. My mom bought books for me at various thrift shops, by the boxes full. I realized early on that my love for words, as stories and poetry, would play a large part in my life.
As I entered my teens, my Dad moved us up to the Laguna Mountains in San Diego, where he had accepted the job as foreman for a key part of a large cattle company. The company also raised race horses and quarter horses, and it was common to see some of America’s leading rodeo men staying awhile, and sharpening up their skills. I was still more interested in words and numbers, and chemistry, etc. – and my interests were beginning to focus on learning, with teaching as a probable career.
The spread covered hundreds of mountain acres, and included many honest-to-god real cowboys. My Dad fit right in, and never really understood my feelings about the whole thing - which were based on a kind of observer’s perspective. I never became a part of the horse and cattle - cowboy culture, but grew fond of the good folks it seemed to attract. (This is true, also, for boaters, and fishermen.) I rode horses, and helped to brand, feed and round-up cattle, but my mind was always focused on the stories behind each scene, and the people who filled those scenes.
When we moved to California’s Central Valley, where Dad entered the sheet metal business, it was both a disappointment, and an opportunity to get on with preparation for college. I still was drawing, and writing short stories, all of which I kept hidden, except from my mom.
Midway into college, I married a great young lady with whom I had danced the last dance at the high school Senior Prom. We finished college and I entered sales, as my hoped for teaching career simply could not pay the bills. In ten years, I returned for a degree in administration, and have spent 15 years as a hospital administrator, and over 20 as a management consultant.
Managing and consulting require enormous amounts of writing and the management of complex numbers. But, the writing necessarily is not “exciting”, it’s goal-driven, and it is relatively dull. Only in the last several years have I realized that I had to get back to a love for writing stories and poetry. And, I am drawing, once again. At 69, I have finally gotten back to the life-pleasing trail I was on when I was 14. I guess a half-century of figuring out what I want to be when I grow up is not the longest time one could take. I kind of feel like Moses after his 40 years in the desert. (Perhaps I will finally settle down where there “is oil in the ground,” unlike Moses.)
I have written three books. One is on the origin of human value systems. It is a complicated attempt to express my ideas on, and research in, philosophy, quantum physics, chemistry, genetics, brain morphology, social structures and behavior. Writing it was like cutting a large hole in my head, and emptying out a ton of factoids. My second book, “J.J.’s Marina”© is a humorous telling of the adventures in boating on California’s magnificent Delta. The third book is a collection of my poetry and prose representing a wide variety of approaches - “voices” - and my commentary on several. I hope you find these as much fun to read, as I have had in writing them. These have drawn some attention, and the odds for selling them now appear to be at least as good as playing the California Lottery
Email: ed@elmstreetpublish.com
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