My writing mentor, Dwight Newton, was on the front page of the Bulletin. Good for him; the more I tried writing novels, the more I realized how much he achieved.

I took several writing classes from him up at C.O.C.C. in the '70's. He taught the nuts and bolts. Very real and down to earth and yet helpful. I think he was always bemused that my books got published; in the same classes with me were Arlene Rife and Patti Dunaway, who also had novels published. The Bulletin made it sound like his novels are easy to find, but I think they're mostly out of print. I do wish I could find his Central Oregon historically based novels, under the name Dwight Bennett.



When I was growing up, the U.S.S.R. looked as eternal as,well, the Berlin Wall. I remember thinking that a nuclear war could very well happen in my lifetime. I thought the Protestants and Catholics would be killing each off in Ireland forever. Vietnam was our mortal enemy.

Lord of the Rings was too complicated and difficult for special effects to ever be made. Computers filled rooms. (I've always thought it would be fun if you had an extra room to line the walls with computer looking stuff, like the Colossus Project. Have your little desktop in the middle of the room, but be surrounded by blinking lights and whirling tapes. Don a white labcoat, and say, "I'm going to a computer room, honey!" That's the future I expected.)

I thought we'd probably colonize the moon and Mars. France was dubious of us, and we were dubious of France. Well, that hasn't changed. Arabs and the Israelies actually looked close the making peace. Ha.

I thought no woman would ever put up with me for long. I never expected to be a businessman, or to read comics, though I did expect to continue to read S.F. (Mysteries are more my steady diet now.)

I guess I thought a woman or an black President was possible...sometime late in my life, by some sort of fluke.

Interesting times.