What I once thought was lost has been returned: a precious piece of my childhood and that of my father’s is once again reunited.

When my father and his twin were growing up in the 1930’s in Minneapolis, the twelve “Swallows and Amazons” books were some of his favorite books. I inherited them from him when my grandparents’ house was sold, and I read each one of them cover to cover, but they remained on my bookshelf when I went off to college and got on with my life. When my parents moved to Northport, Michigan, in 1982, the books went with them, and that was the last time I saw them all together. In the meantime, I’d found them in paperback at Fanfare Books in Stratford, Ontario, so I had my own copies, but the originals were still precious to me.

In 1997, my parents sold their house in Northport and moved back to Perrysburg. They were sure that they brought the books back with them, but it turned out that they remained in the old house. We tried to get in touch with the new owner, but either she didn’t hear from us or didn’t care, and I resigned myself to the harsh fact that the books were gone forever.

But like every Swallows and Amazons story, there is a happy ending. A year ago, that house in Northport was sold to friends of our family, and lo and behold, the books were still there, although scattered around to various places in the house. The new owners located eight of them last summer, two more last fall, and then the last two last month. Tonight I found them carefully and lovingly wrapped on my doorstep, and now at last, they are home.

Last summer I re-read the ones I had, and now I will re-read these last two, thinking of my father and his twin as they once read them, and thanking my friend Grace for her diligence and understanding how much of a gift they are to have them back home again.

On August 2, 2001, at 8:30 p.m. — exactly 48 hours after leaving Albuquerque in the Pontiac with Sam, my computer, a duffel bag of clothes, and my philodendron — I pulled into the driveway of Bob and Ken’s house in suburban Miami.  I was there to start a new job teaching theatre at a private school, and it was also a return to where I’d gone to college, graduating in 1974.  On a previous trip in June, I had found an apartment, and two weeks later the moving van with my furniture finally arrived, just as school was starting.

As I may have said in previous posts, it did not go as expected at the school.  When I was hired I was told I would be teaching dramatic literature and history, which was a good fit with my PhD in playwriting and dramatic criticism, leaving the teaching of acting and directing the plays up to someone else.  But when I arrived at the school in August, I was told that plans had changed; they had found someone to teach dramatic lit — she had a masters in English — and I would be teaching acting and directing the plays.  I had never taught acting, and my directing skills were acquired by observation only.  I gulped, settled in to the apartment with Sam, and gave it my best shot.

It didn’t go well, and suffice it to say that when my contract came up for renewal, both the school and I were happy to part ways.  I spent part of the summer of 2002 looking for work and dealing with the loss of Sam, who died July 20th.  But a week later, thanks to Bob, I found an opening at the grants office of Miami-Dade County Public Schools.  I started there in October and… well, you know the rest.

I’ve lived in three different places in Miami: the apartment, the house in Coral Gables, and now the house in Palmetto Bay, where I’ve been since 2008.  I have made many friends, written a lot of plays, found new places to go, and even though Miami is a far different place than it was when I first arrived for my first tour in 1971, it’s still an interesting and new place to be.

Of course I didn’t know what would happen twenty years ago tonight when I arrived in an August thunderstorm.  Sam is gone, the Gateway 2000 computer has gone wherever antique computers go, but the philodendron still thrives and the Pontiac is in the garage.  And I am still finding new friends and still writing.

What’s next?

It’s been three years since Allen left us on June 8, 2018.

But he’s not really gone. One of the duties I have as a writer is to keep him around, so he shows up in my plays: “A Tree Grows in Longmont,” “Allen’s Big Adventure,” “Another Park, Another Sunday,” “Going for a Walk with Sam,” as Arnold in “Last Exit,” and J.R. in “Home-Style Cooking at the Gateway Cafe.” His personality is a big part of the character of Adam in the “All Together” plays, and Pete in “Cooler Near the Lake.” So, hon, wherever you are, you’re still getting into the act, and I will always call you Sweetheart.

On this date in 1971 I graduated from Maumee Valley Country Day School.  It’s a small private school in Toledo, Ohio, and I was one of a class of 47 students.

I was not an outstanding student, but I volunteered to give the class speech, and no one objected.  At the commencement ceremony, held in the high school gym on a rather humid June evening, I stood up and spoke for a few minutes.  I have no recollection of what I said, and I didn’t save a copy.  But I do remember that I ended it with a quote from Bilbo Baggins at his birthday party, given at the beginning of “The Lord of the Rings.”

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Fifty years later, I’m still in touch with a number of my classmates through social media such as Facebook, where we share pictures of our families and the usual news about weddings and grandchildren (which still boggles my mind).  Despite the fact that we have all gone our separate ways — not many of us still live in Toledo — we share those memories, and for once, all those years between now and then don’t seem so long.  I still have the silver mug with my name engraved on it that we got as a class gift — I use it as a pen caddy, appropriate for a writer — and I still have my sports letter, earned because I videotaped the home basketball games.  (In 1971, it wasn’t just holding up a cell phone.  It was a major undertaking.)  And I have my yearbooks, going back before high school, all the way to Grade 3.  And it was at that place where I wrote my first play, “The Summer House,” an eleven-page masterpiece that I labeled as a “full-length.”  It is, mercifully, not available for production.

So to my fellow classmates and friends, the quote from Mr. Baggins still applies.  But I’ve never forgotten you.

A year later, I think of him every day with his reminders always with me: the dog-eared and worn bird book, the return of the first editions of the “Swallows and Amazons” books that were his childhood reading, the championship ring from the Toledo Goaldiggers’ Turner Cup victory, the phone number still in my phone, the voice-mail messages recovered and saved, and all the other pieces.

Dad with Tupper circa 1954

Cathedral Peak at Cheley Colorado Camps, Estes Park, Colorado.

If you’re traveling for Thanksgiving, be very safe.

When my father and his twin were young boys in Minneapolis, they read the Swallows and Amazons book series written by Arthur Ransome. The books, twelve in all, tell of the adventures of children sailing on the lakes in the north of England and also on the Norfolk Broads. When my grandparents’ house was sold in the early 1960’s, Dad brought the books home, and I read every one of them, cherishing them, and even learning a lot about sailing.

(In 1973, I found the books published in paperback at Fanfare Books in Stratford, and I bought all of them so I would have my own collection.)

In 1982, my parents moved to Michigan, and the books went with them. In 1997, they sold the house and moved back to Perrysburg. In the move, though, the books were left behind. I tried to get in touch with the new owner about getting them back, but I got no response, and I was sure they were gone forever, and along with them the memories that only a book held in the hand can bring. But this summer, the house was sold again, this time to a family friend. Lo and behold, she found eight of the books still on the shelves where they had been left nearly twenty-five years ago. My sister told her friend how much the books meant to me, and she graciously gave them back to us.  When I was in Cincinnati I picked up eight of them, ready to take home and become a part of my cherished collection of books that mean more to me than just the words on the page.  It’s a connection to my father and something that meant very much to him.

Welcome home, Swallows, Amazons, D’s, and Captain Flint.

I was supposed to be here this coming weekend for the 100th anniversary of Cheley Colorado Camps.  But Covid-19 showed up instead, so we’re doing it next year.

Almost half-way through August, I’m remembering how I used to spend a week or so with my parents and go to Stratford, Ontario, for our annual trip to the Shakespeare Festival.  The last time I went with them was in 2013 before they moved to their retirement home in Cincinnati, and that August was the last time I was in my old home town of Perrysburg, Ohio.

Dad’s gone, and even if Mom could travel we couldn’t go because of the current unpleasantness, but the memories of seeing great theatre and having our picnics on the banks of the Avon River are still strong.

My last trip to Stratford was five years ago when my friend The Old Professor and I went on our own pilgrimage because Stratford had been foundational to our love of theatre.

I still miss him, but he’s still with me, and A Tree Grows in Longmont.

I will always call you sweetheart.

I’ve been doing some research for my new play, “The Sugar Ridge Rag,” that takes place in northwestern Ohio starting in 1970.  It’s about twin brothers: one enlists in the Army, and the other goes to Canada to avoid the draft.  At one point they mention listening to AM radio and CKLW out of Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit.  At the time it was the powerhouse station for rock and roll, Motown, and just about every other type of Top 40 music.  What Wolfman Jack was to the “American Graffiti” generation, CKLW was to mine.  Because it was AM and the frequency was a clear channel, you could pick up CKLW as far away as Des Moines or Atlanta at night.

I went on YouTube and found an aircheck — basically a sample of the station — and for eight minutes I was back in Perrysburg driving my ’65 Mustang to school, to the mall, to Zachman’s quarry to go swimming, to just riding around with my friends listening to what is arguably some of the best rock music, all over a mono AM signal from a small studio on the outskirts of a town in rural Canada.  Talk about your sense-memory recall.

Time, technology, and Canadian content have taken their toll. CKLW is no longer what it was; stereo sound took away the audience from the AM dial that wanted to hear both channels, and the Canadian broadcasting authority made it so that stations in Canada had to broadcast a certain portion of their programming with Canadian artists. And their audience grew up and grew away, replaced by other tastes and interests. What was then mainstream popular music is now “classic rock” in the same way that a ’65 Mustang is a classic car.  And while there’s still a market for oldies in the radio format, it comes with a monthly fee from a satellite, not a reconditioned modular home in a farm field on the outskirts of town.

Yeah, I’m a boomer, but I’m entitled to miss it.

It’s the first of November and the opening of registration for the 100th anniversary celebration of the place where I spent many happy summers among the mountains and wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park.  The party happens Labor Day weekend 2020, but I’m signing up today.

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta starts tomorrow.

When we lived there, our house was about a mile or so from Balloon Fiesta Park. We’d get up on the flat roof of our house and watch the whole thing for hours. My favorite was the Dawn Patrol, when the air was cool and still and the balloons rose like miniature suns in the growing light.  Then again, the evening event when everyone would light their burners and the glow from hundreds of balloons was like a convention of lightning bugs of every color imaginable.