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THE PEOPLE BEHIND BOOKS

June 27, 2014 by
For Example:

books

  • I met the author during years of employment with the Oregon HIstorical Society.

Some people called him TV.

He was the regional history boss with enough pull to land international exhibits in Portland.

While TV was the lead dog, he had a capable team pulling behind him.

One of them was Bob Stark, Museum Director.

Doing his best to mimic leaders at the top, men who learned their sartorial manners in the Marines with ultra-shined shoes, knife edged creases, and straight gig-lines, Bob Stark was a sharp dresser in charge of a crew who got dirty every day.

While history marches on, not everyone follows. 

Bob Stark didn’t make it to the millennium. His story is untold, a story that includes a wife and children, then a life on his own.

He spent the last year in a museum office, growing thinner and thinner, answering the common “See you tomorrow” with a whispered “You never know.”

He knew he was dying, but didn’t want to talk about it. It was a sad thing to go through.

Thomas Vaughan held the memorial at his house.

  • How often do you open a book only to find other stories flood your mind before reading one page?

Incredible Lies did that. I knew the author, book designer, illustrator, and editor.

Bruce Taylor Hamilton ran the OHS press for years, making his mark on important publications.

He was a man of the 80’s, fit and popular, running a three hour marathon and dating enough beautiful, accomplished, women to make anyone envious.

He also had an air of sadness, applying middle-age charm to young women who later reported regret.

Competitive by nature, he once blocked the base path during my home run trot at a company softball game.

I bore down to truck him but dodged at the last moment. He turned his shoulder, curled up, and fell down.

  • Evelyn Hicks was a woman of translucent beauty.

An artist who didn’t need any extra company, I found myself walking her direction one evening.

It was wonderful. She was smart, tuned in, and kept a good pace. Then we crossed a street.

Two suited up fat men in an big Mercedes blocked the sidewalk. Perfect time to show a delicate lady how a gentleman clears the road.

Doing my best Ratso Rizzo “We’re walking here” I pounded the fender and told the driver to back his kraut can up. Impressive, right?

Turns out she knew the them.

Note to single guys: don’t beat on cars to impress a lady.

That was our last walk.

  • Listed as General Editor, Virginia Linnman became Virginia Linnman Martin when I knew her.

Her husband worked for the state in Salem.

One ice encrusted day I drove down in a rented truck to pick up a model donated to OHS. It was a model of the I-205 freeway. Crate after crate after crate went into the cold truck from storage with no heat.

I drove back on frozen washboard, going 10 mph from Salem to Portland.

Virginia organized the chapters in Incredible Lies, Stories of Old-Fashioned Golf, according to a golf course. Each chapter is a hole.

It’s a nice touch.

So much goes into making a book that you could write a book like some movies have movies about the making of a movie.

It’s baby boomers’ time to recognize the effort, the stories, and mainly keep reading. Encourage others to read more.

If you have stories behind the story inside a book, let us hear about them in comments.

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About David Gillaspie

I am a writer. This is my blog story day by day.

Comments

  1. Gary Bowen says
    June 28, 2014 at 1:41 am

    David I experience moments of “hey! I could do this writing thing,” only, it’s not that I can’t or won’t, possibly, maybe it has something to do with the folks around me in my day to day meanderings. Media exposure, online, paper the handy dandy smart phone everyone to include the ultra poor have seemingly groped in their hands as they go about their hurried day of whatever it is they hurry to do.

    I enjoy reading overseas sources but damned if I can retain much in my midget brain when it comes to whose fighting who and what why or started 1100 years ago a feud that still goes today as if well? Scratching my bald head in bewilderment. Dirt floors and barefoot subservient women are somehow ok but then in the same breath I read (See/Hear) that I, the horribly misinformed non-believer have it all wrong you see. Islam and its growing pains me in oh so many ways.

    I’m so confused. yet, I’m wrong to even question it.

    I don’t like being attacked online. Trolling they call it, in my case, I merely wish to express an opinion, even put fourth a SCENARIO and I get all sorts of folks literally having a stroke-out fest bad-mouthing up to including my first born. Freedom of expression, first amendment, the constitution? Or the Nazi Thought Police? Oh I lived through those KGB years, I wanted to comment of your Germany Cold War years in a previous post, but at that moment, I was pretty damn beaten up. Not in any sort of physical no.

    Mental.

    My wife and I have conversations about my comments, my opinions, even meanderings and why they get folks so riled as they do. I am not by any stretch of the imagination even close to a novice writer. Back in the day, I worked my hardest to conceal any reference to dyslexia. Even to the point of total severe interrogation/s under very hostile work instances with upper management, it was… well, it just was. The words could flow for days if I could create them.

    I love to read, I love to watch and listen other presenters that have wide appeal. I have never had an opportunity to be a presenter as any kind of Expert on say the topic of Campus Safety. People are so hung-up on certifications and grand degrees of wowdom form Harvard or the one’s I like the best are these titles that some Ph-d dork stayed up all hours of the night for three weeks creating a scientific title– just sounds so damn good, written in such complicated form, by the fourth sentence one wonders what he just read! In the end, in my case anyway, it came down to this.

    “Why People Kill”

    Hmmm, Because they hate…

    I am of course speaking of prison life. Life behind bars. The stories few have or ever will realize. The events that haunt me to this moment well into my night. Bet you didn’t know I was the victim of plagiarizing as I once wrote for days at a time my thoughts and memories of some of the most horrid events from those times, only to realize later they were stolen. There is much about me only my wife and kids know, other’s not so much. Getting older has me sealing my lips to the shut-em position. 20 years working military (USDB/Stockades), state, county correction and detention facilities has proven to have serious detrimental impacts to one’s social side of gatherings if you will.

    Since my retirement in 1998, not one employer has actually asked me squat about my background, as in entire background. I spent give or take 6 years serving as a Campus Safety cop and not one time did any Mister or Misses Academia Elite express even a hint of curiosity. Just be there if and when some big bad wolf enters the establishment bearing its gnarly soiled teeth disrupting the wee little lambs thoughts for social justice according to Carl Marx!

    Ya-sure, I have thoughts, I have opinions, I HAVE LIFE EXPERIENCES but in todays world, THEY MEAN NOTHING!

    Regarding pounding the fender of that Kraut car? How about extracting, then beating the crap outta the wrong subject!

    But hey? Looked like he fit the description to this writer!

    Then… theres the time my Uncle had to do and emergency landing due to an iced up carburetor 300 miles from civilization, Alaska, 1971 I believe it was…

    A regular Kodak moment.

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    • David Gillaspie says
      June 28, 2014 at 8:24 am

      Very nice, Gary. Sending encouragement to get your work organized and formatted and going somewhere.

      You’re on a roll with these comments. Thanks for hitting it up.