Fife, Clouseau, Lestrade, Hodge

In one of my fantasy lives I wanted to be a detective. I may have been a great one. Then of course, there's a good chance I would have turned out to be a bumbling idiot. I have certainly missed plenty of important clues and hints over the years.

However, one subtle clue I picked up on years ago has proven to be true.

It was the second year we went on vacation to the coast. The kids were younger, much younger. We had purchased a disposable camera for each of the kids.

It happened slowly at first. Rochelle used up her film taking weird pictures of random stuff. And, since her sisters were not using their cameras, she bartered, cajoled, purloined, or somehow managed to get the cameras from them as well.

So, while I was being diligent to keep my fingers out of my pictures and exactly centering the subjects of my photos, she took pictures of crazy stuff or no stuff at all. The places she climbed and the contortions she managed to twist into for a single picture made everyone doubt her sanity.

When at long last we returned home to Minnesota, Rochelle entered a bunch of her photos into the county fair. When she carried an armload of ribbons out of the fair with her pictures, I had a premonition!

Today, over a dozen years later, she opens the doors, metaphorically speaking, to her new business. You guessed it, she sells trombones!

Just kidding, of course.

Her new business is called Honeycomb Galleria. Naturally, it is her amazing collections of photographs presented in unique and creative ways. Check it out. Buy something and love it. That's what we artists want you to do, but we don't know how to ask nicely.

Where Did My Kids Get Their Talent

The general assumption is, they got it all from their mom.
While there may be all kinds of scientific reasons to support such a claim, there is a mathematical argument against it. If they got her talent, why does she still have it? Ha! I propose that my kids got all their talent from me, leaving me destitute. That's why my wife still has all of hers.

My defense rests.

Anyway, comedy routine aside, a few weeks back several of the kids hinted that my website looked like it was made by a third grader. Not this website. This one is great, I didn't make it. I have another one that is about a boat building mission. I'll not describe here what is easier to look at there.

Back to our story.

My argument was that it didn't need to be fancy, cool, or anything else, it was merely a simple way to share how we were working to fill a unique need.
They alluded that if a corn maze were as complicated, there would be helicopters hovering over it performing search and rescue operations day and night!

They also pointed out that simple communication did not have to look amateur. That, I could agree with, I just did not know how to fix the problem.

Enter “the kids.” Mind you, they are spread out across the country. But, via technology magic, they collaborated, consulted, conferred, and conspired on how to rebuild it with all the essentials and none of the clutter.

It took twenty-four hours!

For real! From when I handed over the passwords, until I took down the old site and ported the URL, it took exactly one day. I was afraid it would be weeks. I think Rochelle didn't sleep at all during that time. She's the artist/photographer of the family, and naturally she did the aesthetic arrangement, which was the bulk of the work.

So I invite you to take a look around the website of Mission Navigation. I think it looks amazing. The work we do there is pretty cool too, if you're into that sort of thing.

The moral of the story is: Parents, don't be afraid of your kids exceeding your abilities. In fact, I think it's important to encourage it!

Buried Treasure

It's for real folks! Three other men and I know where there is a buried treasure! It could be worth a fortune, or not. I don't know about that part. But it is there. I know, because we buried it … a long time ago.

We were not pirates hiding loot. We were boys making a life passage.

It all came about because my brother, myself, and a couple of friends had dug a fantastic hole in our back yard. It was probably close to five feet deep. It was undoubtedly the the coolest thing in our neighborhood.

From the beginning of our project, my mother had a dim view of the operation. Her hints began as imperceptibly negative comments. “You boys better fill that hole in before the house collapses into it!”

Eventually she escalated to less subtle expressions of displeasure. “You boys better fill that hole in before your father gets home!” That transition probably took less than an hour.

I seem to recall we took our chances and Dad had some comment like, “Hehehe, wait 'til they have to fill it in when it rains.”

We took that as carte blanche approval and continued our excavation for the next few days until the hole reached the epic size I have already described. And it rained as Dad had predicted. When all the gooey mud dried out we got the eviction notice. “Fill the hole in by the end of the day.” It was like digging in baked adobe.

I don't know who had the idea. It may have been Mom trying to urge us to fill in the hole. But someone suggested we bury our GI Joes and all our gear. We were adolescents on our way to becoming men and we had certainly outgrown them as toys.

The idea was an instant hit and we put our names on everything we could label. We placed our GI Joes and all the accessories in shoe boxes. And with no fanfare, those objects on which we had projected our aspirations of heroism were buried. We probably should have had some important adult give a speech about growing up. But that only happens when adults want to prolong a moment. For us, it was just time to live in our own skin.

So, what brings this to my remembrance forty-plus years later?

Because I'm planning to bury another treasure. Only this time, there will be clues …

Maybe Growing Up Is a Disease

It is well known among children that there are two distinct clans of mice. The Destroyers are those who chew up food containers in the pantry and leave nasty little messes around. They are lazy, house invaders, and, as their name implies, destructive. Then there are the Builders. They are the ones that help fix broken items and even clean up places that are difficult for people to reach. They live in tidy, well-ordered villages in the forest, and some families live near workshops where they assist in the trade.

Why adults have let this scientific fact escape their knowledge base is a great mystery. Perhaps the defining moment at which one becomes a grown-up is the point they lose track of that important fact.

Maybe the loss of imagination is not so much the point of growing up, but part of the collateral damage. Maybe growing up is a disease in itself.

I'm no expert on the subject, but I recall growing up once. There had not been a stress level when I was a kid. When our family was broke, we were broke. It was no big deal. I just pretended to be whatever I wanted to be.

Then for some crazy reason that escapes my memory, one day I decided I needed money. That day I became responsible for something. That must have happened sometime around the age of ten, maybe twelve. I don't actually remember. But that day the stress level began and has never let up.

Nowadays, it seems I have to intentionally channel the carefree attitude of that cute little kid from my ancient past to free up my mind. (And yes, I was actually cute once.) That may sound like escapism, but it certainly is not.

Even Jesus spoke about us having an attitude like little children. I realize He was making a point about the entirety of their trust. But the truth is, the reason we stress is we don't have that childlike trust. And the killer of imagination is stress.

Ironically, I find letting my imagination run free is very stress relieving. Somehow those two wheels of reason don't seem to be rotating in the same direction. Logically there are only two plausible conclusions. Either it doesn't work that way. Or, my imagination is a portal into another dimension.

While you read this, not far away, in a misty salt marsh behind wisps of Spanish moss, a colony of mice in a tidy village, built among the roots of an ancient cypress tree, were conducting an emergency meeting. An alligator had been spotted nearby and the mayor was concerned for the safety of their clan, especially the fishermen …

Finals Are a Good Thing

“He was an ordinary mouse, much like any other mouse who was raised in a boathouse. He loved his job building boats. When the beautiful trade schooner, Wanderer, was finished, the little mouse had to make the decision of a lifetime. Wanderer was going to sail off to who-knows-where.
Would the mouse from the boathouse stay home with his family and friends? Or would he jump on the ship and have an adventure?”

— Back cover of Boathouse Mouse

The making of an adventure story begins in the imagination. After that, all it takes is a lot of work! And when it comes to an illustrated book, it takes even more work. And more people too.

I am excited to report that Shawna is doing the final drafts of the illustrations now! Also, the final edit has been done on the story! And (I'm not done yet) the font, size, and page formatting is in the final stages! Everything is looking amazing!

Meanwhile, the world is asking: When can we get our grubby little hands on this book?

September is when we plan to have it available. That said, September is running us down like a cheetah chasing a gazelle! For now, we're sticking with the September answer. That does give us a thirty day window, right?

I will keep you posted. We will not compromise quality for a deadline. However, we are all very excited about the eminent release of Book 1 in The Adventures of Boathouse Mouse!

And, I'll let you in on a little secret that has me all giddy. Don't tell anyone, but I'm almost finished writing Book 2!