Too many projects!!!

I’ve been writing a ton lately, but been all over the place working on 4 separate projects.
1. The original story, book
2. The series of short poems
3. Book about how to change from the mindset of ‘ego’ to the mindset of ‘humility’
4. A travelblog with a roadpoet flare—to be housed right here!

It seems I need to focus my writing so #1 & #2 will be set aside until I get closer to finishing #3 & #4

Hope all is well with everyone…Peace!

p.s.-Now on facebook with keyword: roadpoet

Year 2 Begins

With summer here again (although in Michigan is it really summer?), it’s time to renew the search.

I’ve begun writing the book about my search for Artie, which has morphed itself into the story of Artie’s search for himself, and his undying love for his first love – Mary Moskowitz.

Unfortunately I still haven’t met either Artie or Mary, but I did find information that shows they were both alive as late as December 2003. Which was a surprise because I had heard from others that Mary had committed suicide, but that info was untrue.

Maybe someday we’ll all have the chance to meet them.

What started out as a personal journey to find the man behind the letter I’d found in a used book, has become nearly an obsession to find this very intriguing man. I have acquired some remnants from his past – including the journals he kept, a ton of love letters he wrote to Mary throughout the years even though as far as i can tell they were never in contact those many years they were apart, and a picture (presumably of Artie as a young boy -probably around age 10).

Anyway this summer I’ll be posting mostly about the new information I’ve gathered, correcting old misinformation, and sharing the journay of writing the book.

Hope all are well!

The Long Drive Home

I’d planned not to write again until I was home, but then again I’ve planned a lot of things on this trip which have left God laughing.

Actually today’s the 15th and now that I think of it, I planned on being home today. Hmm, well maybe tomorrow.

So I snuck back into northern Michigan for a quick two day affair before retuning home. I was, of course, rewarded by many natural scenes of wildlife and northern beauty, but that’s not why I’m writing.

I was eating at the only all night diner I’d seen anywhere near Belaire, Michigan. The night air was as still and quiet as the interior of the diner. Myself and the cook/waitress/everything were accompanied by one of her regular’s around four o’clock.

He and I began talking (he’s a mid-forties semi-retired truck driver/farm hand/handy man – but mostly now he makes a living scrapping metal), and eventually I mentioned the trip and that I was writing poetry and such, and he kinda looked at me funny. “For real?” he asked me like three times. Then he proceeded to tell me a story about the only other poet he’d known. I won’t bore you with all the details, but here’s the gist:

When he was a kid there was an old guy who once owned a farm and corner store who would read stories to the children (and oftentimes adults too). The adults all said he wrote poetry too, but my new friend didn’t remember ever hearing any. We talked til near six o’clock (I mostly listened). He was so elaborate with details of this old guy, and the whole time he spoke of it you could see this boyish smile beneath his scraggly beard. It was the coolest thing – I wish I could describe it better, but perhaps being there adds to my excitement a bit too.

Anyway this old guy (as you can tell I don’t want to say his name yet, for reasons I’ll soon share) used to sit around outside the corner shop he used to own, and read to the children. He never brought a book, though. His story ideas all came from the children. You see the children would bring him an envelope. Inside the envelope was one quarter and one word. He would keep the quarter to eat and such, then would tell the children a stort relating to whatever word was in their envelope. Some days he would speak for hours to those children.

Well I’ve met with people who knew him better, and there’s something that this old man dreamed about, that I’m going to try and make come true. So hold on to your hats, more details will be coming soon, after I look into a few things. But it looks rather wonderful. A funny (well maybe tragic depending on how you look at it) thing about these other people – they all remember him creating stories for the kids, and remember hearing that he wrote poetry, but none of them ever remember seeing or hearing any of his poetry.

Oh – just in case you’re thinking another search is on, it isn’t. His wife preceeded him in death, he had no children, and there’s no known living family. But that doesn’t mean what comes next isn’t exciting as a dickens.

Update on searching for Artie: My spirits have almost completetly deflated & forgotten the search since it’s been so long for anything new to surface. I’m still waiting to hear from Tom on when I should visit to look through the rest of his mother’s boxes of stuff.

Upon checking my email – I’ve received a nice little rejection letter from some poems I submitted a month ago. Just in case anyone is wondering. My poetic plans are to begin submitting more pieces as soon as I’m home.

P.S. – Home FYI – I’ve decided I’ll see you tomorrrrrrrow for sure.

peace.

Sleep Walking

Back on Michigan soil now, and the weather’s already much better than Virginia. I’m less excited about sleeping in the van tonight than I have been, since the whole time at Tom’s house I slept in this incredibly awesome bed. The mattresses are hand-made to respond to the body’s actions much like those foam beds. The great thing about these hand-made beds is that they are constructed out of 100% recycled materials. The down side is that there’s a six month waiting period for the mattresses. Oh and they’re a bit on the expensive side too.

You’ll all be happy to know we had no jokesters on our return flight. We also didn’t have any private workers on the plane, other than the pilot and his assistant (I learned there’s a whole hierarchy of positions before one becomes a co-pilot on these planes – our guy made it clear he was just an ‘assistant.’ I guess that means if our plane was falling out of the sky he would be qualified enough to ‘assist’ the pilot ininforming us that we’re about to crash.

Absolutely nothing spectacular happened over the past two days – no new breadcrumbs on Artie’s trail, no contact information or old address or picture or anything. Tom did say there were some more boxes he has put in storage and he invited me back out to look through them when he brings them home. Of course this time he will expect me to drive, so who knows – maybe I’ll head that way in my travels.

Enough about all of that, tonight I just want to think about finding a nice quiet spot to sleep beneath the stars. Ever since the trip began I’ve wanted to sleep on the van’s roof, and tonight’s the night. Let’s all pray I don’t rock in my sleep or sleep walk – it wouldn’t be fun waking up in the dirt.

FYI – I’m planning to visit the world’s greatest family (uh, that’s mine in case you didn’t get it – duh!) in a couple weeks, so I need to plan a good 2-3 week round trip destination. Any ideas?

peace.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I can’t say much right now, but I just took a private jet to Virginia. Funny how quickly everything can change. I’ll be here a few days helping Tom look through some of his mom’s (Mary) old papers for any clue about where Artie might be.

I’m pretty sure this flight has been funded by our tax dollars, and a little hint for those who may find themsleves in a similar situation – be wary of your humor as the workers on these private planes have no sense of funny. A little joke about being a mile high and needing my stuff back, and the next thing you know I’ve lost all privileges.

Oh – I didn’t mention my stuff yet. Ok, here it goes:

Tom let me know that before boarding the plane I’d have to empty my pockets into a plastic container (which they would keep until we landed). Unfortunately (for them) he told me this as we were gassing up the car enroute to the hangar.

So I decided to play a little joke on them. I had almost $23 on me, so I bought two energy drinks, a box of magnum condom’s, and almost a hundred red hot fireballs. We had about a thirty minute drive and here’s how it went down: I drank the two energy drinks, opened all the condoms from their individual packaging, then began unwrapping the fireballs and putting them inside the condoms. Then I knotted the condoms and dispersed them into the various pockets about me.

In retrospect it really wasn’t that creative, but it’s all I could come up with at the time. The two ladies whom I had to hand everything to spent about ten minutes trying to figure out what was happening. I thought it’d just be a funny joke, but let’s just say they weren’t laughing. Tom was pissed.

I never did get all my stuff back. Anyway I’m hoping to get some good info while here and perhaps start again on the trail to find Artie.

peace.

Protecting the Innocent

Now is probably the most appropriate time to discuss something I’ve been lumbering over since I began this journey: changing names of those involved in the story. In case you’ve ever wondered all the names are changed from their originals. The naive child in me didn’t want to do this for the sake of honesty and all that is good, but the adult in me decided to protect them.

Also – I really didn’t want to tick someone off and have them sue me and take the $78.31 I have in my savings account.

I mention this now after having met Mary’s son Tom. He happens to work in a position that is very visable – he is in politics. I don’t want to say too much and give him away, so I’ll just say this: I’m not someone who stays very current with the nation’s politics, and I recognized him. So there you go – let your mind have fun picturing whomever you’d like.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to what happened.

Tom, Joyce, and I spent all afternoon talking (I took mad notes – of which I haven’t looked through yet, so I hope I don’t jumble what I’m about to tell you). Tom and Joyce spoke for a while sharing stories and such, then Tom sort of interrogated (maybe poor choice of word) me. He wanted to know why I was involved with his family at all. I’m not sure if he believed me when I told him about the letter, but he stayed and talked for several hours.

Earlier this year he received a phone call from a storage rental unit that had been prepaid for many years. It had boxes and boxes of his mother’s (Mary) Stuff, mostly letters and papers. He had all the boxes moved to his house and began looking through some old medical papers. BOMBSHELL ALERT, Please be seated. Here it is – Apparently Old man Moskowitz was sterile. That means he isn’t Tom’s father. Then we all talked about who the other men that Mary’s mom prostituted her out to might’ve been (they talked – I listened). After I made us all some coffee there was this moment of silence where we all just sort of looked at each other and I’m not sure who said it first, but we all questioned what if Artie’s is Tom’s father?

Thomas R. T. Wilson – ‘Tom,’ it at least makes one wonder. Although it’s probably more likely that Mary named her son after Artie, but still one wonders.

Around 6p Tom’s driver reminded him of some meeting or commitment, an off they went. I stayed at Joyce’s for a little while longer and then off to bed in the woods.

In case I haven’t mentioned it as of yet – the woods can be a scary place to this here a-dult. There’s a few spots where I’ve pulled the van off the road and parked, only to find myself lost upon waking up. Once I spent an hour and a half getting lost and re-lost, over and over. All the two tracks look the same when they don’t have specific landmarks. I finally deicided to cut up my red t-shirt into strips and hand them on branches overhanging the by-ways as I tried them. As you can tell – it eventually worked.

Until tomorrow – May the wind whisper your name on the hearts of others,

peace.

When Hair-do’s Become Chastity Belts

Just when you think it’s safe to begin forgetting about what started this whole traveling gig – SURPRISE!

I met with Joyce today and we looked through the few items she found, mostly pictures of her and Mary when they were little . Those fake colored rosy-cheeked pictures freak me out. I’m not sure why, but it makes me think of Little House on The Prairie. Anyway I got to se what Mary looked like as she entered her teen years. Let’s just say no matter how cute teenage girls may have been back then, their hairdo’s must’ve worked like chastity belts.

It was great putting a face to Mary, and she and Joyce look like they could’ve been sisters rather than cousins. After meeting with Joyce for about two hours, she casually mentioned that someone named Tom was coming to visit her tomorrow. WHAT! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

She wasn’t, and apparently tomorrow I get to meet Mary’s son Tom. All that detective research work I’ve been doing is finally paying off. Yeah right. As you can probably imagine I’m as excited as a porcupine in balloon popping contest. I can’t believe, though that she told me almost en passant. I feel like such a pawn (Sorry – I couldn’t resist).

So sing away Annie “The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be Tom.”

I haven’t been able to fall asleep so I’m up hawking invisible internet beams outside the local library. I love libraries!

P. S. – Have you hugged your plant today. O Cactus!, My Cactus! OUCH!

peace.

False Advertising

Right now I feel like a scumy corporate ad agency. I said I was hiting the road this morning, but I’m writing from my couch. The reason for the delay is simple: I still haven’t slept. I was up all night doing some necessary editing, preping, and submitting of my poetry.

So tomorrow morning I’m off and my current plans are to spend about a week driving around Michigan, visiting some sites of poetic interest. I’m also hoping to visit some used book stores to search for books of Michigan poetry. I’m especially hoping to find some chapbooks of poets I’ve never heard of.

Also I spoke with Joyce and she received a few items in the mail from her auntie that we’re going to look over. I’ll probably get there Wednesday so stay tuned.

Side Notes: I watched Freedom Writers while home and it’s the first movie I’ve cried at in a long time – a must see feel good movie based on a real life everyday hero. Just how contagious can one person’s hope for others’ become? Watch this movie and see how you feel inside, and remember you’re sitting on your couch far away from the true story. I also watched a documentary called The One Percent about the growing disparity of wealth in America and it was interesting, but mediocre at best. The movie’s creator (wealthy descendent of Johnson & Johnson founder I believe) tried to let on that he really wanted to fix the problem of this disparity, but even when he portrayed himself asking the ‘tough questions,’ he was really asking them for show in neutered places like his home. The movie played more like a “I want to be perceived as caring” vesus “I’m not going to accept things are the way they are no matter the consequences.” Don’t waste your time with it – if the kid wasn’t a wealthy descendent this wouldn’t have made it out of Blockbuster’s 49 cents bin.

POETRY – I received my first rejection letter.

Time to get a good night’s – make that a good two-night’s sleep.

peace.

Flunking Geography

I’ve been driving West-ish today and I must have been somewhere in Missouri when I got one of those thoughts that shuts down my mind. All day thoughts (crazy and sublime) travel through my brain, but every once in a while a thought will grab a chair and stay a while. This is all well and good, except it happens to block up the rest of the passing traffic.

So today’s roadblocker was a thought about visiting Ketchum, Idaho, the place where Hemingway sucked on his shotgun after apparently losing much of his memory from earlier rounds of electroshock therapy.

Sounds like a vacation waiting to happen. Some choose rollercoasters and adults in animal costumes, but I choose this. I’m not always sure about the stability of the chair my mind often offers to passing thoughts, but oh well.

So in my great geographical mind I figure hell I’m in Missouri (where I may never drive off the highways again), I gotta be closing in on Idaho, right?

Well I hope they fired the guy who laid out the atlas, beacuse it appears he’s got Idaho was over by Washington and Oregon, clearly a mistake. Them taters can’t travel that far on the railroad and still be fresh at our Wal-Marts can they?

Suffice to say I am not heading to Ketchum, but it got me wondering about my home state. I believe I’ve heard somewhere that Hemingway used to retreat to Northern Michigan to write at some point. Or maybe he just wrote about Northern Michigan from travels there as a child. Heck, now I can’t seem to remember what I remember at all. I guess that means it’s time to pull the chair out from under this thought and move forward with the day.

SIDE NOTE ON ARTIE: Joyce called and we talked a bit about Mary’s son Tom. Mostly we were both just flapping our gums because we don’t have any information on him at all. The only real noteworthy information shared is that Joyce spoke with her aunt Ern in Vermont, who really isn’t her aunt at all but had been real close to the family when she was growing up, and her aunt said that she used to try to keep track of where Tom was. She said Tom moved every year, sometimes more than once a year. Aunt Ern said she’ll look around the house this week and see if she can’t dig something up. So perhaps we are closer. At this point I’m really trying not to get excited about any new information because I’ve already sent myself up and down and all around with excitement and let down on several occassions. So we shall just wait and see, as they say, what tomorrow brings.

peace

Crying For Mary

Joyce and I spoke for almost two hours today. Apparently our previous meeting and talks have invigorated her interests in her cousin Mary. They grew apart as they grew up, and although Joyce thought they shared everything when they were younger, she’s beginning to see she was a bit naive.

Apparently she was talking with a girl named Linda who she and Mary went to school with. Linda lives within half an hour of Joyce and things being as they are, they rarely cross paths. When they do see each other they exchange pleasantries, but no conversations.

Yesterday Joyce looked Linda up and they talked for quite a while. Linda shared a lot about Mary and her mother that Joyce didn’t know. The disturbing news was that Linda had heard through the years rumors that men used to pay Mary’s mother to have sex with her daughter.

Even though my mind had been digging for what Joyce had to tell me, I was taken completely speechless when she related this to me. I promised her I would mention that right now this is just a rumor. And we hope there is no truth to the very disturbing rumor that it is.

Joyce is now at least as anxious as I am to find Mary’s son. Before hanging up I made a pledge to help her find out the truth. Honestly though, as I write this I feel a bit helpless. I’m not sure what I can do to help. I’ve run out of leads to find Tom. And I don’t really know where to start looking.

My heart sits thick with thoughts of Mary.

peace