Why is my page titled South of the Strait? Well I live in a far corner of the United States. I live in a small town south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. If I was going to throw a rock across the strait it would land in Canada. I used to be an English teacher. I have worked in Westport, Port Angeles, and Sequim, Washington... and I did two years of substitute teaching in Coalinga, California.
I've moved around a lot, living in: Sterling,Kansas; Chicago; Jordan, Montana; Lemoore, California; Auckland, New Zealand; Spokane, Washington; Gambier, Ohio.
What do I write? For WordPress I used to print once a week for general comments. I wrote reviews of music concerts my daughter made me attend. (Each month she would want us to drive to Seattle to see a music group. I usually stood in the back watching weird stuff.) I also wrote about trips I have taken in Europe where I liked getting lost. I also wrote during the few months when my son was treated for cancer. (He is officially free of cancer of five years.) About three years ago I decided to stop writing blogs so I could concentrate on writing a few books. I have completed three books...or maybe four. I have now compiled my short stories poems and memoirs on Amazon. You can get it at Amazon now..."A Work In Progress"--Jon Eekhoff. I have been very close to getting a printed book called "Lost Summer" but I was never offered $1,000,000.00. (It's set in Paris, 1920's, with baseball, writers, artist, and actually true stuff.) I wrote a book about college basketball called "Laidlaw." It's kind of a mix of "Moby Dick" and a coach who is about to get fired so he takes his team out for a free drive around the West. My most recent book is "California Tales." These are connected stories about the missionary churches in California. They are sad, funny, inspiring, and odd. I had the entire book done in my head and had just one section to finish the next day...and that is when I fell 20 feet from my roof and landed on the cement. (Like a lot of men, I thought I could maintain my own roof instead of leaving it to the professionals.) I don't remember anything about my accident but I am told I was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Though conscious and responsive after surgery to remove part of my skull, I don't remember anything from my first month there. I spent another month of Harborview working on walking, speaking, and writing. That was two years ago. As a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) survivor, I could have quit writing, but I am not going to quit. I work with the University of Washington Speech and Hearing Clinic.
So, here I am. I am married and live here in Sequim with my wife Cheryl. Our kids live in nearby cities. Writing is now an exhausting exercise, but something I plan to keep working on.
July 7th was the date circled in red on the calendar, actually the date wasn’t circled, no one in my family needed to be reminded what was happening July 7th. We hoped July 7th would be the bookend to this collection of stories that started on February 3rd; July 7th […]
“Dad, stop yelling at the tv,” my daughter said. “It’s a sporting event, I’m allowed to yell at the tv during sports.” (Is spelling a sport? Well, it is on ESPN therefore it must be. They show car racing, golf, dog contests, and spelling bees, so who am […]
When will it officially be over? July 7th? That is the day scheduled for Dylan’s full-body CT scan. Or, is it over now? With most illnesses it’s easy: You get sick, you get better, it is over, but cancer lurks in the dark. The past two weeks have […]
Today is exactly three months from the day we began this journey. Three months none of us will ever forget. Three months filled with moments of terror, joy, and pain. Today, around 3 PM, the last few ounces of Etoposide will drip out of the clear bag, flow through […]
I am sitting and writing in the chair I was in when I started this journey with Dylan. We are back in the room where we started, 1266, and Dylan’s final round of chemo has begun. If everything goes as planned, we will leave room 1266 and Swedish […]
It hit me this week. It was the little things, the stack of clean clothes I thought about moving into the closet but never did. The To Do list that remained undone. The bathroom scale reminding me I haven’t been to the gym in a week and a half. […]
Everything I knew about cancer I learned from movies. Brian’s Song was probably the first “cancer” movie I ever watched and it confused me. (If you have not seen Brian’s Song it is about a professional football player who is diagnosed with cancer. Spoiler alert: James Caen dies. […]
Yesterday, I packed a “bug out bag,” loaded Dylan into the car and made the 80 mile trip to Seattle. We were heading in to get a blood draw, look at numbers, and find out when we would start his last round of chemo. The “bug out bag” […]
Dylan’s treatment has lasted over 60 days now, I know this not because I have tracked all of this on a calendar, but because we have had our first phone call from someone wanting their money for services rendered. If you haven’t been through a hospital stay in […]
