A Very Big Day

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October 21st, 2016

Even after I recently realized how close I was to finishing the principal writing of “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” it still took me a long time to do it, at least in my mind. When I got within a couple of chapters it was like, “I’m right there. I can finish tomorrow.”  But, the finish line was like a mirage on the horizon. When I thought I was getting closer, it just moved away.

Today, October 20, 2016 at approximately 4:35 p.m. in Woodbury, Minnesota, I put a period at the end of a sentence and calmly thought, “Well there you go. I’m done.”

I had no inkling this would be any different than any of the other days, since I started this project on January 6. It was just another day. Just another period on the end of an endless list of sentences.

This week had been manic. It really was RIGHT THERE, within my grasp. I just had to find the time and have the fortitude to do it. Unfortunately, my calendar was full of “real life” stuff that needed to be tended to. Appointments outside the house, and service calls inside. Adulting. It takes time.

By yesterday, I could smell it. But, I had a service appointment to get my Lexus its 15,000-mile service and have the tires rotated. I took my laptop to the dealership and hid myself away in the “Customer Business Center” they provide, writing for the entire 90 minutes my car was being worked on. I couldn’t wait to get home and get back at it.

At 6:30 last night, my fingers, back, and brain gave out. I thought I was no more than six pages away, but once it gets to that point you have to walk away. Even my typings skills had deteriorated to the point where I was deleting as many letters as I was typing. I had to finish today. But today is Thursday Blog Day and I reserve it for this blog. Not today. The book took precedence.

After reading the newspaper and looking back over what I had written yesterday, I sat down and got serious around 11:45 this morning. At 4:35 I typed that period and it was done. Well, it’s nowhere near done, but the principal writing of this book, which starts when I’m 3 and ends when I’m 60, was there. It’s all editing and tweaking from here, and then pre-production and publication. After that, marketing and promotion.

And, I realized, the final chapter was too long. Chapter 35 was supposed to be the final one, but as I dove into 2015 the stories that just <HAD> to be included kept coming to mind. I kept writing. When I was done, I split it into two. The book is now 36 chapters long. I think if I’d have made that decision, to have a 36th chapter, before I started 35, I would have put the last one off until next week. By writing all 41 pages of it in the last few days of marathon writing, it was easy to break it in two. Reflections on 2014 followed by 2015. It was better this way.

I had no idea how to write a book when I started. I have no idea how to do the things that are left to do. I’ll approach it the same way. I’ll trust myself, trust my skills, and trust my opinions.

I also have the help of the best possible editor I could bring onboard. Greg Halling finished polishing and improving Chapter 32 last night, and when he sent it back to me he wrote: “Let me just say this, Bobby Ballgame. You’re a much better writer now than you were when you started this book.”

That pleased me enormously, because one of the things I’m most proud of is that I have indeed been able to see how I’ve taken his cues and gotten better. I’m an old dog, but I’ve learned a lot of new tricks. That’s an accomplishment.

I’m heading to Spokane for the weekend tomorrow, to spend it with Barbara in and around Liberty Lake. Good meals at our favorite haunts out there will be on the agenda. I’ll take my laptop, and I’m sure I’ll open it, but right now the goal is to take next week completely off. My fingers are sore, my elbows hurt, my lower back seizes up every time I stand up, and my brain is fried. We’ll see if I can actually do that. There’s always stuff to fine tune and adjust.

These last couple of weeks have been very emotional, too. When I started this climb, I’d never been to a mountain and I couldn’t see the top. It was like I got up one day and thought, “Mountain climbing looks cool. Let’s go to Everest!”

As I got closer, the realization that 10 and a half months of this had actually produced what shall soon be a book, a book about me and my life, was sobering and exciting.

Today, when I finished, it felt like any day of writing. That was the end point. Time for a walk and then for dinner. And when I stood up from my chair, it hit me. I had done this.

Have you seen the great movie “Miracle” about the 1980 USA hockey team, starring Kurt Russell who absolutely channels legendary coach Herb Brooks? He plays Herbie miraculously (pun intended) and whether it’s the movie or the actual footage, the shot of Herb reacting to the buzzer at the end of the game, when the USA stunned the Soviet Union to move on to the Gold Medal game, is etched in my mind. Herb was all about letting the players do the work and win the games, while he kept himself as just the coach. “I’ll be your coach, I won’t be your friend.” He wasn’t going to all of a sudden steal their thunder by running out on the ice, as if he had personally won that game. He raised his arms behind the bench and then immediately ran up the tunnel to the dressing room, by himself, while the players and the crowd enjoyed pure bedlam in Lake Placid after the win. In the concourse outside the dressing room, he raised his arms again, saying “Yes!” to himself, and then slumped against the wall, all alone. It had hit him, right then, what he had accomplished.

That was sorta me, when I stood up after that final period at the end of the final sentence. I actually raised my arms and a tsunami of emotion ran through me. I could feel it course through my veins. It wasn’t just another day of writing. There is still a lot to do, call it “finishing work” around a house that’s finally built, but today I reached the end. I had to go for a walk to let that sink in.

On that walk, instead of listening to the usual play lists I have on my phone for such activities, I instinctively went to my heart. I punched up “Power Windows” by Rush. I have an autographed lithograph of that album cover artwork on the wall here. The album is rarely listed or considered to be one of their best, and a lot of people who think they know Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart’s “style” for Rush would be surprised to hear it. It was released in 1985, when they were reacting to and adapting to a whole new sound in rock. It’s got a pop vibe to it, and is heavy with synthesizers. Many Rush purists don’t like it. I actually do, but I have no idea why I punched it up.

And then the first song started. It was the tune “Grand Designs” and the lyrics could not have been more perfect for the moment. Now keep this in mind: Neil Peart does not write a lot of lyrics that “speak to people” like Bruce Springsteen would. He delves into psychology and science fiction quite a lot, with entire albums placed well into the future. Nobody listens to “2112” and thinks, “Man, that’s my life…”

Songs like “Subdivisions” and “Tom Sawyer” can do that, and one of my all-time favorites is “Analog Kid” about a young boy laying in the grass, staring at the clouds and dreaming of where he wants to go, but most aren’t.

“Grand Designs” might not be either, but for me at that moment I was stunned as I walked down the sidewalk on a brisk but sunny Minnesota day. It was everything I was thinking about, and much of what drove me for the last 10 months. It’s about much of what drove me for the last 60 years.

I leave you with this…

“Grand Designs”

So much style without substance, so much stuff without style

It’s hard to recognize the real thing, it comes along once in a while

Like a rare and precious metal beneath a ton of rock

It takes some time and trouble to separate from the stock

You sometimes have to listen to a lot of useless talk

Shapes and forms, against the norm

Against the run-of-the-mill, swimming against the stream

Life in two dimensions is mass-production scheme

So much poison in power, the principles get left out

So much mind on the matter, the spirit gets forgotten about

Like a righteous inspiration, overlooked in haste

Like a teardrop in the ocean, a diamond in the waste

Some world views are spacious, and some are merely space

Against the run-of-the-mill, static as it seems

We break the surface tension with our wild kinetic dreams

Curves and lines, of grand designs…

 

See you next week,

Bob Wilber, at your service with grand designs

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