Not to Reason Why: How It Began

One evening in a Chicago suburb, we were enjoying wine and cocktails with our next-door neighbors. In a way that conversation over cocktails evolves, Kristen mentioned a course she had completed for her continuing education. Kristen is an elementary school librarian (excuse me, Resource Center Director).  She took a story-telling course. The final assignment (I think it was, but wine and whiskey had been flowing) had been to write and tell an original story. She then explained that "story telling" clubs existed. These clubs attended story telling conventions to share their creations.

My interest in the idea stemmed from two experiences, separated by about forty-five years.

The first experience was in college. I had competed in Interpretive Reading on the collegiate Speech circuit. It involved reading and interpreting another author’s story or excerpt from a book. I competed well enough that my speech coach kept taking me with the team to tournaments.

The second experience was due to occur in a couple of months. I would be retiring. How I would occupy my time in retirement was of more concern to Joann, my wife of forty-three years, than to me.

"When you retire," Joann had instructed, "don't be coming around and asking, 'Whatcha doing'?"

The day after our neighbors' visit, we were listening to those pop tunes from the late sixties and seventies. "Someday Soon" came on, sung by Judy Collins.

I observed that rather than a song about a cowboy boyfriend, the song could easily be about a pilot boyfriend. Joann agreed. The line in the song, “He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me” could easily be, “He loves his damned old airplane as much as he loves me.”

I wondered. What would a father think if his daughter brought a young fighter pilot to dinner? What would go through the father’s mind if the daughter said that “someday soon” she would “follow him down the roughest road?”

The day after Kristin and Jamie's visit, I wrote a story I called "The Father."

Then, remembering August 7, 1966, I kept writing. With only minimal changes, "The Father" became Chapter One, "Along for the Ride" of Not to Reason Why.