Leanne

Left Fern's 80 acres this morning, after a great last visit with her and Harvey. I feel so far from family these days that it felt excellent to spend time with them. A sombre note: Fern's daughter Leanne was killed by a drunk driver in 1988, a tragedy that shook up the whole family. Leanne had wanted to be a writer, and had in fact written a huge heap of poems and stories. In 1990, we put together a collection of her work under the name The Flashback Storm, and Fern sold copies to raise money for Parents Against Impaired Drivers.

There was a shelf of kids' books in the room where I slept, and the first one I checked out -- The Twits, by Roald Dahl -- had Leanne's signature inside the front cover. So there I was, holding a book that Leanne had held. Fern told me it was one of Leanne's favourites, so I read it. What a twisted, fantastic story. Further inspiration for me to do some children's writing.

Wrote a short essay about Leanne over the past couple of days, Hunkamooga-style. Don't know what I'll do with it now that I have declared myself columnless, but perhaps I'll gather up another batch and try to do another book.

Fern passed me along to Hunter Gates, at whose Academy of Physical Arts, in St. Albert, I did a workshop this afternoon. I met Hunter at Centauri this past summer, where she was teaching combat stuff. She has two students right now, Melodie and Gustave from South Africa, and today was the first day of classes for them. Hunter sat in on the workshop, too, and it was a blast working with just three "students." I got to hear everything each of them wrote during the two-hour session. Some very good stuff, though a strong tendency towards rhyming.

I'm tired, and fear that I have nothing to say. For an awesome blog whose subject is its own lack of things to say, visit www.waynearthurson.blogspot.com.

The bed I'm sleeping in tonight has a poster on the wall of Jessica Simpson in The Dukes Of Hazzard.

Over and out.