If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can’t be in books. The book needs you.
I tried to contain myself... but I escaped!
I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.
I have a pickup truck. And I prefer to be with dogs or on my sailboat than in a car - actually, more than any other place on Earth.
I sail, run dogs, ride horses, play professional poker and tell stories about the stuff I've been through. And I'm still a romantic; I still want Bambi to make it out of the fire.
I'm a teller of stories. I put bloody skins on my back and dance around the fire, and I say what the hunt was like. It's not erudite; it's not intellectual. I sail, run dogs, ride horses, play professional poker, and tell stories about the stuff I've been through. And I'm still a romantic; I still want Bambi to make it out of the fire.
Yes, I've been in an igloo. They're surprisingly cozy and warm - small, though, you can't really stand up in some.
Adults are locked into car payments and divorces and work. They haven't got time to think fresh.
My folks were drunks, and I had a rough childhood - really rough - in fact, rougher than I thought about.
The maximum expression of running dogs is the Iditarod. You enter a state of primitive exaltation, and you never return. You're never normal again.
My parents were brutal to each other, so I slept in the basement by an old coal-fired furnace. I became a street kid. Occasionally, I'd live with aunts or uncles, then I'd run away to live in the woods, trapping and hunting game to survive. The wilderness pulled at me; still does.
I don't have a favorite author; I have favorite books. 'Moby Dick' is a favorite book, but Melville was a drunk who beat his wife. 'Moveable Feast' by Hemingway, but I would not like him personally. He was a stupid macho person who believed in shooting animals for fun, but that book was incredible!
A border collie saved me once when I was pinned under a horse in Colorado. And once when I went through the ice, one of my sled dogs saw me go under, and she got the rest of the team, and they pulled me out of 12 feet of water. I think that dogs offer the only form of unconditional love that's available to humans.
In our family, we've always been owned by border collies, or dogs of one kind or another, and have rescued many dogs. We've lived in the woods and sometimes have had as many as 70 sled dogs. Or had six or seven dogs living in the house. Dogs have saved my life on more than one occasion - and I mean that literally.
In sailing, I single-hand, and I want to do the Horn. The Horn is the maximum expression of sailing, the way the Iditarod is the maximum expression of running dogs. It's not to write about it; it's to experience the maximum thing.
I ran the Iditarod twice. I finished once. I came in 42nd or 43rd place out of 70 plus teams the first time, and I scratched 80 miles from Nome the second time. You can read about my experience in the race in my books 'Woodsong' and 'Winterdance.'
