Richard P. Nixon's Blog

One weekend a lifetime ago, dad took us up to a place called Nancy Lake, about ninety minutes north of Anchorage, Alaska. We had a fourteen-foot camper, some fishing gear, and little else. Back then, as kids, we didn’t need anything else. We made our own adventure.

With the smoke of campfires hanging in the air, my brother, Roger, and I set out exploring along the lake shore. About a hundred yards along we came upon a sheet of plywood attached to a couple of planks just by the water. “Wow! A raft!” I said.

Roger grunted and gave me a funny look, but after a moment his expression changed to excitement. “I bet you could paddle out a ways and see if there are any fish.”

I smiled.

“Let’s get the mask,” he said. We first used the diving mask in Ship Creek, in Anchorage, when a king salmon swam into a deep hole with the last of our tackle – two Coho flies. Dad wasn’t coming for us for another three hours, so we figured why not go in after it?

I donned the mask we’d retrieved from the camper and waded into the clear brown water. The warm layer of water near the surface felt good, but I hesitated, trying to get used to the frigid layer a few inches below.

“Well, go on,” Roger said. “Don’t be chicken!”

“I’m not chicken!” I took a deep breath and plunged into the water and instantly started splashing around breathlessly.

Roger laughed and man-handled the plywood junk into the water.

It was no raft, though. Just leaning on it a little made the edge dip under the surface, but I discovered that when I laid with it held out in front of me I could keep my head above water. I began kicking with all the power I could.

Roger yelled for me to stop when I’d reached about fifty feet from shore. “Put your head under and see if there’re any fish,” he shouted.

I gave him a quick and clumsy thumbs up and put my face under water.

Instantly I popped up thrashing and screaming, “Help! HELP!!!”

“What’s the matter?” Roger yelled, leaning over and pulling at one of his shoes. He was getting ready to dive in after me, to rescue me just like he’d done in West Virginia a few years before when I got stuck on an icy slope, and Bethesda a couple of years before that when he pulled me in from the ledge of our seventh floor apartment.

I calmed down enough to yell back, “I’m okay.” I got the plywood raft turned around, but I had almost no strength left to heave it.

“What are you doing?” Roger yelled. “Leave it and swim to me!”

I got back to shore gasping for breath.

“What happened?” He said, handing me my tee shirt

“I saw a skeleton! A SKELETON!!” I said, pointing. I decided not to tell him I thought it was going to reach up, grab my ankle and drag me down to the bottom, though.

Roger headed for the camper and told Mom and Dad what had happened. They told a Fish and Game officer who shrugged, smiled, eyed me suspiciously, and offered, “If it was anything, it was most likely a moose.”

“You okay?” Roger asked me.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m cool, thanks.”

“Hey man,” he smiled. “That’s what big brothers are for.”

I’ve been writing now for, oh wow has it been that long already? Well, suffice it to say a very long time, and along the way I’ve had my share of ups and downs. Like when early on I discovered something very odd about my story – when I asked myself if I’d ever put my kids through boarding school, the answer wasn’t an immediate and resounding, “no”. I hesitated, and thus set off a chain of events that led me to reach deeper within than I imagined possible for the answer.

Surprisingly, writing is only a small fraction of the work that actually goes into a book. There’s editing, rewriting, critiquing, more rewriting, and over time the changes become smaller and smaller until, at last, you end up with the “Ah Ha!” moment – the “finished” book in hand. Normally this is the time an author sets his sights on getting an agent to find a publisher to get the book on the market. And that’s not to mention the marketing angle – the platform. A smart author doesn’t just assume these things will happen by themselves – he will actively seek out ways to make them happen, my variation on what fellow author James A. Owen has reminded me of over the past year.

In my journey I’ve been humbled by those whom I thought wouldn’t care but did, angered by those I thought would care but didn’t, confounded by those who suggested anything was possible if I simply chose it to be so, and indebted to those who made me see the light, so to speak, whether I wanted to or not. I am a firm believer in the saying actions speak louder than words, but over time I’ve learned not to be so absolute in my interpretation, so I’ve sometimes had to bend the rules in order to see the light, and in doing so surprised myself at how far I’ve gone to turn what would otherwise be mere words into actionable items. I’d love to say, “damn, I’m good,” but I suspect this is something most people get. For me it may be a sign of a maturing mind perhaps, or peace, or confidence.

I recently wrote a piece called, “Everything Happens for a Reason,” and I think that’s very true. Most of the setbacks I “suffered” turned out to be beneficial one way or another in the end. For example, I thought I was ready for prime time back in 2009, and I sent out three query letters with my hopes set on the middle one. The first agent ignored my query completely, probably because I sent fifty (that’s 50) pages to his inbox when he requested only five. The second one – the fellow I thought was a sure thing, visited my website seventeen times but never contacted me. The third agent actually sent me a personal response, and while that was just a small collection of words, they were words I was able to turn into action.

It’s now two years later nearly to the day, and just when I thought I was all set to try again, along comes a fellow named Jerry Waxler of the Memory Writers Network. We’d been discussing my book when, out of the blue, he said, “If your title ‘The Troubles’ had a double entendre meaning of the troubles in Ireland and the troubles between you and your brother, I would want to read it.” As soon as I read that I felt a bolt of energy blast through me, and I realized I’d experienced more than a mere “Ah ha!” moment. Everything suddenly came into perfect focus, and for a half-blind writer with a wonky eye, that’s some trick.

There are some things in life we fight with, and sometimes we win. Other times we give up and tell ourselves it was not meant to be. In this case, nothing has ever before felt so meant to be.

Today is a most beautiful day. Birds singing, sun shining. I even had a coupon for crickets. Something wonderful is about to happen. 😉

“Dad? Are we American?”

I look at William, almost twelve now, the same age I was when my parents sent me away. “Absolutely,” I say. “In fact you’re the first natural born American in my family. Do you know what that means?”

William gives me a “you’re kidding” look and says, “It means I can run for president.”

My youngest, Angela, lights up. “Can I be president?”

“Sure. Someday. If you like.”

“Can you?” My younger son, Matthew asks.

“Nope,” I reply.

“How come?” Matthew says. “That’s not fair.”

“Because he wasn’t born here, stupid.” William thumps his brother on the arm.

“He’s African!” Angela giggles.

I can’t help but smile.

“No he’s not. He’s Irish or British. Right Dad?” William says. “That’s why he didn’t go to high school.”

Matthew looks doubtful.

“I went to what’s called boarding school,” I say.

“What kind of school is that?”

“The kind that you live in.”

Matthew’s eyes widen. “All the time?”

“Yes, silly,” William snaps, cocking his fist.

I disarm him with a sharp “no” before he can unload on his brother again.

“You said add hot pepper,” my wife asks while writing notes in her Indian cook book, the one bought in Soho, London, or maybe at the Michaels just up the road.

You’d never know she’s from Rock Hill, South Carolina.

The phone rings. I grit my teeth. Ignore it. “And cut back the salt and ghee,” I say. “Otherwise that was an excellent curry.” Maybe tomorrow I’ll cook one of my specialties.

The phone rings again. I should have turned it off. Too late now. Damn.

“Who is it?” Wanda asks.

I glance at the caller I.D. “Florida.” I’ll let my dinner settle first. He’ll call back anyway. He always does.

Matthew cocks his head and looks at me very seriously. “Don’t you like Uncle Roger?”

The question cuts a swath of revulsion and sadness through me. Memories flash by. Dad lunging and smashing a fist into my brother’s face, the explosion of red and Dad snarling, “You’re in enough goddamned trouble as it is!”

Roger crying, pleading, “Send me back to boarding school.”

If we’d known then what we know now, would it have made any difference? Sometimes I think it might have been easier had my brother stayed dead the first time, but he didn’t.

I miss him every single day.

Matthew looks at me with his head cocked and dead serious and says, “Do you not like Uncle Roger?”

A chill runs through me. I can still remember Dad lunging at my older brother, smashing him in the face with a clenched fist and the explosion of red from my brother’s mouth and nose, and Dad snarling, “You’re in enough goddamned trouble as it is!” Was it the beginning of the end? I used to think so, but there had been so many beginnings of the end after that, each worse than the one before.

It might have been easier had my brother just stayed dead the first time, or the second, but he didn’t, and I miss him every single day.