Using retirement to Focus  on a Book Project

Taking Continuing Education Courses

Ive spent the first eight weeks of 2020 taking a Stanford continuing education course on Creative NonFiction.I had a coupleof urgent reasons to enroll in this type of a program.

First, I wanted to begin writing again.

Second, I really want to write a book on contemporary gold miners and their unique cultures.

Finally I've come to believe that the best writing is based on things you've experienced and closely observed.

Several of my submissions for this class have been based on the baby boomer experiences of my generation. There are  many of us here in Southern California who experienced  schools and classroom construction as we were in  school. they were  built around us,literally.

Also a lot of us grew up in houses built by our parents.My strongest childhood memories involve the smell of redwood sawdust and the noise of my father driving "tree nails" (hand carved dowels) into sockets on framing timbers.

I am a child of the space exploration era  and I grew up next to a rocket factory in a town with a classic Carnegie Library building , hitching posts, fruit groves and a feed and grain store. It also had nearby trout fishing and every backyard had red ant slurping horned toads we'd capture and keep in terrariums or shoe boxes before freeing them back into the wilds of our backyards.

It's the kind of experience that made me into a latter day Huck Jim who put his back into the life I was handed.

Most of all I'm trying to prepare myself for the task of reporting and writing a book on two distinctly different cultures; gold seekers patrolling the streams of the California Gold country and the dry lands gold seekers of the Southern California deserts. I recognize it won't be an easy task but I know if I apply the same dedication to field reporting as I did to beat reporting, it's manageable.

I'm beginning to think I need to either buy a second home in northern California or a 22-foot recreational vehicle I can use as a mobile base of operations to write this book. I'm not afraid of the task so much as I am the thought of leaving my beloved dog here in Escondido while out in the field, researching.

I'm fortunate to come from the small town of Azusa, California at the mouth of the San Gabriel River, a gold-bearing stream. I've panned and hiked that river's East Fork since I was a young teen where after finding two quarter ounce nuggets, I was bitten by the "gold bug."

I'm more interested in the culture of contemporary Argonauts than I am the contents of their leather or tissue lined nugget pouches.

And anything that keeps me focused on writing about the subject at hand is a good idea.I was able to get tuition discounts based on my age, being a disabled veteran and being a previous  student.I, however, couldn’t find a discount coupon. I really looked hard for one.

Oh did I mention I'm a Stanford student/ Oh dear, it took me more than a millisecond to site that.

I must be slowing down.-- jim Forbes on 16 February 2020.

I'm backkk!