Moonbeam the skunk

Painted rock, "Moonbeam", by Betty Burkeen

Meet Moonbeam the skunk. I'm sure that my sister's early associations with my name are with the beautiful little creatures, the striped skunks. She is seven years younger and was a toddler when I began catching them and bringing them to the house. I took them to a veterinarian in Cortez. He in turn de-scented them and sold them as pets.

At first I spotted them trying to escape the mower blade in the alfalfa. I would stop the tractor, bend the alfalfa down over the skunk's tail, reach through the hay, take hold of the tail and lift the animal clear of the hay. The trick was to keep the animal's nozzle pointed away in case it decided to cut loose. The vet had said if their hind legs were off the ground, they were powerless. It generally worked. I only remember getting sprayed once and that was my fault. I got hold of one that was a little too old and more experienced. The are perfectly capable of spraying with their legs off the ground.

He was only interested in young skunks within so many weeks of their weaning. They made good pets, but as nocturnal animals, they like to sleep all day and wander the house all night. I had one for a house pet for a short while, but my mother did not like the idea of an animal in the house and my father was adamantly opposed.

My sister painted this rock for me in 2005, not aware that I was writing a novel with a skunk named Moonbeam as a prominent character. My precious gift, Moonbeam, resides quietly, but alert, on the pedestal of my computer monitor, keeping me company everyday. Just as in my novel, The Ruin, the skunk Moonbeam keeps Cliff, the main character company through his sojourn.

Respectfully,

Ken Fenter

East Lakeview Grade School Schoolhouse

East Lakeview Grade School schoolhouse on Summit Ridge Colorado Photo taken Sept. 2008 by Ken Fenter

I visited the old school house when I went back to the 50th reunion of the class of 1958 at Montezuma County High School.

It was within these walls that I received the first eight years of my formal education. I look back on it now and wonder how the teacher did it. The teacher controlled around 20 to 25 students each year scattered among eight grades in this little building. Probably if you are about my age (closer to 70 than 69) or older and grew up in rural America, you probably attended a little school like this.

We didn't have prepared class materials. The blackboard, which was actually black, had lists of spelling words, math problems etc. that we copied in our tablets and memorized. The teacher had a copy machine of sorts called, I believe, a Hectograph. It had a jellylike bed. The teacher wrote or drew with special ink what he/she wanted to copy on paper which when placed on the Hectograph bed transferred the ink to leave an image that was good for about 25 copies. The Hectograph bed had to be cleaned immediately and couldn't be used again for 24 hours as I recall.

We each became teachers of sorts. Older kids tutored younger kids with flash cards, listened to spelling, helped with reading lessons.

Often the kids entered first grade hardly speaking English.

I think the most I got out of it was becoming a self learner. If I was quiet enough and studied on my own well enough, the teacher for the most part forgot I was there. As I was the only one in my grade most years, that suited me fine. I could read well and the teacher usually kept me supplied with books.

When I got to high school, I was appalled to learn there was something in math called algebra.

The desks were a hinged writing surface with a bin beneath to store books, pencils, tablets. They had ink wells, although we didn't use pen and ink. The front of the desk had the seat for the next student. Any movement that person made disturbed the person behind. Also their head was close enough that you could play with her hair.

It was closed as a school the following year after I graduated from there in 1954. My younger brother and sister went a half year there until the year closed in 1955 and all were sent down to the sister school at West Lakeview. My brother opted for a program offered in Cortez and went went to middle school in town so that he could be in band.

I took my daughter by the the old school house when she was in high school. I wanted her to see where I had attended grade school. At that time a sign hung on the front of the building proclaiming it as a church.

The door was unlocked in 2008 when I went by. It was filled with boxes so I just closed the door and left.

This is one of the settings in my novel, The Ruin.

Respectfully submitted.

Ken Fenter

Pueblo ruin

This is a Pueblo ruin on the county road between highway 160 and Summit Ridge like the one I described in chapter Six in my novel The Ruin. I cropped out the fence that runs over the top of this one. I drove back to Colorado in the fall of 2008 for my 50th high school reunion from Montezuma County High School reunion and to take photos of Mesa Verde, Summit Ridge, the canyon that use as the setting of the fictional Martinez Canyon in The Ruin. It was interesting to see the changes in the area in 50 years. It is no longer the "wilderness" that it was then.

Back to proofing or this book won't be ready for you by Christmas.

Ken

The Ruin Update

A Glimpse of Martinez Canyon, the setting of The Ruin. an Anasazi cliff dwelling.

I just put Book I of The Ruin to bed today. It was in many ways the most difficult part of the book. The book opens with the trauma of a school shooting.

It has been just over 11 years since I stood with my class of seniors at Springfield High School and we learned that our sister school Thurston High School was the scene of a disaster that was to affect it and our own school in a profound way.

Although my novel, The Ruin, is fiction, the memories are still vivid and each similar incident in the news brings those trying moments back. My main character is shown as an adult who stands as a teacher in a class dealing with an unfolding situation such as the that, and then flashing back to the end of his eighth grade year when he was driven to nearly committing the same kind of act. However, he finds another path, and that is the story The Ruin tells.

Although the beginning of The Ruin is serious, I think you will find the way that the main character as a young man, 14-15, year old approaches survival in the canyons of Southwestern Colorado at the foot of of the Mesa Verde escarpment.

Ken Fenter

Desperate Housewives 606

It was an interesting turn of events on Desperate Housewives Sunday night, November, 8 when Susan encounters a former high school classmate, Police Detective Denise LaPera. Susan does not remember Detective LaPera, but the detective does remember Susan. The detective eagerly volunteers to take over the case of looking into who strangled Susan's daughter.

During the episode we discover that back in the high school days it was Susan, the cheerleader, who nicknamed Denise "Moose" and who encouraged the entire school to use the "moose call" when Denise walked by. She further humiliated her by stealing her date at prom, the only date she had in high school. And to make the humiliation permanent, the tag of Moose, was published with Denise's name in the high school yearbook.

A fitting conclusion to the encounter at the end of the show was Denise's discovery that Susan has, in an earlier episode shot neighbor Catherine and not reported it to the police. Denise has the pleasure of "reading Susan her rights" and "finding closure" on old memories by locking her up and walking away laughing derisively.

Memories of bullying do not go away. They become suppressed, as in Denise's case.

In the Central Oregon Area an agency working with children and teenagers who are being abused is the Kids Center. For information on programs such as "Darkness to Light" Community trainings go to www.kidscenter.org

Ken

This is my first post on the Arborwood Press Blog. I created this blog to introduce friends to my new novel The Ruin. In a round about way it is a book about the effects of bullying in our schools. It is also about the healing powers of the wilderness experience.

I hope this blog might be a basis for dialog and as a resource to those who are dealing with a bullied child or who are coping with feelings left over from a past experience with bullying.

Media treatment of bullying

The media doesn't do much in the way of calling attention to the problem of bullying in the schools or workplace. But those who follow the Fox TV program "Lie To Me" on Monday nights, saw how the Lightman Group exposed a teacher and members of a class drive a student to attempt suicide. The teacher's goading gave the students a perceived permission to torment leading to a video interpreted as a threat against the school.

The story line was well done and shows how insidiously bullying can start and grow.

Often in schools the victim is punished when he/she reports the bullying incidents rather than the perpetrator/s.

Parents should listen to hints that their children are being harassed at school by either students or teachers and investigate.

A helpful website to investigate is http://stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/