Web Site Running

The website is running at last. It is simple at best, but will grow in a few days. First we've got to get books packaged to go out the door for Monday the big day.

It's been a long road since handing in the first short story that led to this final step on Feb. 1.

It started back in Naples, Florida. My friend Rhodes Hundley and I were having a cup of coffee at the club house at Silver Lakes RV park on Monday morning at the regular coffee hour. It was early November in 2003. I had helped Rhodes to put his book about his father into print the previous spring and we were talking about it. At some point the conversation moved on to the writing process and he or I began brainstorming involving others in the park in a similar process of writing about our life stories. Out of that morning's conversation grew the idea of a Monday after seminar that we called "Writing for Fun". We talked it up and come January the seminar began.

It was supposed to be Rhodes and me co-chairing it, but Rhodes, the humor man, quickly found his voice sitting at the side gently prodding me to the head of the table. I merely guided the group and the 10-15 men and women came each Monday and shared stories. They were great. Out of that seminar we collected the best and published a collection called, Was This the Way it Hapapened? I Think So. And 62 More Short Stories

The stories I read were "The Farm on Summit Ridge", "The Bee Tree", "Hiving the Bees", "Catching Skunks", "East Lakeview Grade School" and "Afraid of the Dark".

It was interested to me that every one of the people in the seminar who had rural backgrounds had attended one room schools just as I had.

The first four of these short stories ended up in the anthology.

There are wonderful stories in there by the old timers. The stories are universal and mostly humorous.

I have a few copies of this anthology left of my portion to sell by the way. If you are interested you may contact me through the web address. All proceeds from the sale of that book go to the Silver Lakes RV Resort Activities Committee who underwrote the publishing of it. We sold that book for $12.

Getting back to where I was going with this in the beginning of the posting. In 2004, the same year the SL anthology came out, we drove the RV back back Oregon and settled in Bend on the sunny side of the mountains after a stint from 1963-1998 on the rainy side in Springfield, Oregon. Bend has a beautiful Senior Center operated by the Bend Parks and Recreation Center and it just happened to be within walking distance from where we settled in.

One day I went in and asked if they would be interested in having a writing class on a weekly basis. Not a critical class but a positive, class where people could come and we could share stories under no "red pen" stress. We began meeting weekly. Out of that class came several memoir, travelogue, and numerous short stories.

Also out of that class came the first fictional chapters based on Summit Ridge called The Ruin.

So technically speaking the launch on Monday began with that conversation back with Rhodes over a cup of coffee at Silver Lakes 2003.

Respectfully submitted

Kenneth Fenter

The Ruin Novel Available Feb. 1, 2010

Hey! It's done!

The Ruin

A boy's quest to rebuild his self worth

by seeking refuge in the wilderness

The Ruin is a story about bullying, damaged lives, and the tragic consequences that too often end in suicide or even the ultimate tragedy: school shootings.

The Ruin tells the story of retiring English teacher Clifton Kelley. As Kelley cares for his class during a school lockdown, across town a boy is shooting classmates in the school cafeteria. Kelley flashes back 40 years to himself as a 14 year old boy, who after years of school-yard bullying, is driven to make the decision to aim his rifle at his bullies or seek refuge from his rage by fleeing to the wilderness.

The Ruin then becomes the story of his survival using the knowledge he has gained from his parents and the Museum at Mesa Verde National Park. For the next year he takes shelter in a cliff dwelling in the foothill canyons of Mesa Verde. There he gathers food, learns to hunt using a primitive weapon, stores food for the winter, and devises clothing to protect himself from the harsh mountain climate.

The boy connects with the spirits of the long departed Ancient Puebloans whose dwelling he finds home. Spare time in his long days of solitude become a time of introspection, communing with nature, and creativity.

The trade paperback is now available at Arborwoodpress.com

East Lakeview Grade School Schoolhouse Part Two

Obviously, I still haven't worked out the bugs on leaving comments on this blog. My sister tried to leave a comment on the entry about East Lakeview School posted on November 28, 2009. Her recollection is that it continued functioning longer than I reported there. She and my younger brother were in attendance there when I graduated from the school in 1954 the same time period my book The Ruin is set. Upon my graduation from the school I went on to Montezuma County High School. They remained at East Lakeview for the beginning of the following year. Here is her recollection of how that went. It wasn't until years later, 50, when the five of us siblings published an anthology of stories about growing up on the farm on Summit Ridge, that I realized that I wasn't the lone target at that school. My younger brother and sister were getting their fair share and when I left they got the full barrage. Here is my sister's comment.

"Ken, a comment regarding us younger kids transferring to West Lakeview. It was right after Christmas vacation my 2nd grade year when Brother and I were transferred by Dad because the fights at East Lakeview were getting to be too often and too threatening. East Lakeview continued to operate for several more years. I was 7th grade when East Lakeview closed and its students were transferred to West Lakeview. Our younger sister never attended East Lakeview. She started at West Lakeview and went there until we sold the farm and moved to town."

I started this blog with the twofold purpose of drawing attention to the approaching release of my book The Ruin and of the serious problem of bullying, particularly in the public schools. It was a serious problem in 1954 when I left grade school, and it is so serious now that students routinely commit suicide over it. I just typed in three words: "school bullying, suicide" and there were 55,700 hits on Google. Many of those hits were on current events. One of the top stories selected by Time Magazine for 2009 was on school bullying leading to suicide.

CNN ran a special series entitled "Can Schoolyard bullying lead to PTSD" 3/31/2009 The conclusion? Yes.

This past week the main letter in Dear Abby in our local newspaper the Bend Bulletin was from a high school sophomore who was immature for his age, being bullied along with a friend, and seeking advice. He said that a high school p.e. teacher was participating along with the other kids in the p.e. class. Abby's advice: enlist parents and go to the school authorities. Good advice, but are the school authorities listening, particularly if that p.e. teacher is also a favorite coach. Maybe I'm being unfair. Many of friends who were respected p.e. teachers and coaches by the way would have come down on bullies and bullying with the wrath of you know who.

I thank my sister for setting the record straight on East Lakeview. I'm working on that comment section. I'm pretty sure it really does work if you create a simple free Google sign in accnt. and leave a comment. It will notify me that the comment is there and all I have to do is post it. I do check every day to see if a comment is waiting to be posted.

Respectfully submitted,

Kenneth Fenter

Mesa Verde National Park seen from Martinez Canyon

The top photo is the view of the Mesa Verde escarpment as seen from the north looking south. This is the mountain that Clifton Kelley, the main character in the soon to be released book The Ruin has seen for his entire life eight miles distant. The second photo is in a deep canyon carved into the sloping green table top. The farm on which he has lived his 14 years has many traces of the same culture that built Cliff Palace, the magnificent ruin shown above.

Clifton's youthful curiosity about the people who lived and farmed the same soil that he labors over and the mysterious cities just over the escarpment in the canyons of Mesa Verde is further fueled by a remarkable discovery in one of the canyons that criss cross the plateau where his family farm is located.

Happy New Year Everyone.

Got to put in a few hours on the book before the parade begins down in Pasadena

and Oregon's team plays in the Rose Bowl.

Since the daughter is an alum I guess I know who I'll be rooting for.

May you all have the very best in 2010

Respectfully submitted

Ken Fenter