Blog Post

Wow, it’s another new year! Now that 2022 has ended, I feel like it passed by faster than normal. I know it was 365 days long, just like any other non-leap year, but the whole year seemed to go by faster. I can’t point to anything in particular that makes me feel like it went roaring by. It just seems like April started with a new baseball season and suddenly it was November, the World Series was over and it was time to do some Christmas shopping. Even that holiday seemed to pass quickly.

Now it’s time for everyone to start thinking about spring. Soon it will be time for baseball. Wild flowers will be blooming in the meadows and on the mountainsides. Song birds perched on tree limbs will be singing in loud clear voices. Flocks of migrating ducks and geese will be quacking and honking as they move north for the summer. And, don’t forget the dandelions that will be popping up wherever there’s grass or a crack in the pavement.

Like many people I know, I’m not unhappy to have 2022 relegated to the history books. It was a year of political turmoil, economic uncertainty and a covid virus that just won’t fade away like we’ve hoped for the past two years. It’s sad that worldwide there have been nearly seven million deaths attributed to the covid virus and in 2022 more than 225 thousand United States citizens died from it. We’re still losing hundreds of Americans every week and there doesn’t seem to be a break in the pattern. There have been several variants of the virus. A new variant suddenly appears and claims the lives of many more people around the world. Then it changes into another variant and the process starts again.

I did manage to complete and publish two more novels in 2022. The Thing on the Bottom of the Lake might be described as a sort of off-beat sci-fi story. It’s about the migration of a tribe of early inhabitants on the North American continent as the world they know goes through sudden and severe changes.

The second novel is The Assistant Coaches, the sixth book in the George Grant baseball series. George has completely retired from playing baseball but in this story he helps his friend Willie take over coaching a college team when their friend Toby is severely injured in an airplane accident. This might be the last book in that series. After all, George is in his late 50s and he’s ready to stay home and, with his brother Roy, manage the Caldwell-Grant farms.

I’m still working on a book of short stories. I have two stories to finish writing for that book. I hope to get it published this spring.

I hope everyone has a happy, healthy and safe 2023.