These compositions originally were placed in the section titled "In Fond Recall".  They are of course about my father, a remarkable man in my eyes.  It became obvious to me that these writings were of a different nature than the others and required special attention, at least in my mind.  Thus, I created this section just for them.  Today, as I write this introduction to "Now, Billy Boy" (1998) I am certain that more stories are to come, perhaps even before I finish printing what I have completed.

As I think back on the many adventures I heard dad tell, or on those that we shared with him, I regret not paying more attention as I listened to him recount them all.  I admire him even more as I share the legacy he left for me to spend, the memories of his grand adventurous life!  And in-deed, it was a remarkable one!  I know without a doubt that he would be honored by my retelling these stories to others.  There is more than just the adventure to immerse one's self in.  Without my knowing at the time, dad was teaching about life's ways by recounting these adventures.  This is his legacy to pass on.

Naturally, I have taken writer's license with some of the actual events described in these com-positions.  Dad was an excellent storyteller.  I was never sure just how much he embellished his stories, but I was always sure that what he told was indeed based on what had actually happened.  I surely wish I had his story-telling knack, and I do hope you enjoy these short stories, sometimes embellished, but always based on true incidents!

To introduce Billy Boy, his life and his person, I have begun this section with three poems written about or to him.  These are followed by the poetic short stories.  The first poem, "A Story Untold", recalls events from my father's child-hood as he told them to me.  What he left out were the actual events leading to his father's absence from the home.  Those circum-stances lay buried in his history, to painful for him even to share with my mother.  And neither will I here.  The actual event leading to the childhood tragedy came out inadvertently and not of my father’s choosing.  While he never ever talked with me of the circumstances, in the poem I have constructed what I can only imagine my father must have thought and felt through all those years, the act of his father forever altering his, my dad's, childhood and ultimately his adult life.  Dorothy, one of dad’s friend's from youthful days, told me after reading this composition it brought tears to her eyes.  She said she had, "forgotten about the struggles Bill had".

In the composition," A Story Untold", I devote a line or two about dad's mother.  But my father never talked much about his birth family or their history, nor of the event which led to his father’s absence.  I choose not to press him for details.  I am not certain just when my grandmother died.  However, my impression is that she passed away not to long after her husband left the home.  I do know that at age twelve dad was living with Myra Duhr and washing dishes in her Yacolt Hotel.

Another significant relationship for my dad is written into the last verse of, "A Story Untold".  Bob Lipf was dad's boy-hood friend, a relation-ship lasting through adulthood and to death.  The Lipf family became my dad's.  In October 1980 dad passed away from stomach cancer some several months following Bob's death.  One of the last pictures I have of my dad is the two of them and another boy-hood friend from the Yacolt days in our backyard in the summer of their last year, 1980.  I believe Bob’s wife Chilli died four months later in February 1981.  I have lost contact with Bob's family, I deeply regret that.

Added comment October 8, 2005
A few comments are in order about the graphics used for, "A Story Untold".  The opening sphere is of Lucia Falls on the Lewis River, a favorite swimming hole for dad and friends during their youth in Yacolt, Washington.  It was here twenty-five years ago that I placed my father's ashes while Mt. St. Helens which looks over the area erupted some 30-40 thousand feet for the last time.  The pictures you will be seeing are from the area where dad spent his child-hood and young adult life, in and around the Yacolt, Amboy, and Battleground area of south-west Washington.  The Lewis River and the various falls, specially Lucia and Moulton held significance for dad, as did Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Star Mountain , where someplace along those ridges, peaks and valley’s dad’s boyhood home was located.  All of these geo-graphical natural beauties have a spot in the scroll which appears following the opening "globe" of Lucia Falls.  Finally, as the scrolls disappear the graphic metaphor for the poem "A Story Untold", begins to become clear and remains in place.  The presentation ends where it began, as with my father’s beginning and ending, the "globe" of Lucia Falls reappears to close out the presentation.  The midi playing along with the poem is "Candle in the Wind".  I have taken two different versions and created this medley specially for, "A Story Untold".

The poem, "A Special Song for Billy Boy", was almost left out of this web site.  I had forgotten about it!  And yet, this is one of the more important pieces in defining just who Billy Boy was, and his effect upon others.  It probably is most fitting that this is one of the last compositions from this section to be placed on my web site.  Indeed, it establishes the "who" of my father which is threaded throughout the short stories comprising the majority of this section.  He was an intelligent man, although never completing his high school education as far as I am aware.  He could resolve questions of content and process as well as any of my classmates, or colleagues for that matter, throughout my fourteen years of education and thirty years of professional practice.  Billy Boy was not an emotional expressive man, in fact I only recall one time I received a hug from him and that was some four hours prior to his last breath.  His childhood disappointments, the lack of a stable, supportive, and secure family life and the lack of parental affection had left him affectively blunted.  He could not find the verbal ways to express what was obviously in his heart.  But he found other ways as meaningful or more so to let me and others know he loved and cared for those in his life space.  For example, when conversing with my father after I left home and had established myself in the mental health field, he always first asked me how the kids under my care and treatment were doing before raising any other topics.  On several occasions, he went out of his way to join with me and my staff to provide a camping experience for the adolescent residents of the treatment facility I directed.

But it was not only with me and his immediate family that Billy Boy was able to convey his deep appreciation and care for the soul and spirit of human kind.  Whenever he observed others to be in need of a helping hand, a lift up instead of down, empathy instead of harsh judgment and dismissal, safety protection and hope instead of insecurity and hopelessness, a bed, bread and butter and a shirt for the back, my father was there.  Throughout the poems I have written about or for him this theme is repeated.  In the Billy Boy stories you will read of his heroic efforts to overcome adversity and to provide leader-ship out of danger for others.

As I look back over my written material and review in my minds eye the career I chose to follow, it is little wonder I chose a career in the social work field.  Our home was always filled with those cast aside, left out, thrown away, dismissed….by bringing those folks into our living room I am convinced that Billy Boy was not only paying back that which others had done for him when just a youngster and left homeless and parentless, but I believe he was laying the foundation for my professional career to come some years later.  Let me finish this paragraph by noting that my best friend Don to whom I dedicated this web site was one of the recipients of Billy Boy’s caring and giving nature.

Finally, I will end this initial set of introductory remarks by saying that working on this poem, "A Special Song for Billy Boy" was quite an emotional experience for me!  Others have told me over the years that I have a remarkable likeness to my father.  Not seeing that for myself, I shrugged it off but accepted such remarks as complimentary, that is until today!  In preparation for putting together this piece for inclusion on the web site, I scanned the wedding picture of my parents which sits in my living room, using the image of Billy Boy for this poem.  I was shocked, if that is an appropriate expression to define my state of mind at the time, to really see for the first time when viewing this picture close up that indeed I do resemble my father’s youthful pictures and those of later years as well!  I suspect had we lived at the same time at the same age we might have been mistaken for twins (which I am one!)!  How uncanny that was, how emotionally powerful that was, but how very proud I am to know indeed I do carry his image.  I can only hope that through my professional work and now my writings I have carried forth the legacy which he left for me to sow.

tedc November 7, 2005

I wrote, "A Letter to Billy Boy", for dad's birthday Feb. 16.  1998. I think it probably speaks for itself quite nicely.  This was the first I wrote using the Billy Boy character.  I had little idea that other com-positions were to follow.  But then, such has been the experience I have been traveling on!  I wrote this following the one I had written for my mother after reading a tribute to a mother on one of the inter-net bulletin boards where I had been posting.  I thought what a wonderful thing to do and decided to do the same for my parents as a memorial.  Dad's became the first one to which I added music and a graphic background and then posted on a friend's internet web site.  The letter describes how I see my dad, a man giving to others as in-deed he had been cared for by significant people early in his life after losing both his parents in mid-childhood.  My father was a doer, an inventive person, quite a storyteller, and a kind and gentleperson.  I wish I had his knack for telling stories, his creativity for doing things and most of all his way of affecting others. 

November 9, 2005: Last night I up loaded this piece, "A Letter To Billy Boy" so let me tell you a little about the graphics I have chosen for this piece.  The opening drop down screen is a generic photo of a wilderness area, I am not aware of the location or just where I picked it up on the internet.  But this graphic along with the "fisher-man" at the end of the text and the ending scroll represents my father's connection to nature.  The ending photos scrolling from the center to either side are of East Lake where we spent most of our fishing time in Central Oregon.  I am also particularly pleased with the medley I put together for this piece," Danny Boy" and "Hero" (wind beneath my wings) seem to fit very well.

Let me add a word about the content of the letter.  In the fourth paragraph I speak of the people who he welcomed into our home.  I am convinced that his reaching out to the "forgotten" of our world that was directly responsible for my becoming a clinical social worker.  In the fifth paragraph I write of the time I testified in the Oregon Legislature as part of the lobby effort to establish the Southern Oregon Adolescent Study and Treatment Center in Grants Pass.  My father read the testimony the night before I was to delivery it in a Senate hearing.  He asked a question which the "learned" Senators never touched upon.  In the last paragraph I speak of looking like him.  But it was not until posting "A Special Song for Billy Boy" that I became aware of just how much this was true!  In fact it is rather uncanny for me to see that similarity.
tedc November 9, 2005

"Legacy", originated one evening in late Sept. '98 when I begin to think about the approaching anniversary of dad's death, Oct. 8, 1980, and that of my mother's, Nov. 10, 1994 and also of her brothers in Sept. and Oct. of '94.  I was at the time working on this collection, revising the introductory remarks and reorganizing the contents. Then, suddenly I realized what had been growing in awareness over the past months now became exceedingly clear to me, that dad's life stories were rich in adventure, noble of character, and ripe with allegories for living life, this is his legacy.

Today is November7, 2005.  I have just up loaded the new version of "Legacy" to the web site.  Again, a word about the graphics used is in order.  I have inserted a picture not previously seen on the internet.  On the left is a picture of Billy Boy in "morning attire" worn at my wedding in 1969 (this picture is cropped from one of the wedding pictures).  Once again I have used his last Oregon driver's license which displays his smiling ways!
tedc November 7, 2005

“Cabin" was the first Billy Boy story added to this collection.  I had not intended to write what I have probably mislabeled as a "poetic short story", I am not even sure that such really exists in the literary field.  This is my nomenclature.  One evening after viewing a photograph of a rustic cabin on the internet news group where I often post, I was struck with the memory of an incident taking place many years ago at our family's cabin in LaPine, Oregon.

Our cabin was indeed rustic.  Made of rough sawed lumber, nothing square or level, over the years it had been used as a bunkhouse for a gypo logging operation in the area.  No longer in use dad bought it.  He and some others moved it about one quarter mile to our property.  Over the years dad, with the help of various family and friends, gradually brought some glamour to it.  Eventually a front porch washroom was added, and then a sleeping room running the full length of the one-room structure.  A curtain was used to divide the new room into two separate sleeping areas.  Not much for privacy, but then good enough for the purposes at the time.  Knotty pine which was in those days pretty inexpensive was used as paneling, ceiling, and even flooring.  I know, because I help put it there!  The cabin saw many years of fishing and hunting parties pass through its humble door.  The cabin served its purpose well through all those years.  The story recalls an incident taking place around perhaps the mid-point in the thirty year family history of our cabin.

A quick description of the graphics is probably in order here.  As "Cabin" opens the first scroll parting from the center to either side, will be that of the Deschutes River.  The first scroll to appear on the left of the text is of the Little Deschutes River.  Appearing on the left will be a black and white photo of the cabin in the early to mid-1960.  A second photo of the cabin will scroll from the right side shortly after the black and white one, it is a colored photo taken in the winter or early spring, the year is unknown.

At closing there will be a collage moving from center to either side.  These are pictures of East and Paulina Lakes (one at sunset), Wickiup Reservoir and the meadow through which the Little Deschutes River flows a short distance from the cabin.  Looking at the top of this latter picture one can just make out the Newberry Crater where East and Paulina Lakes are located.

"Smith River Run", is the second short story and one which I really liked how it unfolded as I began to recall the episode.  It too is based on several factual events.  The fawns are real.  Just the other day I found the picture of them taken back in the 1920's!  The central story here is real.  It happened for sure!  Dad was a woodsman and knew the nourishments hidden from view.  He could spy and pick an abundant of wild flora, in fact teaching my brother and I how to survive in the woods should that ever become a necessity if lost.  We regularly did fish the coastal fresh water streams and salt-water tidal areas and out across the jetties into the open ocean.  I hope you like, "Smith River Run", it was a joy to write.

November 6, 2005: Last night I up loaded to the web site a revised graphical version of this story using in part photos from the Southern Oregon coastal area.  The first of these will be seen as the piece opens and while the two scrolling sides exit the screen, it is a picture of Smith River as it empties into the tidal waters.  An abandoned rail-road bridge is seen in the background.  The static picture is of the bridge across the Umpqua and Smith Rivers on highway 101 at Reedsport, Oregon.  Then, on the right side scrolling to the right is the actual picture of Billy Boy with the two fawns.  Notice he has his right leg extended, this was the leg so badly injured in the "Disaster" story.  The creel is opened and revealing a number of fish all caught in Smith River that day.  I now believe this event took place in 1930 or so, not in the 1920's which I indicated in the above paragraphs.  My father would have been in his early thirties at that time.  This picture hangs now in my computer workspace where I view it each day.  The next photo of note is in the center of the text and it is a picture of the BLM sign announcing that the road is the "Smith River Timber Access Road".  Scrolling downward on the right side of the screen is a photo of Smith River Falls, the last picture depicting scenes in the area.  I vividly recall fishing these falls as a youngster.  They are not really what one thinks of as "falls", but instead a series of large flat rocks in stair step like fashion as noted in the picture.  Not far from this scene was an old abandoned and fallen down one room school-house which we often used as shelter when camping on the Smith River Run.

Well the Billy Boy stories have come as at a rush to me in these past few weeks!  I just finished, "Date Line", and wanted to include it in this collection as it was another story I found fascinating to write.  As with the other short stories, this one is also based on an actual event occurring in 1939 (May) some months before my birth in North Bend, Oregon (Coos county) where mom and dad were living at the time.  Dad suffered from Port Orford cedar poisoning and was off work when this event took place.  I was reminded of this story when leafing through memorabilia passed down from mother and came across the newspaper clipping.  Naturally, I have elaborated on the circumstances surrounding the event.

An interesting side note here, but one which is sort of eerie in a way.  On Wednesday July 22, 1998, an article appeared in the Portland Oregonian with a Coos Bay dateline.  The article described a four car pile up on the McCullough Bridge over the Coos River Bay.  The accident happened within the first few minutes of the initiation of an eighteen month, multi-million dollar renovation project to the bridge.  No one was hurt.  But the article mentioned the original date of completion, giving it as 1939 and detailing its location by inserting a map of the area precisely showing the landmarks in my story and the route taken by dad and mom on their fishing trip!  Further adding to the uncanny process, was the timeline.  The accident on the bridge while appearing in the Wednesday article had actually occurred on the bridge the morning of Monday, July 20th, the day and time I had finished the last draft of, “Date Line", and saved to copy!

Today’s date is November 2, 2005.  I have just finished and up loaded to the site a revised version of Dateline.  In this version I have used several new graphics.  The first is a fixed image of the house which Billy Boy and First Love built along the bay just east of the then newly constructed Mc-Cullough  Bridge.  Shortly after, a scrolling photo of Billy Boy's car with him in the driver's seat will appear on the left.  A family friend sits in the rumble seat.  This is the car which was to play such an important role in this story.  Another picture of the car along with a restored version of that particular make and model will appear in the ending scrolls.  The remaining images are ones I have used in the past.  These include the tide water area they drove along side on the way to the fishing hole, dark clouds moving in over the Coos Bay bar, and a photo of the Millicoma River somewhere along the area where the "event" took place.  The final closing screen is a sunset over the Coos Bay bar.  Finally, from the "con-tents" page, you can find a link with the title, "NewsArticle" which is actually two different news reports of this incident and from which the title was developed.  The larger of the two pieces fully details the situation and makes for some fascinating reading!
tedc Nov. 2, 2005

"Disaster", was just recently completed and it was with this composition that I decided to reorganize the contents for this collection to create a special section for the Billy Boy stories.  This too is an actual event although the characters are pulled from other places or recalled events.  The aftermath of this incident did in fact alter the course of my dad's life.  I am sure after reading this story the reader will in-deed see how this would come about.

October 14, 2005.  tonight I just finished a revised presentation for Disaster to place on this web site.  This version has taken me longer to put together than any other done so far for my web site.  In this version you will find actual photos of logging back in the days of Billy Boy's experiences and you will for the first time see pictures of him from that era.  He appears in the opening scroll, left side as it opens on the screen.  Billy Boy is in the back row and the only one wearing a dark shirt, his face is not visible because of the shadows, his appearance is neat and clean unlike the others in the picture.  The first scroll to appear (on the right) as the text begins is a picture of Billy Boy, in the middle, to his left I believe to be Bob Lipf his best friend.  Billy Boy will appear again before the tragic event is described.  He is pictured along side a railroad landing.  Then finally as the story concludes you will see him once more, this time following his release from the hospital.  This version created a very unexpected emotional reaction for me.  This is the first time I have associated pictures of Billy Boy with a story and it definitely brought a more deeper understanding of what he must have experienced, and a greater empathy for how it affected the rest of his life.  I will note in closing that the story along with the pictures brought tears to my eyes.
tedc oct.14, 2005.

The next short story is, "Railroad Trestle".  This event actually preceded the story told in, "Disaster", by some years, just how many I am not certain.  It tells of a harrowing ride on the old hand pump cars which ran the rails in early days.  I heard Billy Boy tell this story numerous times, however, I could never recall which of his friends that day were there.  Thus, while all the characters identified existed, I am not sure which one were present when this episode happened.  This story takes place in the coastal mountain range just out of Newport on the central Oregon coast.  It occurred while the north jetty was being built, reaching out from Yaquina Bay to the cold Pacific waters.  In later years dad would bring us all here to fish or crab the bay or cross the jetty for salmon or bottom fish.

I was present when for the most part the story, "Santiam Summer Time", took place.  While the actual event described is a compilation of several stories and characters, it in fact did occur.  Yes, indeed, that was a summer to recall!  But then, I can recall from the mid-forties to the early fifties when dad finally left the woods.  Those times were full of life's wonderful characters, rich with stories, stirring excitement, and lots of adventures for kids to take in. "Santiam Summer Time", while borrowing from several similar events, was one of those adventurous times!

As I stated in the first paragraphs of this section, I am sure more Billy Boy stories will come about.  But for now these several end this collected works.  I am most proud to finish here, with these stories from the heart.

I am now writing in the present, September 29, 2005.  I have edited some of the above comments to improve some very poor grammar which would have proved embarrassing!  But the main text is as I wrote it in the period 1997-1998 and now appears above.  I have not written any further stories which somewhat concerns me.  What lays un-finished in my computer is a narrative which began as a description of First Love, my mother.  As with most of my work this started out to be a simple biographical piece but soon the direction changed.  While retaining the biographical flavor, the narrative contains a number of vignettes of family incidents over the years.  I have preliminarily titled the composition, "Billy Boy and First Love: Their Life Together".  Although the ending has been written, I am none-the-less anxious to re-turn to the piece to see how I might be able to fit it in with the other stories of Billy Boy’s life.  One possibility is to create a digressive story structure, as suggested by a creative writing teacher here in Portland.  But for now, the above six short stories serve to pass on to others the legacy my father has left us with.  As I have said elsewhere in this "Incredible Journey", he was and is my hero.
tedc September 29, 2005