Slightly Off the Mark

 

We’ve sent for a proof copy of “Slightly Off the Mark”, which should arrive around the end of the month. Another run-through to come, and hopefully no major problems in formatting—then one step closer to a print run. Next will be to decide how many to order.

 

 

 

(You might be hearing something new from my column soon, thanks to Kendallville Mall. Stay tuned!)

http://www.4countymall.com/mark-hunter---slightly-off-the-mark/a-good-day-having-written

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

 

It was mid-August, 2014 when I first learned about a great opportunity to sign with a big, nation-wide traditional publisher.

 

Six months ago. The beginning of my half year long nightmare.

 

No, not writing the book itself. Writing is a joy, and sometimes the only thing that gets me through horrible life events like illness, election campaigns, and winter. But I made a major mistake, back in August. When I first started corresponding with the editors of Arcadia Publishing, I made a joke about how a February deadline was plenty of time, as long as nothing went wrong.

 

You don’t make fun of Batman’s tights. You don’t kick Chuck Norris’ pickup truck. And you don’t spit in the face of Murphy’s Law.

 

It’s a miracle that we were only four days late delivering the first draft, after which my wife and I collapsed into mutual balls of physical and mental exhaustion. The dog was fine, though.

 

Images of America: Albion and Noble County is a book by both of us (me and Emily, not me and the dog). It required tracking down old photos about—well, the title should tell you—(the collecting was done by both of us), and a whole lot of time scanning the photos into a computer under very exacting standards (by her), followed by research and writing (by me). I probably spent the most hours on it, but she did the hardest work. Researching history and writing stuff isn’t exactly work to me. I mean, it can be hard, and time consuming, and frustrating, and exhausting … okay, I guess it is work. But it’s work I like to do.

 

All would have been well except for Murphy’s Law, which quite clearly states: “Anything that possibly could go wrong, will”. Ah, that crazy Murphy, the eternal optimist.

 

In one of the very first e-mails I sent to William Wallace of Arcadia, I mentioned that my wife had caught one of those nasty summer colds. (You know William Wallace from Braveheart, of course.) It should have served as a warning. By the time I was handed off to the regional editor, Maggie Bullwinkel, I had to tell her things were getting rocky.

 

This would be a good time to point out that working with the people of Arcadia was great. They were nothing but helpful and encouraging, and even when I missed the deadline and had cover problems, they never yelled at me. (I mean, book cover problems, although I landed under the covers at home several times.) The problem is, for the first time I got a book contract before the book was finished.

 

Over the course of the next six months, one of my daughters landed in the hospital multiple times and was diagnosed with a serious ongoing illness; my grandmother was rushed to the hospital in the middle of a snowstorm; I took my other daughter and one of my grandkids to the doctor, not to mention my wife and I showing up there ourselves multiple times …

 

Well, let’s just boil it down: In a six month period, every single person I know was either hospitalized, injured, in an accident, or became seriously ill. Or all of the above, and sometimes more than once. The only exceptions were the couple of people who are going to write and say, “Hey, you know me and I was fine that whole time!” That’s because they suffered head injuries and lost their memories.

 

Of course, it’s just as possible that I missed someone being well because of the two month long sinus infection that made me feel like the Alien alien was trying to force is way out of my face.

 

It was also during this time that the springs on my garage door broke while I was holding the door handle, slamming me down into the concrete like a crash test dummy. You’d think that kind of force would clear my sinuses. This was before the freezing rain incidents and the snowstorms.

 

It was also during this time that I lost my writing job of twenty-five years, and picked up a new one, which took a little adjustment time. There were holidays too, I think, around December or so. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

 

It was, in short, a nightmarish time of illness, pain, rushing around, stress, and did I mention winter? Still, in the end, we finished the book and got it sent in. So … was it worth it?

 

Yes.

 

Maybe I’ll go into detail on that another time. But it’s one of those funny things about writers: The “having written” part seems to make up for everything else.

 

 

 

Check me out at the Kendallville Mall:

http://www.4countymall.com/mark-hunter---slightly-off-the-mark/im-dreaming-of-an-evergreen-christmas-slightly-off-the-mark

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

When we put up the Christmas tree last year, our dog became very puzzled.

“Dude, there are all kinds of trees surrounding this house already. Seriously, just come outside with me next time. Mind the yellow snow.”

Amazingly, he said all that with a glance.

If you take an objective, dog-like look at America’s Christmas traditions, you quickly realize we’re a little crazy. We bring a tree inside; we haul electric lights outside. People who refuse to listen to music that’s not still in the top 40 happily sing carols that were written by people who thought the Earth was flat.

(It’s a sphere; just thought I’d throw that in.)

And we celebrate Christmas on December 25^th, even though most experts agree Jesus was actually born in the spring. Why? Because it’s close to the shortest day of the year. What else are you going to do in late December? Go to the beach? Get that garden in? Take a road trip to Buffalo, New York?

I doubt very much if Jesus would care when we celebrate His birthday, especially since the truly important Christmas holiday is Easter. By then the days are much longer, so we don’t need the pick-me-up.

The Christmas tree is one of the most interesting and puzzling aspects of Christmas decorating. It’s also big business: Trees in all fifty states are grown for the express purpose of being chopped down in a celebration of life. I used to drive through an area of Michigan that had more trees than Indiana has deer on the roads.

The origins of that tradition make sense, though: In ancient times, anything that stayed green all through winter held special significance. Without evergreens, people in past winters would sometimes completely forget what color was. It was like being stuck in a 50’s TV show, without the laugh track.

Evergreen boughs, hung over doors and windows, were reminders that spring would return. They also helped keep away witches and evil spirits, and as a bonus could be garnished with garlic to fight off vampires. So far as I know, they did nothing against banshees or marauding politicians.

But it was the Germans who, with ruthless efficiency, decided to just bring the whole darned tree inside. Martin Luther added lighted candles to the tree, bringing us the Christmas tradition of homes burning down.

Christmas trees didn’t come to America until the 1830’s, when German settlers arrived with the tradition. Naturally, the neighbors were curious:

“So Hans, why did your house burn down?”

“Oh, I brought a tree inside and hung candles on it.”

“No, seriously.”

A lot of Americans were against anything like carols and trees anyway. People in New England got fined for hanging decorations, although it was legal to hang witches, as long as you didn’t decorate them.

Then, in 1846, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (of “in the can” fame) were seen standing around a Christmas tree. Suddenly it was all in fashion, even though hanging witches didn’t catch on at all. They were often decorated with popcorn, berries, and nuts, a great idea to guard against food shortages. (The trees, not the witches.) Rodents were a problem. (With the trees. Well, maybe both.)

Then, in 1850, Christmas trees went up for sale commercially in the United States. Next thing you know the early version of Wal-Mart, then known as “Mart”, got ahold of it, and the rest is history. They went up in Rockefeller Center, at the White House, and in Woodinville, Washington, where a 122 foot tall, 91 year old Douglas fir does not get cut down every year.

I like that idea, of leaving the Christmas trees alive. I don’t like the idea of going outside in December to look at them, so never mind. Besides, since 77 million Christmas trees are planted each year in an industry that employs a hundred thousand people, closing the business down would result in an unhappy holiday for many.

I used to love having a live tree. The wonderful scent, the look of it. Then I grew up, and after that I loved it for three days: From after it was up until it started dropping needles.

There’s a reason they’re called needles.

Now I have an artificial tree. I love my artificial tree. It looks exactly like a real tree if you squint a little, and I’ve never had to tweeze a single needle out of my foot. The dog, while still puzzled, doesn’t harass it. It has never burst into flames, not even for me, and I can break anything.

It doesn’t dry out, or spoil, and I don’t have to dispose of it every season. It’s durable and doesn’t wear out for years.

It’s a lot like fruitcake.

Ah, but that’s another puzzling tradition.

My wife and I sometimes confuse Christmas with Valentine's Day, but a tree's a tree.

 

 

With mixed feelings I say goodbye to my first writing home, in the same week my column appears for the first time in Kendallville Mall. I’m going from a weekly to a monthly, but otherwise you’ll get pretty much the same stuff in the new “Slightly Off The Mark” … like it or not.

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

When I started this column I was a green, snot-nosed kid, which was probably just allergies. Maybe a virus. Today I take medicine and always have Kleenex nearby, so I think I’m a better person, or at least more hygienic.

            Today it’s twenty-three years later, and this is my last humor column in the New Era, Churubusco News, and Northwest News. It’s the end of what was once a—ahem—new era, and I’m poorer for it.

            I’m also grateful that the papers’ new owners have allowed me this chance to say farewell to you, the readers, the people who shared my ride of child-rearing, home maintenance, misbehaving pets, and exploding lawn mowers. This has been my best job ever, and if I’d had a choice I’d probably have gone on doing it until they pried my cold fingers from the keyboard.

            This is my love letter to you, the readers, and a thank you to the crews of the three newspapers that made me feel wanted all those years. Love letter is just an expression, by the way, so don’t expect chocolate … or jewelry. Definitely not jewelry.

            I sent articles to the New Era for a quarter of a century, everything from accident reports to features to movie reviews. In February, 1991, they began printing my humor column, and later it also appeared in the Churubusco News and Northwest News. Back then I had more hair, less weight, and no gray.

Let me grab a calculator … taking into consideration the occasional reprints and my poor math skills, we published over 50 columns a year. That’s 1,150 columns, each up to 1,000 words long, although they were getting shorter. That’s one million, one hundred fifty thousand words.

            My last novel clocked in at around 60,000 words. So I wrote 19 books worth of “Slightly Off The Mark” … 14 of them good books. Including the five actual books I’ve written, that’s more words than J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Myer combined. Not that I’d combine them.           

This might as well serve as the official announcement: With my newspaper job gone and thanks to my paranoia about deadlines, I have around thirty unpublished humor columns. After talking it over (and crunching the numbers), Emily and I are turning them into a book entitled, yep, "Slightly Off The Mark". But what of the future? I still need to make up for lost pay, and I do love writing humor. So although I have an idea of the way to go, I thought I'd ask your opinion, dear readers, because you've been such dear ... um ... readers.

Don’t have Facebook? Don’t blame you—just tell me what you think!

https://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/czaugd?

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

            Like many published authors, I’ve developed a psychological disorder known as OCA: Obsessively Checking Amazon.

            This happens when you get a book listed on Amazon.com, and find yourself waking up in the middle of the night just to check the book’s ranking. When you don’t sell many copies (that would be most writers) your entire day can be made with one sale, or broken by the precipitous ranking drop that comes after that one sale.

            My fourth book came out in May, and my wife had to use a Taser and a crowbar to pry me away from the internet before summer arrived. My rank peaked in mid-May at 68,201, which sounds pretty good until you realize that the previous February, for reasons that remain a mystery, my overall rank hit 9,093.

            Of course, that counts only Amazon sales, as opposed to sales from other sources. I keep a box full of books in the trunk of my car, just in case I stumble across an unwary victim—ahem, reader—with a few bucks for books.

           

 

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

 

            My concept of camping is a great example of wanting to have things both ways. I like being away from home for a day or two … but I want to bring home with me.

 

            When my wife the Girl Scout went camping, she’d take a square of canvas, fifty feet of rope, and a pocket knife. For a week. To her, it’s not really camping if you can get there by car. No, you have to hike, and preferably climb a cliff, to get to the perfect site. Once there, you dig a pit for a toilet and make furniture out of twigs.

 

           

( To some people, the best way to camp is to buy several sets of wheels and red flags, then take your house with you as an oversized load. I may not be one of those people, but I’m way closer to it than she is )

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

 

            I’ve spent a lot of time looking into what the US government spends money on. In fact, you could say I’ve spent so much time on their spending that nothing surprises me.

 

            You could say that, but you’d be wrong.

 

            Now they’re getting into my territory, dropping a million dollars into a project studying romance novels. Your taxpayer dollars are also going into a documentary on superheroes, a zombie video game, and promoting a ninja who’s supposed to sneak in and educate children about climate change, among many other things.

 

            But it was the romance stuff that grabbed my attention. Some say a million bucks isn’t much, by Fed standards. My response is to suggest they’ve lost their grip on reality – and math – but never mind.

 

           

 
            As much as I loved watching the kids running around in the splash pad, I wouldn’t want to join them. Well, not until the temperature touches 90, at least … let’s not get too silly about this whole cold water hatred thing. Goose bumps will never beat heat stroke for unwanted side effects.

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

            Ever since Christopher Columbus first landed in the New World and hid all the Viking artifacts, America has been a land of opportunity, independence, and smallpox.

            Eventually the British colonists decided to go off and form their own country. (Except for Canadians, who were just too polite to leave.) Since our schools don’t teach enough history these days (there’s so much more of it now), I thought I’d give you a quick timeline of how we, the people, went from tea to coffee:

            1756: The French and Indian Wars

            This was probably the first World War. No, seriously: Over here we just mention the French and Indians, but the rest of the world called it the Seven Years War. It spread all over the globe, like a viral YouTube video, but with more cannon fire and disease. Nations involved included Austria, England, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Sweden. Oh, and the Indians.

            (Later on Prussia, not wanting to be confused with Russia, changed their name to Germany.)

            Why does it involve American Independence, which came decades later? Because it cost the British government so much to defeat their enemies (and the Indians) that they began taxing the colonists to help pay for it. And yet they didn’t allow the colonies to raise their own armies, and there was that whole taxation without representation thing.

            Oh, and one more thing: The whole world war began (well, mostly) because a young Virginia militia leader ambushed a French scouting party in the far west … Pittsburgh. In later years, George Washington would be careful to start battles after war was declared.

            1770: The Boston Massacre:

            No, it wasn’t a sporting event. Sheesh. It started when a group of colonists began throwing snowballs at a squad of British soldiers (In Boston. Sheesh.). That’s not so bad, is it? Then the colonists starting tossing sticks and stones, which, contrary to popular belief, can indeed break bones.

            This is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t throw stuff at people with guns. Five colonists died and the soldiers were arrested, but they were mostly acquitted thanks to the crafty defense by a young lawyer names John Adams.

            1773: The Boston Tea Party

            Tired of high taxes, an unresponsive government and Earl Gray, colonists (In Boston—sheesh) dressed up as Indians, sneaked aboard ships (In the harbor—sheesh), and tossed 342 chests of tea into the water. In today’s dollars, they turned Boston harbor into the world’s biggest cup, with $750,000 worth of tea. They were led, of course, by the famous Boston patriot Folger “Starbuck” Maxwell.

            But why blame the Indians? They didn’t even drink tea.

            1774: The First Continental Congress

            They didn’t get much done. But in their defense, they were a Congress.

            1775: Patrick Henry stirs the pot

            With the grievances of the colonists ignored by a remote government—sort of like today, only without Facebook—a radical named Patrick Henry, upset because he had two first names and no last one, began making fiery speeches and resolutions.

            The truth is, Henry was kind of a deadbeat. Worse, a lawyer. But man, he sure could talk good, and his actions helped set off the American Revolution. You’ve probably heard the last line of his big speech, which was “Give me liberty or give me death!” Luckily, he got liberty.

            1775: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

            He rode through the countryside yelling, “The British are coming!”

            Sleepy residents yelled back, “Shut up, you fool! We are the British!”

            Then he got arrested, probably for violating the noise ordinance, and the ride was completed by William Dawes. Unfortunately for Dawes, the name “Paul Revere” sounded better in poetry.

            Also 1775 (busy year, there): The Battle of Lexington and Concord

            Revere had discovered the British were marching by sea, which slowed them down considerably because the horses didn’t swim well. That gave the Minutemen almost a full two minutes. It was plenty of time to gather in Lexington, to protect stores of arms and gunpowder, and Concord, to protect the grapes.

            1775 (saw that coming, didn’t you?): The Second Continental Congress

            Didn’t get much done. They made up for it in 1776, though.

            1775 or so: The Battle of Bunker Hill

            It was actually fought on Breeds Hill.

            177—wait for it—5: Patriots occupy Montreal, Canada

            Things were looking up, up there. And that’s the last time things looked up for the Revolutionaries in the north, who discovered Canadian hospitality didn’t extend to invasion.

            1776 (finally!) Egged on by the British, Cherokee Indians attack along the entire southern frontier

            They were still upset about the whole Tea Party fraud.

            June 7, 1776: Richard Henry Lee points out to the Continental Congress that they’ve been rebelling against the British for more than a year, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually declare themselves to be rebelling?

            June 11: Five Congressmen are appointed to draft a Declaration of Independence. The other four talk Thomas Jefferson into doing the writing, pointing out that he’s the only one who’s invented a portable desk to use.

            June 12-27: Jefferson writes a rough draft, only to receive a rejection letter from the committee.

July 1-4: The entire Congress rips apart the Declaration. (Not literally. Sheesh.) Jefferson quits writing and goes into politics.

July 2: Congress declares independence, just as the British fleet and army arrive to invade New York. Talk about timing. John Adams declares that July 2 will forever be celebrated as Independence Day.

July 4: Having already declared independence, Congress now adopts the Declaration of Independence, declaring something they’ve already declared. John Adams’ head explodes.

July 9: George Washington has the Declaration read before the American army. The soldiers nod politely and ask when they’re going to get paid.

There was much more to it, of course. In fact, you could say the American Revolution went on until the US Constitution was adopted in 1788, or even until we fought the second Revolutionary war in 1812, which might also be related to the second World War.

Now, that’s a funny story.