Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

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Snow Day

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I have to admit I still get excited to wake up to snow. It’s a carryover from my childhood I guess, but it is definitely still there.

I remember going to bed, knowing there was a chance it would snow and hoping with every ounce of my being that I would wake up and hear school was cancelled. This morning when my wife told me it had snowed and school was cancelled, I got excited again.

As an adult, I worry about things like safety and keeping the electricity on and if we have enough food to last if we can’t get out for a day or two. That’s the price of growing up. Suddenly, snow days aren’t as much fun as they used to be.

On the other hand, I remember my dad coming out to jump on an over inflated truck tire inner tube to slide down the hill with us. He understood snow could still be fun after all of the responsibilities were looked after.

Sometimes when the snow is really coming down and we don’t have to GO anywhere, we still need to play in the snow.

So, if you’ll excuse me…

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Jumping in leaves: a rite of Fall

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Growing up, my best friend in elementary school lived just down the street. He had this huge tree in his front yard. I will never forget spending a couple hours one afternoon raking the leaves into an enormous pile for our jumping pleasure. In hindsight, we probably spent more time raking than we actually did playing, but I guess that was part of the process. It definitely ended up being hard work; after we were done, we had to pick up all of the recently compacted leaves and spread them on their garden for compost.

Yesterday, one of my daughters saw the field of golden leaves lying on the ground in my front yard and immediately said she wanted to rake them up and play. I had been planning to mulch them up, but said I would wait until she got the chance. When we got home from school today, we immediately went outside and started raking.

In some ways, when we rake leaves and they jump in, it’s a very different experience than what I remember. For my daughters, it is more of a process of jumping in the leaves to get just the right pictures of them jumping in the leaves, as compared to my own experience of raking and jumping for the experience of jumping in leaves. A lot of that is probably my fault because I do tend to pull out the camera whenever they do something picturesque. It becomes a conditioned response to smile and perform for the camera.

Still, I hope they take away some good memories from piling up the leaves in the yard and being silly. Some days, it seems kids don’t spend enough time having fun for fun’s sake.
Now, it’s time to mulch up those leaves. See, I don’t even make them worry about the aftermath…

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One-room schoolhouse – history just down the road

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Just about a mile or so from where I live, adjacent to the Pinch Reunion grounds and back in the woods, is an old one-room school house. My wife showed it to me about six months ago, but I didn’t have a chance to explore it until now.

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After a little checking around, I’ve discovered it was once called the Lower Pinch School. Maps show there was also once an Upper Pinch School a few miles away. I’m not sure if it’s still standing or not. Incidentally, online maps also show that the building is across the main road. It’s not. I was just there. I wondered if it had been moved, but I was able to find one old picture of it and it appears to be the same building in the same place.
IMG_5919.jpgWalking into the school, I couldn’t help but think about the kids who studied there. What did they grow up to do or become? I’d wager quite a few of them stayed close to home, worked on the family farm, at the saw mill or in the mines. Some probably went away to fight in WWI or WWII, leaving West Virginia for the first time in their lives to fight and die in Europe, a place they vaguely studied back in that tiny school.
I’m sure the building is more than 100 years old, but it still appears to be sturdy. Walking as slowly and as gently as I could, I walked around inside—making sure to stay on top of the rough cut floor beams as I moved. I didn’t feel any give or bounce in the floor. The interior was dry as well, telling me the roof was solid. In spite of its age, the building was wired for electricity, so I would also guess it remained in use into the 1930s or 1940s, if not later.
IMG_5898.jpgVandals have torn up some of the flooring and painted graffiti on the walls. That’s normal and not at all surprising. There are pieces of an old upright piano in the building as well.
I’m curious who owns the building, or at least owns the land it sits on. I’ve never been opposed to development and progress. Believe me, the last thing I think we should do is go back to one-room schools. At the same time, I hate it when we forget the way things used to be and how far we’ve come.  I’d love to see someone take ownership of the building and restore it. It could be a community center or a local museum. Otherwise it’ll be a place for kids to hang out away from parents’ prying eyes—until someone gets hurt or it burns down mysteriously.
IMG_5892.jpgTime to do a little more digging.

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Going Black and White Underwater

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img_0456My first “real” exposure to photography was a black and white photography and darkroom class I took at Marshall. I had taken pictures before that, but never seriously. We all had those oblong cameras on our 6thgrade patrol trip to Washington DC that advanced the film with a thumb slide.

img_2840After college, I set up a darkroom in my mom’s house and continued shooting black and white for myself. I loved the control of the darkroom and the ability to make images look the way they did in my mind. I would literally spend hours in the darkroom, making prints and adjusting them and then watching them appear in the developer tray.

img_2833In 1998, I moved to California and mothballed my darkroom. I didn’t have the room for it, and I wasn’t shooting much at that time anyway. Later that same year, I saw a series of photographs by Ernie Brooks that blew me away. The show was made up entirely of underwater images in black and white. I was amazed by what I saw and I never forgot those photographs, but it never occurred to me to try black and white underwater photography for myself. (I admit, sometimes, I’m a little dense…)

img_2857Earlier this summer, I was scuba diving with my father in Summersville Lake when I realized that everything was monotone—in this case, shades of green. Suddenly a light came on in my brain that the photographs I was making, and everything around me, would look good in black and white. And a new project was born.

img_2850 My new darkroom comes in the form of my laptop computer. Fortunately, I don’t have to spend hours waiting on these images to develop and I don’t have to deal with the chemical smells. For me, the fun thing about these photographs is that they reveal a side to the state that most West Virginians never see. I think they look spooky and mysterious.

img_2864Many of my friends say they could never go scuba diving, for any number of reasons.  I feel sorry for them—they will never experience what I’ve been fortunate to see—but I do understand.

img_2794I hope sharing these photographs will shed a new light on the world beneath the surface of the water. You can find beauty in some of the strangest places. It just takes getting out there and opening your eyes.

Even in black and white.

Veterans of the USS West Virginia

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Over the weekend, I had the honor and privilege of meeting a small group of veterans from World War II who served aboard the USS West Virginia, known as the “WeeVee”. Two of them were onboard at Pearl Harbor when the ship was bombed and sank. Others served on the battleship later in the war after it was floated, repaired and sent back to war.

The group, down to about 11 men, expects this to be their last reunion meeting. They are all getting up in age and wanted their last meeting to be in West Virginia. I’ve always been interested in history, war history and West Virginia history so when I saw the men were coming to Charleston with their families it naturally caught my attention. But there was also a closer connection.
My daughters’ great grandfather (on their mother’s side) Anthony “Tony” Sereno was on board the USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor. He survived the attack by jumping into the sea and swimming ashore on Ford Island. His family in Richwood, West Virginia learned that he was missing in action by telegram. It wasn’t until 18 days later, on Christmas Day, that they learned Tony was alive and well. Tony was about six months short of finishing up his commitment to the Navy when Japan attacked. He ended up getting extended until after the war finally ended in 1945. As one of the only sailors who was actually from West Virginia on board the battleship at the time, Tony is also featured in a video about World War II that runs on a loop in the West Virginia Culture Center museum.
Unfortunately, Tony passed away last summer at the age of 94. My daughters got to spend quite a bit of time with Tony, though, and were very close to him. I tell them all the time how lucky they are to have known their great grandparents. When I told the girls where we were going on Saturday, they were excited. For them, it was a chance to meet with others who had done the same things as Tony and a chance to reconnect with him. We spent about 45 minutes there talking to Syl Puccio, one of the Pearl Harbor survivors. We bought a ship’s hat and the girls had Mr. Puccio sign it for them. Mr. Puccio recently received the Navy and Marine Corps commendation for his heroic actions that day and is credited with saving hundreds of lives on board. It is entirely possible Tony lived through the attack because of Mr. Puccio’s actions. Talk about life coming full circle, even if it took 71 years.

If you’re interested in learning more about the group or the battleship USS West Virginia, visit the group’s website.

In 2006, I wrote and published a short story called Pearl Harbor Christmas, based on Tony’s experiences at Pearl Harbor. It is free to download and read. The girls and I took a copy of the story that included a picture of Tony and the one above of them looking at the video loop, and presented it to the group as well.

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