Books by Eric Douglas

Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

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Watching Hummingbirds Fly

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One of the real upsides to being a writer/photographer is that I can work just about anywhere there is a wifi connection. And when I am working, I am usually pretty still. I sit quietly with my computer in my lap and type, thinking as I go. Of course, I prefer to work places where it’s quiet with a minimum of distractions. That said, sometimes the distractions can be inspirational in their own right.

Sitting outside on my patio, I heard an odd buzzing sound over my shoulder. It sounded like a bee, but if it were a flying insect it would’ve had to have been really close. And there was nothing there. Looking a little further out, I saw two hummingbirds darting in and out of the flowers and the feeder I have set up. I went back inside and got my camera, switched to my longest lens, resumed my spot and waited. It wasn’t long until they came back around.

Of course, hummingbirds don’t sit still for long, and they are really small moving targets so I missed more than I got. But I got a couple good ones.

It turns out, these are Ruby Throated Hummingbirds. According to the WV Division of Natural Resources, this is the only species of hummingbird present in West Virginia and they are only here during their nesting season. That means, more than likely, there is a nest with babies somewhere close by. The DNR has more information if you want to read about them.

Surveying the area just beyond my back fence there is still a large pile of broken limbs from the tree that broke in half during the Derecho storm at the end of June. I keep seeing the birds fly up to those limbs to rest a few minutes. It makes me wonder if they are using the limbs to nest.

I’ve lived away from West Virginia and just recently returned. Not everything is perfect here. I know that. The same can be said for any place you go. (As they say, the grass is always greener…) I’ve lived in California and North Carolina and liked things about both places. And disliked things in both places, too.

This is one of the things I like best now that I’m back. I don’t live out in the country, but I live in a place where nature is literally in my backyard. That can be said for most of the state, I guess. What West Virginia has that many places don’t is quality of life. It is a place where you can be downtown in 10 or 15 minutes or well out in the country in another 15 minutes. It is a place where you can still find places without a cell signal. That may sound like a bad thing, but there are times when it is a very good thing.

For the moment, it’s time to get back to work. But I’ll stay right here on my patio and enjoy the buzzing sound of hummingbirds, knowing they are raising babies in my backyard, and enjoy the scenery..

Scuba Diving for a good cause

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure of making a couple dives at Bluestone Dive Resort in Thomasville, North Carolina. It was a pleasure because I got to dive with my dad again, and I got to see a couple old friends and it was a perfect day to be outside enjoying the world. But most importantly, we were diving for a good cause.

The quarry is owned by Robert Outlaw, who also owns the Blue Dolphin Dive Center in Winston-Salem. Bob and his family have been part of the diving community for more than 40 years. He has taught thousands of people to dive and moved them on to become dive instructors. His wife Janet runs the dive shop with a passion.
About six months ago, their son Ronnie, a paramedic and a dive instructor himself, became aware that his health wasn’t where it should be. It just so happened, though, that he was headed for Afghanistan to do some training for Homeland Security. I didn’t ask exactly what type of training he was doing over there, but it required him to grow his hair out and wear a beard. He put off seeing a doctor for a few weeks until he returned.
When Ronnie got back he discovered he had colon cancer. Not one of the happiest days, as you can imagine, for the 40-year-old. When I saw him yesterday, he said he had lost 85 pounds since the beginning of this ordeal. He was wearing a wrist band that said “F**K Cancer”. He said that was his edited version…

Divers in the water prepare for a shotgun start to hunt golfballs.
Ronnie is fighting hard, and still has the same grit and determination, but he needs some help with medical bills and such.  That was why approximately 150 divers came together to show their support. The quarry waived their entrance and air fill fees, in lieu of donations. I don’t know how much money they raised, but the water barrels seemed to be filling up.
Part of the event included a hunt for golf balls in the water that would determine what prizes each diver won. Several balls never made it back to the surface so that meant several prizes— including a set of signed copies of all four of my dive adventure novels—ended up going unclaimed.

It’s not live yet, but Janet plans to place the prizes that are still left as a silent auction on the Blue Dolphin Dive Center website. I encourage anyone reading to participate in the auction and help out a fellow diver and friend as he fights he way past cancer and the problems that come with it.

 

Godspeed, Neil Armstrong

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I’ve always been a space-junkie. I love the very thought of traveling through space and exploring other worlds. I grew up reading science fiction and loved to stare at the stars at night. If I had to think about it, a love of space is probably what led me to scuba diving. It was the closest I could get. 

Growing up, a childhood friend of my dad’s sold us a used telescope. He had a much larger one mounted on a base in his backyard so he didn’t need that one anymore. I remember setting it up on our driveway at night to stare at the moon and the stars in the sky. We even had a special filter that would let us look at the sun, although I don’t remember seeing much of anything there. The moon seemed so close, I could almost touch it through that tiny lens. I grew up dreaming of space and space flight and the exploits of atronauts like Neil Armstrong. 

Over the years I’ve had the good fortune to visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Mission Control Center in Korolev, Russia. I actually watched a launch once in Russia at the Mission Control Center. I expected to see the long camera shot of the launch. Instead, I was treated to a view inside the capsule as the three cosmonauts left Baikonur in Kazakhstan and headed to the Mir Space Station. I remember thinking of the sheer exhilaration that must be going through their minds. 

I wasn’t quite two years old when Neil Armstrong hopped off the lunar module ladder and into history, becoming the first man to step foot on the moon. I wish I could say I met him, or shook his hand, or was even in the same room with him, but I can’t. I don’t have any personal connection with him at all, aside from being a member of an entire generation he, and a select few others, inspired with their courage and bravery. 

A few minutes ago, I learned that Armstrong has died from complications from heart surgery. He was 82. HIs family described him as a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend, and also as “a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job.” 

 

That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.

 

In an interview, he said he hadn’t settled on what to say until just a minute before he spoke those immortal words.
When President John Kennedy challenged the country to go to the moon, he said

 

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

In an age when all the wrong people are made out to be heroes: athletes, musicians, movie actors, I hope the news coverage about Neil Armstrong’s passing will help us to remember, at least for a little while, what true courage, true humility and true honor mean.
I am hopeful, whoever the next president of the United States is, he will have the same courage as Kennedy and Armstrong to challenge us as Americans to exceed our grasp and push ourselves to reach for the stars, bother literally and metaphorically. Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Godspeed, Neil Armstrong. Rest in Peace.

 

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew –

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

 

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First day at Marshall

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The 2016 Class of Marshall University

Earlier this week my wife and I took her daughter (my bonus daughter) to Marshall University. It’s been an emotional week.

The “first day of college” has changed significantly since I went away to school 27 years ago. I recall my parents helping me load my stuff into my dorm room and then me “suggesting” it was time for them to head back to Charleston. I recall feeling very alone that first night, until I ran into a couple people I knew and going out for pizza. I still remember Todd Rodeheaver, my RA. The first thing he said to me when he walked into my dorm room was “Nice stereo,” as I was putting components together. “Just keep it down.” I have no idea what happened to “Rodie” after he graduated. He was in the ROTC. I believe he went into the regular Army as an officer.

At Marshall University (Beverly and I are both alumni) and where we were dropping off our daughter, the freshmen report a few days before the rest of the campus. The only upper classmen around were the RAs, the athletes and the band. The freshmen had two full days of programming scheduled to get them acclimated to the campus and ready for school. I like the process because I remember feeling a little lost as I walked around campus that first week. Do freshmen make better grades? Do they stay in school longer? Are they happier? I’m sure someone is measuring this stuff.

I wanted to stay out of the way as much as I could this trip, giving Bev and her daughter time to spend with each other. So, after we delivered her stuff to her dorm room, I made myself scarce. That meant I spent a lot of time hanging around the Memorial Student Center. I found myself looking for faces I knew. I had a brief fantasy that I was going to wake up from a dream, that it was 1985, and I was back in school. Obviously, that didn’t happen. It just so happens, my bonus daughter is now living in the same dorm as my first girlfriend in college. It struck me that I don’t recall much of that time.

Ironically, the one person I saw on campus that I recognized that day was Rick Haye, the Marshall University photographer. I worked for him for a couple semesters as a work study intern. Mostly, I processed black and white film and made some prints in the darkroom, but it was a tremendous learning experience. There’s no doubt in my mind that my time at Marshall studying Journalism and then working for Rick set me on the career path that has led to some pretty amazing adventures.

Someone once told me the friendships you make in college are the most intense, and the most short-lived, of your life. I’m still close to a few friends from college and I am thankful for that continued friendship. It’s odd to me that I don’t remember the names of many of the people I was inseparable with during those days. We laughed together, studied together, had way too much to drink together, ate together and “grew up” together. Some left after that first semester. Others made it a year or two. And some of us went that “whole nine yards” to graduation.

I hope and pray that my bonus daughter has the same positive experiences that Bev and I had at Marshall. The first day or two has been a little rocky, but I know it will get better soon. Just stick with it and be the strong, independent and creative young woman we all know you are.

Go Herd!.

Look! Show and Tell!

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In the rough equivalent of a double-dog-dare among writers, I’ve been challenged to “Look, show and tell!”

“From one of your writing works in progress, search for the word LOOK. Paste surrounding paragraphs and share, then tag others to do the same.”

KatharineHerndon started this game with Elizabeth Damewood Gaucher and now it is off to me. Elizabeth posted her excerpt from a project she is working on with me anyway. I wonder what Katharine used, since she is in on the River Town project as well…

Anyway, here is my first “Look” from the story Racing Miss Jayne Marie, part of the upcoming River Town Anthology.


“There is none faster or stronger on this river in her size. Some of the great boats on the Mississippi could push her around, but other than that, there’s no equal to her. She can carry more cargo, push more barges and still get there faster than any other ‘wheeler,” Dawson said, a touch of father’s pride entering his voice. He was a father, but his own children were away, living with his sister in Pittsburgh and the Miss Jayne Marie was all he had left.

“How can that be, Captain Dawson?” Winthrop asked, turning away from the boat to look Dawson in the eye for the first time. “The keel for the Miss Jayne Marie was laid just up the river, right alongside other sternwheelers that work this river. What makes this one special?”



“Well sir, boats aren’t as simple as all that. It was me and Mr. Hamrick bein’ up there every day while they laid the boilers and setting the wheel into place. We picked the gears and showed them boilermakers what we wanted,” Dawson said. “She isn’t flashy I’ll grant ya, but that’s not what you pay us for. You pay us to run up and down this river and make you money. That we do.”
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The people you meet ARE the adventure

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Lately, I’ve been feeling a little frustrated with the attitudes of people in the news, on the internet and on the street. While I wasn’t in a bad mood, I probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind when I left the house yesterday. My plan was to interview two World War II veterans for my Voices of War documentary project as I drove away from Charleston.

My first interview was with Eugene Lusk of Herndon in Wyoming County. Mr. Lusk gave me directions to his house, but I was also following the map function on my phone. And that’s where I got in trouble. Rather than taking me to Herndon Road, the phone app took me to Herndon “Heights” Road. As you can probably guess, that means I ended up following a small winding road to the top of a mountain.

If you’re not familiar with southern West Virginia, I was on a road (barely) one car wide, hemmed in by tall trees. I couldn’t see anything around me and was getting pretty frustrated. Cell signal was pretty much nonexistent as well. I realized I was going to have to attempt retrace my footsteps and find my way back down the mountain. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to my first interview at all. This was not doing anything for my outlook.

While I was pulled off to the side trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong, a car pulled up beside me. The driver had the passenger window rolled down. I told him who I was looking for. He said “Give me a minute. I’ll show you where you need to go. You can follow me.” Just a few minutes later, I was racing back down the hill following a man who had obviously driven this road hundreds of times. While I was late for my first interview, I still made it.

Sitting on the back porch of Mr. Lusk’s home, we had a good talk about his service in the Army during World War II. He was in a Port Battalion where he loaded ships headed to the D Day invasion; then he moved across the channel right just a few hours behind the first wave of men who hit the beach to unload the equipment and food that would help Patton push across Europe. Because I was late, we finished up our talk a few minutes after noon and he invited me to eat lunch. I declined at first, but finally relented. It was good, home-cooked food, beans, cornbread, greens, sauerkraut and wieners.

Mr. Lusk’s wife is suffering from dementia, but after 65 years of marriage Mr. Lusk said they still made a good pair. He was gentle when he spoke to his wife, helping her with her food when the nurse stepped away. He talked about the family they raised together. It made me smile to watch them, and I wanted to get out my camera, but I thought, “No, this is a private moment.”

As I left, I called my second appointment to make sure it was all right for me to stop by. He told me he had plumbers in cleaning up a problem in his home, but then said to come on by because they had gone out for lunch. I thought to myself, “When I’ve had plumbing issues, the last thing I wanted to do is speak with a stranger,” but he was kind enough to let me in. And I got to speak to Ira Richmond, a veteran who served his country, in the south Pacific this time, as a signalman in the Navy. His fellow sailors, including the Captain of the ship, called him “Pluto” for the name of the town he was born in Raleigh County.

All of the anger and hate in the news bothers me. It seems like no one knows how to be civil any more. Sometimes it feels like there’s no respect for people of different faiths, cultures or beliefs. We feel like it is our sworn duty to mock others who think something even marginally different than we do. No one wants to be nice to anyone for fear of…well I’m really not sure what they’re afraid of. But these three men, and their families, helped me realize it is still possible to be nice to each other. These men were just neighborly.

As I drove home, I realized my own mood had lightened significantly. I was honored to be in the presence of these two men, and graced by a favor done by a stranger. Every adventure doesn’t start with a passport. Sometimes they happen in your backyard. I’m sure I learned as much from this adventure as I have any other I’ve been on..

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