Blog Posts - Books by Eric Douglas

Honeysuckle in the air

May 21, 2012 By Eric Douglas

I was driving home with the windows down, enjoying the amazing weather, and started smiling. There was the smell of summer. Even going 70 miles an hour, I could still smell it.

My brother used to say that summer smelled like gasoline and fresh-cut grass (slightly ironic for someone who hated cutting grass). But this was sweeter. Honeysuckle. It was everywhere and the scent was strong. For me, that is the scent of summertime. It was almost overwhelming in spots—just an amazing sweetness surrounding me.

I remember, as a kid, thinking that the nectar inside honeysuckle flowers should taste like honey. I would pull the stamen from the flower and there would be a drop of the nectar, sparkling in the sun. I would lick it off and pretend it tasted like something. I remember being disappointed. I’m sure it is significant for a hummingbird or a bee, but just didn’t amount to much for a growing boy.

Another sign that summer is here are the lightning bugs (calling them fireflies is acceptable too, but I grew up calling them lightning bugs). They are out and glowing in the trees after dark. Another childhood memory involved running through the yards, chasing them down and catching them in a mason jar. We would take a nail and poke holes in the metal lid to give the insect air to breath. If we were feeling extra generous, we would throw some grass in there, too. I never had one, but I seem to remember some of the kids having a “ring” that you could wear on your finger and attach the bug’s abdomen to it. It would stay lit and glow on your finger. Obviously, it didn’t work out so well for the lightning bug.

Late spring and early fall are my favorite times of the year. High summer is great, if you’re up to your nose in water (which I do as much as I can), but this time of year is perfect. The humidity isn’t stifling yet. The days are hot and the evenings are warm enough to stay outside and just “be”. I love to sit outside and stare at trees in the evening, unwinding and distressing. And with the gentle evening breeze, you can smell the honeysuckle. If you look up in the trees, you’ll see lightning bugs. That says summer to me as much as anything else.

If you don’t live in a place where honeysuckle grows wild, I’m sorry for you. You’re missing one of the great scents of summer. If you live too close to the city and there aren’t any lightning bugs around, ditto.

If you’re looking for some grander conclusion in this, there really isn’t one. Smelling the honeysuckle just made me happy and I wanted to share it. Get out and enjoy the world around you. Turn off the television. Unplug the computer. Roll down your car windows. Get outside and breathe. You’ll be glad you did.

Now, it’s time to head back out to the patio.

See ya.

A new story about sharks…for kids!

May 16, 2012 By Eric Douglas

My new children’s chapter book, Swimming with Sharks, is now available as a Kindle Ebook. This book is written for young readers, from 5-to 9-years-old, as a beginning chapter book. You can download a copy today and begin reading it with your kids tonight. Click on the book title link and it will take you to the page on Amazon.

Swimming with Sharks features two young girls living on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with their parents who work at a marine science center. The girls love the ocean and are learning about its creatures. The story opens with the girls snorkeling in the ocean while their parents dive below them conducting research. Back at the aquarium, they overhear students talking about sharks and spreading their own misunderstanding. After a confrontation with the other students, the girls help their parents nurse a sick sandtiger shark back to health. The story is fun and entertaining, but is also loaded with information about sharks and why they are something to be respected and admired, but not feared.

As my own girls were growing up, they were huge fans of the Magic Treehouse books that included information on science, art, history and geography while being carefully disguised as a fun adventure. I decided to write stories for them focusing on the ocean. Swimming with Sharks is the same approximate length as the Magic Treehouse books and other beginning chapter books. There are eight chapters, each about 1000 words long.

Swimming with Sharks is the second book to follow Jayne and Marie on the Outer Banks. The first was called “The Sea Turtle Rescue” and was originally published by the international environmental organization Oceana and used as part of their sea turtle outreach program. The Sea Turtle Rescue is now available for newspapers to publish as part of the Newspapers in Education program. Contact your local newspaper and tell them you want to see The Sea Turtle Rescue in your local newspaper.

One topic in the Swimming with Sharks is a thing called “finning” where sharks are caught, have their fins cut off for soup and then the animal is thrown back into the water to drown. If you want to learn more about this barbaric practice, I wrote a blog about it a few weeks ago.

Sharks are amazing creatures to see in the water and I am lucky to have made dives with sharks several times. I hope we learn that sharks are important to the health of the oceans before we are too late. A great way to do that is teach our children so they understand..

Diving needs heroes

May 15, 2012 By Eric Douglas

A few years ago, I gave a presentation about the state of diving as a sport. My basic point was that diving was more accessible than it has ever been, and there should be droves of people learning to dive, yet diving is flat…at best.

The people who started the sport in the 50s were their own heroes. And the sport grew. From 1958 to 1961, (and for years afterward in syndication) we had Sea Hunt’s Mike Nelson to get people excited about diving. And the sport grew. From 1968 to 1975, we had The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau to get us excited about diving. I remember watching that show as a kid. I have no doubt it inspired my desire to travel, explore the world and to dive. And the sport grew.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a hero like that today. There is no modern diving hero.

In 2005, I wrote my first novel with that problem in mind. I wanted to make the diving real enough that my fellow divers would go, “Yep, I can do that!” but I also wanted to make it exciting for non-divers so they would think about diving. One of the best compliments I ever got on a novel was when a non-diver told me that she could feel herself underwater while reading one of my books. For the record, the most amusing negative review I got for my first novel was “The prose is tepid.” I doubt it would be possible to be more cliché than that. Still, I learned from writing that book and the stories that have come after it.

I know several people who are doing amazing things diving. They are traveling the world and exploring new destinations. I have good friends who run fantastic businesses teaching divers to dive. Rich Synowiec and Darcy Kieran come to mind. Rich teaches diving in Michigan and Darcy in Montreal. In spite of their locations, they both have large followings and lots of divers. There are many, many others. They all know how to make diving fun and cool. Another good friend, Greg Holt, has built a tremendous life for himself with the syndicated radio show—Scuba Radio. (You can check him out at Scubaradio.com.) There are also people doing incredible scientific work in the ocean.

I’ve just released a new diving adventure as a Kindle novella called “Sea Monster”. It is set in the Florida Keys. Tomorrow, I plan to release a new children’s book called “Swimming with Sharks” for 5-9 year old wanna-be divers and kids who love the ocean. Next month, I plan to release a new novel as well. Stay tuned and share these stories with your diving friends and the non-divers as well. Get them thinking about diving and then find a way to get them underwater.

So, while I’ll never be diving’s hero, I plan to keep writing stories that help divers think about diving when they’re forced to stay dry and help non-divers think to themselves “I want to do that!” I’m hopeful someday soon we will find a new hero that inspires the next generation of divers as well.

Maybe one of you out there should step up to be the next diving hero….

Planting seeds

May 13, 2012 By Eric Douglas

There will be thousands of words written today celebrating mothers. I thought I would contribute 500 or so.

I’m extremely fortunate that my mom is still around. Now that I’ve moved back to West Virginia, she’s close by, too. I say this even though I know I don’t see her or talk to her as often as I should. I have several friends who are without their mothers today and I know that’s difficult.

Probably the best thing about having my mom close is having her around to pass along things to my daughters. It was fun watching them plant flowers in her yard yesterday. It only took a few minutes, but they all had fun and laughed. I’m sure it will be a memory they will all cherish. Maybe not actively, but somewhere in the back of their minds the girls will remember how to plant flowers from that brief lesson. I’m sure that’s how I learned to do a lot of things.

It’s also fun knowing that Mother’s Day came from West Virginia. Anna Jarvis from Grafton founded Mother’s Day as a memorial to her own mother. The first Mother’s Day was held at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton in 1908. Anna had moved to Philadelphia, but she planned the event in West Virginia and sent a telegram outlining the purpose of the day.

“This day is intended that we may make new resolutions for a more active thought to our dear mothers. By words, gifts, acts of affection, and in every way possible, give her pleasure, and make her heart glad every day, and constantly keep in memory Mothers Day; when you made this resolution, lest you forget and neglect your dear mother, if absent from home write her often, tell her of a few of her noble good qualities and how you love her.”

If you want to read the whole story…

The first Mother’s Day proclamation on a state level was from the Governor of West Virginia in 1910. It was proclaimed a national holiday in 1914. Anna pushed and prodded and worked to create a day for her own mother. Ironically, she wasn’t a mother herself, but her mother planted the seed in her mind that mothers everywhere should have a memorial. And she also planted the seed in Anna that helped Anna believe she could make it happen. Remember, this was before women could vote, but Anna believed in herself enough, and in her cause enough, that she kept working and pushing.

In my mind, that’s what mothers do best. They plant seeds in their children’s minds that they can do whatever they set their mind toward accomplishing…after they have passed along the tools and skills they will need to make it happen, of course.

I’m not finished on my journey, or even remotely content, but I do know that I wouldn’t be where I am today, nor would I have accomplished one-tenth of what I have so far, if it weren’t for the love, support and encouragement of my mom.

So, I’ll take this moment to say thanks. Thank you mom for always being behind me, even if you weren’t always sure where I was headed. (Honestly, I didn’t know half the time either…) You planted the seeds in me that made me who I am today. And that made all the difference..

CFD Diving in the Kanawha River

May 8, 2012 By Eric Douglas

My friend Bob Sharp is the assistant chief of the Charleston, WV Fire Department. As a diver, one of his greatest passions is the dive team. He ran the team until his latest promotion when he had to step aside and turn the daily activities over to Jeff Showalter. He is still closely involved, though.

All too often, the dive team is called into service around town. They recover cars, evidence and occasionally bodies from the Kanawha River. While they train for rescue missions, anyone who knows anything about Public Safety Diving knows that isn’t a very likely scenario.

Not long ago, Bob asked me to look over the dive team’s SOGs, or standard operating guidelines. At DAN, I had been asked to do that sort of thing from time to time or to offer safety guidance for dive operations. I even got a chance to do that once at Disney’s Living Seas exhibit. That was one of the best dive operations I’ve seen. They take visiting 100s of divers into the main exhibit each week without a mishap. I ended up suggesting a couple things they could change and they were very happy with my advice. I’m only bringing that story up to say that after going through the Charleston Fire Department Dive Team’s SOGs, I didn’t find anything that I would change. I could have nit-picked this or that, but it was an impressive document. These guys know their stuff.

Earlier today, Bob asked me to come and see a collaborative training session they were putting on with other dive teams in the area. The Saint Albans Fire Department Dive Team came up as did the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department. The event was sponsored by Divers Training and Supply. The equipment manufacturer Interspiro brought in their surface supplied dive gear for the divers to try out. Pete Corbett from Divers Training and Supply also had DUI Dry Suits and Fisher Metal Detectors on hand for the divers to see. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to dive with them because I’m not part of the dive team.

Seeing different dive groups like this working together, of their own initiative, was great. From time to time different dive teams have to work together and it is extremely important that these divers are on the same page. There is nothing about Public Safety Diving that is easy. These divers are in a current with zero visibility struggling to find something missing on the bottom. It is physically taxing and mentally stressful.

My hat is definitely off to Bob Sharp, Jeff Showalter, Pete Corbett and the Charleston Fire Department Dive Team for putting on an event like this. They train monthly on their own, but said they planned to work together at least once a year. I’m impressed. And hopefully, one day, I’ll figure out a way to get in the water with them.

That’s all folks!

Super Moon and photography

May 6, 2012 By Eric Douglas

I prefer taking photographs of people. That in no way minimizes my impression of photographs OF things. I like all photographs…or, well most of them. Even the ones I don’t like, I respect. But I’m just never comfortable making photographs of things. Last night was one of those nights where you just HAVE TO.
On the other hand, I’ve always had a weakness for night photography. I love how light makes things look different at night. For me, it’s the same as night diving. A dive site you’ve been on a thousand times looks totally different at night. I’ve always been a bit of a space junkie, too, so a chance to combine night photography with moon photography overcame my general disinterest in “thing” photography.

Last night’s Super Moon almost wasn’t. It rained all day and was still cloudy as the moon was beginning to rise. In spite of that, I took off last night to see what I could see. At first I couldn’t see a thing. I drove down Kanawha Boulevard, heading west, so I could turn around and drive back toward the moon. As I turned, I saw the moon poking out behind some clouds. I immediately pulled into a side street and ran across the boulevard. I made a number of images from that spot, but the moon continued to rise so

I moved on. I decided to drive up to the Capitol grounds to see what I could find.
I was walking along the Capitol grounds looking for a good angle to get the gold dome with the moon when I ran into a woman taking a photographs. She was nicely dressed and said she had just been at a play. Her daughter was in the car waiting for her.

She was using her cell phone to take a picture. She mentioned a couple times that her Canon was in the car, she just needed something for Facebook. She asked me if I was in a camera club or something. I said, no, I’m just a photographer. Her response was, “I just love photography. It’s an art.” She went back to her car at that point. No doubt she posted the picture before she left the parking lot.
I am not overly thrilled with any of these images. They’re okay, but not all that special. I’m sure a fair number of people got better images than I did last night. In contrast, I’m sure the woman loved the picture she took with her cell phone. And I guess that is ultimately the point. She was right. Photography is art. There is technique to it, but there is also passion and excitement. When you are excited about what you’re doing, that passion comes through in the finished product.
We all have to do whatever fires our imaginations and gets us excited. Whatever that is. It can be art, music, sports or whatever. Doesn’t matter. When we do that thing that makes us happy, it’s magic. I’m sure I’ll continue taking photographs of “things” from time to time. Maybe someday, I’ll find that passion and excitement for it. If not, there are enough people I can photograph to keep me busy..