Dave's Fiction Warehouse

Finally home after a 3,600-mile road trip, with a new resolve to post here more frequently, finally finish that damned novel, and mow the lawn, which has gone primitive during my two-week absence. That last will have to wait, since it's raining now. You can mow a lawn when it's wet, or you can mow it when it's a foot high, but you can't do both. So, to the blog. I renewed ties with a lot of friends and family and was lucky enough to catch my home state of Montana at its best: dry sunny days and cool nights scented with hay or lupine or alpine fir, depending on where I happened to be. The only bad weather to be seen was in Wyoming. No problem, since I was just passing through. Back here in Wichita, where summer is not the gentlest season, I'm thankful to have missed the past couple weeks of 100-plus heat and the woolen humidity so common in the Midwest. September can't come soon enough. Above is a picture of yours truly at the stick of a Dimona motor glider, soa...

No disrespect for Wichita, Kansas, but there are better places to be at the end of July. Surely the best of them would be here on the west shore of Flathead Lake, watching the placid water under a dome of pale blue sky, the mountains a somewhat darker blue in the distance. The morning air is as smooth as a silken pillow, cool as the underside of it. This is why those lucky enough to own a piece of the Flathead shore are mostly millionaires now. When I was a kid, we'd come to the lake all the time in summer, splashing around a place we called Sandy Beach in Somers. It's where I taught myself to swim. Now Sandy Beach is someone's private paradise and my rare visits to the lake depend on the hospitality of friends. That's fine. If you lived here, you'd probably take it for granted. Or you might begin suspect ulterior motives when friends and family started dropping by in the summer months. Some things it's better not to own: this view, these friends, this fine mor...