Life on the Prairie: Memories of a North Dakota Boy
Living in North Dakota, being in the outdoors has always been a huge part of my life. My greatest claims to fame in my life have come as an outdoorsman. For instance, I once knocked down 4 ducks with one shot and to top that off I've also caught an 11+ pound walleye. The paparazzi and reporters are still hounding me. However I didn't get a lot of writing experience sitting in the duck blind. A few years ago my partners talked me into taking over the duties of writing the company Christmas letter. It's a letter we send to our clients to fill them in on company events of the past year. Writing that letter and hearing how people enjoyed it was very gratifying. Eventually the idea for a book came to me, not just as a result of the letter, but as the result of a number of experiences, the letter being the first. Over the years you send a couple letters to an editor, give a couple eulogies, write a few award winning Christmas letters, a magazine article or two, and a dozen pages or so on my family's geneology and then everyone says to you, "You should write a book!" That idea simmered in me for some time. Then about a year ago, an event occurred that brought that idea to a boil. That event was my unplanned retirement at the age of 54. I retired as a result of a 10 year battle with Parkinsons disease. My retirement ended one journey but sent me on a new one, a journey through my past that allowed me to see it like I'd never seen it before. This book is a result of that journey of discovery.