Body of Work
by
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The summer of 1949 came to an end. In the spring of 1950 we moved closer to town. There I would find a new venue, an extension of my Eden on Monroe Street, one with its own set of adventures, equally suited for growing boys into men. Before long war would rip Mel out of art class and replace his sketchpad and pencils with grenades and a fifty-caliber machinegun. Eventually, Dick would lay down his violin and don an Air Force uniform in order to avoid a fox hole like his brother’s in Korea. Having sons, two brothers, in harm’s way galvanized our stateside family around the radio and the newspaper. We struggled to squeeze good times out of weekends. When Mom and I went to the movies, she would wait in the foyer until the newsreels were over. In 1945, Dad’s younger brother came home from Italy in a box. I have to believe those memories made the threat to Mel and Dick very real in Dad’s mind. Could that be why he found more frequent solace at the beer hall? I began to see the world in terms of its intentional dangers. Silver’s demise in the shoebox, however tragic, paled in terms of the malice that sent me diving under my school desk in weekly take-cover drills and forced my brothers to put aside their peaceful pursuits. Now and then I caught glimpses of the truth: my parents, for all their imperfections, worked hard to cloister me, hoping my imagination might explore its limits unfettered for awhile, at least until I deciphered accountability’s code. I can’t imagine a more idyllic setting for a boy to discover himself than in and around my home on Monroe Street. Family, together; Mr. Logan and his gophers; riding bareback Jackie Carson’s headstrong, half-wild pinto; new school friends; church choir; 4-H; make-believe adventures, orange marmalade – they allowed me to step up to the cusp of my boyhood and face adolescence with hopeful anticipation. Six decades have come and gone. Every once in awhile images of Silver invade my peace of mind. Every so often I ponder those nineteen months on Monroe Street, the lessons there and how I learned them. Sometimes, I mourn for the boy left behind, scrunched in the cockpit of his rusty P38, lying low in a prairie swale while mounted warriors pass by, or wielding his wooden sword to prod Black Beard off of the balcony.
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About the Book
Heroes, a man and his dog, the American landscape, remembered passion, conflict – a dying father and a prodigal son, pioneer journals, reflections of a young boy’s Eden, a hooker on a corner in West Oakland, love in all its myriad forms—these are just a few of the stories revealed within the covers of Body of Work, Dan Strawn’s personal collection of six decades of Twentieth Century Americana.
Strawn tells his stories through the mediums of poems, family history, serious and humorous nonfiction, and short fiction. Take your pick: civil rights, family history, everyday life, or bits of irony served up on a plate of no-holds-barred satire by a self-professed American contradiction: both cynic and patriot. Open the book and read. You will be entertained and informed; you may even come away with a changed perspective about yourself or your world.
About the Author
After retiring from dual careers in business and education, Dan Strawn now lives in Vancouver, Washington with his wife, Sandi and their border collie, Idaho. His stories and essays have appeared in various editions of Idaho Magazine and in Trail Blazer Magazine. Everyman’s Smalltown, his essay about Moscow, Idaho, was a finalist entry in the University of Oregon’s 2005, Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest. He has edited and self published three books: "The TVidiot," a children’s novel written by his son; "What War?," Fred Benton’s memoir of the Korean conflict, and "Lame Bird’s Legacy," his own novel about the Nez Perce War of 1877. His novel, Isaac’s Gun, an American Tale, is being published by Bluewood Publishing, Ltd., and is scheduled for release in the spring of 2011. Strawn is a member of the board of directors, Nez Perce National Historic Trail Foundation, works with the Nez Perce National Historic Park as an interpreter of the Nez Perce experience at Park sites and at both elementary and high schools. On occasion he teaches for the mature learning division of Clark Community College in Vancouver. In September of 2008, he took Clark College students to Eastern Oregon and Idaho. Ttheir purpose: experience first-hand the Nez Perce story they studied about.