December 26, 2008 by Clair Button.

I left alone at quarter to nine, the road dusted with icy crystals over black frozen dew from the night before. Fog from the river filled the valley below low-hanging clouds, and black Angus cattle drifted through shrouded pastures, their backs striped with white, looking like giant skunks. The smell of sodden leaves, hay, and fresh manure hung in the valley like fog, to reassure me that it was just my imagination.

The sun, only a pale imitation of the moon, briefly tried to lift the clouds, before giving in to gravity and the weight of snow-laden masses descending from the mountains where I headed. Wet snow began to stick to the windshield. As the road lifted above the valley fog, every living thing wore a top-dressing of white, black alders dripping cones even before the snow could begin to melt, red dogwood, yellow willows, and conifers painted with shades of blue and green over stark black trunks, all limned in white as though the artist had first painted in oils, then cut through edges of white on scratchboard. Mysterious realm, where even the rocks could be seen to have form and life. And there above the fog, the sun tricked the wind into complicity, revealing more here, less over there, shadows and light, magic of artist’s skill.

Hissing splash of melting snow beneath my tires gave way to muted crunch and whisper of dry powder settling deeper. Alone on the road for so long, it was easy to let reality slip and imagine myself a pioneer tracking through wilderness, but the blowing white had not completely obscured the evidence of some other brave soul who had gone before me into the mountain stronghold. I longed to see his tracks turn off and leave me to my wilderness alone, and when a truck passed going the other way, fleeing down to the valley, I hoped it was him.

White curtains swept across the landscape, and pulling close, confused my path, forcing me to slow and guide the wheels only by the distance to the nearest obscure dark shapes that lined the trail. Deeper still, I floated in silence broken only by gusting winds that pushed me toward the edge of … I knew not what, perhaps a flight into the void where only white winds ruled.

Wind stopped and dark trees reappeared, marching back to the edge of the trail, looming and drooping over, forlornly observing my passage.  A gray ghost of an owl turned the round disk of its face toward me as though it resented my presence in her silent realm, as I had resented the fool driver who had gone before me earlier.

Sun emerged, and patches of bright blue sky, putting an end to the rule of monochrome. Revived, trees shook off clouds of snow that drifted gently in my passage.

Then over the crest, emerging into another universe, where the next range of mountains and forests can be seen swathed in white, lit in gold, and surrounded by wild platinum and silver clouds, and in between, golden valleys streaked with green and black rivers and dotted with white farmstead homes, whose chimneys hint of warmth and life within. Beauty to fill the darkest soul that revels in isolation. We are never truly alone, for the artist has been there before us.

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October 24, 2008 by Clair Button.

Thank God the political season silliness is drawing to a close! After two years of nonsense, two weeks looks like the light at the end of the tunnel. I know, I know. It might be a train. Put that aside for now.

It looks to me as though we once again missed our chance to have real, honest to goodness, intelligent discussions on real issues. And once again, we pretty well dragged everybody through the pig pen with various forms of distorted propaganda, weird rumors, outright lies, and digging up stuff from the outhouse of past lives and relationships. The thing we all seem to have forgotten, is that once the election is over, we still have to figure out how to work together if we don’t want to have civil war.

You can’t tell me there aren’t going to be a lot of disappointed, bitter, angry people out there on one side or the other. For that matter, the winners might not feel too much like kissing and making up with the other one who said somebody’s grandmother was the illegitimate child of Adolf Hitler born to Joseph Stalin before he had a sex change operation.

So, I thought we might start the discussion now about how we are going to smooth over those ruffled feathers and hurt feelings. We need a little I’m OK, you’re OK session, sort of an old-fashioned love-in without the sex. Lord knows we don’t really want to get in bed with each other, but a little conciliatory expression might not hurt.

In that spirit, I offer the following suggestions to both sides:
Republicans, shake hands with the nearest Democrat and say, “Yeah, you are a human, even if you did vote for a socialist terrorist. I forgive you.” Next time, try it without muttering “You dirty so-and-so” afterwards;

Democrats, prove you are liberal and forgiving by pulling out your wallets and donating a dollar to Sarah Palin’s IRS defense fund (since the liberal media dug up her per-diem mini-scandal). Promise never again to say “They all ought to be in jail.”

I admit, it’s just a first step, but we have to begin somewhere. By the way, take me off your phone call list. I already voted.

Clair Button is the author of three mystery novels and also writes the odd bit of humor.

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October 3, 2008 by Clair Button.

Well, shucks. Here we thought we could just turn our heads and trust all those geniuses on Wall Street to manage our money and all of a sudden we discover “GREED AND CORRUPTION ON WALL STREET!” I swear, we just woke up in a whole new world.

I couldn’t count all the times I heard that phrase on television last night. Only an imbecile could fail to recognize that those greedy bogey-men in three-piece suits are at fault for gambling away our hard-earned savings. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that we naively believed we could trust those boogers to make us a pile of money if only we got rid of the rules and regulators that were “in the way” of our great, American entrepreneurial spirit.

Not that I was all that greedy, myself, mind you. I only wanted a little piece of the action. Hell, I knew those CEO’s were out to make a killing. That’s what the history of capitalism is all about. But greed and corruption? What were those guys thinking? Were they dumb enough to think they could get away with that? Oh, boy, we’ll fix them! We’ll cut the strings on their golden parachutes so they only get a few million more apiece.

There was a time when I thought I couldn’t afford to gamble on stocks. Still, I read the investment advice telling me I should invest any extra money in a stock account to make fifteen or twenty percent a year. It was my bad judgment to figure a schmoe like me couldn’t do much better at picking stocks than saving the six or seven percent by paying off my home loan. Hey, if I was smart as Warren Buffet, I’d own Tahiti by now. Nope. It ain’t gonna happen. On the other hand, the bank ain’t gonna get my house, either.

And though I don’t like the price of gas, we’ve found that by driving a 1991 Volvo (with duct tape to hold on the cracked turn signal) that gets 30 miles to the gallon and by staying close to home, we can still afford to drink premium beer. You just have to get your priorities straight.

Now, the whole world’s financial system is in a shambles, and since my life expectancy isn’t all that long, I figure someone else is going to be holding the bag when we finally figure out we can’t pay off those “toxic” debts, reset everybody’s mortgage, send all the kids to college, and wage several wars all at once.

They say those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, a whole new world will start again next year. I figure this is a good time to invest some of my extra beer money in stocks. It should be safe now. Sarah Palin says she and that other reformer, John McCain, are going to “end greed and corruption on Wall Street!” Now, that’s one hell of a promise! I’m all for that. I’m just surprised that the Democrats didn’t think of that and jump on the bandwagon.

Clair Button is the author of three mystery novels and writes a little bit of humor from time to time.

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September 28, 2008 by Clair Button.

Poetry by Dennis Beam, of Richland, Oregon, in celebration of the 2008 Great Salt Lick Contest

Redemption of a Grain of Salt

Whoa! What happened? I guess I must have died!

Reincarnated as a grain of salt in this block of sodium chloride.

I’m stacked on the floor in this dingy room at the local Feed & Seed store

What a price to pay for all my misdeeds, I did my life before.

I was a fisherman ya see, and it wasn’t easy.  I chewed and cussed and smoked.

I told a lot of lies and drank a lot and then one day I croaked.

But all and all I was pretty good, and I thought I lived a pretty clean life.

Why, it was even rumored that I once was even nice to my wife.

I always figured just a rumor of such a thing, would surely get me a free pass.

But when I made up to the pearly gate, God shut and locked it fast.

“I’ve been watching you and your sinful past, and I’m afraid on my list you are last.

In fact,” he said, as he gave me the boot, “you were a real ass.”

Well, I guess I’m proof that all God’s laws are really pretty strict.

And that’s why I’m stuck inside this solid saline brick.

It’s lookin’ like my number’s up and my luck is about to change,

I’m getting loaded in a pick-up truck and headin’ for the range.

Now I’m being heaved aboard a horse and put into a saddle bag.

We’re climbing high above the Snake River, ten miles southwest of the sag.

I can’t believe this. I know this guy. Look at that big smile on his face.

Then he reached into the bag and dumped me in my place.

I watched him as he rode away, that big ole smiling galoot.

If only I had my fingers about me, I’d be flippin’ him the salute.

And now I can only await my fate, a solo block of salt

And, to think I did boy scouts with that guy. Thanks a lot there, Walt.

Ya know I’ve been here before. I hunted chukars here, high above the valley floor.

There’s horses that live year round and cows and deer galore.

It’s lookin’ grim and it won’t be long ’til I’m attached to some animal’s tongue,

And rifled through its digestive system, and fired out the bung.

If only I could move, I might have a chance, to stay away from a lick

and avoid being reincarnated again, as a dried up pile of shit.

But alas, a miracle has occurred. Redemption has come and I might make it yet.

Someone’s brought me here to Baker City, thanks to a guy named Whit.

Find more about the annual Great Salt Lick contest at www.saltlickcity.com, Whit Deschner’s home page.

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May 11, 2008 by Clair Button.

Have you started the “Big Read” Project, Amy Tan’s “Joy Luck Club?” When I read something that doesn’t fit within the limitations of style or content of the things I know I like, then my reading is always tentative. Until I find value, a message that speaks to me, I am always ready to put the book down and do something else. It helps when a book is well written, and thoughts expressed with character, but what would a Chinese immigrant woman have to say to me?

She could relate history perhaps, since she lived through the Japanese invasion of China, but that was a tale of misery she was reluctant to speak of, even to her daughter. From the cover description, I can see that is not to be the subject. The “deep connection” between mothers and daughters, now there is a subject fraught with the potential to make any guy run for the last project abandoned in his wood-shop. In my experience, every daughter seems to fear becoming her mother. Enough said about that. I have to sand a drawer front on that desk I was making last summer.

Yet in the first twelve pages of “Joy Luck,” I found three little gems that make me think I am going to enjoy this book. The first was the description of four women having a celebratory party in the midst of the anguishing misery of war as an affirmation of the value of living. The second was the snippet of history merged into the cultural jolt of adapting from life in China to the new world of America, complete with going to a Baptist church because it was a duty incurred to repay charity. And the third was a bit of the promised wit, folk wisdom so practical to life. Of course, if the purpose of a club is to gamble and experience true “luck,” then the skill of card-playing defeats the purpose, because some players will always win and some will always lose. What more perfect decision than to put the pot into the stock market so they can all gamble and win and lose equally? “There’s no skill in that” so of course it is the purest expression of gambling and good or bad luck when they succeed or fail.

I hope others will read this book and share here what they like or not about it.

Clair Button is the current President of WGEO who hopes he will find the luck to get other writers and audience involved, and perhaps even so lucky as to find a new volunteer for the office of President next year.

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April 10, 2008 by Clair Button.

Winters End

Russian drudge
sullen soul of angry serf
leaden brow, dirty gray clothes
stands outside the door of the master
who has freed him, in dumb silence, unthinking
Useless fool let the garden die
In the way, just go!
I’ll tend my garden by myself

We want our members and friends to show they are active and writing. It doesn’t take much. We want you to write and contribute. With all the great poets in our group, why would you wait for someone like me to start a new category on the blog? Well, here it is, poets “A Poem for Your Thoughts” is here for you to publish.

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April 5, 2008 by Clair Button.

Despite the historic rise in fuel prices and transportation fares, my family recently gathered to pay due respect to the family matriarch, now 90 years young. Luckily, I had gotten over my nasty chest cold before going, and my dear wife has an immune system which gives her powers akin to quack-grass resisting puny herbicides.

However, by day three of our visit, the sunshine state representatives of the family showed up with Mom’s granddaughter. All members of that family branch either sounded like terminal emphysema patients or had severe nasal drip. How could they not come to granny’s 90th birthday party?

On the day we returned, my ears would no longer pop when the airplane descended, a bad sign indeed. Miserable, slimy, cold! We called back to Mom, only to confirm that she had also received the curse, as had my sister and brother-in-law. All lay like miserable sloths in a cage, unable to expend the energy to go outside.

I spent a week in isolation, unwilling to pass this Florida import to my friends, but finally with ear still under pressure, went out to the doctor for antibiotics . A second week passed. The infection grudgingly released me, and I prepared to resume normal life.

Then I noticed my wife dosing herself repeatedly with her herbalist magic, only to succumb to the coughing misery. No amount of magic or faith can deny the reality of evolution when it can enable a virus to penetrate the code of her combination lock. To think this evil bit of germ plasm and DNA is now loose in Oregon is frightening, but how could we not attend that family obligation?

Thus the next tragic flu virus, or bacteria will spread throughout the earth. But no, that is not how the world ends. No, my wife just invented the cure. Ah, yes! The cure! A jalapeño chowder, so spicy, the term “volcanic” is an understatement. And I, having the misfortune of having been raised in a Midwestern household with bland eating habits, must also undergo this cure, because only fools do not eat what is put before them by the hand of a willing spouse. Sweat running from my scalp to soak my shirt. My eyeballs are sweating! Even she admits it is a little spicy, going back to get a second helping.

Oh, but wait for tomorrow. Apocalypse!

Clair Button is the author of the Thomas Kreuger Mystery Series, and occasionally makes attempts at humor.

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March 21, 2008 by Clair Button.

On Sex, Gender, and Moral Superiority
One need only observe nature to understand that the female gender is morally superior to the male, and that the latter sex, being subject to the vicissitudes of severe hormonal imbalance, is prone to senseless violence and destructive impulses. On this point, I agree entirely with Ronald Reagan, although I have not spoken to him lately to determine if he has changed his opinion.

Whether or not such mindless behavior, being controlled by bodily processes other than the intellect, can be considered moral, or rather immoral behavior, is beside the point. One need only consider the result. For example, we planted some lovely young willows into our yard, anticipating that within a few years, they would become beautiful, mature specimens of rust and yellow hued branches, gracefully arching overhead and providing dappled shade. Realizing quite fully that we share our neighborhood with a significant number of wild deer that come regularly to inspect our flower beds, we anticipated some opportunity to observe the gentle creatures nibbling on the branches. And certainly, were we to rise sufficiently early on a winter or spring morning, we could count on seeing at least one doe with her fawn sampling the dormant buds if not more. Yet willows sprout vigorously, and are quite well adapted to occasional browsing by wildlife. So my wife and I were not adverse to the idea of sharing the bounty of our sweet pussy willows.

However, in the dark of night, as all shameful villains and vandals are wont to enjoy the cover of darkness, the male of the species has left his mark. Not satisfied that we have left these delectable treats unfenced for his gustatory pleasure, he has seemingly determined that since he could not eat it all, he would destroy what he could not eat, leaving none for others in his herd unless they picked it up from the ground before it dried and turned black. No, this year there will be no tall waving branches or shade, only the grotesque, malformed remnants of his unreasoning brutal presence.

Should I be so fortunate as to find that devil in the forest later this fall and legally put an end to his malicious activities, I do know that there shall be no “once and for all” to it. As these things tend to go, the miscreant has no doubt already had time to procreate and pass along all the miserable, self-indulgent, and evil aspects of his character so deeply encoded in his genes. Or if not, his evil twin, or father, or uncle is out there somewhere, making sure there will be no end to mischief. After all, he got those behavioral traits somewhere.

Clair Button is the author of the Thomas Kreuger Mystery Series, and occasionally makes attempts at humor.

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February 20, 2008 by Clair Button.

What are BISAC codes?

As I was working with one member of our Writers Guild of Eastern Oregon to design her website as a standard and model for our group, she asked the question, “What are BISAC codes?” It was one piece of information I believed we should include in the data about her books. Why? Because my first publisher told me that was industry standard data, and necessary.

When I self published later (don’t even ask about that #@*&% subsidy press publisher), I continued to follow that advice because I did a little research and discovered the purpose of the codes.

BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) codes are a “standard used by many companies throughout the supply chain to categorize books based on topical content.”

The codes are often required for participation in many publishing industry databases, which may seem obscure to those of us involved only in writing. However, you can understand it more clearly if you realize that those codes provide your local bookstore manager a means to categorize, store, and decide how to display your book. Without your knowing it, those codes may be incorporated in the bar code on the book cover.

BISAC codes are established and controlled by the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG), the industry’s leading trade association for policy, standards and research. Membership consists of publishers, manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, librarians and others engaged in the business of print and electronic media. The BISG mission “is to create a more informed, empowered, and efficient industry supply chain.”

When you think about participating in the book industry as a publisher, recognize that electronic standards, efficiency, and reducing the operating costs of your suppliers, distributors, and retail outlets are part of your mission, too. Take the time to look up and list your own BISAC codes.

Note updated 2010 revised list of codes:

http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-0-136-bisac-subject-headings-list-major-subjects.php

Article by Clair Button, Writers Guild of Eastern Oregon, www.wgeo.org

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February 12, 2008 by Clair Button.

Writers Guild of Eastern Oregon is reaching out with new media. Stay tuned for regular input from featured authors.

Tell us what you would like to see from our group.

What would you like to do?  Get involved!

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