The Buick Phaeton

1930 Buick Seven-Passenger Phaeton Advertisement

(this is a 1931 vehicle shown in ad--See the wire wheels? 1930 Buick had wood spoke wheels)

Today was a gorgeous, warm sunny day in the Northwest. By 9:30 in the morning it was already warm enough to drive with the windows open. What better weather to back my dad's 1930 Buick Seven-Passenger Phaeton out of the garage and get my first driving lesson. I called my parents.

"Okay," they said, "meet you in an hour."

My father, Ralph, started it up and backed it out of the garage. He let it idle while we looked for the front passenger floorboard, which we could not find. We had removed the floorboard to attach the trickle-charger to the battery a few days ago. Oops. We hope it did not get thrown away.

We piled in, along with a neighbor that happened to be walking by, and my father drove us around the block a couple of times, smooth as satin on a hoop skirt.

Then I got behind the wheel. "So what is this here?" I asked.

"That is the parking brake," Ralph explained patiently.

"Okay, so what is all this stuff on the steering wheel?"

"You don't have to worry about that, just put it into gear and ease out the clutch," he said.

Grind.

Ralph's shoulders met his ears, but he didn't say a word.

Grind

I heard a whimper.

Griinnd. Okay, it was in first. I eased out the clutch and we jerked forward, eehhaa eehhaa eehhaaaaa.

"Give it less gas," Ralph shouted as our necks snapped back and forth.

"More gas," my mother, Luanne, mewled from the back.

"Oooooh, my--" my sister, Nina, moaned.

"Put it in second," my dad shouted.

Grind.

"That's reverse," he groaned on a sob.

"Sorry," I said.

"We're coming to a stop sign. Go right," my sister warned. "Start stopping now, now. It doesn't have ABS."

"Put in the clutch," Ralph wheezed.

"Signal your turn," Luanne cautioned.

We jerked up to the stop and I ground it into gear.

"That's reverse again," Ralph panted. I glanced at him and noticed his eyes were unfocused and his knuckles were white where he gripped the dashboard.

"Sorry." I ground it into first and we jerked to the right. After a while I decided to put it in second.

Grind.

Groans came from all areas of the car. When I let out the clutch the car jerked and moaned, jerked more, shimmied.

"Try third," Ralph pleaded.

I pushed in the clutch, pulled down the gearshift and it slid into third with only a short grrrrrthunk. As I eased out the clutch, it responded in a smooth transition from bucking bronc to carriage horse. We were off, all around the residential streets, honking the four-note horn, waving, driving into the golf course parking lot, swinging a wide u-turn, back out onto the street, around a couple more blocks, dodging bicyclists, dashing past dogs on leashes, swerving around girl scouts with armloads of cookie boxes.

We finally slid to a stop in front of the house and I applied the brake. We all hopped out. Except Ralph.

"Dad?" I said. I waved my hand in front of his face. "Dad, it is okay. I've stopped driving it." He began to suck in great gulps of air and color returned to his face. His eyes refocused.

"Want me to drive it into the garage?" I asked.

"NO." He began to cough and Luanne thumped him on the back a five or six times. "No, I'll pull it in, thank you."

I think it went pretty well. I can barely wait to get it on the freeway.

Kissing the Truck, Part Two

Lukas:

Fortitude and Triumph

Lukas May 2007 (one year after)

“I don’t remember kissing the truck,” Lukas said, “but people tell me I did. I remember I was a little afraid. The climbing was exhausting and I had a feeling I had bitten off more than I could chew. Maybe it was just a sensation of foreboding...”

When Lukas fell from the top of the mainmast on the Lady Washington, he hit the pin rail with his face and broke his cheekbone completely off below the eye. His brain hemorrhaged. His jaw split in five places, and eight of his vertebrae fractured. Seven broken ribs caused damage to his lungs and his left wrist fractured, resulting in nerve damage. His hands suffered burns, indicating he tried to save himself by grabbing onto the backstay during the fall. But his spinal cord was intact.

Surprisingly, that safety harness lanyard, although not saving him from the sixty-seven foot drop, may have still saved him from death by preventing his pelvis from hitting the deck. “I think it was very wise for JB to have ordered my lanyard cut, and to have me lowered to the deck because the movement of the ship caused my body to continue swinging, while it dangled in the air.” And JB made sure no one moved him once he was on deck.

Lukas is also grateful for the quick and heroic action of Nick, the sailor in the mast top, who tried to grab him. “I believe that he stopped me enough so that I survived. I think I owe my life to him.”

During the week following the accident, Lukas underwent surgery to repair his face and cheek, although he has no memory of it. He does remember someone asking, right away, for his emergency contact information and he recalls telling them there was a list in his wallet. They must have contacted his family, because his girlfriend arrived from Switzerland on the fourth day, so he was not completely alone in a foreign country, fighting to regain his life.

OHSU Hospital, Portland

His first real memories began about a week after the accident, when they released him from the intensive care unit into a regular hospital room. They wanted to get him up and moving, to aid in his recovery. With the same resolve it took to climb the mast, Lukas made his first wobbling walk, short at first. Each day, after every meal, he’d shuffle along the corridors, a little further each time, stretching his muscles, focused on recovery. As some feeling began to return to damaged nerves, the nerve-racking medical bureaucracy kicked into high gear. OHSU wanted confirmation the insurance would pay for “every little thing; contacting the US subsidiary of the insurance, who contacted the headquarters in France, who relayed the information to the Swiss insurer, who sent their answers back through the chain, all dealing with the nine hour time difference.”

The online model ship community heard of his accident and collected some money to help with his girlfriend’s expenses, which would not be covered by insurance.

He wanted to go home. His girl friend wanted him to go home. She began making phone calls and it took a great deal of planning, negotiating, coercing and perseverance to make it happen. No airline would allow him on board with brain and lung injuries. He and his girlfriend had to wait several days until he was off oxygen and underwent CAT scans, which determined he had no brain damage. An airline would agree to the transport and then cancel. This happened time and again. Another week went by while his girlfriend spent hours on the phone each day, only to have their hopes dashed with another cancel. Then she met with success, coordinating with insurance, airlines, ground transportation and medical personnel. Through her tireless efforts, two and a half weeks after the accident, he was airlifted on a Medicare plane from Portland to L.A. and then boarded a Swiss Airlines jet. A French physician waited to attend to all the medications during the flight and a gurney had been installed across eight seats in the back of the plane.

Swiss Airlines

In Switzerland, he remained in the hospital another two weeks until he could be transferred to a rehabilitation facility where he spent another seven weeks in physical and occupational therapy. He went back to work, at first for only ten percent of his day, but gradually increasing his time until he reached full time status one year after the accident. He continued physical therapy on an outpatient basis. Although his jaw healed, he currently wears braces because his teeth became misaligned.

Through the tedious recovery, Lukas has remained positive and stubbornly determined to overcome the difficulties. He has no intention of letting the fates have their way. He remains in charge of his destiny. Although there is still residual nerve damage, he has resumed his hobbies of scuba diving and parachuting.

“I guess I narrowly escaped complete paralysis,” he said. “I was lucky beyond imagination, with a whole bunch of guardian angels.”

Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain-Brian Baird

I would imagine the one hobby he would not want to resume would be sailing, but Lukas is not an ordinary man. The sea is in his blood. “If I believed in such things, I’d think I was a sailor in another life,” he said. He has the utmost respect for the Lady Washington and returned, with his girlfriend (now his wife), to crew for three weeks in the summer of 2008, going aloft once more, shaky at first, nervous, scared. He still loves sailing. He returned again at the end of 2008 for another three weeks, and hopes to come back again in 2010. For him returning to the Lady was important to his recovery. And sailing still remains vital to his happiness. “I didn’t want to be a ‘victim’, not for something as important to me as sailing,” he said. “I wanted to be a ‘survivor.’”

As I said in an earlier post, accidents happen in even the most efficient and careful businesses and organizations. But once the accident occurred, it was the calm, efficient, professional reaction of the captain and crew of the Lady Washington which was instrumental in getting Lukas the help he needed to affect an amazing and miraculous recovery. They did everything right. I have so much admiration and respect for them and their organization.

But it is the strong, fighting spirit of an incredible young man--the spirit of a sailor--who never gave up and never lost focus, and who still loves the Lady Washington, that I commend for being a hero. It is that man who has earned the right to wear the “Turk’s Head” bracelet.

Turk's Head Bracelet

Kissing the Truck

Lukas:

A Story of Courage and Determination

Upper photo of Lukas standing parade on the main t'gallant yard

Lower photo Lukas in the hold

Both "Before" photos provided by Lukas

Forty-five passengers clutched their tickets for an “Adventure Sail" at the mouth of the Columbia River, one of the major events during the Port of Ilwaco's Nautical Renaissance. Men, women and children wanted to feel the wind and watch the sails fill. They wanted to sense the vibration of the deck as the cannons boomed out their shot and to smell the acrid smoke. For just a couple of hours, they wanted to step back in time and experience shipboard life in the mid 1700’s. But on Saturday, May 20, 2006, the passengers got more than they bargained for; they got to experience a real-life shipboard tragedy on the brig, Lady Washington.

Photo taken by Bruce Smith

Thirty-two-year-old Lukas knew ships. He built them. As a child, he glued together plastic models and then later historic wooden ship models, accurate in detail to the tall ships of old. His love of sailing spanned back as far as he could remember when he drew pirate boats in kindergarten. His love of sailing continued until girls became slightly more fascinating. A fan of nautical fiction, as well as studying masting and rigging, Lukas longed to experience, first hand, the life on a square-rigger. In 2004, when he boarded the HMS Victory in Portsmouth, England, everything felt familiar. He made the decision to do the required “two weeks” aboard Washington State’s Lady Washington to become “a volunteer”.

Coming all the way from Zurich, Switzerland, he vowed to squeeze every experience he could into his two weeks. In his first week during a break in ship routine, he learned how to weave a “Turk’s Head” bracelet, something every seasoned square-rigged sailor possessed. Sea stories were exchanged between the mates and the captain regaled them with the legend the bracelet. Throughout history, seamen have passed through a rite-of-passage by climbing to the top of the main mast, the highest point on the vessel. The top is crowned by a cap called the truck. Once the lubber has “kissed the truck” he passes into the realm of experienced seaman, fully accepted into the ranks of old salts. He is accepted into the inner circle. He belongs. Back in the days of fighting sail, it was only after kissing the truck he wore the Turk’s bracelet as a badge of courage and honor.

Lukas had been up in the rigging many times in his first week. How hard could it be to go those last few feet to the top of the mast? Eager to gain yet another experience of sailing life, he decided to do it. He sought permission from the captain. On that fine spring afternoon, just after loosing the sails, with a full compliment of crew and passengers, they headed out of the port of Ilwaco to the Pacific Ocean. The captain announced Lukas would be “kissing the truck.”

Pin Rail Photo taken by Bruce Smith

The passengers scurried for the best vantage points on the crowded decks. The crew below and aloft continued their chores, the captain continued his watch, J.B., the relief captain who would be taking over the next day, continued his commands to haul in sheets and man the braces and the Lady Washington continued toward the ocean. Lukas was committed. He was filled with excitement as well as nervous trepidation. This was it. Conditions were perfect. Dozens of eyes gazed upwards. Already aloft, he climbed up to the crosstrees. At that point, the shrouds have no horizontal ratlines. To climb the topgallant mast, he’d have to wrap his limbs around it and shinny up. He hooked his safety harness line to the after starboard t’gallant shroud and climbed. Halfway up the t’gallant, the shrouds end and it becomes like climbing a flag pole. He continued his ascent up that most difficult portion. His muscles shook from fatigue and he took short, quick breaths. Lukas had grit. He could do this. Sixty-five feet up, he reached the end of his safety line. He unhooked it and rehooked it to the next line up and with quivering arms, continued toward the truck. He inched one more foot. Two.

View from the Crosstrees (not yet up to the truck) taken by Bott

Below, Monica Buchstatter and Joe Freitas had a perfect view of the exciting event. Monica lifted her camera and pushed the zoom button, focusing in on Lukas. He hesitated, inched up, hesitated, inched up and just as he lurched the last few inches and kissed the truck, her camera clicked and whirred and then Monica paused. What she saw in the little window sent her heart rocketing. She followed the line from his lanyard down where it anchored to the pin rail right behind her. She whirled around. “Joe,” she whispered, nodding to the stay, “Joe, he’s tethered to this line. If he falls--”

Photo provided by Monica Buchstatter

Joe’s eyes shot to Lukas and followed the Royal backstay down to the deck. They both instinctively jumped back about four feet. Monica swallowed, her heart slamming and returned her eyes to Lukas, just as he slipped.

Lukas doesn’t remember his sixty-seven foot fall, but Monica does. She remembers every detail. She sucked in her breath and watched his body hurtle from the top of the mast. Halfway down, he hit the edge of the top platform. Nick, an experienced seaman still in the rigging, made a frantic grab for Lukas, catching him for only moments, slowing the death drop, redirecting it from the end of life. While Lukas continued his plummet, Monica ducked behind Joe, to block her view. She heard the sickening thud, but didn't see him hit the pin rail, didn't see his face break off a sturdy belaying pin. His head hit the deck, while his pelvis snapped to a stop in midair, dangling by the lanyard caught on the stay.

Pin rail shows lines coiled around belaying pins

Air, sound, and motion were sucked into a void for the next few seconds. No one moved. No one breathed. Faces reflected the horror of seeing death claim a man so vibrant and young. And then his moan filled the brig, reverberating off every line, every halyard, every seaman and passenger. Broken, damaged, possibly with injuries beyond comprehension, he lived.

The brig burst into action, and the 21^st century replaced the 18th. One of the ship’s officers, J.B., whispered the order to cut the lanyard and lower Lukas to the deck very carefully, to prevent further damage. Two passengers jumped forward. “We are nurses,” they said. Passengers backed away, giving them room.

The captain snatched up the brig’s radio, calling the Coast Guard. More orders to furl sails barked out into the silence broken only by Lukas’ heart-wrenching groans. The brig’s crew--professional, experienced, reliable even when filled with the horror of their shipmate’s fall--scattered across the deck and into the rigging; hauling in sails, adjusting lines, preparing to come about. The captain fired the big diesel engine and the Lady Washington made her slow turn, heading toward Ilwaco. Within minutes a U.S. Coast Guard 23 foot utility craft and a 25 foot response boat from Cape Disappointment clawed their way to the Lady, escorting the brig, while somewhere on land, paramedics pounded out to their ambulance, revved the engine, flipped on the lights and siren and threw it into gear.

Photo provided by Monica Buchstatter

Lukas remembers only snapshots, eerie and unreal. He remembers someone telling him he would be all right. He remembers the coppery stench of blood and the stringent smell of antiseptic in the ambulance. He remembers the thumping whirl of the helicopter blades two hours later, as it airlifted him to Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital in Portland.

He doesn’t really remember the emergency room at an Ilwaco hospital, but Bob Kennedy, marine operations manager for the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, said, “I was in the emergency room with him. He was asking when he could get back on board.”

Please check in for part two to follow

Part Two: Fortitude and Triumph

Near Twilight on Mt. Hood

Dale Blodget paints the best skies, so vibrant and compelling. The painting I like the most, as far as sky is concerned, is on tour at the moment, but I hope she will eventually post a picture of it on her blog. I challenge Dale to paint a sky like the artist who painted the sky in this photo of Mt. Hood. With the setting sun igniting the top of the mountain and the variety of clouds, I had to take this picture. I cranked the wheel hard-a-starboard, screeching around a corner and down to "the place" on my way home from work. My humble apologies to the car I cut off.

My query has run aground. My critique group, The Dead Bunny Club, and I are attempting to tow it off the lee shore, but I fear it will have to put in at a shipyard where a team of experts can assess the damages. I'm willing to scuttle it providing I can salvage anything of value before it goes down. Until I am safely underway, my blogs will be sporadic. Please don't give up on me.

Agent Research

It is exhausting researching agents. Searching their websites, their lists, their submission requirements, their likes, what authors they represent, etc. requires a lot of time and concentration. My reading glasses prescription needs to be stronger. And what must they go through, reading, reading, reading, hundreds, maybe thousands of queries and picking a few to ask for full manuscripts? Too bad the queries and manuscripts aren't on the audio kindle.

So far I'm only a quarter of the way through the agents on the agent query site and my list of fabulous sounding agents has grown to 31.

These sunrise pictures cannot be helped. My little car races past predawn fields of gray cows and gray horses and gray llamas and dark wheat fields and I start to hold my breath in anticipation as "the place" gets closer. I round the corner and there it is, Mt. Hood in all its splendor and glory. Each day the sun rises later and later and the view changes. Sometimes gray clouds hide the mountain and secret the beauty. Sometimes the ticking clock forces me to speed on to spend the day in the closet at work. But sometimes, just sometimes, my little car screeches to a stop in a "no parking anytime" zone, my window slides down and the beauty of the scene settles over me like a misty spring rain on bright green baby leaves. My breath catches and my eyes take in every detail of the field, the house in the distance, the trees against the fire of light, the mountain, tall and majestic, the brilliance of color.

It is a gift. It is happiness.

Shades of Gray

The Colors of Gray

I follow the awe inspiring Wendy Morrell's blog from down under (Twitter: quillfeather). She is a delightful breath of warm summer air (when it is winter here) and lends a view of what it is like to be a writer in New Zealand. I've always wanted to travel to Australia and New Zealand and through Wendy's blog, I'm able to catch a glimpse without having to check luggage.

A few days ago Wendy honored me with the above award, which thrilled me. But then I read there are strings attached. The rules are simple at first glance. The receiver of this award must list 10 honest things about themselves and then pass on the award to seven worthy recipients who must also list ten honest things about themselves, and so on.

This is much harder than it appears. I could easily think of ten things to list, but they all seem to be flaws. The harder I tried to think of positive things, the more negative things popped into my head. So then I tried for neutral items. I could say I like the color blue. But I also like the color gray, like in the fog or the color of the sky before the thunderous downpour. And I green also. But how can one shade of green be singled out? I like the color of grass. But I like that no better than the color of the moss clinging to the Alder trees. And what about the color of the Douglas fir and the heather? And is there anything more beautiful than the color of new leaves in spring?

So if I said I liked green, I'd have to list all the various shades of green. Listing negatives would be shorter.

1. I am not a morning person. It is wise not to stand between me and the coffee pot.
2. It is sometimes difficult for me to trust strangers. For instance, when I’m on hold and the recording says, “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly,” I have trouble believing it.
3. When they were handing out "Patience" I was at the coffee machine. As an example, after I’ve heard the recording (see #2) every fifteen seconds for three minutes, I become impatient and might say, “I don’t think so! I think if you really thought my call was important, you would have answered already.”
4. Much as I hate to admit this, I get cranky. After listening to the recording listed in #2 for six minutes, I am apt to say, “You are annoying in the extreme, you blithering sack of wharf rats.”
5. I can be argumentative and accusatory. After ten minutes of listening to the recording in #2 it is not uncommon for me to raise my voice and shout, “LIAR. You will NOT be with me shortly. Shortly would have been nine minutes ago. And you don’t find my call important at ALL. Admit it, you seething pile of maggot infested cow pies.”
6. I can be vindictive. After fifteen minutes of listening to the above recording I start planning the demise of the anonymous voice taunting me with lies.
7. I’ve been known to hurl threats. After listening to the recording for twenty minutes, I might, for instance, hiss out, “Listen, buddy, you get someone on the phone right now or I’m going to slam the receiver back in the cradle as loud as I can, you hear me? Get a human on the phone and do it now or else.”
8. I’m a pantywaist. When a human finally comes on the line, I retract my aggressive behavior and, instead, ask my question as if nothing had occurred during the half hour wait.

“Can I claim all my classes, writer’s conferences and all the books I have purchased for research as a deduction if I haven’t sold my book yet?"

"No."

"Okay, thank you."

At this point I decided to try very hard to think of something that wasn't negative, just to be different. This is all I could come up with after a great deal of deliberation.

9. I've successfully avoided being mauled or murdered by the wildlife around my house.

Here is where I stopped and asked a co-worker if she could think of anything positive I might say about myself. She said, "You could tell them you are rich and successful and everyone admires you."

I sighed. "No, it has to be something truthful."

"Oh." She thought for a while. "You could tell them you've never burned down this building."

My jaw dropped. "That is the only positive thing you can say?"

"I'm still thinking," she defended.

I rolled my eyes and went back to my closet.

10. I've never burned down the company building.

And now I'd like to bestow this award to the following bloggers.

TheFirstCarol's blog--Carol is witty and charming and posts about all sorts of different subjects, including celebrities who have met her. She is an excellent writer and has completed one and three-quarters books.

Karen Maxwell's blog--Karen is a writer who has vowed to give up television for one year. Her blog is hilarious and will keep you from watching television too.

Dale Blodget Paintings--Dale is a fabulous painter. Check out the beautiful work she does on her blog.

Single Dating Mommy's blog--A fresh new look at the dating life of a single mom with attitude.

Sharon Axline blog--Sharon is writing a terrific action/adventure book. She also has two precious dogs she writes about.

Ginger's blog--Ginger has written several books during NaNoWriMo. In her blog, you'll see she has many other talents as well.

PLAnneAnderson's blog--She is a young adult author on her exciting journey toward publication.

Red Sky in Morning

Was this, perhaps, not the day I should begin my attempts at writing a query letter? Is this a warning? Shall I weather ship, shorten sail, batten down the hatches?

(And I was nearly late to work trying to get this picture.)