This is my only grandchild. Hard to believe my daughter is 26 years old. How can she be getting older while I remain the same?
I may get back to Sarasota someday. Just south of Sarasota is a little town called Venice. The joke was that the oldest people in the world live in Sarasota, and their parents live in Venice. It didn't seem all that old to me.
You can count on the signed and fingerprinted copy of the book. Maybe we can ship it over to Spain and have Carlito sign as well. How lucky am I to have him as the illustrator?
There has also been an audio of the story produced by the voice actor, James Herron,
http://voice123.com/jamesherron
While in California I took a lot of photographs of the animals that I encountered in the field. These became characters in the book. This is a burrowing owl that I met just south of Tulare outside the Pixley Wildlife Refuge.
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And so they fell in behind a pair of geese and patiently waited their turn.
“Good even, even, even,” said the gander in front of them, with some repetitive difficulty.
“Don’t mind him,” explained the other Canada goose, “he hasn’t been quite right since we flew through a hail storm on the way down from Alaska - peppered the ole’ noggin a few too many times.”
“Evening!” blurted out the gander to finish his greeting, as he walked in tight circles.
“And a very good evening to you,” responded Bernice.
“Ever since then,” continued the goose, “he’s had a difficult time getting off the ground. We’re going to get to the top of this machine and jump. Hopefully this will start him on his way. We really do have business down south and it’s time we got going.”
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“Hold on to this bar and enjoy the ride,” said the man. “And please, don’t throw up.”
The suggestion (and recent sights) of not throwing up didn’t help Bernice’s present state of mind.
With Alex and Bernice securely in place, and all compartments full, the giant wheel began to rotate up as their small, hinged bench continued to sway back and forth. Higher and higher it went stopping now and again to exchange passengers. When they were almost at the top they could see the two geese ahead of them. They were now standing on the side of the compartment preparing to jump!
“Good luck!” called Alex.
And off they went. The gander headed straight for the ground like an egg from a tall bird. His wings were tucked and his neck stretched out like an arrow. The other goose was close behind coaxing him …
“Not yet, not yet, OK, now!”
With these instructions the gander began to spread his wings and catch the air. Slowly, it seemed, though it all happened in the blink of an eye, the gander began to check his descent. Through the walk-way between the attractions he chose his direction, with the other goose following close behind. Finally they began to level off, though not before knocking a lady’s hat off her head. Up they swooped, gaining altitude. The gander seemed to be with the program, but only flew in tight circles above the Ferris wheel. The other goose stuck with him, shouting instructions as they flew.
“I got, got, got it,” complained the gander to his spouse.
And sure enough, after a few circles they finally headed south and were soon out of sight.