Chapter 1: Why I Started To Take Notes

They tell me this is a humorous book, but I’m not having any of that----I don’t see one scintilla of humor in it---not one.  Anyone that would laugh at the tragic demise of a cute little poodle dog is just sick (especially one wearing a red bow), and when I think about that old poor woman, frozen stiff as a board, I feel like crying my eyes out----and the miniature anteater, and----well, you’ll find out soon enough and I just hope you have lots of hankies close by.  You’ll need them.

I just wanted to tell the story of Alice and Moses and Fifi and me.  Some one should tell it before the Democrats and Republicans get all of us for good, even poor little Moses, bless his poor little heart.  I’m D. W. Franklin, but everyone calls me Frank.  Alice is my wife and Moses is----well---I’ll tell you about Moses when it’s time.  No one ever writes about the little twigs that float down the stream of history. Sure, kings and presidents get their story told, but the little twigs like Alice and Moses never do.  Oh sure, once in a while twigs like us get part of our letters read on TV in some documentary, but presidents get whole books written about them.  But, without us twigs there would be no history to tell. 

 We now live in the state of Washington in the U.S. in a little town called Maple Valley on a fine lake called Lake Lucerne.  Maple Valley is on the west side of the Cascade Mountains about 30 miles SE from Seattle and is firmly under the control of the Democrats.  We haven’t always lived here, but that history is part of our story.  We like Washington just fine, but most of the country ignores us, which suits me.  I don’t even think that more than three people in the state of New York could find us on a map. They ignore us, that is, until an election, and then the politicians decide we might be worthwhile to talk to after all. Since you are probably not one of those three people, I should tell you something about Washington State to make my story understandable. 

Washington is naturally divided by the Cascade Mountains into a more urban and liberal western part and a very rural and conservative eastern part.  Not only the politics, but the climate is different also.  Western Washington is lush with rainfall, while Eastern Washington is much drier, even desert in places.  I don’t know why it was made one state since the two sides are so different, and that difference set the stage for what happened to Alice and Moses and Fifi and me. I wanted to put a map of Washington State in this book like a real history book would have, but the publishers wouldn’t spring for the extra money.  I hope you will get on the Net and look up the state up for yourselves.  It’s hard to believe that so many years have passed since the idiot Democrats and Republicans divided up Washington State in 2010 making a Democratic western part and a Republican eastern part.  Writing this account of my personal experience during those years from my notes has brought home to me just how many years it’s been, and how many experiences Alice and I have had.  I think that’s enough background so let’s get on with the story. 

Why did I start to take notes? That’s a good question, but you’ll have to wait to get it answered.  Alice just was looking over my shoulder as I was touching up this chapter.  When this happens I can pretty much count on some subtle remark such as “You’re not writing that, are you?” or something on that order.  This time it was “Frank, you should really tell your readers something about yourself.  Readers like to know those things.”  Well. I have to admit that Alice might have a point there.  So I’m going to delay telling you why I started to take notes, and tell you about myself.

            I was born Dwight Washington Franklin on July 31, 1955.  That was the year my parents moved to Bellingham, Washington.  My father worked for the Dwight Brothers Pattern Company as a pattern maker.  Perhaps you have heard of their slogan “If we can’t make a pattern for it, it doesn’t exist.” Some of the older manhole covers around Bellingham still have the letters DBPC cast into them.  So, that’s how I got my first name.  Dad thought naming me after his bosses would help his position at the company.  He guessed wrong, but that’s another story, and by the time he realized he guessed wrong it was too late to change my name.  But, that’s how I came to be called Frank.  After he realized he had guessed wrong he switched to calling me Franklin, and then shortened it to Frank as I grew older.  My parents hadn’t decided on a middle name for me when it came time to fill out my birth certificate.   A nurse suggested Washington, as that way I would always remember what state I was born in.  If you thought that I was named for famous politicians, I guess you’re wrong.  My parent didn’t give a hoot for politics, and I take after them.  I leave the political decisions to Alice.

            As I was growing up I was teased a lot about my habit of changing the subject in the middle of something I was talking about.  I couldn’t help it.  I would get to talking, and then something I heard or said would switch me on to something else.  Dad always said that I never could finish a thought, and I truly believe it was his biggest frustration in life, next to his bowling score.  Mom, on the other hand, took a different view.  On several occasions Mom said “You know, sometimes when Frank seems to be getting away from the topic, he really is closer than we think.”  Now you will have your chance to decide who was right about me, Mom or Dad, and I’ll leave it up to you to make your mind up.  If you find deeper meaning in my stories, maybe there is deeper meaning, but it’s up to you to figure that out for yourselves.  So, now with Alice satisfied and Moses sleeping happily at my feet I can get back to my book and start at the beginning of the story.

Sometimes I just stop everything I’m doing and wonder, “Why did I start to take notes?”   Alice, if she catches me staring, will come right up to me, and with her arms folded just stare right back without saying anything.  She’ll do this for maybe two, maybe three seconds tops.  Then she’ll say (here I don’t have to consult my notes since I’ve long since memorized what’s coming next).

            “Frank! That’s it, if you waste anymore time trying to figure out why you started to take notes I’ll go insane! You’re going to drive me into the nut house before my time. Then you’ll be sorry! And while you’re at it, get that stupid look off your face.”

            Well, what can I say, except that sometimes she leaves off “you’re going to drive me into the nut house…” and so on and just goes right into “get that stupid look…”. One thing’s for sure, though, she always manages to work in “then you’ll be sorry” somewhere. Come to think of it, she always works “then you’ll be sorry” into most every conversation.  I’ve heard it so many times that now it just shoots by me like some comet heading into space. If there is intelligent life out there someplace the first words they will surely hear from our planet will be “then you’ll be sorry” and they will be sorry when they come here, that’s for sure.  But, I guess I have to admire a woman that can use one line for all occasions.  It’s kind of like the workout pants Alice bought that said on the label “one size fits all” except that the people that wrote that label hadn’t met Alice yet.  Well, I have to give them credit for giving her money back.  If you ask Alice, she’ll tell you they took them back because she ended with the all purpose line “then you’ll be sorry.”  However, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea about Alice because that “one size fits all” episode was many years ago and lots has changed for us since then, one of them being Alice’s size. Contrary to what usually happens when she delivers that infamous line, I was actually sorry once after she said it. Or rather Fifi, our poodle dog, was even sorrier. That incident happened after I started to take notes, so you can read the exact words as she said them.  It went a little something like this:

            “Frank, that old razorback hog is plain mean.  If you don’t get your nose out of those notes and do something you’ll be sorry!”  Well like I said, it was Fifi who was the sorriest, but I shouldn’t tell you more about what happened until the correct chapter.  So, maybe around chapter five or six you’ll hear the whole pitiful thing.  When I started to write I promised myself that I would tell the account from my notes so that everything would be just as it happened—well, as close as I could get it anyway.  I guess the only thing I’ll say about it now is that Alice took to calling the old hog Fifi for awhile.  I asked  Doc about it and he said just let her do it if it made her feel better, but if she started to buy dog treats for the hog, to call him.  Then he said the damndest thing.  He said “Then you’ll be sorry.”

So, I started out to tell you why I started to take notes and now I’m going to do it. Alice always wanted to see more of the U.S. so we planned a two week trip to some of the southern states.  Well, if you want the truth, Alice planned the trip and I drove.  I won’t bore you with all the sights we saw along the way, but maybe I should mention that it was on this trip that we found a little poodle dog on the side of the road that Alice named Fifi after a cousin that was an exotic dancer, but that’s whole other story which I will tell you about if you come to visit me.  Actually, as you’ll find out, Fifi probably wishes she never got in our car.  All I’ll say is that Alice and Fifi took to each other right off. 

After we picked up Fifi we were passing through some small town in the south, since we’d gotten off the freeway to get gas, and I happened to notice something strange poking up over the trees about a block over.  Alice wasn’t paying any attention to me since she was fussing over Fifi, so I turned over a few blocks to see what it was.  It was the damndest thing I had ever seen.  Some guy had built a tower out of beer cans.  There must have been thousands of cans in that tower since it stood over his house and most of the trees.   I was so struck by it that I just parked and stared.  Well when Alice stopped fussing with Fifi, and saw what I was looking at she said something like:

“Frank, what kind of crazy person would build something like that?  I feel sorry for his wife if she’s still around.  Poor woman, if she’s not in the nuthouse she soon will be and (you guessed it) then he’ll be sorry!”  Well, I got out and just stood there and looked at it. 

“Close your mouth!” Alice said, “You look stupid.”

I wasn’t really listening to Alice at that point since I couldn’t take my eyes off the tower.  I had the oddest feeling looking at that tower.  I guess I stood there long enough that the guy that built it decided to come out and see what was going on.  When he looked at me we didn’t say anything at first, but something passed between me and him.  Finally I said only three words to him. 

I said “Because you must.”  And he said back, “Because you must.” Then, he turned away, and I got into the car and drove off.  After we’d begun driving, Alice turned and said to me, “What was that all about?” All I could say was, “Damned if I know.”

 Actually I knew on a gut level, but I didn’t think that there was any way Alice was going to understand it, and I didn’t want to waste my time trying to explain it, and I couldn’t put it into words anyway.   All through the rest of the trip I kept thinking about the tower, and what I was going to do.  I thought and thought about it, and I had all sorts of ideas of what I might do.  I even researched it for a while.  You can’t believe what people had done: houses made out of rolled up paper, giant balls of string, houses made out of bottles, and giant monkeys out of used tires.  But none of those particularly hit me, and besides they were already taken.  I was starting to get a little depressed over it when I saw one of those old-fashioned note stackers in an antique store.  You know, the kind with the metal plate on the bottom and the pointed rod sticking out of it.  I was all excited at first because I had finally figured out what I was going to do. A little later, though, I wasn’t so excited because the trouble with constructing the tallest pile of notes is that you have to have something to take notes about.  That was the problem I was facing.  I was all dressed up with nowhere to go, so to speak.  What was I going to take notes about?  I didn’t know.  

I went ahead anyway and built the world’s tallest note holder with a heavy four foot square base, and an eight foot tall spike. After constructing it, though, the same problem still fazed me. What good was the tallest note holder without any notes on it?  I lied to Alice.  I told her it was a lightning rod for the yard.  We actually don’t get much lightning, and I quickly found out Alice knew that.  Well, I learned a lesson from all of this.  If you are going to lie, it’s better to do a little research ahead of time instead of winging a lie at the last moment.  Anyway, I wasn’t getting anywhere fast with my note problem when the Twins saved me.  Now, I don’t think anyone else would solely credit the Twins with the idea of dividing the state between the Democrats and the Republicans, and that’s partly why I started to take notes.  I felt that I wanted to keep an accurate record of what happened.  Later, when all the historians would talk and write about it, I could check what they said against my notes. 

I took my first note and stuck it on the holder after I got back from visiting the State House in Olympia (our State House in Washington State).  No one else took much notice of what the Twins said that day, but I luckily I did since it was the start of everything that happened to us.   I guess that you’re wondering about this time why I capitalize the word “Twins,” and it might surprise you to learn that it’s not because I didn’t get out of the 10th grade.  I have my reasons which you’ll learn about in the next chapter which is entitled “The Twins.” 

Well I told myself that I’d start writing our story when my notes got five feet tall. When five feet came and went I tried for six feet, and when six feet came and went I put my foot down.  I guess I don’t know if you can put your own foot down to yourself, since it is more effective to put your foot down to some one else.  That way they can see the foot actually going down.  I guess I could have looked in the mirror when I did it, but Alice just said that people don’t actually put down their foot, it’s just a figure of speech. It doesn’t really matter because I finally started writing when the note stack was just shy of seven feet tall. 

Alice tried to ignore my growing stack of notes at first, but when the stack got over six feet high she started to bring our friends around to my study to see them.  Well, it isn’t exactly a study; it really is the storage room on the side of our cabin on the lake.  I remodeled it into a room for my notes. How we ended up in a town like Maple Valley, after living in Seattle for most of our lives (but with a two year stint just outside of Spokane in Eastern Washington), still manages to frighten me. But, if you keep with this book you’ll find out the whole sad story, and maybe I’ll understand it better by telling you. 

When Alice first took friends in to see the notes she frequently used the words “crazy Frank” somewhere on the tour. Gradually she dropped crazy and just switched to “you know how Frank is,” and then she switched to “my Frank.”  Did you ever see the movie Michael?  You can read my book without seeing the movie, but it’s a good movie in its own right.  It’s about an angel, actually Michael the Archangel, who comes to earth to help two people find love; a man and a woman. It’s a nice story, but the part that applies to me is where Michael tells the female lead that she has to sing, but only when he tells her, and not before.  Well, that’s how I felt – it was like the minute Alice switched to “my Frank” a voice said “Frank, now write.”  It was as clear as if someone was standing right next to me.  I’m not a religious man myself.  I’ve only had one other experience in my life that might fall into the category of spiritual experience, and you’ll hear about that in another chapter.  But this voice came from somewhere.  Now, you’re the first people that I’m telling this to, but I’m not too worried. Since Washington State was divided up the state asylums are too full to worry about adding one more old man that heard (just once) some voice say “Frank, now write.”  Actually, I believed it was a true voice because, now mind you, I haven’t done any kind of those scientific studies but I suspect if it hadn’t been a true voice, it would have said “Joe, or Mack or even Clarence, now write,” but would not have gotten my name right.  Well, that’s how I call it.  Before I end this paragraph, I should mention something more about the asylums.  This is for you readers that are not from Washington State, and might not know about the cheap products manufactured in the Eastern Washington Asylums.  Look on the Net.  You’ll find them, and there’s no sales tax to pay.

I’d like to end this chapter now since Moses is ready for a boat ride with Alice and me and it promises to be a nice sunset and Moses would hate to miss it.  I’ll continue writing my story tomorrow.