Here we are, already into February. There was a somber mood at the Firehouse this week. Our group lost a friend, a prolific writer with paramount skills and true dedication to the craft. We all miss Peter Frickel. Bruce Haedrich eulogized our colleague with the following piece.
REMEMBERING
by Bruce Haedrich
I intended to read you the next chapter from Gaia, The Next 80 Years.. Instead I will read about my thoughts our friend Peter Frickel and how he influenced, mentored, and guided my thinking and writing. His comments on what I wrote were like being cut with an accurate but soft scalpel; you hardly felt it, but like his father and brothers, all doctors, the cuts he made were healing cuts. When he began with, "Perhaps it would be better if, ... " I knew I'd have to rewrite the whole piece. When he asked me, "Why are you using other's quotes to introduce your stories? Isn't the work yours?" I went back and changed all my published quotes. I cherished every bit of guidance Peter gave me.
Peter liked my Dan Marin stories, OK, but thought my strength as a writer was in my work on Gaia, Battery, Storm, and Drop. His enthusiastic endorsements led me to change portions of them, and you can hear echoes of Peter's voice in each.
Several years ago, I wrote an essay titled Interconnected. The main point of the article is that everything in life is connected to everything else. I thought the lines from the English poet Francis Thompson best captured the idea. Thompson said: "Thou canst not stir a flower without troubling a star." But I was wrong. In his beautifully written prose, poetry, and short comment, Peter is the one who has shown us humanity's deep connections with nature, each other, our emotions, and God.
He did not wear religion on his sleeve but was still deeply spiritual and humble for the gifts his God had given him. The opening words of The Lilies of the Vlei are, "In the beginning, God chose Africa for me." In River, he says, "I am a river born of God." In Lotha and the Three Crosses, Peter tells the story of the man, Lotha, who built a crypt for Joseph of Arimathea Joseph gave the tomb for Jesus to be interred after his crucifixion.
The Lilies of the Vlei tells the story of growing up in Africa on the shores of the Indian Ocean. There, he saw firsthand the ravages of war from those beautiful yet violent tragic lands, and young Peter rode shotgun for his physician father, who administered to Zulu warriors in the African outback.
Years later, as many of you know, a Zulu witch doctor gave Peter a second heart in a solemn ceremony. Through his carefully chosen words, you can hear the beat of both his hearts, one of compassion and the other of of understanding.
When I first met Peter, he told me he planned a quest to the Pyrenes to find wooden remnants of Christ's cross, and as he notes in, Lotha, the healing stones cut from the rock
that covered Christ's tomb. The only person standing in his way was his doctor. I was fascinated by the story of Lotha and Peter's thoughts which form a bundle of truths, myths, conjectures, and religious beliefs. The name Lotha is not in the Bible, but in Peter's story, he is a friend of Joseph of Arimathea. All four gospels agree that Pilate gave Christ's body to Joseph for burial. History shows that years later, Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena, went to Calvary, discovered where the three crosses buried there, and took them back to Constantinople. From there on, the crosses, healing stones, and their fragments became dispersed across the world. Some of the stones ended up in Lourdes, France. Peter convinced me he could find them, and I think Peter's account is as believable as any other..
Peter’s published work includes poetry, books, a recording of Roads, and a u-tube biography. In his book,My Frog Sings, he tells us of his search for the meaning of life through his garden. He maintained that creating a garden can raise a person's spirits above despair, the drama of divorce, unexpected death, and sudden poverty. Peter's garden was a constant joy to him, and he wrote about it frequently.
In his last book, Kaleen, we are taken on an emotional trip as Peter tells the story of a young married physician facing the consequences of an affair with a Legionnaire resulting in pregnancy. How can she face her husband and five-year-old daughter? Is abortion the answer? Peter gives her the answers.
Thousands of years ago, two hominids, heidelbergensis, and erectus, evolved in Africa. From those ancestors, it is believed three homo species evolved: Neanderthalensis, Denisovans, and sapiens. The three species ventured north, but scientists are unsure about the connections because they left such sparse records.
But then, 120,000 years later, another sapiens, Peter George Frickel, a modem-day Odysseus, took the same steps out of Africa, across the middle-east, and into Europe. But this time, a record of that historic journey exists, and a man with two hearts wrote it.
Of all the people Peter met and influenced, we, the members of the Sarasota Writers Group, are the luckiest. Month after month and year after year, Peter read his work to us - for us - and gently helped improve our writing. His voice was as distinctive as his words, and we hung on every single one. We are the luckiest to have heard him, yes, but few will miss him more.
THANK YOU BRUCE!
We opened the meeting with a short discussion. I asked a question. “Do you ever find yourselves thinking like your created character? Or, while in the throes of writing, do you sometimes behave as your character might?”
Though I directed my question toward fiction writers, our poets also chimed in. A large part of our writing includes traits we have. Therefore, we are writing about someone we know or are using ourselves as a model for our characters. What do you think?
Jeffery Kutcher is writing about himself while working on an autobiography. In this chapter, he introduces us to Joelle, his wife and full partner in life decisions. He met her in Israel. Her compassion and kind actions toward his Aunt, who became ill during their tour, enforced his initial attraction toward the beautiful woman. Jeffery was encouraged to expand her part in this chapter as she is so influential in his history.
Scott Anderson graced us with a Haiku and gave us an explanation of its breakdown. Then, he read another poem, The Woods. Scott is an expert at reading poetry as well as writing it. Was this work a test? It was a lovely poem but didn’t have the usual depth of feeling experienced in his work. I smell a trap.
Tish Mcauley is struggling with writing her story in novel form. It is the true story of her life, and she has reverted to writing it that way. What is a Physic Empath? She tells of the pain she feels emanating from others. A wraith, a spirit of a murdered girl, comes to her. It is painful, physically and mentally. Is she crazy? That’s what some say. She feels crazy and looks crazy in the eyes of those near her. People who don’t understand will call someone crazy rather than try to understand.
Did you know the Roman people were superstitious and strongly believed in curses? Ernie Ovitz reads a tale of witches and curses in his historical novel of Emperor Constantine. A woman of noble standing consults a witch, asking that a curse be directed toward another noble. The witch demands payment, a lock of the victim’s hair, and a sum of gold. The hag also requires a lock of the woman’s hair.
James Kelly writes of the historic times surrounding the Lakota Sioux tribes in the Blackhills of Dakota. In this chapter of his saga, A young man raised by a cavalry officer hears of the army’s action at Wounded Knee. He worries as his Sioux grandfather lives near the site of the massacre.
It’s Only Business is a product of Don Westerfield’s fertile imagination. The story follows a young college graduate chosen by his Aunt to take over her lucrative business, The Landis House, the classiest brothel in all of San Francisco. This reading was the second installment in the ongoing tale. Don’s humor and skill in storytelling explode in the story as it progresses.
Supposedly written by the last survivor of Woodstock arrives in the mail. Richard Cope shared a story entitled My Letter From Max – The Final/Last Survivor of Woodstock. Drugs, sex, rain, and mud could not deter truly affectionate from enjoying the music, although they did find respite in the previous dalliances.
If I’ve forgotten anything, please, forgive me. I lost some of my notes and was using a rapidly eroding memory to reconstruct the reading portion of the meeting. But, in any case, until we get together on February 15th, KEEP ON WRITING.
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