Of an evening, the two of us could be found sitting side by side at an old chrome and Formica kitchen table that had been discarded by its owners but given new life and purpose in the basement of our parsonage home.   Before us were yellow tablets with their blue-lined surfaces crammed with prose, or poetry, or just story ideas with arrows pointing here and there, and stars and underlines decipherable only to their authors.  And authors was what we considered ourselves to be.  No matter that no publisher had ever accepted any of our material.  No matter that the two blocks of wood with the nails sticking straight up from them groaned under the weight of the colorful rejection slips that were skewered on them.  We knew what we were.

Between us sat an old electric Smith Corona typewriter.  The keys were gummy with use, something we tried with limited success to remedy before we did our final prints for submission, and the “e” key stuck frequently enough to be a constant source of aggravation, and an adverse influence on whatever muse might be present.  By spells we would take turns pounding away at the often-unresponsive keys as the motor hummed but did not fully engage.  Its ribbon was nearly threadbare,  and we would manually wind it to the least used sections so that the print could be as crisp as possible.  A writer’s budget is often sparse, and ours did not even rise to that level.

There were piles of neatly stacked, white, eight and a half by eleven, twenty-pound paper containing the hopes and dreams of two aspiring writers, played out in neat double-spaced pica.  There were paperclips binding each of these offerings into its own bundle, and as the stacks grew, somehow validating our efforts, so too did our determination.  We had read all of the magazines and books the library had to offer on the subject, and we knew with certainty that the likelihood of success was in direct proportion to the height of the stack of rejection slips, and we had much reason to be optimistic.  And besides, we knew how good we were.  We told each other frequently.  My brother was undoubtedly more proficient at that than I, as he always had a knack for making the people he interacted with feel somehow better than they actually were.  That would remain true till the day he died.

We did not know it then, but we were not really authors.  We were two still young lads playing dress-up.  Perhaps he more than I, because he dressed in almost professorial garb with a burl maple bentwood pipe perched jauntily in the corner of his mouth, unlit, and Barry Goldwater glasses astride the bridge of his nose.  His shirtsleeves were rolled up, two folds,  pressed flat.  There was no cowboy hat on his head in those days, and no L.L. Bean jacket.  And, consequently, no Doug Deats in his writing.  He was not drawing on his love of the woods and streams and open spaces that was the hallmark of his youth or the joy of his later life.  He was trying to channel Hemingway and Faulkner.  His writing was forced.  Purposeful and intentional just like the books recommended.  Good writing is purposeful and intentional.  Great writing seldom is. In any case, there was not the natural folksy flow that gave his later writings their irresistible charm.  And there was not the genuineness of spirit that came to shine through the pages of his one published book or his numerous published articles.  Ironically, it was not until he stopped trying to be an author and learned to be a writer that he was ultimately able to become an author.

But our mutual lack of commercial success notwithstanding, I mark these times together, two brothers pursuing a common dream, as among my most cherished memories.  We spent many late evenings and a number of predawn mornings walking the golf course across from our house, discussing our intended craft, bouncing ideas off one another, or just musing about life in general.  Out of these encounters we wrote many poems separately or together, none of which has survived.  It was not until after his death that I captured what those nights meant to me in a form neither of us ever proved to have much facility with.  It is as follows:

A Night For Poets

It was a night for poets
The late evening mist lay heavy on the night air
As two brothers walked slowly, silently through the grassy dark
Bound together by thought
Leaving visible footprints in the damp grass… and on each other’s souls
But now, no longer do they walk together, but walk they must
For one the fog has lifted, and he walks, unbound,
Forever in the eternal light of a perpetual morn
The other remains, walking silently, more slowly,
Bound by the darkness of grief and the dampness of tears
Their souls, no longer together, but never far apart

On this, the fifth anniversary of his passing, I can honestly say that the impact of those nights has not been diminished by time, nor has the sense of loss.  The author, and yes he finally got to achieve that dream, has written his final words.  But as those who have ever had the pleasure of engaging my brother in spirited discourse know, the final word was a concept with which Doug Deats was intimately familiar.

Most of you that read this didn’t know my Uncle Doug and probably are wondering why I’d even write about this. I will say that if you didn’t know him, and talk to anybody that did, you will soon realize that you missed out on one of life’s greatest treasures. This column is about Life’s Adventures, and at times I think we spend so much time looking for our adventures, that we overlook life itself. My Uncle Doug figured out how to live life so life was his adventure and I wanted to share some of the things that I learned from him.

Follow your passions…

My Uncle was never one to chase after the corporate prize. He had no aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder and probably from the outside, looking at his varied careers, many would think that he lacked direction. But they’d be wrong. He had a direction…and that was the direction in his heart…and he followed that to the end. My Uncle’s one true passion was dogs…training dogs…boarding dogs…and hunting with dogs. Even as he dabbled in things such as law enforcement and various trades, the one common thread was his dogs. The financial planning types would probably question this as a source of sustainable income, but my Uncle made it work…and the funny thing was, it wasn’t work to him. It was his passion. A passion that took him all across this great big country, introduced him to all likes of people, and always put a smile on his face. He and I were talking last fall and he made a comment to me that people would pay him to go play in the woods and spend time with their dogs. He kind of chuckled as if he had gotten away with something he shouldn’t have…and looking back on it, maybe he did. Everybody’s passion is different…but when you find yours, follow it.

Tell your story…

Nobody could tell a story like my Uncle Doug. I don’t know if it was his rich life experiences or if it’s something the son of a preacher is born with, but he could tell a story so real you could smell the fragrance of a forest in autumn, hear the giggle of a mountain stream, and feel the cool damp air on the valley floor. He could take you to the exact spot, to the specific moment in time that birthed the story, always draped in humor, and told in a way that kept you wanting for more. Even as a kid, I still remember family gatherings and I’d be glued to his stories. I never quite knew if the story was fact or fiction or where the line between those fell, but I did not really care. I just loved the story. In the early eighties he used to speak to youth groups and I remember a story about a turtle parking lot…which was nothing more than a fence post that he’d set his turtle on…and it couldn’t wander off because its feet would just swing in the air. I’m sure there was a point to the story, but I remember the image perfectly as if he told it to me yesterday. His story telling was truly a gift and with each story he gave us a little bit of himself for us to remember. I don’t know for sure, but I think God wanted a few more people to hear some of these stories, and gave him a little more time on this earth to share them. Don’t be afraid to tell your story…it may be the exact thing that someone needs to hear.

Be who you are…

When my Uncle Doug spoke at my Dad’s funeral he said that we chose him because we wanted someone to speak who wouldn’t embarrass himself by crying in front of everyone. He proceeded to say, “Oh, I’m going to cry, I just won’t be embarrassed”. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in those words and that pretty much sums up how my Uncle lived his life. He was not going to let anybody’s impression of him get in the way. He was going to be who he was. He was going to say what he needed to say, whether it was his take on the best hunting dog, politics, the best place to fly fish, or his faith. He didn’t expect his opinion to necessarily sway you or change your mind, though at times I’m sure he probably wished it would. He’d accept you for who you were and hoped for the same in return. I’m pretty confident that my Uncle put doing or saying the right thing above worrying about what people thought about him for doing or saying it.

I’m going to dearly miss my Uncle Doug, miss him for his wit, his smile, his passion for God’s creation, his attachment to his dogs, his love for his family, his seemingly unshakable faith, his laughter as he’d tell a great story, his big cowboy hat, and his even bigger heart. But, I know that a piece of him lives on in all those who knew him and I’m thankful for what I learned from him. I learned that we need to live, laugh, love, and let down our guards and not worry so much. That we need to share our stories, our faith, and our wisdom. That we need to stop living our days like we have unlimited tomorrows. That we need to stop looking for adventure, and just live the adventure that we’ve been given. That we need to treat each day as if it’s our last chance to follow our passions, to tell a story, to say good-bye.

I’m going to miss you Uncle Doug….Heaven got a little bit sweeter today.