Enough Rain Makes a River by Walter Shawlee 2+Page 90
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Author's Notes:

WS2 pic, Nelson, BCMany of these have been circulated before to friends, in different forms. Danny once made me a group of hand-thrown prayer jars, and one Christmas I sent them out with copies of the prayer in the last section. Some have been in letters, some on things I built, some in shorter hand-made copies of this book.

Originally I wrote (because I didn't have a typewriter) on punched cards, and used an old unit record machine (IBM 407) to list out what I was working on. Since then, I have used many different computers, and a pile of handwritten notes and margin notations. The final draft for this was made on a computer because I am still in contention for the title of world's worst typist. Besides, why deceive you ? I really like them, I have a machine-friendly heart.

These have all been written over the last thirty-eight years, the first ones between 1967 and 1973. The ones I like the best came later, around 1980 to 1988, and then again in 2005. Some of the oldest ones I have rewritten to make them cleaner and less clumsy, but I feel the ideas have remained the same. Many I got rid of altogether because they were too personal, silly, self-indulgent, ghastly, too obvious, badly written, irrelevant, or some ugly combination of the above. You may feel that I did not edit out nearly enough material. Everyone's a critic at heart.

I've had a few comments over the years about the mechanics of my writing style. Not everyone seems to appreciate my punctuation or format. I can only provide a peripheral explanation, since I am too used to it now to explain it any better.

The idea of capitalizing "I" everywhere it appears on a page seems to place too much undue emphasis on me; after all, why not capitalize "You" (common in many European languages, but not English). Likewise, capitals to mark the beginning of a sentence seem equally peculiar if you know where it starts anyway, and don't exist in oriental languages. Form is not a good substitute for content.

The spacing lets me put emphasis or a pause where it seems most appropriate, and to make the reading smoother. Often the shape of words seems to have its own meaning. I don't think that a forest of brackets, semicolons and commas would be much of an improvement, coupled with dense-packed text.





Enough Rain Makes a River by Walter Shawlee 2+Page 91
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Anyway, style is personal, and this is mine; so don't fret over it. I'm not likely to change to make you happy (if you are grammar crazed), but I'll certainly let you write any way you want, which is quite a gift these days.

Bart Braverman was kind enough to share something with me years ago that I thought was humorous originally, but have since found to be surprisingly accurate:

----You can tell whether someone really loves you by whether or not they lean over to unlock the car door for you.---

Because I have found it to be so useful, along with it's logical derivatives, I feel compelled to pass it along.

Every so often, I come across something great, a story or song, and wish I had a way to put a footnote in your life so you would see it too. This is my best chance to have my way on this issue, and I hope something here will be new to you, and a welcome and pleasant surprise. This is a pretty eclectic mixture, so something here may interest you, no matter what your taste may be.

Books and stories:

The End of the Dream...............................Philip Wylie
Wasp............................................................Eric Frank Russell
The Peter Prescription...............................Dr. Laurence Peter
Three Hearts and Three Lions..................Poul Anderson
100 Poems from the Chinese...................Kenneth Rexroth
Ahead of Time.............................................Henry Kuttner
The Prophet.................................................Kahlil Gibran
More than Human......................................Theodore Sturgeon
Zen Buddhism.............................................D. T. Suzuki
Diabologic....................................................Eric Frank Russell
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress..................Robert A, Heinlein
Jack of Shadows..........................................Roger Zelazny
The Man who Died......................................D. H. Lawrence
The Door into Summer...............................Robert A. Heinlein
Tree and Leaf..............................................J. R. R. Tolkein
Out of the Crisis...........................................W. Edwards Deming
The Psychology of Everyday Things.......Donald Norman		 A few of these will be difficult to obtain, since they are not all currently in print. Henry Kuttner's book, for example, does not seem to have been reprinted since 1952. Philip Wylie's book has just been reprinted by DAW, and is available again. Eric Frank Russell's books were re-printed in 1986, Deming's book is available only from MIT Press.





Enough Rain Makes a River by Walter Shawlee 2+Page 91
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Songs and records:

Snowflakes are Dancing...........................Tomita
A Little Help from my Friends..................Joe Cocker
Bare Wires..................................................John Mayall
Dead Skunk................................................Louden Wainwright III
Who Knows where the Time Goes?........Judy Collins
Giant Step...................................................Taj Mahal
Electric Blend.............................................Sandy Bull
Leader of the Band....................................Dan Fogelberg
Have a Heart...............................................Bonnie Raitt
Hungry for your Love.................................Van Morrison
Scatterings..................................................Juluka
Catching the Sun.......................................Spyrogyra
Hello and Goodbye....................................Tim Buckley
Coffee Blues................................................Mississippi John Hurt
Jungle Book.................................................Weather Report
Can't find my way Home............................Blind Faith
Arc of a Diver..............................................Steve Winwood
As falls Wichita, so falls Wichita Falls.....Pat Methany & Lyle Mays
In the Midnight Hour...................................Roxy Music
Time has Come Today..............................Chambers Brothers
Embryonic Journey....................................Jefferson Airplane
Visitor from Venus......................................MJQ
Ecstasy of the Dancing Fleas...................Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Gloria............................................................The Doors 		Some of these are also a little tricky to find. The album MJQ Space may not be available in the US, it is a European Apple release, they are the Modern Jazz Quartet. Sandy Bull and John Hurt are on Vanguard records, and may be available only on order.

The Doors version of Gloria is on Alive She Cried. Juluka are from South Africa, but are available on WEA. PCO is very tough to locate, but really worth it.

If you are a drinker, let me pass along my favorite drink; CC, grapefruit juice and ice. Another one, called a "Captain's Enigma" from The Cannery in Vancouver, is also not bad; light and dark rum, apricot brandy, orange juice and crushed ice.






Enough Rain Makes a River by Walter Shawlee 2+Page 93
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On a closing note, I have lost track of quite a few friends over the years, since we have all traveled so much. This is my attempt to make amends. If you want to get a note off to me, even if it is just to berate me for my bad writing, you can send it to me by Email at: walter2@sphere.bc.ca I also collect blue things, you're always welcome to send me one. All for now.

Every heart is a lock
every word is a key

this book is for you
a small gift from me.


WS2, Kelowna, B.C.




If you liked this book, please donate
$10 to your local food bank,
or do something nice for somebody you don't know,
and we are even.

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