While we’re on the wayback machine, I thought I’d share something I just found in the process of packing the house. A fable I wrote when I was 14 or 15. There are some other short stories in this folder, but this one makes me laugh. I have no memory of writing it.

Once upon a time there was a small squirrel who was convinced that the world was round. Daily he went leaping through the forest proclaiming, “The world is round like an acorn!”

And all the other animals would shout and hit him over the head, “The world is flat like your head!”

Then the little squirrel would wait till the next day when he would do it again.

One day, he didn’t come by and the other animals became worried and looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Since they had a large supply of things to throw at him, they began to wish that he would return. After a time, they appointed a new squirrel to proclaim that the world was round and the business went on as usual.

Moral: Even an unwished for habit may be called upon to return.

The earliest thing I remember writing was in kindergarten (I think). I wrote and illustrated a story for Mom as a Mother’s Day present. All I remember was the dutch iris that turned into a space ship. I thought it was cool because each part of the iris represented a different part of the ship. No idea at all what the plot (if any) was.

How about you? What’s the earliest piece of fiction you have?

Sunday, October 11, 1998

Our day together started at 9:40am. Joe came to pick me up in the touring van and we drove to TOJ to do one last run-through of the “Brer Rabbit” part of the show. I was still shaky on some of the lines. Then it was off to Beaverton to set up for our first performance together. It was, as Joe says, trial by fire. The stage was too low for us to fit on. We have a 10 foot ceiling height, so we had to set up on the floor in front. But because we knew they were sold-out we tried to crunch as much as possible by having parts of the set on the floor, and parts on the stage. This created interesting staging concerns. We could no longer go behind the tree.

But things went okay. Since it was a public show, instead of doing our usual demo and Q&A, we just showed the audience puppets up close and answered questions individually. This lets the parents get out with the problem children. And it’s nice for us to have a closer contact with our audience.

Then it was time to pack up the van and head out. It takes us about an hour to set up, and an hour to take down. Everything goes in this van. We also have luggage and the bench seat too. So you can tell that it collapes pretty well.

Now we are on the road to Tacoma, WA. Jodi will be with us today and tomorrow. He and I have a meeting tomorrow with the man who is writing the script for Secret of Singbonga, a tale of India. Tonight we are having Canadian Thanksgiving with our friends, Aaron and MaryClaire.