Strange company

Sorting through a lifetime of papers, I came across a yellowed copy of the Seattle P.I. from February 4th, 1959, something I'd kept because I was featured - on page 3 at that - as one of the winners of an English Achievement Award . Never noticed before today, but the column next to the one that features the seven of us, high school kids looking unimaginably young, is headlined "3 Rock 'N' Roll Stars Die in Plane Crash." And, of course, it reports the deaths of Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and J. P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper. Those deaths, of three young and rising rock stars, have become the stuff of film and legend. Strange company, those singers early dead and we hopeful writers setting out into the world.

One of the other winners featured in that 1959 photo is my lifelong friend, the Hawaiian artist Roger Whitlock, who painted this watercolor of a building in Honolulu's Chinatown. Roger taught creative writing at the University of Hawaii for many years before discovering his great talent as a watercolorist, and I taught English for a few years at the University of New Mexico before setting out on the long and winding path that led me to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. Good thing for us both that - unlike those lost stars - we've had plenty of lifetime to unfold our callings!

24 days to El Salvador!