I wrote a short note today to a friend, colleague, and translator in China. I thought you might enjoy hearing my thoughts. The purpose of this note is to show Chinese high school and college students and others that their dreams can come true. I will let the note explain.
Actually I've been quite amazed in the last few months. I've told my wife, "In high school I was interested in birds which led to an interest in ecology and I developed an interest in writing. For many years I did a wide variety of things with my life, teaching school and having practical jobs like construction work. I was frustrated in my twenties and thirties with my inability to find good work in science. In 1990, I was working on my master's degree which led to a related job using both botany and ecology for the U.S. Forest Service. About three years ago I started writing my first book of fiction. I want to complete it quickly now that the characters of told me how it will end. But editing is allowing me to bring everything together. I'm using my knowledge of even birds (one research paper this week), my original area of interest, to use writing has a tool to help China preserve rare species as well as to combat global warming and other human induced changes to the environment. In 1970, as I graduated from high school, that was my goal in life, to improve the environment of the planet. It feels great to finally be directly involved in that. How? Today I'm working on a paper that addresses climate change in Tibet and the Chinese Himalayan Mountains. I'm doing more for China than the U.S. But that's OK. It's the planet but I'm interested in.The view from the old U. S. Highway 62 in Cotter, Arkansas, overlooking the White River.
