Imagicat and Leif

This week I've been doing writing workshops with third through fifth grade classes at an elementary school in Brandon, and using my book, Imagicat, to illustrate both the elements of story and how a kid could write a book. The main characters of the book are an eleven-year-old boy named Jeff and his alter ego, a snippy cat he calls Mortimer.

Jeff's character was modeled on some of the personality traits and actions of my brother Donovan and Leif, so I've been talking a lot about Leif this week and showing a photo of him, along with other photos of people in our family who influenced the characters in the book.

I talk about how Leif, at the age of eleven, didn't really like doing school work, much like Jeff. He didn't mind going to school, he just minded it "following him home." He hated homework. And, like Jeff, he liked to find some way to put his own, original "stamp" on an assignment.

Leif also chose the little kitten that we named Scamp, who became our favorite cat. Scamp was full of fun and we all loved his antics. The kids love hearing about them and how they came to influence the character of Mortimer in the book.

How I love this photo of Leif and Scamp, who provided us with many hours of entertainment and affection. Leif, at eleven, cuddling that little rascal, and wearing his signature black leather Members Only jacket, in the days before he wore glasses, the days before he knew he couldn't achieve his dream of becoming a pilot, the days when he and his friend Robert would come home after school and ask what was happening the the book NOW, and I would read them the latest chapter, the days when they would snicker over it and give me ideas about how to make it better.

Imagicat will always be linked in my mind to Leif, Scamp, and my brother. I'm glad I can share it with over three hundred children this week.

Leif - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - May 1989 - Age 14

Leif was dressed up for his graduation from Northwood Junior High School and we took a bunch of photos of him horsing around and with our computer setup. He's acting silly, pretending to eat one of the hanging capiz shells on the lamp like a cookie.

The computer setup was a focal point for me, Peter A. and Leif. On the right was our Atari 1040 STf computer and on the left was an Apple IIg. We used them both heavily, though we weren't getting new software for the Apple, just using what we had accumulated in Japan and Hawaii. The Atari we bought in Hawaii when Peter A. convinced me that it was the "poor man's Mac." At that time, Mac was not in color and the Atari 1040 was. There was a lot of good software for it, and we had a great time doing to Northbrook to the store that sold it. The three of us used a word processor, a database program, and a lot of great games.

I especially remember Leif loving the car racing games he played with a joystick, but he also liked a Star Trek game we had, a flight simulator, and one that was really silly called "Death Sword." That was a sword fighting game that was so gruesome it was actually funny. If you were good enough, you could whack off the opponent's head and an ugly little troll would come out and kick it off screen trailing blood that looked like red snakes.

My favorite game was similar to the arcade game Qix (which I loved and would love to have on my Mac) but I don't remember the name of it.

We also had a lot of simpler games that came along with my magazines like STart magazine. Some were a great deal of fun.

I enjoyed having the computers in common with the boys. They gave us something to share and talk about (not that we ever lacked that). I wrote my first novel on the Atari. That was Imagicat. The main character, Jeff, was in some ways an amalgam of my brother, Donovan, and my two sons, Peter A. and Leif. Leif was thirteen when I was finishing the first draft of it at Fort Sheridan in 1988 (though it didn't get published until 2000). He and his friend Robert would come by after school to see what was happening in the story and then they'd get their turn on the computers.

Leif was only 6 or 7 when we got our first computer in Japan and he loved them all his life. He always wanted the best, something powerful for gaming, and he was a heavy user of the internet. Back in Fort Sheridan, there wasn't any internet as we now know it, but there were "bulletin boards" and online services that were nearly exclusively text, such as the one I subscrived to, GEnie. Leif had a taste of that, then, too.

I particularly remember the day I was talking to him about the group of children's writers that had their own "category" on GENie and some were talking about what happened when you put various weird things into the microwave. Leif was fascinated that supposedly responsible adults were doing such things as putting marshmallows and Ivory soap into the microwave just to see what happened. He decided to use my account to ask them something to this effect, "What are responsible adults like you doing putting things into the microwave and blowing them up?" I was thrilled to get an answer from well-known author Bruce Coville, who told him, "I refuse to join the adult conspiracy," and went on to the effect that he might be "grown up" but he wasn't an "adult." Leif got quite a kick out of that.

Leif's 12th Birthday - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - January 28, 1987 - Age 12

Late in the summer of 1986 we moved from Hawaii to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, a small base sandwiched in between the ritzy suburbs on the north side of Chicago. We lived on base in a townhouse because we wanted the boys in the Highland Park school system. Leif went to Northwood Junior High School.

Moving to the "frozen North" was a big shock after three years in Hawaii. No more balmy beaches . . . except that Peter W. discovered that we could fly "Space A" on Air National Guard military refueling tankers out of the military side of O'Hare airport on training flights to Hawaii. I think we did that nine times in four years. We would all have liked to stay in Hawaii. If they had let Peter W. stay one more year, he probably would have retired there, but no such luck. It was off to Chicagoland. The city had much to offer, and the Highland Park school system was great, but we would have much more happily stayed in Hawaii. Of course, Peter A. only lived at Fort Sheridan for one year before he was off to the Air Force Academy, but Leif spent four years there.

Leif had one two good friends that lived on our street, Nicholson Road, at Fort Sheridan, Robert and Chris. A lot of the younger neighborhood kids kind of "worshipped" tall Leif, who at that time was going by the nickname "Alex." Sometimes a delegation of them would show up at the door and ask if "Big Al" could come out and play.

One time we managed to lock ourselves out of the house. Leif managed to wiggle in through the kitchen window over the sink and let us in. It wasn't easy. The window was quite high up and we had no ladder out there. I was just waiting for someone to call the MPs and say there was a guy breaking into our house.

It looks like this cake has the benefit of a few of those premade sugar frosting letters you can buy in the grocery store. Looks a lot neater and more civilized than our earlier cakes, but not as imaginative, either.

I managed to catch Leif at the height of the blowing out the candles whoosh. I hope he got his wish!

Happy birthday, Leif!

Leif in the Snow - December 1986 - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - Age: almost 12

After three years in the warm, balmy climate of Hawaii, the army sent us to Fort Sheridan, Illinois on the north side of Chicago. We lived near to Lake Michigan, and it was COLD. We had quite a bit of snow. Once, we had so much snow that the garage our car was in was snowed under. I remember Leif out there the next day looking like Tarzan in the snow, shoveling great huge shovels full of it and tossing it high up the hill so we could get the car out. I wish we had a photo of that. He got so hot from the exertion that he stripped to the waist and was out there in the cold snow half naked.

That was before these photos, which I think were taken in December 1986. Peter A., his friend Mike Wetzel, visiting from Hawaii, Leif, and his friend Robert made a snow fort behind our house. They had a great time doing it. After it was done, Peter A. put on shorts and a t-shirt and sprayed "Snow Aloha" on the fort with black spray paint and took photos to send to his friends in Hawaii.

I think this was one of the last times that Leif ever got to have a blast doing something with his older brother, as Peter A. graduated from Highland Park High School that spring and went off to the Air Force Academy that summer.

Leif - Graduation from Junior High School

It's that time of the year for graduations. Since I've been writing about Leif's junior high years, here are two photos of him posing in his bright red NJHS gown. His playful spirit was going strong. It was a milestone he looked forward to, and the day we took these photos, we also took a lot of other funny ones horsing around. NJHS in Highland Park, Illinois, was good for him. It was one of the few places that not only stretched his mind but offered students a selection of assignments that they could choose from, allowing him to find something that really engaged him.

I do remember one language arts class that didn't provide as much choice, and he was required to read books he didn't care for at all, one being the award winning, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," and he hated having to speculate about characters' motivations. He just wanted to enjoy a good story.

It's a shame he didn't like math, because he had a truly outstanding scientific mind, and if he had been motivated to overcome the math aversion, he would probably have been a lot happier if he had gone into science.

Leif's junior high years weren't all happy, though. He suffered from a bad case of acne and some nasty kids called him "pizza face." I didn't learn that until many years later when he was an adult and told me that he was still hesitant to try to meet women because that had so damaged his self image.

He had friends in junior high, particularly Chris and Robert, but wasn't a popular kid. It's often hard for highly intelligent kids to find friends. Other kids are often intimidated, jealous, or think they are weird. Luckily Leif did have two good friends and they lived close to us on our street, so that unlike some kids who don't get to see their friends often outside of school, Leif found it easy to get together with Robert and Chris. They participated in Leif's radio-controlled car adventures.

It was in junior high that Leif also tried skate boarding, though he never became adept at it and I have no photos of him on the board.

He liked computer games, back in those days of simpler games and no internet. We had two computers, an Apple II+ and an Atari 1040STf. We had a large number of games on floppy disks, and he loved playing car racing games, sci-fi games, maze games, some role-playing games, and some fighting games. One was a very silly sword play game in which the objective was to lop off the head of the opponent. It sounds violent, but it was so silly that it was funny. Leif never lost his love of computer games and became more and more interested in them and role-playing games.

All told, Leif's junior high years at NJHS were good ones. He blossomed there, and set the stage for success and good looks in high school.