In the spring of 2006, I took a literary journalism class at the University of Idaho.  The class was based around a semester long immersion project.  I chose to spend the semester at Latah Health, an assisted living home in Moscow, Idaho.  During the weeks I spent there, I interviewed staff and got to know some of the residents.  The following is my attempt at literary journalism (creative non-fiction).

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With age, 93-year-old Ernie Brammer has come to see life more clearly, despite having only one functioning eye.  Inside his room at Latah Health Services Assisted Living, Ernie sits in his wheelchair by the window he has cracked open for fresh air, since going outdoors has become too burdensome on his aged body.  The man who was once a globe trotter in his prime is now assisted by a metal walker when moving the short distance from his wheelchair to his twin-size bed.  Despite his physical weaknesses, Ernie is strong in spirit and in memory.

“You can’t just sit here and let your mind be dormant,” Ernie said while stock analysts discussed Wall Street on the television behind him.  Despite growing up during the Great Depression or as he says “the horse and buggy days,” Ernie enjoys dabbling in the stock market, while his son-in-law acts the part of his broker.  After he retired from farming in 1976, Ernie knew he’d need something to occupy his mind.  So he began to teach himself about investing and playing the market.  With his profits from the stock market, he was able to travel to Europe, Hawaii and go on several cruises.  The key to his success is patience, which is the problem with young people today.  “You can’t invest in just anything that goes by,” he warns.  Understanding the value of money may be easier for Ernie, who used to work for around a dollar a day.

Ernie adjust the volume on the television and holds the frame of his glasses in place trying to focus on the screen.  It is hard for him to spend much time watching television since he lost an eye in 1980 after an unsuccessful cataract surgery, which caused him to completely lose sight in the eye and impairs his ability to focus with the other.  While listening to what the men in the business suits have to say about stocks, Ernie, whose Hawaiian shirt’s breast pocket bulges with wadded up Kleenex and a few dollar bills, offers to give me advice should I ever choose to invest.

Ernie’s gracious offer has been extended to family members, friends, and Latah Health staff.  “He’s always asking me if I have checked the stocks today,” Holly Helm, director of assisted living, said.  Although she may which she had more time to glance over the newspaper or turn on the television, Helm’s day is usually full to the brim.  With 21 residents under her care, seven employees under her supervision and an administration license to study for, Helm has found her days extra busy and extra long since she was appointed director eight months ago.  The single mother of two wakes up before the sun at 4:00 a.m. in order to get herself ready for work and her children ready for school.  If Helm lived in Moscow, she would be able to get that extra hour of sleep, but she prefers the valley.  The commute north on Highway 95 is a small price to pay for living somewhere that she likes and working somewhere that she likes. 

Helm isn’t the only one who feels comfortable with her position at Latah Health.  Although he may not be surrounded by 600 acres of farmland like he once was, Ernie said he is content.  “It’s not like home.  It’s the next best thing,” he said.  Since February Latah Health Assisted Living has been Ernie’s home away from home for three years.  The only thing he would change about his living situation is that the cooks would not serve that “green stuff” so often.  He’s not a fan of broccoli; he favors oysters and  shrimp.  Even though these delicacies have yet to be written on the white menu board near the front office, Ernie is satisfied in the nursing staff’s attempts to make everything more like home.  On Wednesdays, Ernie and the other residents get a bag of popcorn in their rooms to snack on and occasionally they are surprised with a root beer float or some other kind of dessert in the middle of the day.  At first Ernie refused the root beer float that the nurse’s aide offered him.  After the urging of the CNA, he not only took a bite, although his hands shook with age, he finished the entire thing.

The mid-day munchies are not the only attempt to make the assisted living unit more like home.  The staff, such as 26-year-old Michelle Poechmann, strives to create activities that the residents will enjoy.  Sometimes this includes pushing the wood tables in the dining hall against the walls and setting up bowling pins.  Margery Harvey, a petite 82-year-old nurse, used to be an avid bowler in her prime, and has the pictures to prove it.  She was in a league with some of her girl friends, whom she still remains in contact with, and once rolled a career high of 290.  However, it isn’t bowling in the cafeteria that thrill her.  Margery particularly likes the outings that Activities Director Kathleen Stewart takes them on.  During these day trips, she gets to shop at Wal-Mart, go for rides in the country and once they even stopped for a picnic.  Her husband Walter died several years ago, but when he was alive she said they practically lived in the outdoors.  Having lived in New York and along the West Coast for most of her life, she appreciates her time outside the confines of Latah Health to view the Palouse.  Her daughter, who resides in Pullman, did not want her mom living alone, so she helped Margery move her belongings inside the small private room in assisted living.  These outings give her a chance to see the town in which she now resides.  Before moving to the retirement home, she had never had the chance to get a good look at the area.  “I never knew the country before,” she said, and she’s happy with what she’s seen.  Margery knows the path of the chain link fence that encloses the back lawn.  Come rain or shine, Margery’s thin frame can be seen walking along the circumference of the property.  “I’m lucky to be able to do that, because a lot of people can’t,” she said of her ability to walk the yard and even just to walk.

Although Ernie could accompany his neighbors to Wal-Mart, listen to a church choir, or watch a movie, he chooses not to.  Instead he only leaves his room to go the doctor’s, or if his daughter decides to take him to her house for dinner.  “I’m going to be 93 and I’ve slowed up a lot,” he remarked about his decision to spend much of his time in his room.  This is a contract to how Ernie lived his life previous to the retirement home.  If there was a board or a council in the past, rest assured that Ernie would be serving on it.  “When you’re young and sound of mind you should be involved in everything you can possibly handle.”  He lived this philosophy to a T.  Ernie was able to handle a lot, so he served as the Chairman of Soil Conservation, Chairman of Weed Board, Grassman of the Year, and chairman of his church council.  “I was on some board constantly.  I’d just get off one and get on another,” he said.  THrough his leadership positions, Ernie was invited to stay the weekend with the governor at the time, Cecil Andrus.  While he was in the state capitol, Ernie attended a baseball game with the governor.

Baseball isn’t just another subject to Ernie.  It was an escape for him, during the time he served in the Navy.  He joined the Navy in 1941 soon after Pearl Harbor and played second base for the Navy baseball team, which won a championship in Panama.  While on the base, he practiced with Bob Feller, who pitched for the Cleveland Indians and is now the oldest living member of the Hall of Fame.  “At that time I didn’t think much about him.  He was just another soldier in the Navy,” Ernie said in all seriousness.  Now inside assisted living, baseball provides the same sort of escape from the pressures of living that it once did while he was in the Navy.  When not watching the stock market, the television is always tuned into a sports game, preferably a baseball game, and preferably a team close to home.

After his return from serving in the Navy for 44 months, baseball was not the only love he found.  At a Kendrick community dance held soon after his homecoming, Ernie met a young school teacher, Jean Rayme, from Lewiston.  Soon after, they were married.  Jean accompanied Ernie on his travels throughout the world, and to hunting camp, where he continued to hung for elk with success until the age of 82.  After 57 years of marriage, his wife passed away from complications of surgery.  Ernie moved into Latah Health, coping not only with her loss, but also the pain of severe arthritis and back surgery.

It is hard for CNA Michelle Poechmann, who has worked at Latah Health for more than a year, to see the residents undergo any sort of stress or traumatic event.  “You get to know them so well that it’s like my second family,” she said as a woman slowly draws near to the front desk with the aid of a walker.  The 88-year-old woman , who said she feels like she is 98, needs Michelle’s help closing the blinds, so that her room is dark enough for her to fall asleep.  Michelle, who works the evening shift from 2-10, is more than happy to oblige.  The fondness the caregiver feels toward the residents is not a one-way street.

Director Helm said, “You actually build relationships.  They become grandmas and grandpas.”  The residents’ affection toward Helm is expressed in different ways.  Sometimes her kids, Hannah and Aaron, visit the health facility.  When they come, it is like a second Halloween sans the costumes.  They make a beeline for the rooms with residents that are happy to hand out a jackpot of candy.  When Helm has gone through  hard times in her life, such as the loss of her husband, she has felt the support of her residents, her extended family.  As Michelle put it, the staff is “just helping them live what time they have left,” but in doing so they become important to one another.

Sitting by herself after dinner in the TV room, Zeoma Dvorak watches the local news.  Just by looking at the 83-year-old woman one would never know that she had recently suffered a stroke that left her right side paralyzed.  Her voice is as quiet as a whisper.  She has difficulty speaking any louder and really should be resting her vocal cords and her body.  However, that’s difficult for her to do.  “Words are my love,” the former author and teacher said quietly, but passionately.  As a teacher in the Moscow area, she taught speech, drama and journalism.  She loves writing and reading her works out loud, but after her stroke she said she is unable to do either.  Old age has robbed her of her ability to pursue her passion, but she still loves it even if she can’t do it any longer.  Although her voice fails her occasionally, Zeoma continues talking.  In the middle of a sentence she paused and said that she should not be talking, but immediately after saying that she began to tell me about her life, and almost without stopping for a breath, dived into asking all about me.  Where was I born?  How long have I lived in Moscow?  What classes am I taking?  Do I know Ann who works in the cafeteria or the owner of Book People?  Have I ever heard of her poetry?  After a few minutes, her voice gets the best of her and she has to rest.  Even if her voice had not failed, don’t expect Zeoma to ever talk politics or religion: because she said those topics are just playing with fire.

Between housekeeping, laundry, handing out medication, leading activities and other tasks the nursing staff does during their individual eight-hour shifts, they try to take the time to visit with the residents.  Not everyone is as fortunate as Ernie to have family living just a few miles away.  Helm, in her pink and flora scrubs, passes down one of the hallways.  A man in a wheelchair, sits in the entrance of his room as if it was a front porch, fakes as though he is startled to see her coming.  “You see how they jump when I walk by?” she jokes.  Both laugh.

Michelle sits behind the front desk looking at a chart.  The sun is going down and the light at the front desk is turned off, with only the dimmed lights from the hall illuminating the page in front of her.  The place is slowing and quieting down for the night.  A woman approaches on a walker.  She has been walking the halls either for entertainment or exercise.  “You’ve been living here a long time,” Michelle said as the elderly woman passed.  “Yeah, I thought I was going to die last year cause I got so sick.  I’m still here.  Surprised myself,” the elderly woman, who bypassed the question of her name, said matter-of-factly.  She and Michelle both laughed at this statement.  To the amusement of both, neither could remember how long the woman had lived at Latah Health.  After Michelle pulled out a big, white binder that contained records they decided it had been seven years.

Unlike the woman down the hall, Ernie isn’t really surprised at the length of his life.  He comes from a long-living family.  His father died when he was 94 and his mother was 97.  His grandmothers were both in their 90s when they died.  Unlike the present, when everyone is concerned about preventing diseases and illness, Ernie said that he never heard the word “cancer” growing up.  Although he has had his share of injury, such as breaking a hip last year, he goes through life rather optimistically.  Why shouldn’t he when he has been cured of some of his ailments?  He used to have severe arthritis in his hands.  The pain was so bad that it was impossible for him to make a fist and hard to hold onto his form.  He tried a medication that included some sort of seaweed, he said, and his hands are now pain free.  “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here,” he said.  This startled me.  I became tongue tied.  What do I say?

As if sensing my thoughts, he clarified that he had been thinking over moving to a a nursing home in Lewiston that his younger brother, 89, had just moved into, but he didn’t think his daughter would like the idea much.  Although not at that moment, the topic of death did come up.  His casual, comfortable tone was present as if we were still talking about a move to Lewiston.  “I’m not afraid of death.  You know you gotta go.  You know taxes and death are the only sure things,” he said, almost reassuringly.  Ernie, a Lutheran, has found that religion is something to cling to and it is hard for him to imagine facing death without that.  While he is not concerned about his future, he does worry about his two grandchildren.  He is worried that kids younger and younger are going to be pressured by people, especially people who sell dope, to use drugs.  He does not want his grandkids to get pressured into doing something.  Ernie, whose regret in life is that he smoked an occasional cigarette, said, “I hope it don’t get too bad.  People should live a halfway clean life.”

A majority of the assisted-living residents, who call the 50-year-old facility home, could live on their own if they had a little help, said Helm.  For one reason or another, they are all at Latah Health now; some will be here for a matter of months and others years.  While the staff does their part to look after the health and welfare of the residents, Ernie acknowledges the responsibility of getting the most out of life.  “You can’t just throw up your hands and say, ‘I’ve had it,’” even if you are 93.

On a fall day four years ago I sat down to write about my family’s experiences in Appalachian Ohio, where we lived and worked and were part-time farmers for thirteen years. It took me a year and a half to produce a manuscript of 500 pages. It took me another year and a half to cut 200 pages. And I’ve spent the last year restructuring (again).

During this process I’ve learned a lot about writing. When I began, I was a guy who’d made his living for thirty years with words, as a journalist, book publisher, and teacher. That guy didn’t know what he didn’t know. He never dreamed how much he’d learn by writing a book; he planned to sit down and just do it, take a year to write and maybe another to polish. He wasn’t arrogant or egotistical in this plan—he was ignorant.

As writers say, the only thing that teaches you how to write a book is to write a book. All the writing, all the reading you do in the process, all the joy and the suffering accrue. As Annie Dillard put it, all the “richness of the years” goes into a book. Her rule of thumb is that it takes two to ten years for most people—non-geniuses—to write a publishable book. Two years is short for most mortals, though, so let’s do the math: using her figures, that’s an average of six years to write and publish a book.

Writers can get tired and discouraged, but thankfully they also can get addicted to the process. Because it’s all process, which is to say it’s about seeking and learning. A goodly number of friends, family, and writer friends read my stuff and helped. Recently a reader put his finger on my manuscript’s chief flaw in a way that I could understand, or was at last able to hear.

“Your book is driven by a narrative,” he said, “but you abandon it at will and become topical in places, like you’re writing an essay. That confuses the reader and kills momentum and suspense. Honor your narrative. And tighten the time frame—open with buying the farm and end with selling it after your accident. If you do this, you’ll have learned how to structure a book.”

I sulked, then tried to apply my hero’s insight—which led to a cascade of cuts and additions as I saw what truly fit the narrative to which I’d hitched my tale. Over the years others had protested excessive technical farming content, or said the book was too slow to start, or complained that the timeline confused them. I’d responded as best I could, but didn’t grasp what they were really saying. Finally I saw.

Armed with this perception, and working six days a week for the last three months, I’m almost there. I was ready, and the teacher I needed appeared. But as they say in Appalachia, “It weren’t easy.” For the first time, I had to lash myself to go to the keyboard because I was afraid and confused—afraid I couldn’t do it and confused by how to do it. And yet every day’s suffering yielded good progress and, sometimes, amazing results.

Among other things, I blasted apart some chapters and killed a chapter I’d slaved over for years, one I’d cut from seventy pages, completed in a volcanic eleven-hour session at the keyboard one Saturday, and slowly whittled to twentysomething pages. And I restored a chapter that I’d dropped a couple years ago. While working on that new-old chapter, “What Freckles Taught Me,” about the mysterious mothering ability of a dumpy little ewe, I dipped into Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire because I wanted to see how he presented so much information, about humans’ coevolution with four plant species, and yet kept things flowing and human. (It’s a brilliant book, though my favorite of his very popular books is his first, Second Nature, about the garden as a middle ground, between wilderness and city, an emblem of our rightful place in the natural world.)

Pollan has said that journalists alienate readers by coming across as Mr. or Ms. Expert, instead of as mere inquiring mortals. Pollan counters this pitfall by pausing now and then to make fun of himself. He shows himself freaking out while being naughty and growing a couple marijuana plants, or depicts his (very smart) head somewhat up his own butt. That is, he shows himself being human, our stand in. His research and insights that comprise his writing are so good he must do this—showing himself being brilliant too would render his persona insufferable.

No danger in my case on either score. But I saw there’s a fundamental difference in our books, between my messy memoir and his refined intellectual literary journalism. Pollan can present more stuff for pure brainy interest, but in my book pretty much all such material must be connected to me, to my history and emotions and to my ongoing story. A memoir is primarily about individual experience, of course, rather than about information or ideas.

So I can’t say in my chapter, “Mothering ability is the sin qua non of pastoral farming.” Or I can, but I’d better also show it: “When I came upon the scene, Freckles was bedded down with her fresh lambs but Fancy was unconcernedly grazing beside her newborn triplets—one of which was dead. And she hadn’t bothered to lick clean the other two, which sprawled in the wet grass, still sodden and dressed in a slimy yellow film of placental tissue.”

The abstract concept “maternal ability” that fascinates me must be grounded in my experience and emotions for readers. As noted, Pollan draws on the human connection when he presents his own interests and experiences as much as possible while unspooling his leafy topics. But in a memoir the personal is constantly vital so that the reader doesn’t think Why is he telling me this? Too much information! Readers must first buy into the character(s) in memoir, and then may accept a certain amount of learning about their world and their passions. It’s a fine line to walk in a memoir set in a complex or technical environment. What is it necessary for readers to understand in order to understand the character (not so much his environment separate from him)?

Rereading The Botany of Desire while rewriting this “Freckles” chapter clarified my struggle, even if it didn’t make it easier. The other thing I saw, which surprised me, was how often Pollan uses line breaks, even when he’s got a perfectly good transition and doesn’t strictly need a white space. He’s giving readers a breather (his writing is smooth, but his ideas are still weighty). I went to “Freckles” and hit the return key after one passage. Now that was easy. And felt righteous.

In ABC’s ‘The Media Report’s’ segment on literary journalism, Matthew Ricketson, from RMIT University, said:

In my view and experience literary journalism explores the complexities of events, of issues, of people’s lives; literary journalism takes you to places and tells you stories that you probably haven’t even dreamed of.  Literary journalism is better researched and better written than daily journalism; literary journalism plumbs emotional depths in ways that daily journalism studiously avoids, or clunks around. Literary journalism makes a deeper connection with its readers. A good piece of literary journalism stays with readers, like a good novel stays with a reader. To paraphrase the American critic, Ezra Pound, ‘Literary journalism is news that stays news’.

Perfectly put, Mr Ricketson.

Through the novel, a writer has this wonderful ability to immerse a reader in an imaginative world and draw them into the narrative through the power of words.  Creativity has no limits.  A mastered writer can have the capability to transcend reality and compel the reader to want more through the sheer clever manipulation of language.  For me, the best stories are those that are based on true ones.  Knowing that what you are reading is not just fiction, but that it actually occurred in real life, makes it more thrilling; more encapsulating; more interesting.  New journalism, or literary journalism or creative non-fiction as it is sometimes called, does exactly this.  It’s the telling of true events and facts in a stylized form.  As Jackie May puts it, new journalism is when “fictional writing devices collide with the world of facts.”

Ricketson also points out that there is “little doubt that [the genre is] becoming popular and that it’s making an impact.  You can find it in newspapers, but more often you’ll find it in magazines, and probably most often, you’ll find it in books.”  He notes some famous Australian examples, including John Bryson’s ‘Evil Angels’ (his account of the Azaria Chamberlain murder case), and Helen Garner’s ‘The First Stone’ (about the Ormond College sexual harassment case).

In an article entitled ‘Tom Wolfe’s Revenge’, Chris Harvey states that “the form is compelling, advocates say, because unlike the inverted pyramid style, it gives readers a reward for making it through the story.”

He goes on to say:

Kramer of Boston University says that an even greater reliance by newspapers on literary journalism would help readers sort out the complexities of life.  “The thing that’s wrong with most newspaper stories is they’re missing the human context,” he says, “You wonder what kind of person was that robber.”

Newspaper stories tell the facts and that’s it.  While that is certainly enough when one wants a general overview of what’s going on in the world, what about when you want to know more?  Sometimes I may be particularly interested in a certain story and a newspaper story just doesn’t tell you enough.  There are times when you just wonder; perhaps about a person’s past, or their family and friends, or the type of person that they used to be before a particular event; whatever it is, you just want to know more, and quite often, newspaper stories simply cannot give you that.  But new journalistic pieces can.  And in doing so, they may enable people to be less judgmental and more open-minded in everyday circumstances.

Bill Beauttler’s ‘Whatever Happened to the New Journalism?’ was written in 1984, but some of the points that he makes still transcend to present-day.  For instance, he says:

Clay Felker said that the New Journalism responded to ‘Esquire’s’ need to compete with the immediacy of television and newspapers.  It found writers who could bring verve and style to their treatment of dated events.  To obtain its unique coverage, the magazine turned to novelists, or writers who wrote like novelists.

At a time where newspaper sales are at an all-time low and more and more people are turning to the Internet for quick and easy news, perhaps new journalism is just what newspapers need.  Give readers something that they can’t just get for free over the Net.

Beuttler also remarked on Wolfe’s comment that increased affluence at the time of his writing resulted in bizarre lifestyles that he often explored in his articles.  In this day and age, freedom of expression has never been more encouraged, and with the likes of Paris Hilton and George W. Bush, I’m sure writers have a plethora of subjects to choose from!

In his thesis entitled ‘Whatever Happened to the New Journalism?’ Bill Beauttler argues that the genre of new journalism declined after the 1960s and ‘70s.  He says, “fictional techniques have not been abandoned by … writers, but they are being used sparingly and less flamboyantly.”

Beuttler provides several reasons for the new journalism’s decline:

-          Journalists entering the profession in the late ‘60s were more interested in television and advocacy journalism than in stylish writing

-          Absence of talented writers

-          Financial concerns affected magazine editors, who found that readers preferred short, streamlined writing to the heavily detailed new journalism

-          There was a conservative mood in the ‘80s preventing the new journalism from being published because editors fear that challenging the mainstream will cost them advertising and readership

While the new journalism may have experienced a decline during the ‘80s, it appears that it is flourishing now, with the introduction of literary journalism courses in numerous universities and colleges worldwide, including the University of Sydney.  And with reasons such as those stated above, it is without wonder that the genre didn’t die.  I find it hard to believe that there could be an absence of talented writers, and while it may be that more people were interested in television and advocacy journalism, there are always going to be a large amount of people who love to write.

Furthermore, Beuttler referred to Lillian Ross, who said that people eventually began to view [new journalism] practitioners as self-promotion artists, and this led to the overuse of first-person reporting, which most editors consider self-indulgent.

Another point made in the article is that some writers attempt to make narratives more interesting either by basing characters on a composite of real people, or making characters up altogether, undermining the new journalism’s credibility.  For example, Janet Cooke was fired from the Washington Post in 1981 for fabricating her Pulitzer Prize-winning feature story about an eight-year-old heroin addict, who never actually existed.

Beuttler stated:

Such scandals heightened distrust of the New Journalism among newspaper editors, who reasoned that fiction techniques led to fiction. “There is the danger of, to make your story better you fudge the facts,” said Knoblauch. “You build your scenes not quite the way they happened, but the way you wish they’d happened.

In ‘Tom Wolfe’s Revenge’, Chris Harvey makes the same point, saying that new journalism stories are often told from the perspective of one or more of the main characters, and readers become privy to a character’s thoughts but are not told how the thoughts were discerned by the reporter.

However, he also points out that:

… most literary journalists are no more likely to falsify quotes or stray from the truth than their colleagues writing in the inverted pyramid style. In fact, some say that because journalists writing the long story are more likely to be veterans, they are less likely to fudge quotes or embellish a story. They have hard-won reputations to safeguard.

Of course, this doubt would come to mind when reading any fiction-style writing.  So, perhaps authors could get ‘characters’ to vouch for the credibility of their story, and publish these notes either with the piece or on the Internet.

Going back to Beuttler’s article, he says:

The other thing bad about New Journalism,” added Judge, “was that after you got over being entertained, assuming the fella’s a hell of a writer, you’d ask your question, ‘Well, what have I learned?’ Usually you didn’t learn anything. You were just entertained, that’s all.

That’s a pretty big call.  It is arguable that new journalism enables audiences to learn even more than they would be able to through a newspaper story.  New journalism delves into the inner workings of the human minds behind the actions that news stories report on – how could you not learn something from that?!

Racers and Race Fans occasionally ask: “Where Can I Buy Top Fuel Wormhole”? It’s easy, peazy. Amazon. Lulu. AutoBooks-AeroBooks in Burbank. Stories Book Store in Los Angeles. Simple as pi … erm, pie….

Top Fuel Wormhole available on amazon.com

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Get Top Fuel Wormhole: The Cole Coonce Drag Strip Reader, Volume 1 at lulu.com

THE CRASH, BURN AND RESURRECTION OF A WORKING CLASS HERO

The “Wild Bill” Alexander Interview

by Cole Coonce

"Wild Bill" Alexander (photo by Ron Lewis)

This story is one of growth, transformation and alchemy as metaphor. Defined as “a medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold,” the process of alchemy involves the charring of metal, a procedure that the man who came to be known as “Wild Bill” Alexander witnessed repeatedly from the cauldron of a cockpit. Indeed, nobody has encountered—and dodged—more molten metal than the bold and angry prince who answered to the name “Alexander.” Every trip down the drag strip was a potentially explosive exercise in metallurgical sorcery, which saw the alchemist himself grow and mutate from Hot Rod Hooligan into hell-bent Speed King and Conqueror to, finally, Elder Statesman of the Nitro Wars.

Alexander began his ascent into adulthood with a bad mojo. As a dyslexic schoolboy from a broken home, Bill sought comfort and camaraderie in the Bel Airs, one of the many ubiquitous car clubs that sprouted up in SoCal during the 1950s. Concurrent with leaving home at 16, he finally found a field he excelled in—and a potential outlet for his prodigious anger: Speed.

His buddies talk about Alexander’s precocious aptitude for wrestling with a hot job. “He was racing my ‘34 Vicky and it had a 3-speed on the steering column,” one Bel Air member remembers. “The gearshift lever broke off in mid-shift and he never even blinked. I was riding in the passenger seat and I couldn’t believe it. He just tossed it aside and continued shifting with a nub on the column.”

In one of the great symmetries of the era, the unsavory street racing favored by the Bel Airs thrived in an impromptu arena that was nothing if not a civic embarrassment: the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River. Traditionally, rivers are florid metaphorical tableaus upon which life and culture flourish. Think of the Nile and its fertile lands which gave rise to the Pharaohs of Egypt, among them Alexander the Great. Then think of a narrow piece of muck and concrete that serves no larger purpose than that of a glorified drainage ditch. Yes, although it is known as the breeding ground of nothing except perhaps a case of dysentery, the L.A. River gave rise to the career of “Wild Bill” in the same way that the Nile enabled a rampaging young Pharaoh also known as Alexander to conquer entire empires.

At the concrete delta, Alexander’s reputation grew while outrunning not only car clubbers but also the fuzz. One night, Law Dogs surprised the river-bed drag racers and attempted to broom the juvenile ne’er-do-wells into paddy wagons. The hot rodders peeled rubber and commenced to scattering like excited particles in a science experiment. Forced to improvise, Alexander resorted to scampering in his coupe like a coyote up the dusty bridle trails of Griffith Park and up into the Hollywood Hills. . .

The chaotic, dirty gear-jamming of the L.A. River ultimately yielded to properly sanctioned speed contests at El Mirage, Bonneville and San Fernando Raceway. While operating a drill press during the week, the drag strip was where Alexander’s star shone brighter still. Part working-class hero, part ultimate cockpit chimp, “Wild Bill” was subjected to and rode out the effects of imperfections in tire technology, as well as structural, metallurgical and thermodynamic failures. But he survived the frequent bouts with carnage in style: Shoeing Ernie Alvarado’s Shudder Bug, Bill stood down the notorious and fabled Greer, Black & Prudhomme AA/Fuel Dragster for Top Eliminator at Lions December 8, 1962, a dragster eliminated by only 7 other drivers. After crashing at Fernando in ‘63, he returns to the strip and, under the aegis of horsepower-monger Jim Brissette, is newly christened “Wild Bill” Alexander as he sets Top Speed of his career in his first lap back.  Later he sets Top Speed of the Universe, arguably at 202 mph, and then indisputably at 205.

Occasionally back in the 60s the drag racing press referred to Bill as Alexander the Great. This was apropos, as the precocious terror who became king of Macedonia at the prime age of twenty had an insatiable appetite for destruction and decimation. “Wild Bill” similarly had a scorched-earth policy. For reasons he wouldn’t understand until much later in life, he was anti-social, misunderstood and kinda’ mad at the world. Nobody escaped his agitation: competitors, officials or even teammates.

But, heck, after leaving a wake of wanton bloodshed and genocide, even Alexander the Great eventually mellowed and could be found dancing nude at the tomb of Greek poets. And after retiring as a journeyman in 1971, as the sport of drag racing took a turn Bill wasn’t comfortable with, Alexander returned to the drag strips in the ‘90s with the genesis of California’s front-motored “Prostalgia” Top Fuel wars. But his comeback is distinguished by the same jones for speed that characterized his first tenure in the hot seat; moreover, it is enhanced by a kinder, gentler demeanor and a new lust for life. Indeed, as runner-up at this year’s March Meet at Bakersfield, while driving for “Root Beer Frank” Hedge’s Mastercam AA/Fuel Dragster, Bill posted his career best elapsed time of 6.08 seconds.

"Wild Bill" Alexander and his Nitronic Research 5-Second Club shirt (photo by Cole Coonce)

*****

So some of the guys in the Bel Airs tell me you used to race on the L.A. river bed.

Alexander: Oh yeah (nonplussed). Generally on Friday night. At the time I didn’t haven’t a car. My buddy, Gary, had his ‘34 Victoria. Stan had a ‘57 Chevy—brand new—and we’d go down there and race with Tony Nancy, Floyd Lippencott, Jr. and Tommy Ivo, and all these guys and just street race in the river bed. It had this green slime down there so we had to find a spot with the least amount of green slime in order to race. Whoever’s side had the least amount of green slime won, usually.

Then we went to the River Road—which is Forest Lawn Drive now. We’d get 4 or 500 spectators down there, pit areas, the whole thing.

But it was more than just the L.A. River. It was Glenoaks Blvd…

Alexander: When we were street racing there was a Frostee (Foster’s) Freeze where everyone hung out. That’s when I had my ‘34. You’d park yourself and if some guy came by with a hot car, there was a signal right there. He’d have to stop and you’d just pull out next to him. You’d race down Glenoaks as far as Brand Blvd, turn around and pull back into the Frostee Freeze.

How did you make the leap from street racing and running from the law into climbing into a digger?

Alexander: My brother had built a ‘41 Willys to run the lakebed (El Mirage). He got drafted and left the car at home. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to touch it but instead I—whoop—took it out to the lakebed. It was kind of a dog; it ran 127 mph. A friend of mine said, “Let’s get the rulebook and check it.” We looked at the rulebook and we could take a 265 Chevy and de-stroke it 1/8th of an inch and get it down to 259 inches, put a blower and an injector on it and we could run it in the same class, C/Altered. We did. The record at the time, if I’m not mistaken, was 129 and we took it out and ran 155. Just shattered it. Then we went to Bonneville and ran 172 and then it took back to El Mirage and ran 181—in a ‘41 Willys coupe that went everywhere but where you pointed it. It was the most ill-handling thing—of course, I didn’t know any better because I had never driven anything out there.

After El Mirage one day, on the way back we went to San Fernando to run it and Ernie (Alvarado) was there. The next weekend they came and said, “Hey, you want to go to Long Beach?”  Ivo runs 8.99—it was the first 8 second time (on gas)—in a dual engined, unblown Buick. Ernie, who was a roundy-round guy, went, “Oohh, I like this.” The next weekend they came by and said, “Hey, you want to go to Long Beach again? And how would like to drive a dragster?”

When I was 14 my brother-in-law, Marty Elvehoff, had a slingshot altered that he was doing body work on at his house. I sat in it and I told myself, “Someday I’m going to drive one of these.” So when Ernie asked, I finally had the chance. So we go to Kent Fullers’ and we start building an aluminum body for it. We go down to the river road, fire it up and we had put the main jets in backwards. It was trying to hydraulic the motor. I’m down there trying to turn the fuel shut-off valve on and off, trying to make it run and it goes Ka-Blooey! and kicks the rods out of it—steel rods!  We oiled down the river road… never even got it to the race track.

That had to be a portent of things to come.

Alexander: Oh yeah. So we build a new motor for it, we’re getting ready to go to the races at San Fernando, loading the car up and the phone rings. Ernie’s dad had just died. Obviously, we didn’t run. That lasted almost a year. Ernie and his dad had just gotten close—it just devastated him.

Oh no.

Alexander: Finally, we got around to running it.  We take it to San Fernando, I leave the starting line and you talk about a shock. It probably went out about 400 feet and I’m off the throttle, out of it, dead player. Get down to end and the guys come down and ask, “How was it? How was it?”  I said, “Aw, bitchin’.” Lying through my teeth. . . ly-ing through my teeth. “You want to make another one?” “Yeah!” Lying again. We go back and cool the motor down (we were running on gas), make the next run, go about 700 feet and the comfort zone is gone—I’m petrified—CLICK! It ran 145 or 147 and I’m making the turnoff and I’m thinking there is n-o way I will EVER get this thing to the end of the track.

A blown Pontiac on gas?

Alexander: A blown Pontiac on gas. Probably at that time, the most state of the art car built—Kent Fuller built it. So after the second run, they come down and ask, “How was it?” “Bitchin’! I loved it!” Still lying through my teeth. “You want to make another one? “Yeah, okay… (under his breath) Oh, God. . .”

We go back and r’n’r the thing, cool it down. We go up to make the last pass. The gas record at that time was 168 mph and it turned 165 mph—and I got it down to the end. I shocked myself. Doing that convinced me that I could do it.

Were there any other pivotal moments?

Alexander: Well, shortly thereafter I met my first wife. The only reason she went out with me was because I drove one of those cars with a parachute on ‘em. We got married soon thereafter. So now I’d ask Ernie, “Are we going to run the car this weekend?” and he’d say no. This went on four or five weeks in a row.
What had happened was Ernie didn’t want a married guy driving for him. He didn’t want the responsibility. So he pulled the plug on me and put Tommy Ivo in. Tommy drove it that winter until the March Meet.

Was it still a hobby at that point or were you able to actually get some grocery money out of it?

Alexander: It was strictly a hobby. But after the March Meet, the car sat in Ernie’s garage for four months and I got the brilliant idea to tell him, “Give me your garage, give me your push car, give me your trailer, give me the race car and I will turn it into a Top Fuel car—with my money, it won’t cost you a penny.” Duh. Dumb idea, right? I didn’t have a pot to piss in, I’m married with one, soon to be two kids. He said, “Okay.” So every penny I could beg, borrow and steal went towards converting the injector over: new nozzle, new barrel valve, all that stuff so we could run it on fuel. Edgar Hugglebuss and I went out to Long Beach every Saturday night and that thing would go 200’ and it would turn right. So I’d get out of it. Edgar said if he had insurance he’d drive it. Right. That really pissed me off. So I told him, “I’m getting this (expletive) down there. It’s either going to the end or it is going to crash—one or the other, I don’t care anymore.” So I legged it on down there and about the 300’ mark, it turned right and I turned left and it went right through it. It did the same thing on every pass I ever made with that car. It was just one of those idiosyncrasies. From then on we went down for a long time and set Top Time or Low E.T. and then we’d get beat. Until a 32-car showdown there where we went and beat Greer, Black & Prudhomme. That was our first win and it seemed like we almost couldn’t get beat after that. Until it crashed.

So from late ‘62 and into ‘63, you were among the elite fueler guys.

Alexander: None of us felt that way. At that time we were a bunch of kids having fun—a bunch of kids who knew we weren’t going to live past 35. With Ernie’s car, I never took a penny, although it made a ton of money.

So you didn’t quit your day job at this point?

Alexander: It never dawned on me it could be possible. All the money went into the racing account which Ernie ended up keeping after I crashed. But after that I always took 33%. I did not drive for anything less.

Tell me about the crash.

Alexander: Mickey Thompson saved my life. The very first time we tried to run at Long Beach the inspectors looked at what was one of the first over-the-head hoop rollbars and they didn’t like it. So they called Mickey on the radio and he said, “If you put two bars halfway up the rollbars down to the rear-end mounts, I’ll let you run it.” So we put two “sissy rails” on it. That’s what prompted the body to be designed the way it was. Ernie hated those sissy rails so much. Lujie Lesovsky (Indy car builder) built the body up on the sides and into the parachute pack to hide the sissy bars. He said, “I can’t just stop here,” like most of the guys did.

So you’re saying this actually precipitated the design of, say, Stellings & Hampshire.

Alexander: Ernie’s car was something that everybody went off of and made better. Ernie’s car was kind of boxy. The Greer, Black & Prudhomme car was a little slicker—it looked a little smoother and nicer. Everybody smoothed ‘em out, but Ernie’s was the first of its kind.

Until that Sunday at the Pond in April of ‘63.

Alexander: Right. In those day we ran 15 or 16 pounds of air in the rear tires. We made the first run and broke the track record—mile an hour and E.T. Came back for the first round and instead of 15 or 16 we ran a pound less. “If that was good, this ought to be better.” Same thing, Low E.T., Top Speed, track record. Come back the next round, it’s a pound lower. So screw it: “If that was good, this ought to be really good.” Went out and did the same thing. Come to the final round and one of the last things I remember is that we were another pound lower. My theory is that the tires finally got so low that it spun the wheel in the tire and at half track started spitting tire out and kicked the right hand tire off, blew it up, it drove it into the dirt, nosed in about 1000 feet and ended up clearing the flags over the finish line and then all hell broke loose. It just dug in and catapulted. Flat out, it blew a right tire.

After it catapulted, it came apart like a cheap watch. The front end broke off, the engine took off. People told me that the chutes came out when it was 20 feet in the air. When I got stopped, my hand was still on my shoulder like I had pulled the chutes. They did a magnificent job of getting me out of the car. Dave Wallace and Harry Hibler (track personnel) saved my life. Harry looked at me and said, “Goddammit, don’t you die.” I rolled my eyes back in my head and he said, “You son of a bitch.” He thought I had died. They hauled me off to the hospital—we called it the butcher shop. Meanwhile, a friend of my wife’s called her and said, “You and Renee can come live with us.” My wife said, “What are you talking about?” “I just saw on teevee that Bill got killed out at San Fernando.”

(silence)

Alexander: Yeah, heavy stuff. Ernie’s damn near dead—he’s in shock and was in the next room.

Besides that dark day at the Pond, how was it getting the Shudder Bug down the strip?

Alexander: That car taught me everything I know today. It was an evil car—I didn’t know that at the time. At that time, it was state of the art. But it was an evil little bastard. It taught me how to feel the car, rather than let the car act and then I react. It taught me to turn the wheel before the back of the car ever reacted. It taught me to be ahead of it—to feel the car. Ernie’s car taught me so very much—but it also taught me that life is very precious.

Maybe that’s the car they should use in the drag racing schools. So when you came back, that was the advent of “Wild Bill”?

Alexander: When I first drove again I went faster and quicker than I ever went in my life.

Out of the box?

Alexander: Out of the box. I was worried that I would have this big flashback where I was upside down and on fire. It didn’t happen, I just legged it on through there like it was no big deal. I don’t remember the guy’s name who was in the tower, but he said, “Oh, that’s old ‘Wild Bill’ for ya’.” I got stuck with the name.

This was with Hippo (Everett Brammer) and Jim Brissette, right? How did this partnership come together?

Alexander: Hippo went to Jim Brissette and said, “Would you put your motor in my car if I get Bill Alexander to drive for me?” He said, “Sure.” Then he asked me, “Would you drive my car if I get Jim Brissette to put his motor in the car?”

We started out with a 354 and would smoke the tires, went to a 331 and would smoke the tires, and finally ended up with a 300-incher and the thing ran good. We could finally control the horsepower. But through all of that Jimmy decided, “Screw this.” He ordered a brand new Woody Gilmore car, 144-inch-long come-catch-me-throw-me-down-top-of-the-line, with the engine about 3 inches off the rear end. It didn’t have immediate success. Fastest car in the world for maybe two years, quickest car in the world for maybe four months.

The reputation was that the car would stay together for maybe three rounds.

Alexander: It would haul ass in qualifying. The first round nobody wanted us; second round everybody wanted us because they knew the rods were coming out at half-track. It was because Jimmy was making so much more horsepower and the car worked so good that it worked the motor that much harder. It would have main bearing problems, which became rod bearing problems. Jimmy tried everything—we drilled the main caps and had extra lines going into the main caps—and then the fingers started pointing. “Bill is driving it too hard.” For the last eight months it was finger pointing, not by Jimmy so much, but by his friends and people at the races. Yeah—we’re running 206 and a tenth of a second ahead of the field sometimes and “he’s driving the car too hard.”

What was your deal with Brissette?

Alexander: 33 percent, bottom line. I packed the parachute and drove.

The consensus was that Brissette wouldn’t settle for anything but big numbers.

Alexander: Exactly. Blowing the engine up and catching it on fire—that didn’t bother me. Blowing the rods out, getting oiled in, I’m okay with that. Ernie’s car, every run we ever made, I got oiled in. But then we started blowing blowers off—this became rather serious. Actually, it became very serious.

We went to Fremont one night and whistled the sucker down through there, get about 900’ and ka-blooey: We split the blower right down the middle. Come back, put the spare on it, go out there and whistle it through…  ka-blooey: We split the blower right down the middle. Some guy who had already qualified goes over and pulls the blower off his car and goes “plink!” “I want to see you guys run over 200 mph.” Jimmy throws that sucker on the motor, run it down there till’ about 1100 feet, it sneezes and splits that blower. Somebody else walks over with another blower. Etc., etc. By the final, we leave the starting line, I’ve got the other guy covered and the thing is really hauling ass. I’m thinking, “All right!” And I’m whistling down there…  Ka-blooey! It goes off. The blower lifts and comes back and hits me right between the eyes. The entire blower and the injector. It falls in my lap, it pulls my hands off the wheel and into my lap. This all takes place in a millisecond. I lift the thing out of the car, throw it out on the cowl, grab a hold of the steering wheel and I’m still trying to drive. There is oil on my goggles—they are all cracked by now. I take one hand off, wipe off my goggles. “Okay, I’m still fine.” The blower goes, “clink, clink, clink” hits the tires, goes back in the air and hits me right back in the eyes again. This all sounds like bullshit, but it went “boink, boink.” I went, “Aww,  s-s-h-h-it.” It hit the tire again, came back and hit me in the face and that is the last thing I remember until the ambulance guys were taking me out of the car.

When I became conscious the first thing out of my mouth was, “Did I win?” “No, you lost.” “Aww, s-s-h-h-it.” It ripped my finger from the knuckle down and split my nose from my forehead down. It was going, “phfffllttt. . . phfffllttt. . . phfffllttt.”

And it was more of a mercenary deal at this point?

Alexander: If it hadn’t have been for drag racing, I wouldn’t have been able to have a wife and raise two kids. I worked during the day and I made more on the weekends than I did during a whole week. I was able to take care of my family and provide for them much better than I ever knew.

Who did you drive after Brissette?

Alexander: I didn’t drive for a couple of years. Then Bob Sbarbaro called me from San Francisco. I would commute—all expenses paid. Plus 33 percent. I started driving for him but we didn’t get along. Bob was very outgoing and loved everybody. I was very withdrawn and really a homebody. (At this point) I did racing for a living—not because I enjoyed it.

So it would it be safe to say that you enjoyed being in the cockpit, but not socializing.

Alexander: The only thing I liked about racing was driving the car. As far as socializing, I didn’t do it. Maybe people got the wrong impression of me. But that was me and has been me—until not long ago.

I couldn’t tell you why I was the way I was. I didn’t know any different; I didn’t know any better.

Why were you so mad at the world?

Alexander: I had a shitty childhood—a gawd-awful childhood. Walking the streets when I was 7 or 8 years old. (Details deleted at Alexander’s request). I hated the world and I was an angry, very upset young man who took my anger out on anything or everything.

But driving a fuel car had to be the ultimate release.

Alexander: It was the ultimate release, but as soon as I got out of the car the anger came back. It was a lousy way to live. It ruined my first marriage.

With a co-efficient of drag racing.

Alexander: Not really—that’s what I thought. But in hindsight, I ruined that marriage. I was a pissed off young man who didn’t know why he was angry. I didn’t realize this until six or seven years ago. I have been trying to turn my life around for six or seven years.

Isn’t it interesting that the front-motored fueler thing has come back and you have a chance, perhaps, to undo some things?

Alexander: This is where you are exactly right. This is where I have a chance to make up for a lot of the bad things I said and the bad things I did. As far as moaning and bad-mouthing of sanctioning bodies—I made a lot of mistakes.

So there you were in the late ‘60s and the sport is getting more professional. How come you didn’t ride that wave? Did your outspoken manner make it difficult?

Alexander: I had a wife and two kids I had to be responsible for. I had an opportunity to go on tour but I was afraid I couldn’t make enough money to support them. My marriage was shaky, so I thought I should stay home and try to salvage it—which wasn’t salvageable.

Do you regret that choice?

Alexander: No. I’m glad I did it. I would have liked to have taken the chance but I wasn’t about to gamble with my wife and kids.

Is what you’re doing now providing a venue for some of you guys who felt that you didn’t get a chance to ride out that last wave as you saw fit?

Alexander: This has let a lot of us do what we wanted to do when we were younger—and maybe a little more talented. But it is allowing us to fulfill maybe a dream, or maybe the reality of something we stopped doing then because of families, business or whatever.

It takes a certain kind of mind to run a nitro car, particularly to tune one…

Alexander: Now you’re out of my league. I know how to drive and pack the parachute—and mix nitro. And I try to stay away from mixing nitro because I just assume pour straight nitro in it.

"Wild Bill" Alexander, in the Ground Zero Top Fuel dragster at the 2003 March Meet (photo by Cole Coonce)

(Originally published in Drag Racing USA)

from Verlyn Klinkenborg’s interview with James Norton for Flak Magazine

“I believe in the glory of nonfiction. I don’t believe in the hierarchy of genres that seems to prevail in the United States. Is the novel the higher calling, or is poetry the higher calling? Frankly I think nonfiction is equally great and equally profound—and often gloriously better. I’m a convert to my own genre, is the way I’d say it. You meet a lot of nonfiction writers who feel their next step ought to be to write a novel, and for a lot of them, it’s just not a good idea. The number who have actually pulled it off is actually very small.”

“My influences as a writer come out of a lifetime as a reader. It draws from all over the map. It comes from the real training I got as a Ph.D. scholar, reading 18th-century and 17th-century prose in depth. It comes really out of a love of all sorts of writers—at the moment, John McPhee and Joan Didion, essays by Richard Rodriguez, some by Annie Dillard . . . It’s a very eclectic range of influences, and they have more to do with what I hear in my ear than what I see in nature.”

www.cleveland.com/burden  (read all five parts)

The Language of Narrative Journalism

By Stuart Warner  (with great help from the Nieman Foundation and Jon Franklin)

1. In media res: A narrative has a beginning, a middle and an end. In traditional journalism, we begin at the end. We tell you the result. In narrative journalism, we begin somewhere else. Usually at either the beginning or in the center of the action, in media res. This is the point of the story where the plot can go in different directions.

2. Dramatic narrative or scene: Dramatic narrative happens at a point in time. The characters are acting or speaking, doing something. Almost always written in active voice.

3. Summary narrative: The link between scene, often reduces the passage of time to a few graphs. Passive voice can work well here.

4. TDP: Time, date, place. Jon Franklin says there are two major turnoffs for readers boredom and confusion because they have enough of each in the own lives. You can help avoid confusion by always making sure the reader know where and when the action is taking place when you transition from one scene to another. Now, if your story is boring, youre really in trouble.

5. Flashback: When you begin in media res, you have to shift back to the beginning of the story. Franklin and many of his disciples insist that you should limit yourself to one flashback per story. Not everyone agrees, but flashbacks can be confusing in print, especially in serial narratives where you are asking readers to follow a story over several days. But there is another technique for communicating historical information about your characters, which is called

6. Back story: As the story keeps moving forward, you can insert information about a characters history without changing time and place. Barrys Siegels A Father’s Pain ( http://articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/30/news/mn-18995) is one of the best examples Ive seen in newspapers. Gay Talese’s classic magazine story, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1003-OCT_SINATRA_rev_, keeps moving ahead to cover the month before Sinatra turns 50, yet as the story progresses, he gives you Sinatras life story through other characters.

7. Cliff hanger: If youre going to go multiple days with a narrative, the each day must conclude with a moment that make the reader want to come back the next day. You never want readers to think youre publishing more tomorrow simply because you didnt have enough room to get it all in today.

8. Internal cliff hanger: The skilled writer hones each section of a story so that it reaches some finality. Franklin calls this writing with courage. (I call writing with courage reporting on drug lords when you work in Colombia.) But the point is well taken: You need to craft each piece of a narrative as if its precious metal. ALWAYS mark where you want subheds or story breaks to go. Be prepared to enter into a death match to the page designer who wants to remove or move one of you breaks.

Character terms

9. Protagonist. The character who moves the action. Not necessarily the hero. Heroes always have flaws, but sometimes the protagonist has so many flaws that you coud never call him the hero. To me, the hero must evolve by the end of the story. Frank Sinatra is the protagonist of the Gay Talese story, but hes certainly no hero. But choosing the protagonist or protagonists determines a key element of narrative journalism whose story is it?

10. Major characters. In literature, major characters are generally introduced in the first chapter. Im sure there are exceptions to the rule, but these characters need to be fully formed as the story advances and have a major impact on the outcome.

11. Walk-on characters. May play significant roles, but arent as critical to the outcome. Because they may not show up as often, they need to be re-identified when they return to the stage.

12. Character details. These are the details that tell us something about our characters physical details, body language and other observed details. Dont get carried away with physical descriptions. Narrative non-fiction is generally accompanied by a gallery of photographs. The reader sees what the character looks like. You need to determine what details are important to the plot. If the character smokes menthol cigarettes, that needs to be relevant.

13. Status indicators. Closely aligned with character details, these are Tom Wolfes details that tell us something about the characters place in this world. Can be important in the characters motivations.

Writing Techniques

14. Getting into a characters head vs. internal monologues. Many narrative writers argue that through interviewing they can tell the reader what a character is thinking at any given moment. I still disagree with that. Even if a character tells you what theyre thinking, thats one thing you can never prove to be true. But you can get into the characters head by describing to the reader what the character has been through at the point of time, what she knows or how he has reacted in similar situations in the past.

15. Quotes vs. dialogue. Dialogue is two characters speaking to each other. Quotes are spoken to the reporter. Most narrativists prefer dialogue, but quotes can be effective, especially if the writer acknowledges that she has become part of the story. Talese is a master of that technique, especially in his narrative profiles Joe Dimaggio, Floyd Patterson.

16. Reconstruction vs. fly-on-the-wall: In most longer narratives, you cant be there 24-7. But writers will get enamored with what they see, potentially missing the defining moment of the story because they arent there. Most of what we do in journalism is reconstruction. We interview people to find out what happened. In narrative reconstruction, the standards are higher.

17. Showing vs. telling. Closely related to dramatic narrative and summary narrative. Telling is the writers version of what happened. Showing allows the readers to make up their own minds. He is a natty dresser. (Telling, thats your opinion.) He wears Armani suits. (Showing, you let the readers own experiences define the character.)

Literary Devices

18. Complication/resolution. This is the fulcrum of every narrative. The protagonist confronts an obstacle, struggles with it and reaches a resolution. Not necessarily a victory. In literature, the universal complications have been man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. nature and now I would add man vs. technology.

19. Point of insight. Point in the story where the reader can see that the protagonist is going to reach a resolution with her complication.

20. Foreshadowing. The resolution cant come out of nowhere. You need to give clues along the path that shows where youre protagonist is going. This is why mystery writers often write their stories from back to front.

21. Shotgun rule: Closely related to foreshadowing. Chekovs adage that if theres a shotgun on the wall in the first act, you need to fire it before the finish. Dont include useless details.

22. Ending: Find it first. Franklin recommends having some idea of where a story could end before you embark on the narrative journey. And maybe youll find a better finish. Write your ending before you write your lead.

23. Meaning: Does your story have a vision. What does it say about the world, the community, etc., that we live in. Does it illuminate the human spirit? A narrative doesnt have to have meaning, but without it, is it really a story?

24. Attribution: Some of us argue that the well-crafted narrative doesnt need any. The skilled writer makes his sourcing obvious. But not everyone is comfortable with that. And I have found that bibliographies, footnotes, source boxes, etc., are helpful to readers.

(excerpted from TOP FUEL WORMHOLE: THE COLE COONCE DRAG STRIP READER, VOL. 1)

(photo by Cole Coonce)

“We did it all, and we’ll never see times like these again.”—Dean Batchelor, The American Hot Rod.

At first I thought it was a mirage. Or an apparition. I was suffering from an acute lack of sleep, my disorientation and sensory deprivation amplified by a lack of proper coffee as well as the blinding reflection of the morning sun as it bounced off of the milky-white, crystallized floor of the dry lakebed. I shook my head, threw back the dregs of the caffeine, and blinked. It was no hallucination. There I was at Edwards AFB, deep in the heart of the cruel and unforgiving Mojave Desert, a landscape that a French philosopher once called a “slow catastrophe,” and three paces from my bones was the man who organized hot rodding after WWII on this very same uninhabitable desert. That’s right: Wally Parks, President of the Southern California Timing Association in 1946. Editor of Petersen Publishing’s Hot Rod Magazinein 1948. President of the National Hot Rod Association during its birthin’ in 1951, until Dallas Gardner stepped in during the Reagan Years. And probably the first man to call the linear pursuit of horsepower a “drag race,” way back in 1939 in the Racing News.

I was stunned and I was silent. I did not know how to approach the man. Or, closer to the heart of the matter, maybe I did not know how to approach the myth and the legend that is Wally Parks as he stood there larger-than-life, towering over the proceedings at the most mystical and legendary plot of real estate in these here United States of America.

Ah yes, the mythology. There has been more history, folklore, and mythology concocted at the Muroc Dry Lake than anywhere else on the planet since the days of Apollo and Aphrodite making noise on Mt. Olympus. For it was at this wasteland where the Muroc Racing Association, predecessor to the SCTA, predecessor to the Russetta Timing Association, predecessor to the NHRA, etc., etc., etc., began in 1932, hosting competition between renegade hot rodders from the far side of the San Gabriel Mountains, men who would test their mettle, bravado and mechanical acumen by racing hari-kari across the lakebed, sometimes four or five abreast, kicking up such a furious tempest of dust and debris in their wake that only the leader of the pack could actually see where he was going. The other drivers? Well, crashing into your colleagues and barrel-rolling, hobbling into the nearest hospital in Palmdale, 30 miles away via an undulating washboard of a dirt road, only to find upon your return—assuming you survived—what was left of your race car had been scavenged and stripped down to the frame rails, that was the price one paid for inferior horsepower out there in the Mojave Desert during the years of Herbert Hoover and FDR. This, race fans, was the true genesis of drag racing.

Beyond the isolation of this primeval racing on the lakebeds and just when we thought America had already made the world safe for democracy, a funny thing happened beyond either pond that flanks these here Continental United States—the Second World War. And not to trivialize the battles Iwo Jima or Normandy, but the SoCal hot rodding community also suffered a loss in the War. By virtue of eminent domain, the Muroc Dry Lake, the birth place of drag racing, was claimed by Uncle Sam as a “proving ground” for military aerospace research and development. The pangs of this loss were mitigated by a couple of factors: The dry lakes racers and the car clubbers were migrating to other lakebeds, among them El Mirage, Harper, and Rosamond where they continued “cuttin’ the crystals” during single-file “speed trials” (side-by-side competition was now deemed entirely too unsafe at the dry lakes) nearly every weekend; as well as the fact that at night the lakester guys and the car clubbers were matching wheels at either say, Slauson Avenue or Lincoln Boulevard or Glenoaks out in the Valley; or, as early as 1950, they wuz’ changing rear tires and gear ratios, pouring increasingly generous helpings of nitromethane into the combustion chambers of their flathead Ford V-8s and “draggin’” down at CJ Hart’s chunk of airstrip known as the Santa Ana Drags out in Orange County where, for once, they didn’t have to worry about outrunning the fuzz as well as the competition.

And as Chuck Yeager banged through the palpitating turbulence of the Speed of Sound over the hallowed ground of Edwards AFB (nee Muroc Field) in October ‘47, teenagers continued racing across the alkali crystals of the Mojave, or down the concrete banks of the arid, withered L.A. River bed. Soon after Yeager’s scrotal-squeezing supersonic gonzo sleigh ride, President Eisenhower unleashed the clandestine ramjet-propelled SR-71 spy planes, which would rocket through the heavens over Muroc—50,000 feet high!—at speeds in excess of 2,000 miles per hour, subsequently blaze over the bleached bones of the coyotes in Death Valley, and ultimately descend, minutes later, 300 miles away into Nevada’s notorious Area 51. At Muroc in 1959, NASA unveiled its team of astronauts destined for the moon, the Mercury Seven.

Through all of this, there was Wally, always astute and alert as per the trends of speed-addled youth, be it time trials at the dry lakes, rumbles at the malt shop, or draggin’ at the strip. A man of epic scope and vision, he was deftly plotting the co-option, development and commodification of America’s horniness for horsepower into what Parks called in a April 1950 Hot Rod feature “Controlled Drag Racing,” as administered by his yet to be unveiled NHRA. (The birth of the NHRA itself is part and parcel emblematic of how much mythology is intrinsic to the history of hot rodding. To wit, in 1951 Parks asked Lee O. Ryan, Petersen Publishing’s GM, to compose a fictitious “letter to the editor” expressing concern over the lack of direction in hot rodding. In rebuttal, Parks proposed an organization “dedicated to safety,” while providing the gearhead with a place to race, thus decreeing the formation of the NHRA whilst simultaneously inviting everyone to join.)

Suffice it to say, what made Wally Parks’ presence out at Muroc 1996 interesting was how the NHRA, which began as a nationwide extension of the ethos of the MRA and the SCTA—y’know, bitchin’ trophies for the industrious back yard tinkerer—has metamorphosed into an organization that became a player and a schmoozer in the Multi-National Corridors of Power in America. There are no luxury suites out in the desert. There isn’t even any running water. But as I stood there blinking my eyes, there was Wally…

So the paradox is this: out of the ashes of the Dry Lakes rose the multi-headed Phoenix which is Hot Rod Magazine, the NHRA, National Dragster, the Winston $1,000,000 series, and the “members only” glass-tower corporate suites that lease for $30,000 per event so’s High Society-types can watch the races on closed-circuit monitors while sipping snifters of Napoleon Brandy and eating weenies on a stick. That entire reality is of no concern to the lakebed Bedouins, however. This is because the SCTA and the whole culture of the dry lakes have continued to exist on their own terms for all those years since WWII, albeit with a low profile. In fact, it has been flourishing out at El Mirage with dyed-in-the-wool lake guys supplemented by refugees from the drag-strip wars, veterans of the 1320 who could no longer abide the rampant parts attrition as well as the exorbitant costs of contemporary drag racing. 13,000 gearheads descended upon Muroc on Saturday April 27^th 1996, to symbolically reclaim Muroc, ironically a happening that never would have come to pass without the clout, sociopolitical machinations and handshaking ability of Wally Parks.

And like I say, while wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I stood in the shadow of the exalted hot rodder who embodies the duality of man, the avuncular and towering Wally Parks. I thrust a micro-cassette recorder in his mug, and lofted a softball of a question like, “How does it feel to be back on the dry lakes?” and away he went…

“We’re all absolutely delighted,” sez Wally, “that we’ve had a chance to come back here, because it’s been 55 years since the SCTA ran here. I think having access to this place has got as much value for historic reasons as it has for the satisfaction of running down the course. But the thing we like most is the people who have returned here, who were once up here, and the newcomers who come in to see it. We just think we’ve got 100 percent success and we are very grateful to the Air Base here and the commander for letting us be here.

“Our presence here,” he continued reciting, his towering, lean torso magnificently framed against blue skies and Jet Propulsion Laboratories’ rocket launchers burrowed into the nearby Rosamond Hills, “ties in with research and development programs and their technology and so forth, which is the spirit of Edwards AFB, the test center, which is what this is all about: people testing new ideas. It may not apply to aircraft but it all comes out of the same box.”

Aahh, the Mojave Desert is the perfect backdrop for a powerful oratory, and at 83 years of age, Wally Parks was showcasing his rhetorical skills. But something was a little too perfect about this sermonizing. I wasn’t sure if I was interviewing the man who is not only the driving force behind the SCTA’s wistful return to its Mecca, but also the embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism, or if I was merely on the ass-end of a feedback-generated tape loop fed into a 10” speaker implanted into a cryogenically-enhanced human body, not unlike, say, the walking-talking Mr. Lincoln Exhibit at Disneyland. It was weird—I’ve been dying to bench race with the Man, the Myth, the Legend that is Wally Parks, a complex man, a man who personifies the dichotomy of everything that is virtuous, controversial, banal, and perhaps even disturbing about the Master Capitalists of America, be it Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Dick Clark or Bill Gates. As sandstorms started to kick up and pelt my face with sharp crystals of fossilized mud, Wally continued riffing about America and “the pioneering spirit.” Despite the dust devils he never stopped talking. I have to confess at some point I began to tune out Parks’ monologue about the nobility of Muroc, as the repetitive read-only memory functions of his speech were kicking into high gear. I began to free-associate about Mr. Parks’ pivotal role in the SCTA “taking back Muroc” (at least for one weekend), and I began to wonder if this gesture was not unlike a long-in-the-tusk mastodon going home to his elephant’s graveyard. The speechifying continued, and as I dutifully held my micro-cassette aloft I thought, “Who is this guy? Who am I really interviewing? Machiavelli? Dwight D. Eisenhower? Charles Keating? Charles Foster Kane?” As I write this, I am still not sure…

As the interview with Wally continued, I was overcome by the swirling dust and the heat. As the temperature was climbing into the triple-digit range, the sweat and the sand and the sun block coagulated into this afterbirth-ish goop which seemed to gravitate from my brow into the recesses of my eyes. I tried closing one, then the other, but to no avail. I couldn’t see anything beyond vague forms perpendicular to the earth’s curvature—one of which was talking non-stop (Wally)—all of this tableaux more surreal and bizarre than your typical mirage. Wally was either oblivious or just nonplussed by my fevered perspiring and blinking, the loop tape continuing unabated. I knew this was my only chance to heave a curve ball at the most legendary figure in the NHRA. So as I wiped my eyes, I asked him, “Did you derive more pleasure from your tenure at the SCTA or shaping the NHRA into what it is today?” He answered, “Both, although it’s apples and oranges. One is a non-profit dedication and the other one is trying to keep a big thing going…”

At that moment, with the loop tape mechanism finally disengaged, I felt Wally and I were on the verge of a meaningful dialogue. I was poised to ask him if he felt the longevity of the SCTA was perhaps due to a reaction to the politics and fiscal policies of the NHRA. Fate intervened, however. A senior member of Wally’s entourage (I think it was his sister-in-law) sought relief from the heat and the sand and the noise, and Wally, who had been extremely gracious and accommodating with me, begged off further questions, and chivalrously went to assist the member of his party in distress. I was that close to the truth.

*****

Before, during, and after Wally’s discourse on the nobility of the pioneering spirit, various lakesters, nitrous-oxide powered coupes, land-speed streamliners, and blown Studebakers began their procession across the desert, hurtling across the lakebed towards the timing beams, over a 1.3 mile course marked by scores of pylons. There were hundreds of drivers in pursuit of various Muroc speed records in machines encompassing a multitude of engine, body, and chemical combinations. Among them was Al Teague, windin’ out his Spirit of 76 streamliner in second gear at well over 200 mph—this same combustion-engined contraption clocked a Wheel-driven land-speed record 432 mph out at Bonneville a few years back. Joaquin Arnett, who has been tippin’ the can since the late 40s, also showcased the home-built Bean Bandits nitro-burning streamliner. There were a few vintage “belly tank” lakesters—speed machines crafted out of fuel tanks from P-38 Lightning fighter planes that were liberated out of aerospace surplus yards. There was even a land speed entry from Guam.

*****

All told, before the dust settled, fourteen drivers were initiated into the Muroc 200 MPH Club. This included SCTA v.p. Mike Cook, who raced across the desert in his blown Ford T-bird at 227 mph.  While the eclectic assembly of speed machines continued kicking up gigantic rooster tails of dust, their clockings were announced over Channel 1 on citizen’s band radios, which were employed in lieu of a public address system. It was an interesting counterpoint, the juxtaposition of low-fidelity c.b. radios against the various satellite communication systems and megawatt transmitters deployed by the Air Force. Out of earshot of the “p.a.” and beyond the pylons, I encountered a messianic figure trekking across the desert in flip-flops. It was Robert “Jocko” Johnson, inventor, bohemian sculptor, and mechanical visionary. (In 1959 at Riverside, CA, Jocko stunned the world of hot rodding with an 8.35 E.T. in drag racing’s first full-bodied streamliner, a clocking 3/10ths of a second quicker than any other Top Fuel dragster. Before he could improve on this outrageous performance, the streamliner subsequently self-destructed at Lions Drag Strip.) Out at Muroc, Jocko was on a mission whose dual agenda was thus: a) to show Alex Xydias (proprietor of the “So-Cal Speed Shop” in Burbank) a brand new pocket-sized centrifugal force-powered supercharger, a device Jocko designed to replace the relatively bulky and inefficient GMC “roots” design; and b) to get a sno-cone and beat the desert heat. He invited me over to his tent for tacos later that evening and I graciously accepted.

That night, after consuming more than a few of “Jocko’s tacos” and discussing Jocko’s plan to unveil a streamliner propelled by an 18-cylinder, 25 cubic inch radial motor—capable of 400 horsepower(!)—out on the salt flats, it was time to explore the “proving grounds,” as it were. As the racers put their exotic machines to bed, the campfires, the Coleman lanterns and the barbecues provided the sole source of illumination, besides the constellations and the orbiting satellites (which, out in the Mojave Desert, are visible to the naked eye). I wandered through the pits, blown away by the massive proportions of this congregation of motorheads who had migrated to this uninhabitable air strip in the Mojave Desert. And as I waded through the nomads camping in the barren flats of the Seventh Circle of Hell, I overheard a campfire conversation about Project Mercury ace Gordo Cooper’s appearance on a “reality-based” teevee docudrama about the Paranormal, riffing about his brushes with alien spacecraft while in astronaut training. The winds began to howl, I looked up at the stars and the satellite space stations and continued walking.

I heard music over at another campsite and I followed its call. Dusty Springfield was singing “Son of a Preacher Man” over a car stereo ratcheted into the door panels of a not-exactly-cherry flamed ‘52 Chevy sedan, while a couple of “Go Cat Wild!” retro-rockabilly greaser-types, twenty-somethings who had complete and utter distaste for contemporary fashion and values, were engaged in a high-octane bench race session. At that moment I knew the Muroc Reunion was a metaphor. I stood off in the shadows, eavesdropping as these reactionary rodders debated the fall and debasement of the late Dean Moon’s legendary speed emporium, “Moon Special Equipment,” recently rechristened “Mooneyes” by its new Japanese proprietors, and which may or may not be a bastardization of the translation of “Moon.” At this point, I piped in from the darkness and suggested there was still a decent cam-grinder in the employ of “Mooneyes.”

“The issue is just because one good cam-grinder still works there,” said one lanky car clubber with a thick Cockney accent, “doesn’t mean that it isn’t the biggest sell-out in the history of (expletive) hot rodding, man.”

“Dean Moon was a genius,” his friend burped, “but it makes me want to puke that people are trying to make money off all that dashboard crap they sell behind the counters of these so-called speed shops.”

“What people are building today holds absolutely no interest to me,” returned the Brit, spilling his can of libation. “I came from (expletive) millions of miles away to live in this country because I’m a (expletive) hot rod freak, right? And when I got to this country I was so (expletive) disappointed because the entire (expletive) place had sold out. And everybody is driving Japanese (expletive) cars.

“I came to (expletive) America and I came to Muroc today because I thought it was the last bastion of hot rodding,” the émigré gearhead was gathering steam now, double-clutching his soliloquy into overdrive, “and I think that this is (expletive) great today because shit like this rolled up (points to a ‘32 Model A D/Gas lakester) and made me a believer that hot rodding is still alive. (Screw) all that painted chrome and shit, this is a proper hot rod (points to the ‘52 Chevy sedan). You know what? I hate all this ‘family values’ and wearing shorts with flames on it, like ‘blar, blar, blar’ and ‘blar, blar, blar’ and ‘Excuse me, you can’t have no beer on that site.’ ‘Ex-cuse me?’ y’know-what-I-mean? I ain’t got no kids, I don’t want no (expletive) kids, I don’t want to be in an environment where I have to watch my (expletive) behavior because there might be kids present, I want to go and hang out where the is some old (expletive) proper hot rods, man.”

“Our ancestors,” his pal extrapolated, “much like him, left Europe to do what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. He came over here, and he found he can’t do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it.”

“It’s not a case of that exactly,” the Brit resumed. “It’s a case of indoctrination. It’s a case of the asses who run the magazines these days—the writers are getting paid wages by the suits who run the magazine to say what’s trendy because the advertisers tell them to. So he has to say what is trendy, and it’s like ‘new-(expletive)-stalgia!’. What the (expletive) does that mean?

“Street rodding, as far as I’m concerned, means conforming to the rules the magazines have put down. Y’know: it’s easy to have a 350 Chevy with this person’s steering column, and this person’s (expletive) tie-rod, and this person’s (expletive) blah-blah-blah. That’s not, as far as I’m concerned, what hot rodding is all about, which is hauling shee-it out of a (expletive) junkyard and building a car on the jeeg.”

“Real hot rods don’t have tan interiors,” one of his pals summed up.

“You can build an old-looking car out of new pieces, but that doesn’t make it an old hot rod. Old hot rodding, truly, has disappeared. I think an article, really a lament, on the decline of true hot rodding would be a cool thing because nobody wants to do it—they’re scared to do it, they don’t want to put that in a magazine because they are supported by the people who are selling the parts.”

I reckoned he was correct, no magazine would publish those sentiments. I also told these adrenaline-addled hell raisers that most of their heroes—Alex Xydias, Stu Hilborn, Joaquin Arnett, etc. were in their seventies nowadays, and were probably trying to catch some shut-eye. The most reverent yet politic gesture these hep cats could make would be to turn down their stereo, put out their campfire and go to sleep…

The next morning, after a handful of test runs down the parched mud where NASA, the JPL, and the Southern California Timing Association pulled off their bizarre romantic visions (indeed the only place that could not only tolerate but actually nurture their dreams), the winds kicked in with a ferocity that rendered further speed-record attempts futile. As the mother of all sandstorms blew fiercer and more torrentially, the desert rats collapsed their tents and loaded their belongings into their motor homes, trailers, and deuce coupes and began their journey home. But for one weekend this procession of the Timelords of the Apocalypse, a gathering of tribes seriously in touch with the soul of the Universe, got to play in their Garden of Eden—never mind that the only foliage in this Garden were a few sandblasted Joshua trees out by the rocket launchers.

As the timing officials announced the cancellation of the speed trials over the c.b. radio, I closed my eyes. I could see the plume of thick, charcoal-black death smoke, emanating off of the horizon on the desert floor. And I got the chills as the stinging pricks of the torrential sands continued to dig into my face. Aerospace. Jocko Johnson. Wally Parks. Project Mercury. Rockabilly Anarchists. Sonic Booms. The SCTA. Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Drag Racing. Mach One. The Bean Bandits. They were all the same thing, big chunks of the Southern California Experience, just expressed in different ways out at Muroc. It was all a twisted, glorious manifestation of what the Mercury Seven called “Go! Fever,” a sickness that starts out innocently enough as an intellectual exercise to debunk physics via downforce (with a co-efficient of drag) or propulsion or torque, anything man, just hit the throttle!, a fever so mesmerizing that its victim becomes caught up in his quest for speed, speed, and more speed, until the rational and linear thought processes have been superseded by raw desire, damn the torpedoes and damn the consequences, I want to live man!, even if it means dying, so turn up the boost and gimme some nitro! Jocko Johnson spit out the quote that defined the existence of these veterans of the dry lake sandstorms. Over turkey meat tacos the night before he said, “The more creative you are, the closer you are to God.”

Anybody who tells you that soulless corporations are a necessary ingredient to the pursuit of horsepower has never stepped foot on the fossilized dry lakebeds of the Mojave Desert. Those who have seen and tasted the elements of the dry lakes—sandstorms, whiskey, rocket engines, nitromethane, and maximum velocity penis-shaped land speed vehicles—as they coalesce on a lunar landscape in the Mojave Desert, will tell you this: The sands will come again. Just ask Jocko. Or Wally Parks.

(Author’s note: I must acknowledge a serious debt as per literary sources that informed this article. These include: The Nearest Faraway Place by Timothy White (Henry Holt and Co. Inc.); High Performance by Robert Post (John Hopkins University); and The American Hot Rod by Dean Batchelor (Motorbooks International).)

(Originally published in Super Stock & Drag Illustrated)

(excerpted from TOP FUEL WORMHOLE: THE COLE COONCE DRAG STRIP READER, VOL. 1)