Ghost Tales from East Garrison

I recently heard a story about Fort Ord toward the end of WWII, when it was a POW camp and held, amongst its many other prisoners, Nazis. A group of them dug a 20-foot tunnel under the East Garrison trying to escape. Good old USA soldiers discovered their plan before they were able to execute it. Somehow, and I'm not clear about the details, which have been buried (no pun intended), a Nazi found some gasoline, poured it onto a soldier working under a tank, and lit him on fire. The military police made this prisoner dig his own grave, in the Whitcher cemetery, and executed him. I'm told he's buried out there with the Whitcher children, and who knows how many others.

Normally, I'd take this anecdote as a fairy tale, but when I told my ex-firefighter husband (who worked on base for years) about this story, he remembered it too. One character in my book, "East Garrison" is a Nazi U.S. Army Major General named Fritzsche. Another character, Jack Erslager, a wandering Vietnam veteran with post traumatic stress disorder, sees Fritzsche barking orders at him throughout the book. This appeared to me whilst writing "East Garrison". So, you can imagine when I learned about this particular POW…is this the ghost Fritzsche? Did I make a psychic connection? Or did I hear this story in the past and although my conscious mind forgot it, my unconscious mind stored it away for later use? I think that's how writers' minds work.

Frequently I dream of houses with rooms within rooms within rooms. That's my visual of a writer's mind. Or at least my mind.

Another Foggy Summer on the Central Coast.

It's a week before Memorial Day, well, almost, and the clouds over the sand hills of Fort Ord are shades of gray. Although most people hate the weather, I LOVE IT! I'm a BIG fan of Warren Zevon, whose favorite color was gray. This says a lot about me, much more than the fact that I hate hot weather. I'll let the reader figure that out. Warren Zevon was one of the greatest song writers ever, and if you have yet to discover him, educate yourself. He considered himself to be a very successful folk singer, rather than a rock star, and he loved writers. Known by most people for his song "Werewolves of London," probably because it was his first commercial hit, his music usually encapsulated stories from Jesus to Elvis and modern day warfare. His last album, written while he was dying, has one of my favorite rock songs on it called "Disorder in the House." The album is titled "The Wind," and it has many of Warren's friends performing with him--Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, even Billy Bob Thorton. A writer friend is teaching me how to play the guitar because I want to be able to play Warren's songs. Listen to his clever lyrics. You'll find them, at the very least, entertaining.
So today, as I look at the gray-covered sky, I'm reminded of a man who also loved the color gray.

Never Give Up!

Wise words to a writer. One of the questions I'm often asked is to give advice to new writers. I'm often tempted to say, like Rodney Dangerfield in the movie Back To School, "Don't do it!" What kind of masochistic person would knowingly bash their brains against a never yielding wall? But then I know whatever I say won't matter because if you are a writer, you will write, no matter what. You can't NOT write. And that should be the only reason anyone pursues the writer's journey.

I believe every single person has a special gift. It's something you're good at and love doing. Follow that to your gold.

Happy belated Mother's Day to all you mothers! One of my favorite bumber stickers is "My Goddess Gave Birth to Your God." Before becoming a mother myself, I, like probably every other mother in history, had no idea how difficult of a job it was going to be TO BE A GOOD mother. No one can be perfect all the time. Is there such a thing as perfection, after all? However, once you take on the role of being a parent, the object of the job is to teach through modeling. With our busy worlds, and often competing roles of worker and mother, the object isn't always in the forefront of our minds. Still, we must not try, but do, and when we fail, instead of behaving like we haven't or could never fail, we must explain to our children and apologize for our imperfections. Most importantly, we must tell the little ones that it isn't their fault, because to a child, everything is about them. That's how they're wired.
My Mother's Day was mostly spent waiting for an interview from Canada, which went very well, I thought. The half hour just flew by. In the next few days it should be up on my website under EVENTS, along with a couple others. If you're interested, check it out: www.gmweger.com
Be well. Be Happy.
G.M. Weger

Today is a very "Planet Ord" kind of day. Can't see two feet in front of me. The fog drops quickly this time of year, a little-known secret when the touristas storm the coast in the coming summer months.

Day after tomorrow (May 9th, 2009) is my first book signing at Borders Books in Sand City from 2pm to 5 pm for my debut novel "East Garrison." I'll be bringing an assortment of mountain lion stuff to share, including two skulls, pug marks, flexible casts of paws, a claw, sounds, and various free brochures about this most misunderstood predator. Case in point, yesterday the LA Times reported on a dog who saved his owners when a mountain lion crossed their path. I say the lion is the scapegoat here. I highly doubt that any attack happened. More likely is that the cat ran, was chased by the dog, and then it turned to protect itself. But the heroic dog story makes better headlines with the familiar dog pitted against cat. The fact that Fish and Game called off the hunt for the lion says it all. Read between the lines (lions).