North to Alaska for a Best Summer Ever

The summer stories you all sent me when you entered my newsletter contest were the best. Thank you so much. I enjoyed strolling down memory lane with those of you who told about years past and I smiled thinking about the fun some of you were having this very summer.

I have plenty of summer memories too. Some from when I was a kid and could take off to the woods for long hikes with my dogs. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? I still like taking off for the fields and woods hiking with my dog. When I was a kid, I imagined stories while I walked. It was so fun to dream up characters and think about what they might do to get in trouble. You need conflict in a story, after all. And again that’s just like now. It’s still fun to dream up stories.

This story Linden shared of her best summer ever sparked plenty of thoughts of stories that could have happened. Not that I intend to go to Alaska to write a story. I like sticking to Kentucky for my stories, but Linden’s experiences do tickle my imagination.  So I’m turning the floor over to her to tell her best summer story. See if it makes you do some imagining too. Here’s Linden’s story.

My best summer was when I was young and energetic, just out of college, and knew nothing about life. Or cooking, which was too bad because I was hired to work as the sole cook at a gold mining camp in the Alaskan Range; they must have been desperate to hire a 21 year old with no cooking experience beyond one home ec class in high school. They flew me out on a two-seater plane, showed me the cooking tent, and told me to start preparing three meals a day for 30 hungry miners. Plus snacks. I was the only female and these were some battle-hardened men, I’ll tell you.

The next morning, I dutifully fried up 60 eggs (two for each man), 90 slices of bacon (three for each man) and about a cup of fried potatoes each. The day nearly started with a mutiny—the crew boss yelled that these were working men and I was to have dozens of eggs and vats of meat and fried potatoes available every morning.  I learned to cook as if I were feeding an army. Up at 5 to do breakfast and start lunch, the afternoon to make desserts and snacks and start the evening meal.  And do all the dishes in between times. Often I was literally running from task to task. And I had to radio in the food supply order once a week. At least they gave me a man to carry the boxes from the runway to the tent. The scenery (what I could find time to see) was lovely, and the men were mostly kind and fatherly toward me.

In September I went home about 30 pounds thinner and much more appreciative of the people who work as cooks, chefs and bakers.

Still, I would not have traded the experience for anything. People pay big bucks to spend the summers in the wilderness of Alaska. I even came home with a nugget the men gave me on my last day!

Thank you, Linden for sharing your best summer ever. I can tell from what you wrote that we were going to have to add in some extra hours to make any kind of fictional story since it didn’t sound as though you had any time for getting in trouble or doing much imagining about anything except what to cook next. However. you might be able to write a cookbook after your experiences maybe titled How to Cook for an Army of Hungry Men. 

Have you ever had an adventure like Linden’s? When you had to work really hard, but still remember the experience fondly?

And the Winners Are–

I picked the three winners of my newsletter contest by random number generator this morning and sent all three an e-mail message. The winners were Carrie Monty, Cheryl Hart, and Joy Isley. I’ve heard from Cheryl who picked my Hollyhill book, Summer of Joy, for her book prize and she also got the $25.00 Barnes & Noble gift card to use in the store or on-line. The other winners will also get a B&N gift card and their choice of one of my books after they contact me. So check your e-mails, Carrie and Joy.

Fun in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Fiction Readers Summit

I’m off for a weekend of talking books and writing. So looking forward to being with the other thirteen writers and getting to meet many great readers. If you’re in the area, all fourteen of us writers will be at the Baker Bookhouse on Friday evening , August 9, 2019 at 7 p.m. to sign books and take selfies. So come on down and we’ll do some smiling together.

As always, thanks for reading.