Vastation

About the Book

Always the same: How to begin? Begin with what you know best seems a logical answer, but the only thing I know reasonably well I hardly know at all; and as far as understanding what I know only imperfectly I understand it even less. Of course I am speaking of myself, and the great problem of telling my story, when so much of that story is still such a mystery to me. But this is getting me nowhere. I’ll begin, with apologies, with what little I can talk about. I am you might say a boy, on the cusp of turning 18, poised to begin all the great adventures that await me, preparing myself for journeys that will ready me for and take me into what I have learned to call life, though exactly what is meant by that word is as yet far from my understanding. I am also an adult, a grown man of forty some odd years, though I have as much difficulty believing this and accepting it as no doubt you might be having at this moment understanding what I just said means. But bear with me please. The story of my journey should make everything clear.

About the Author

Lew Birdseye received his education at Columbia University, BA ,MA, PhD. A teacher much of his life, both at the secondary and college level, he nevertheless found time to work as a professional river guide on the Chattooga River when he wasn’t bike touring in Europe, from Norway to Greece. An avid distance runner for most of his life, he found the kernel for many of his stories on little travelled trails and in deliberate diversionary thought in the course of the seventeen marathons he has so far run. Currently he lives and runs and writes in Eugene, Oregon with his M.D. wife, Shelley.