MY HANDPRINT

By Dennis Lantz When it is warm in the woods, it is sweltering out in the open. July was oppressively hot and dry in 1995. People in the cities were dying from the heat. At the hogan we didn’t do much. We read, wrote journal entries, essays or poetry… and did some watercolor painting. As far as I remember, I only wrote one poem that summer. In this post, I will share that with you. I remember folding paper fans to cool ourselves. A couple of days we went to the air conditioned trailer and watched movies 7/13 – This morning Mark said, “so much for the heatwave…” as it was not so hot outside. Later we would laugh at his thought because it was a scorcher. 7/14 – Dear Lord it is hot! I am not feeling well. We woke to an already warm day. After dunking in the creek we sat around wondering what we should do. It was so hot we didn’t want to do much. Finally decided to watch The Fire Next Time, a television miniseries I taped dealing with global warming and heat. We watched

By Dennis Lantz I’m a complex person and occasionally a little selfish. I’d like to be simpler, sometimes… and certainly more caring. More compassionate. I’m also opinionated and usually willing to share my thoughts. Except now, on social media, I am reluctant. I got on Face Book to spread the word about my upcoming novels. I want people to read them. Obviously I wish to sell as many copies as possible. I wouldn’t have written them if I didn’t want to share them with the world. Face Book is not my only marketing strategy, but it is the first. And as a social media neophyte, there are some rules or protocols that I do not yet understand. Face Book can be very political. My novels aren’t, at least in the sense of modern politics. I suppose you could delve into why a fictional society becomes dystopian or analyze Zander’s rise from student to emperor. But they are just stories and are not intended to sway someone to any opinion. For years I stayed away from social media,

By Dennis Lantz   To all of my friends in the atlatl community: I am so glad that I am communicating with you again, even if it is only via Face Book. It is hard to believe that it’s been a dozen years since I have seen some of you. That is my loss, for certain. I initially got on social media because of my soon-to-be published novels, but they have become almost secondary. Communicating with old friends is far more satisfying. I hope to do so in person soon. I wanted to let you know that the atlatl plays a significant role in The Spiders of Eden, the second novel I finished. It’s a futuristic tale about an outcast trying to survive in a dystopian world. Jonah Pepper has a hard time getting jobs because his father was the leader of an anti-technology, anti-government, cult-like group back when Jonah was just a child. His father has been dead fifteen years, but Jonah’s life is still hell because society does not forget. Jonah is about to get conscripted into the government’

By Dennis Lantz Tucker was loyal, loving and free. He was also a great hunter. Because life is full of conflicting notions, I can call him a killer and still say that he was one of the best dogs ever. He was a light-haired golden retriever with an unknown smattering of other genes. His tail curled, not quite like a Samoyed or Chow Chow. I suppose it could have been from inbreeding, but he wasn’t stupid or deformed. I’d call him unique. We bonded. He was my best friend for a time. Tucker came to my family as a puppy and theoretically he was my sister, Vivian’s dog. But I raised him and specifically taught him nothing. At the time I thought training dogs was bending them to my will. I wanted him to feel free to be himself… and I had no idea how to train a dog. Even as a puppy he laid down a lot. That is how he got his name. My cousin John declared that the little guy looked all tuckered out. It stuck. For the first couple of weeks Tucker stayed with me in the traile