“There come a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me … I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel … I am a whole complex package .. Do not try to make me feel like less of a person just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should me.” – Stacey Charter
Travels With Maggie
Michelle Gilles at Silk Purse Productions Blog (how to make silk purses out of a sow’s ear) nominated me for a Kreative Blogger award. Thank you Michelle at: http://silkpurseproductions.wordpress.com
I’ll use my Bean’s Pat to play it back. This “Pat” on the back goes to my personal choice of the best blog of the day. My choices are eclectic and I hope my readers have been checking them out.
As part of the acceptance. I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that you might not already know. I’ve done this before, but this part’s actually fun, especially trying to think of things my blabber-fingers haven’t already told you. So here goes.
Miss Clairol’s Nice and Easy, No. 99 has been my friend for umpteen years. My original color was dishwater blonde. I haven’t the foggiest idea what color it is these days because I try hard to never let my roots show.
I stuck into college without ever graduating from high school, just one among many ways I’ve lived my life backwards.

OK. I admit it. I'm a tree-hugging flower child who believes that some day this planet will be a peaceful place to live. -- Photo by a stranger sharing my day at Custer State Park in South Dakota.
I’m a prolific reader of just about everything – including cereal boxes, bumper stickers, roadside signs and blogs — with the exception of horror. When much younger I watched a Vincent Price horror flick – Murders at the Wax Museum I think it was called, and spent the next year expecting a missing head to turn up in my washing machine every time I opened the lid.
I once zoomed up behind a police car doing 100 mph while driving between Salt Lake City and Wendover, Nevada. I thought I was only doing 70 until I looked down at the speedometer. I’m not sure why I didn’t get a ticket. Perhaps the officer was day-dreaming.
I was 37 years old before alcohol of any kind touched my lips, well if you don’t count my grandmother’s beer, which I’ve been told I stole and drank when I was 3 years old.
I’m speaking tonight at a Blue and Gold Banquet for my daughter’s Cub Scout Pack on Compassion for Animals. I’m going to play the wolf howl-video that I mentioned on yesterday’s blog.
I’ve been living and traveling now in a small RV with my canine traveling companion, Maggie, for over seven years. By the end of this year I should have visited all 50 states. I did Hawaii and Alaska in earlier days, just FYI.
Now I’d love it if my readers would tell me something quirky about themselves.
Bean’s Pat: 10,000 Birds http://10000birds.com Great blog for anyone who likes birds, especially if you’re passionate about them — like me.
I like to read pulp Sci-Fi books, the real old ones like Heinlein.
Jim
Cool. Or is that just a term us oldies but goodies still use. My oldest son is a Sci-Fi fan, and he likes the older ones. Me, I’m more into the fantasy side of the genre.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
I love sweater vests. Love them!
Thanks TBM. Bright-colored ones maybe? That would be my choice. But more sedate is just as good. What a dull world it would be if we all thought and liked the same.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
Great! Michelle Gilles knows good when she sees it. I too am “living my life backwards.” I wrote an essay about it a few years ago. It’s fun. I no longer feel like “I didn’t know what I was missing.” Heck! I’m doin’ it now.
Thanks Trilla. Yup. Backwards is just as good as forward if you’re out there doing it.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
Oh, Pat, I love the picture of you hugging the tree and congratulations!!! You are in an RV? You are my new hero. Someday I want to do that and travel our beautiful country. I hope you didn’t float that RV to Hawaii!! I’d love to see a picture of that–
🙂
Congratulations, Pat, and so much fun to read these tid-bits. Of course, you’re a tree-hugger. What else could you be?
Haven’t met a book genre that I didn’t like, but horror is one of my favorites 🙂 FYI Love the banner photo.
I think I was born with my nose in a book – no wonder my mom and I were at loggerheads from Day One. I can’t put shoes on a bed (bad luck) and have to close the cover to the toilet seat if there is one (everywhere, not just my own house) so that all the good stuff doesn’t flow down the drain! Love blue bottles which I have as decorations in my gardens – Southern folk lore says they protect you from the bad vibes out there. And am definitely an owl – stay up til 4 am, sleep til noon!
Thanks for commenting Deborah. . It’s good to get to know you a bit better.
Didn’t get my driver’s license til I was 22. Only dated one girl in my whole life. Take my wedding ring off every night at bedtime and put it back on in the morning, with absolutely no idea why. Really, a dull chap.
Sounds like that one girl, if she’s still with you, is a pretty lucky woman. Your books aren’t dull, and they’re a product of you. Ever think of that?
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
I meant to congratulate you on your well-deserved award!
Congratulations, Pat, on your well-deserved award!
I dropped out of high at the age of 16, took the GED, and started college before my high school class graduated (and before I was old enough to get my driver’s license). Not quite backwards, but I have been known to do things that way from time to time. 🙂
Ditto Robin, dropping out of high school at 16. At 27 I took the SAT, scored well and a community college let me enroll and said I could matriculate after I had earned 25 credits demonstrating I could do college-level work. I got all As and was allowed to matriculate, and then used the community college transcript to attend a university.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
Congratulations Pat. Your life is always exciting to read, I’ve done things in quirky ways. I have always been ahead of my time, not sure how to write it here, so here is a prolouge: I entered college w/o taking SAT’s…….