Lostine Planned?

There is nothing in the file with the above title. I, in the first place, was just reluctant – resigned, though, to giving writing a try after thirty years. The poet Jean Esteve was awfully nice about the persistence with which she pressed me to write – something.

I started LOSTINE thinking I would just write about some kids larking – rafting into a swamp. I was coming simply from an auto-biographical place – just taking a sentimental journey with my brother. The school, the shopping mall, the K of C Hall, the swamp in LOSTINE  - that entire layout was St. Francis Cabrini School at Lakewood, Washington. That school, the nuns, the ball field were all just like that. I was able to throw like the Narrator. A kid named Charles Darwin actually took those locks apart.

Of course, there really are ghosts there now.