A Whole Wide Bunch (Sunset, Wednesday, 28 September 2011)

William Theodore Van Doren, A WHOLE WIDE BUNCH (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

When my sister, as a little kid, thought she had a lot of something, she called it “a whole wide bunch.” Here I was interested in getting a whole wide bunch of sky.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice to Live in a Fortress

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a fortress, high, all alone, in the high rocks, with all, everything I needed, a white thick-walled tibetan sort of place curved and presenting no corners, and I would remain here, quietly enduring, from time to time receiving news of a friend or loved one passing away, but remaining here, affected to be sure, at times even weeping, but undisturbed, and with each passing perhaps a thin layer of the outer wall powders away, all my friends, all my family, who make it possible for me to have a fortress in the first place, I’ll outlive them all, naturally, so fortified.

Sorrow and Solace at Scout Mountain (Sunset, Saturday, 24 September 2011)

William Theodore Van Doren, SORROW AND SOLACE AT SCOUT MOUNTAIN (Sunset from Scout Mountain, Corydon, Harrison County, Ind.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

I had come to Indiana, with my brother Steve and our spouses, because my sister, Emily, six years younger, had very unexpectedly died on the 20th. The great, and greatly bereaved, people at Scout Mountain Winery, where she worked part-time, hosted a small party for us, her daughter and some of Emily’s wonderful friends – wonderful to her and to us.

Sunset, Wednesday, 23 June 2010

William Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 22.

Hot here today (94°) – same as in my happy birthday “sister city,” Corydon, Indiana.

Sunset, Thanksgiving, 26 November 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

At sunset a few drops of rain began falling on my brother Steve’s face as he napped in the hammock, in two blankets.

Inside, my sister Emily, here from Indiana, told everyone about 350.org.

We called our brother Mike, camping with his family and his father-in-law in Seminole Canyon, in Texas, and left him a raucous Thanksgiving voicemail.

Laura called her sister Mary Scott, who was in Lynchburg, Virginia, with the rest of their family.

My niece Jody missed her fiance, Jason.

My niece Ashley and her husband, Erik, were texting with their friend Dan, anchor on a local newscast, while he was trying to cope with a program cut ever shorter by the Cowboys-Raiders game.

Sandy, my sister-in-law, had just come through a grueling several weeks of medical tests, results of which she and Steve got just yesterday. Thanksgiving was thanksgiving. Sandy did an impersonation of the turkey that gets saved by the White House.

Sunset, Tuesday, 23 June 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

For Emily, with love.

Emily’s a former backhoe operator and homecoming queen, a longtime blackjack dealer at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, a wild horse woman (woman who rides wild horses, in addition to the other meaning), and an ace stained glass artist, as well as someone who cares for other people, both for a living and in her life. My sister. She shares her birthday with our mom, Helen Bezilla Van Doren (1923–1986).

Emily drove across the country, from Norfolk to L.A., on a motorcycle when she was 20. Actually, when she got to the Grand Canyon her boyfriend, Cruz Treviño, met her and they rode the rest of the way together. Cruz is responsible for inspiring me to start writing music; I think if he and Emily had stayed together my dad might have lived another five years just so he could keep arguing with Cruz.

The only counsel my dad offered Emily for her trip was to give her his buck knife in a leather sheath.

Emily thinks Mom was a little envious. Her advice: “Go west, young man!”

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I’m very happy to note that as of today we have an index to earlier entries (there’s a link also on the right side of the page).