Wandering Memories

By Bill Boudreau

In "Wandering Memories ~ Over the Years ~" Bill Boudreau includes selected previously published articles, thoughts from his personal Journal, and dialogue with his Alter Ego.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Boudreau
• Release date: Mar 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215663745

Bill Boudreau

Bill Boudreau is a French Acadian, born and raised in the small fishing village of Wedgeport, Nova Scotia, Canada. He’s a graduate of the Montreal Technical Institute and earned an MBA from Oklahoma City university. He’s retired from a long career in Computer Software/Engineering and management. His self-published writings books include poetry, fiction, creative-nonfiction, allegory, and passages of his personal life, in addition to publishing books for numerous other authors. Accompanied with guitar, he has written and performed French and English ballads and love songs. His website is: www.billboudreau.com

Book preview

Interlude

(Previously published in The LLI Review, Sept. 2011 issue)

Abstract

Having survived the fast-moving, high-tech evolution/revolution from the late 1960s to 2000, a time when personal aspirations rarely blossomed, brought me at an interlude, a phase in my life when I launched deeply rooted desires for self-expression.

I left the commercial workforce—conventionally labeled retirement—in 2000 at age 62 and stepped into a time I had not anticipated would ever occur—a time to explore my aspirations. Since then, I’ve learned and brought to fruition curiosities to a level, a state of satisfaction, higher than any in my entire professional, corporate career life.

No, I haven’t won a Nobel Prize, or a Pulitzer, or have been acclaimed nationally or worldwide. Nor have I been noticed for achievements beyond what I feel in my heart and immediate surroundings—if recognized at all. These are not my expectations, although it would be gratifying if it did occur.

However, finding myself with a mind free to wander, a flame ignited and launched me on the path toward self-actualization—a goal not reached, not even close, during all my working years. Not that the desire to venture in the creative universe did not ferment deep within or was dormant while committed to corporate discipline—realizing dreams of others. Over the years, prior to leaving the commercial world, in the crevices of my brain, I could hear a distant voice saying, Come rescue me, let me out.

Today, these attainments do not generate money, and I do not expect that they will in the future in significant amount. That’s not important to me at this time. I do them because I love the creative process and the challenge of discovering new venues, new settings, new landscapes, and new horizons. It’s what makes me want to get going in the mornings. Even in my sleep, I think of what I’m going to do the next day, how I’m going to do it, solve a problem or how I’m going to improve a process. Often, a spark becomes a flame in the middle of the night.

I still recall, as a child, born and growing up in a remote, small, isolated fishing village on the southwest coast of Nova Scotia, I had limited exposure and access to American and Canadian mainstream cultures. Even back then, I felt the need for self-expression beyond parochial borders.

Before I explain what, I’ve learned and achieved since 2000, I want to express that immigrating to the United States and becoming a citizen was a significant and fruitful decision. It has enabled me to reach a financial state where I do not have to depend on what I do now to sustain a comfortable life.

During this interlude, I fill my time writing fiction, creative nonfiction, ballads and love songs—French and English. With guitar accompaniment, I sing vintage melodies to senior groups, retirement and nursing homes, and festivals. Beside guitar and singing, I compose music using computer synthesizers and Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). A legacy from my working days, I still delve in computer systems and software technology. My wife is not without my support on her eBay business: editing photos and solving system issues. To expand my horizon of knowledge, I attend Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) courses.

In 2000, I plunged into writing and quickly learned that I didn’t have the skill to complete an acceptable manuscript—compounding my insecurity of English as a second language. Obviously, this led me to take creative-writing courses. During the past decade, I have registered and completed courses at a local college and various universities; engaged in many sessions under the guidance and scrutiny of teacher Carolyn D. Wall, author of the novel Sweeping Up Glass. I have, and still do, participate in writing clubs and workshops. One found me at the University of Wisconsin attending a week-long conference, Revising the Novel: Building Scene with Subtext and Symbol, facilitated by Laurel Yourke, Ph.D. in English Literature, and author of Take Your Characters to Dinner. June 2010, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at a weekend seminar, "Write, Publish, Thrive in the Digital Age," I listened to presenters, many of them prominent in the book industry. Donald Lamm, for one, is well known in the publishing world where he has spent his career as an editor, publisher, and is now a literary agent.

In 2006, Booklocker, located in Bangor, Maine, published my first book, Olsegon: Wolfwood Forest and Massacre Island, a Nova Scotia two-mystery novel. Since then, I have polished two more manuscripts by means of Amazon.com’s CreateSpace. One is Disharmony in Paradise, a novella, in which a middle-aged man persuades his wife to go on a three-mast sail ship cruise in the Caribbean, island hopping, hoping to mend his troubled marriage. The other book, Moments in Time, is a collection of 14 short stories dealing with children’s, teenagers’ and adults’ conflicts and resolutions—some good and some bad.

Presently, I’m working on four manuscripts, each at a different