Bart Blankenship

One of the biggest gifts my stepdaughter, Julia gave me was illustrating my first children's book, "There's An Alligator In My Backpack." The second biggest gift was not illustrating further books. In that artistic vacuum, I decided to start drawing, tracing, and illustrating my own. At first, I felt it was the greatest waste of time of my life. I'd spend a day sketching and painting, and feel like I had nothing to show for it. I would be better pulling weeds, or cleaning the house, or standing on my head, Anything! But gradually, pictures and stories would come and with that, more books, and T-Shirt designs. My alligator character, Alligatro, became so popular that a friend even starting calling me Alligatro.

"How's Alligatro doing today," he'd ask.

I come from a family of storytellers. The family's real life adventures were loved. Mom when she was 12, coming down the Mississippi River from Chicago with her parents. Crossing the Gulf of Mexico and being caught in a hurricane. Engines and bilge pumps faulting and while getting a tow from the Navy, the cable ripping the cleat off the bow's foredeck and my grandfather having to get out there and fill the hole by strapping a cushion down.

And while, I didn't consciously set out to be a storyteller, things in life seemed to come early. Being stuck in a piece of netting at the bottom of the sea while snorkeling, and not having a dive knife when I was 17. Or my head being lodged between two rocks when I tipped over kayaking rapids in Colorado, all before there were quick release buckles on helmets. Well, you get the idea, when asked how my week was going, how could I not say what happened?

It wasn't like I said, "Let's see what dangerous thing I can do today." It came more from loving being outside, seeing almost everything as adventure, and a curiosity of wondering what was over the next hill, hiking, or around the next bend, canoeing, or over the horizon while sailing. And being mostly self taught, those early adventures, the ones just taken up were the more dangerous ones. But I learned from the mistakes and got safer.

The risks now, at age 67 are writing books that might be really bad, or at least not great. The children's books aren't holding the actual consequences of gently weighting a tiny bit of protection high on Yosemite's El Capitan, praying it will hold, and then falling 125 feet and hitting Dave, my climbing partner. It's not having my son, Kyle, being washed overboard sailing at night and losing sight of him in the gale, but then turning the boat around and three of us hauling him back in. (Perhaps, those gripping tales will become books in the future.) What writing books now is choosing to sit at the sketch pad or keyboard and choosing to focus on something likely of very little value over crewing a tall ship across the Pacific or even captioning my own boat around the world. It's a different mindset and risk. And I don't think it's from getting old or slowing down. It's hard to be really objective here. In grappling with these choices I'm reminded of a journal assignment I've given my Outward Bound students. It's this: If you only had a few minutes to live what would you want to say or write or do? What story would you tell?