Bob Mottram wrote his last column, cleaned out his desk and walked out of his office into retirement with a plan lots of folks only dream about.
He and his wife, Karen, bought an RV, sold the family home and set out to see America. A year on the road, that was their plan.
Along the way something unexpected happened. Isn’t that how the good things in life sometimes begin?
An award-winning journalist, this newspaperman of 40 years knew that writing was work. Some days, even if he didn’t like the story assignment or didn’t feel like writing, he still had to. That was his job.
Writing was not, however, an immediate part of his retirement plan.
But as their diesel pickup and fifth-wheel meandered into fascinating spots or he came across an unforgettable character, a compulsion to write for the joy of writing took hold.
Mottram came to understand that such experiences were best savored twice. The second serving came as he sat before his laptop computer and sent e-mails recounting the day’s events to friends and family.
Sometimes the friends wrote back, saying, “We hope you’re saving these stories for a book.”
He wasn’t.
This was a personal journey and, at the same time, his beloved father was on a journey of his own.
As the Mottrams woke each morning with new adventures a couple of hours down the road, his father slipped into a darker, more stationary place: the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Their route south, then east, then north, was always intended to lead to his sister’s home in New Jersey and the nearby nursing home where his father lived.
Once there, he sat with his father, day after day, holding the elderly man’s hand, recalling memories of family life long since past. Mostly his father saw him only as a stranger in a universe shaped by the disease destroying his mind and body.
His father’s journey ended first, months before the Mottrams parked their RV for the last time.
Back in the Northwest and settled into the couple’s modest retirement home in Anacortes, Mottram considered whether those thousands of words written along the way might be a book.
A skilled writer, he put together a manuscript he thought had potential. He took it to a writer’s conference on Whidbey Island where he was part of a focus group.
Writers tend to be tough critics, rarely handing out free attaboys.
The dozen or so folks in the group were polite but not interested until, by chance, he mentioned his father’s journey. That story sparked lots of interest.
Mottram and I come from the same generation of journalists. Decades ago, his journalism instructor told him: “Nobody gives a damn about you, so keep yourself out of it and just address the facts.”
We’ve long since learned that’s not always so.
As a young reporter, he turned down the suggestion that he write about his experience in becoming a father for the first time. “I told my editor, I can’t go there. It’s much too personal.” His journalism school training was deeply instilled.
Looking back, he regrets his decision. “Sometimes going into personal things is where you connect with people,” he said.
“When I became the outdoors writer (at the Morning News Tribune in Tacoma), I eventually wrote a column and put more personal things into it. I discovered it was those columns that won the greatest reaction from readers.”
Given that knowledge and the reaction of the writer’s focus group, Mottram considered a new concept.
Thus, “In Search of America’s Heartbeat” evolved into the story of two personal journeys.
Intertwined with moments as eclectic as America itself — a clothing-optional resort in the Mojave Desert, homespun musicians playing bluegrass music in the Great Smokies, a Waquiu man in Taos, N.M., sharing tales of fighting Rommel in WWII, a misty morning on the site of a Revolutionary War battlefield in upstate New York — are intimate moments with a beloved father.
Reading Mottram’s book, I revisited many of the places we’d seen in our eight years of RV travel.
He made me wish we’d gone farther east.
I envied him his days in Savannah, Ga., (home of my favorite television cook), and so many of the places in the Midwest and along the Eastern seaboard I only know about from books and film.
It was his choice to combine two journeys, though, that makes this work more than just another RV travel book. In those passages, I sense a friend is sharing an intimate moment from his life that he hopes is meaningful to me.
When a writer chooses to give his reader such a gift, it is worthy of respect and remembrance.
Thanks for the memories, Bob.
Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.
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