Writers on the Road

Three for the Road – by Mike and Cyndy Cotter From early September 1978 until the end of June 1979 we will share a great adventure with our son Joe. We are leaving our positions as nurse, 3rd grade student and ninth grade English teacher for an odyssey of our own covering the continental United States. This is a dream we have anticipated and planned for several years . Now, through good fortune, thorough planning and hard work the dream is coming true! As children we were both treated to cross-country travel by our remarkable parents. Their spirit of adventure overcame the drawbacks of limited time and finances, rambling wrecks for transportation and large households. When we married and began our own family, we likewise began to travel together: Canada for one week; Florida for two weeks, and California for a full month. Each trip was more exciting, enjoyable and valuable. David and Susan, two close musical friends, took to the road indefinitely in 1977. They settled for a ti...

Good News - Cover Letter and 4 Samples You Just Made My Day Our Amazing Friend Bill The Brightest and the Best Irene Cover Letter- with logo- OK the text needs work, but it’s a good ,positive concept and pitch- and this is before the "ChickenSoup" and "For Idiots" series basted off… how about “Chicken Soup for Idiots” Or "The Moron's Guide to Chicken Soup for Idiots"???? ***************************** “The bad news is- unfortunatlely ,but necessarily prominent each day in our newspapers to the extent tha tmany turn sadly away from the front page display of man’s inhumanity and nature’s disasters with the comment:” I don’t read the paper anymore; it’s too depressing!” To paraphrase Charles Dickens,amidst this very well publicized testimony that our era is “the worst of times”, “The Good News” is that countless inspiring acts of human kindness,compassion ,courage and creativity also make our era “the best of times”. ...

Our Centennial on Earth North American Tour 2000 aboard the “Love Shack Jr.” Back in 1978-79 when we took our landmark motor home trip with Joe then 8 years old ,in addition to obsessively writing songs I kept a hand written journal of each days events and experiences and have not looked back at the pages more than a few times in 30 years ,but the memories are very vivid and were as we planned this turning 50 adventure. ( I’m actually writing this in 2008 as we are doing the preparations for our planned 5 year to start “Quasi Retirement Odyssey and it occurs to me that I never wrote a definitive account for 2000 probably because I mostly listed the mechanical problems we encountered especially the first several weeks!) Cyndy’s weekend position at Harvard Vanguard was being phased out after 8 years; she was terrific at Pediatric Urgent Care, working with a group of MDs,NPs and RNs who ran the range from fabulous and friendly to odd and offensive- and she was ready for a break and a...

Guatemala –Tres Veces 2005, 2006, 2008 Cyndy in particular had always wanted to have a Spanish language immersion experience. We had taken a number of courses in the past (which included a Quincy Adult Ed class with Esternio a creative exchange teacher from Chile- which included the infamous la nerda MaryEllen/ “PREGUNTA???” , even continuing private classes at our home ) - and never seemed to make any substantial progress with retention and it became all the more desirable and useful for both of us in our care for Hispanic patients and families at the VNAB. After I hurt my back we bowed out of a 2 week volunteer effort with VNA RN Gail McArdle and her doctor husband Bob Bach who were very involved in the organizaton “Partners in Health” which Bob had founded in rural Nicuargua; we made a donation and kept looking . We considered Spain (where we traveled to Madrid and Segovia in the Fall of 2004 and loved the experience-but probably too expensive for a month),Dominican Republic, C...

“On the Day After Christmas” – a story and a song… It was 1978. Our home and we survived “The Blizzard”. Disco was “stayin alive” -big time. There was a band called SeaBright with lots of songs and relatively wholesome musical fun for family and friends, performances at Club Passim, a little WCAS Cambridge radio airplay. Life was good indeed, musically and personally - especially since Joe, Lois, Bob and Robbie were safe after a harrowing Hull Gut boat capsizing. Cosmic Whew!!!!!! For several years Cyndy and I had been planning a motor-home trip across North America with Joe. Ours would be an upscale version of our friends David and Susan Haletky’s odyssey; they traveled with a tiny pull trailer for 2 years and had a baby while on the road! After renting our home, selling our cars, taking job leaves, arranging Joe’s “curriculum”, buying/road testing/provisioning our 24 foot El Dorado, a round of good bye concerts, parties and teary farewells on Sept 12...