600 Hours of Edward

by Craig Lancaster

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  One of the things I learned from Dr. Buckley before she retired—and that is another thing that makes this a shitburger year—is that when times are difficult, I need to work hard at finding stability and things that bring me pleasure. Dr. Buckley is a very logical woman, and in the 11 years, two months, and 10 days that I worked with her, I came to learn that I should act on her suggestions. On that note, I guess I should focus on the brighter news that I continue to maintain my daily logs of the high and low temperatures and precipitation readings for Billings, Montana, where I live. I started keeping these logs on January 1, 2001, when it occurred to me that Billings, in addition to having wildly variable weather, has poor excuses for weathermen. Their forecasts are notoriously off base, so I’ve come to distrust what they say. I prefer facts. Every morning, my copy of the Billings Herald-Gleaner provides me with the facts about the previous day’s weather. I then write it down, and my data is complete.

  For example, yesterday, December 6, 2011, the 340th day of the year, saw a high temperature of thirty-four and a low temperature of sixteen in Billings. There was no precipitation, meaning we held steady at 19.34 inches for the year. It’s been a bad year for precipitation in Montana, and a lot of places have had floods, although not Billings. Scott Shamwell lives in Roundup, which is 49.82 miles north of Billings, and his town flooded badly. He said one time that he was going to start driving “a cocksucking rowboat” to work, but I don’t think he ever did. I wasn’t there every day that he was, as our schedules didn’t fully align, so while it’s conceivable that he would have driven a cocksucking rowboat to work, I have to believe that he or someone else would have told me about it. Belief can be dangerous, of course. I prefer facts.

  We did have an oil spill in the Yellowstone River, which mucked things up, and last year a tornado blew down our sports stadium, so it’s not like Billings is getting off light as far as catastrophes go. I guess everybody is having trouble these days.

  Anyway, tracking the weather data is how I maintain stability, as Dr. Buckley suggests. She also suggested that I find something that gives me pleasure. That has been more difficult, especially since I was involuntarily separated from the Billings Herald-Gleaner. I should just try harder, I guess. But how?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photograph by Ashley Stevick, 2011

  Craig Lancaster is a journalist who has worked at newspapers all over the country, including the San Jose Mercury News, where he served as lead editor for the paper’s coverage of the BALCO steroids scandal. He wrote 600 Hours of Edward— winner of a Montana Book Award honorable mention and a High Plains Book Award—in less than 600 hours during National Novel Writing Month in 2008. His other books include the novel The Summer Son and the short story collection Quantum Physics and the Art of Departure. Lancaster lives in Billings, Montana, with his wife.