Greetings Loyal Airmen, this week we want to share with you someone very special in our life.  Someone who arrived when things were at their worst in the Air Chief's past and forever changed it for the better. As most of you know, the Air Chief is a person of deep, abiding faith.  Such faith is a gift from God. You can't earn it, you have to pray for it and then accept it with daily gratitude. That faith has taught us about the “angels” God sends our way when times are bad.  So allow us to tell you a story, a true tale about such an angel.

Many years ago, our first marriage was over and we found ourselves cast adrift, feeling like a complete and utter failure.  Seeing our children in pain at their parents breaking up, unable to console them, we were guilt ridden and many nights fell asleep in tears, wishing we could simply cease to be.  Truly, we wanted to die.  Seeing our distress, someone very close to us suggested we pray to God.  Having no better answer, we took that advice, it was a drowning soul's last desperate action.  Then one day a letter arrived from this very sweet old lady who lived in Chireno, Texas.  Her name was Ardath Mayhar; a writer who belonged to the same writers club as the Air Chief.  Now keep in mind, at this stage in our career, we had published a few comic book stories, but that was all.  Whereas Ardath had been a writing teacher, manager of a bookstore and author of several fantasy novels.

                        
                               FANTASY AUTHOR ARDATH MAYHAR
Somehow in my letters, she was able to glean that we were in pain and had lost our way. Out of the blue she suggested we come up with a plot for a book and she would help us to write it.  We would do it together.  Having nothing to lose, we followed her lead and within a few weeks were busily at work on what would eventually become our first published book.  The Air Chief would write a few chapters, send the manuscript to Ardath and she would do the next few chapters. This was way before the days of the internet.  Within six months we had completed  TRAIL OF THE SEAHAWKS.  And as exciting as that was for this first time book writer, our life had also begun to course-correct.  We had begun dating again, our children were coming to understand that their father had not abandoned them and realize he would always love them and be there for them.  And we were going back to church on a regular basis.  Somehow, while lost in the process of creating, God had pulled us back to the land of the living.  Then Ardath's agent sold the darn thing to Windwalker Books, a branch of the old TSR.

When our copies arrived in the mail, we were simply overjoyed.  One of our biggest dreams had been realized and it was all because of an angel named Ardath Mayhar.  She was born Ardath Frances Hurst in Texas in 1930 and shortly thereafter he parents moved to Oregon.  She began writing poetry at the age of nineteen and in 1979 returned to Texas with her family never to leave it again.  She married Joe Mayhar and the two of them raised a family of boys while at the same time operating “The View From Orbit Bookstore” in Nacogdoches until his passing in 1990.  Along the way, she continued writing and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her Author Emeritus in 2008.  During her lengthy career she was a teacher for a writer's correspondence school and helped guide dozens of young men and women along the path of wonder and creativity.  After the success of our first joint venture, TSR came calling wanting us to do another.  We were both happy to oblige them with a prequel called, “MONKEY STATION.”

It too would sell relatively well.  By then the Air Chief's life had completely turned around and things were going super.  We had married Valerie, moved into a new house and the kids were doing great.  When we suggested to Ardath a third book, she agreed but with the kind declaration that it would be our final collaboration as there were many other stories she wanted to tell on her own. That third book was called “WITCHFIRE” and again, it was from the Air Chief's imagination.  It tells the story of a beautiful young witch whose mother dies while she is very young and she is raised by a truly wonderful and kind woman named Mother Kalavela, who becomes her mentor in all things. We've often wondered if, while writing this fanciful adventure romance thriller, Ardath ever realized we had modeled Kalavela on her?  When finished, this particular book seemed an odd duck and the big publishers didn't want it.  Still, we never lost faith that someday it would find a home.  Over the interceding years, Ardath and the Air Chief kept in touch with the usual Christmas card and few kind letters ever so often.  It would well over twenty years later, after the Air Chief & Rob Davis hatched the plan that became Airship 27 Productions that “WITCHFIRE” would finally find a home.

    
                  MOTHER KALAVELA APPEARS ON THE BACK COVER
A few days ago, another of Ardath's many writing proteges sent us an e-mail reporting that Ardath is in very poor health and at 82, in hospice care with her family close by.  Born of rugged, pioneer stock, this lady has led an incredible life and is a fighter.  Yet, if it is the Good Lord's will to be calling her home, to be reunited with her beloved Joe, then we pray her passing will be a peaceful one she so richly deserves.  We have several good friends who are practical people who scoff at the idea of angels, miracles and a Loving God who sends them our way daily. As much as we respect their opinions, we know they are wrong.  We know an angel, her name is Ardath Mayhar ….and she gave us back our life.

Ron – Over & Out!