i just finished this huge project which, bcause it's a book, i will be putting all over this site soon anyway, if not tomorrow. it was a biography of my first cousin, three times removed, a geologist who walked 100,000 miles in the course of his life, mapping the geological features of teh entire north central area.

his name was frank leverett, and he was a kind of hero in our family. for one thing, he was born before the civil war, but lived until world war two - that's not why we loved him, but that was the generation - that lived through the depression - that liked having him around keeping track of everyone and worrying about them. he was pretty stable himself, what with two jobs, one for the survey and one for the university of michigan - and he'd worked for the survey forty-three years, and michigan loved the way he was an extremely knowledgable old guy who would walk the pants off the young undergrads, taking them out to all the sites in the lower peninsula of michigan. when he was retired it was the depression, and he got insomnia, so he went back to work and published another dozen or so things, most of them probably just from memory alone.

his publications have lasted a long time. some, called monographs, were used over and over because of their thorough, accurate maps; an effort was made to save everything and make it accessible, because they were the standard for over a hundred years. in other words, his work is really in his maps and articles, and most of it has survived.

when you write a biography you get into someone's head and really live life through their eyes for a while. somewhere i think frank is watching me and approving of some things and probably not others. for one thing, i don't really know the geology and he'd probably wish he could just explain a thing or two to me. i had to explain how he handled the iowan drift controversy, and maybe i got it right, maybe not. but one thing i did was put all the articles out in one place, where a person with a kindle can click on them and just go and read them, or at least the abstracts. sometimes even the abraacts were over my head. i can just hear frank saying, i wish i could explain a thing or two.

overall i hope he doesn't mind my waving the flag for a while, and letting everyone know that he was a great guy. i think geologists already know. they know, and they already liked him. i'm not sure if that will make them buy the book thoughj Do people really like to read biographies? some do, i'm sure, but i'm not so sure how to find them. that's my next herculean task.

i'm really tired from this whole book project. it was exhausting pulling out all my stops trying to get this thing written. but now that it is, i'm kind of partying in my own mind. i've told a few people. i'm waiting for the paperback to come online before i start my advertising blitz, but once that happens, the world will know. you'll see it here too. i tell all my friends. out there somewhere, someone will read about frank.