Today, this trunk of a body grows another ring. Today, I turn seventy-one. Yesterday, despite the mercury rising only a couple of degrees above freezing and with a coat of snow adorning the ground, I went on a long bike ride. I did this for two reasons. First, there’s almost nothing like a bike ride to help me feel my connection with the world in an exhilarating way. And second, I wanted to make a statement to myself that I won’t yield to the clichés of aging.
When I was a much younger man, I thought that when I reached my seventies, it would be time for the rocking chair and for waiting to be harvested by the Grim Reaper. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every day, I rise to the work I love, to the people who surround me with an atmosphere of caring, to all the challenges that at any age are monumental. Is there a time I would go back to or an age I would prefer to be? Hell, yes, but it will never happen. So with a full heart, I embrace this body and this life as they are for me on the anniversary of the day I was born into this marvelous world, this astounding universe.
Happy belated birthday to you Mr. Krueger!
As I share the same amount of revolutions around the sun as you, I applaud your perspective concerning your emotions on reaching the age of 71.
May you peacefully continue on your marvelous journey through this wonderful creation, with a happy heart and a clear eye!
Thank you for sharing your creative writing ability with all of us.
Happy Birthday, W.K.! Eventually you will disintegrate on schedule like the rest of us.
Happy Belated B-day day Mr. Kureger! Looks like you are riding a RAD bike! I hope so; when I ride mine, I feel like my childhood has returned. Thanks for your novels — I am enjoying them.
I just read my first ever William Kent Krueger book, This Tender Land. OMG! I love your prose, your characters. I wrote in my diary that I “lost my Self” as I traveled with the Vagabonds. Thank you.
I will be 75 on December 20th. Three quarters of a century seems like a significant amount of time to have been exploring this planet and this life. The 70s have been an exciting time, and I’m looking forward to including more of your books in my journey.
Dear Mr. Krueger – I just finished my first book of yours, “This Tender Land,” and was very moved by it. My great aunt was a teacher in the Indian Boarding School system, and I wrote a thesis about her for my degree at theology school, trying to answer the question about why a strong, spicey and outspoken good woman would participate in such a system.
I started theology school, by the way, at the age of 69, after my husband died and I needed somewhere to think things over. I graduated 2 years ago, at the age of 72. Fortunately, I attended a most unusual school, amazingly progressive (Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO).
Which brings me to an outpouring of gratitude that I want to offer to you. Toward the end of “Tender” you write, “There is a river that runs through time and the universe, vast and inexplicable, a flow of spirit that is at the heart of all existence, and every molecule of our being is a part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?” You’ve expressed so beautifully a very powerful spiritual experience I had when I expected to die as I had a brain aneurysm. I was “told” to surrender and felt I could fall back into a river of all the souls and spirits of every being -plants, people, critters, maybe even rocks- past, present and future. It was a river of love and I knew it was God and that I would be lifted up and carried along in comfort, safety and peace, whether I lived or died. You’ve named and described something very real to me, and in such a deep, simple, eloquent way. Thank you.
Dear Mr Krueger,
Happy New Year!
Happy belated birthday. I wish you a life that is blessed with joy and good health. And hope you will treat us to another scintillating novel as the two that I was fortunate to discover and devour.
I work in the secondary school library and sharing my love of books is truly inspiring.
I fell in love with This Tender Land. It is a painting in words. Inevitably, it led me to Ordinary Grace. What an extraordinary delight! Brilliant and evocative.
Please do write another one that we can hold dear.
Thank you!
Dear Mr. Krueger,
Congrats on your 71st ring! Recently, I too turned 71, and after retiring from teaching 11th grade English, have now found the time to absorb and reflect more deeply. Currently reading ‘This Tender Land’ and paused on page 503. Why? I hope by pausing, the book will never end.
Asked my students to make me laugh, and make me cry in their writing. Wish I had had ‘Tender” to model.
Thanks for giving me more to read. Keep writing.
I was introduced to your writing with Ordinary Grace and was so moved by it’s heart-breaking beauty, universal humanity and honest spirituality that I was prepared to be equally impressed with This Tender Land. You did not disappoint. Currently, I am admittedly obsessed with the saga of Corcoran O’Connor. I wanted an opportunity to express how grateful I am for your grounded prose and ideas of values and mastery of crafting stories that draw one in with suspenseful narratives then backs them up with emotional investments is truly sublime. When you sent me on a 30 minute crying jag at the midway point of Heaven’s Keep, I realized that truly great words can move mountains. Happy Birthday to you sir.