Suggested Things to Read First

This web site contains an abundance of life stories, humorous anecdotes, audio recordings, photos, and videos relating to Patrick Meadows and his life partner Stephanie Shepard. As a side effect there are tangential stories involving people they knew and cared about and, by extension, people I knew and cared about.

First-time visitors can be overwhelmed with the amount of information posted on this web site, so this page highlights the articles that I think you’d like to read first. Some provide simple entertainment – stories, jokes biographical and semi-biographical musings – while others reflect the impact Pat and Stephanie had on peoples’ lives.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Life without Patrick

• Yesterday We Were Eight – a gathering of friends at Basmati
• Verderol – a scene from one of Patrick’s favorite restaurants
• Modular Story – Carol wrote this lovely piece a month after Patrick’s death
• The Church (by Carol) – an interesting tale of a young boy using Patrick’s memorial as the backdrop
• Memorial video – a long video (around 35 minutes) of Patrick’s memorial in Deia

Patrick’s Earlier Years

• Mayfair Burning – A long story about an episode in town while growing up in the Great Depression
• My Time with Pat – Lee’s story of Patrick in high school and college
• Whistle Punk in Coos Bay – Patrick and Lee hit the open road the day after they graduated from high school
• A letter from my mom – Patrick was accomplished in many ways, in many endeavors but he was not, for much of his life, a good parent
• A letter between dads – I was adopted by my grandfather, who wrote this letter almost a decade after Patrick left his first family behind
• Letter from a 10-year old – The things that were important to me then

Life Abroad

• Billy Sax – an incomplete autobiographical piece about Patrick’s adventures in Turkey
• Zambak – Patrick lost at sea and presumed dead
• The Norman Conquest – One of many stories written by Patrick about Deia personalities
• Ashes – The tribulations of Steve, the neighbor above
• Cassandra’s Favorite Story – this short piece illustrates Pat and Stephanie’s passion for music and includes a link to a longer tale

Poetry

• Tableau #1 – From Patrick’s college days
• 14 December – This poem by Stephanie expressed her greatest regret, that of having to give up her only child at his birth, not knowing that six months after her death he would finally locate her
• A Storm in Izmir – A short work from 1963 when he was in Turkey
• For the Anniversary of My Death (by W. S. Merwin) – Apropo for the day it was posted, given Patrick’s love of Merwin’s work
• She of Clouds and Flowers – A poem I wrote for Stephanie

Conversations and Correspondence

Patrick was a prolific, educated writer and saved many of his letters. In his later years, he and I enjoyed many wonderful conversations, some of which we recorded together. Here are a few samples for first time visitors to enjoy.

• Life Was Twice as Beautiful with Stephanie – Patrick reflects on life without Stephanie, and lost friends
• Nothing Is More Important than Love [R]
• I Personally Have Other Plans for My Old Age – One of many letters between Patrick and me (JP)
• Enough Waxing, Now for Some Slow Waning – seemingly just a “newsie” sort of e-mail, yet with a full-bodied narrative that paints the majesty of his island home
• How Suddenly Our Fictions of Permanence Are Reclaimed
• Have Needle for Record Player. Will Bring. – “Let’s build walls and climb and play and have good talk”
• Messages to Grand Kids – this is a very, very long conversation between Patrick and me (JP) talking about a wide variety of subjects from celebrity-ism to emulating bad vs good, to astrophysics, and much more. Although it’s almost 40 minutes long, I’ve put it on the list because it illustrates the kinds of conversations we used to enjoy and the breadth of his knowledge and understanding of the universe. [R]
• The Whole Point of My Life Was to Meet Stephanie – another long conversation with Patrick, sharing a bottle Scotch at my dining table and talking about life, responsibility, love, and minding our own business. [R]

Short Stories

These are long reads, scanned pages of things he published in science fiction or mystery magazines. I’ll only include two here, but you can find the rest from the menu.

• Countercommandment – Patrick’s first major publication
• Virtue ‘Tis a Fugue – He incorporates his passion for music into his writing

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Note: To help with the management of these articles, I’ve created a new category called First Time Visitor that you can use to step through this collection more easily.

I’ve also set it so that the links above open in separate windows. Normally I don’t do that but I want to make it easy for you to return to this page while browsing this collection.