The Grande Ronde River at Red Bridge State Park. Image credit: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives.

It has been almost a year since My Music Man was released by Bedazzled Ink Publishing. Being a history lover but not professing to be a historian (like Dad) made me obsessive in re-checking historical facts captured within my pages. I was pleased to reference these details – that made me feel better –  and admit when two sources didn’t agree. And now,  twelve months later, the two factual errors I have (so far) identified, are not related to history. Do recall that I did in fact admit previously to receiving my only college “C”  in Earth Sciences (see An apology: to geologists everywhere.)

Can we just leave it that sometimes watersheds are complicated? I feel a smidgen better in admitting my error in knowing that the same guy who identified it just last month was also one of my most valued pre-readers. Not to pick on anyone, but he is a sibling, his first name begins with a P and he is featured heavily in my chapter about carp. He too admitted he didn’t notice it in his earlier readings of the memoir. Is it that I found a rotten source or could it be that my grand love for tributaries of the Columbia clouded my brain, somehow instructing me that Eastern Oregon’s Grande Ronde River eventually meandered its way to the Columbia River via the John Day River? Alas, smarter people will tell you in their sleep (okay, so does Wikipedia) the Grande Ronde is, in fact, a tributary of the Snake before the Snake winds its way along the Oregon and Idaho border to join the Columbia River in Washington.  I feel an extra smidgen better that my own geologist husband also didn’t notice the error during his reading. But for the rest of you, I stand corrected. And sometime in the future, when that second edition is needed, so will My Music Man. Yes, Dave Alt, yet again I admit it. I deserved the C.