Why we live here: Part 300 (more or less)

Every once in a while I happen to find more evidence that Where We Live is very special. Here's a blog post from an editor for the Kitsap Sun who, given the quality of his writing and his evident intelligence, could ply his trade anywhere in the country. Instead, he chooses to live in Kitsap County (specifically Bremerton). I think you'll enjoy this as much as I did. The opportunity to meet people this talented make life in Kitsap County worth all the mist and rain.

Sadly, I have just 39 more years to live

June 30, 2008 by jimthomsen

When my sister and I were cleaning out our childhood home a few years ago to prepare it for sale, we unearthed all sorts of childhood memories — newspaper clippings of teenage basketball heroics for her, spiral-paper short stories and essays from elementary school age for me.

In my third-grade year — this would be 1973 and 1974 — I read our family’s World Book Encyclopedias cover to cover. Seriously. I mean, there were always at least half a dozen of them stacked up on the floor of my bedroom. While the other boys were reading The Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown and the Chronicles of Narnia, I was learning that bauxite is the third-leading export of Mozambique and that Regina and not Saskatoon is the largest city in Saskatchewan and that Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior shot himself in the head in 1949.

What fascinated me most were the World Book biographies of prominent people. There was just something about the way they ruthlessly distilled the measure and arc of a person’s life to its most noteworthy elements. Reading each one was like speed-reading a three-act Shakespeare play. I learned a lot about writing cleanly and economically from World Book Encyclopedia biographies, which rarely exceeded 500 words. I also developed a lot of ideas about the sorts of things I wanted to accomplish in my life, and how I expected one great thing would lead to the next.

So, somewhere in late 1973 or early 1974, I wrote the world’s first World Book Autobiography, in World Book style. I wrote it … and then I didn’t see it again for more than 30 years.

THOMSEN, JAMES ROBERT JR. (1965-2047). Raised on Bainbridge Island, Washington, Thomsen first achieved fame with his critically acclaimed first novel, “Thunder In The Pacific,” published in 1977. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1978 movie, which starred Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum and Eva Marie Saint. Also in 1977, he won the Scripps National Spelling Bee and pitched his Bainbridge Island team to a Little League World Series title against a team from Japan. Critically wounded by Palestinian terrorists in an attempted ferry hijacking in 1979, Thomsen survived his multiple wounds to write a second novel based on the experience, titled “Death On The 2:10 to Seattle.”

While attending a prestigious East Coast preparatory school, Thomsen became a trusted political adviser to the Kennedy family and completed his third novel, “Mystery of the Secret Administration” (1981). Upon graduation, Thomsen was drafted as a third baseman by the Los Angeles Dodgers and enrolled at Cornell University. Thomsen wrote, produced and directed his first original motion picture, “Midnight Boat to Ecuador” (1983), a critically acclaimed spy thriller starring Thomsen, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. He won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor In A Supporting Role.

In 1984, Thomsen was named the National League Rookie Of Year when he hit .328 with 29 home runs and 132 runs batted in for the Dodgers. Thomsen turned down the opportunity to join Sen. Edward Kennedy on the Democratic party ticket for president in the 1984 election, choosing instead to continue baseball and his studies at Cornell. In 1985, he wrote and published “A Is For Asphyxiation,” the first in a critically acclaimed series of detective novels starring Seattle reporter/sleuth McKinley Shepard. In 1987, Thomsen retired from baseball after leading the Dodgers to a World Series title in a four-game sweep over the New York Yankees. That same year he graduated from Cornell and married his college sweetheart, fellow novelist Audra Taylor.

In 1988, Thomsen and his wife bought a 40-acre farm on Vancouver Island in British Columbia in Canada. More books followed: “B Is For Bludgeoning” (1988), “C Is For Conflagration,” (1991), “D Is For Dagger” (1992) and “E Is For the Edge Of A Blade” (1993). He continued to write original motion picture screenplays but rarely acted except for cameo appearances in such films as “Blowup At Mountain Ridge” (1990) and “The Assassination Files” (1992).

In 1994, as The United States declared war on the Soviet Union, Thomsen joined the Canadian military as a strategic adviser and led several U.S.-sponsored spy missions behind enemy lines. Severely wounded and captured by pro-Politburo troops, Thomsen engineered the daring escape of 28 Western officers across enemy lines, under the Berlin Wall and into West Germany. He recounted his heroics in “77 Hours to Daylight” (1995), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Asked again to reclaim his U.S. citizenship and join President Kennedy on the 1996 presidential ticket, Thomsen politely declined and continued his quiet life as a dairy farmer and a novelist. He occasionally rejoined the Dodgers as a pitcher and pinch-hitter until retiring for good in 2006.

In 2010, Thomsen became the host of a popular late-night television talk show, “The Jim Thomsen Show,” and continued it until retiring in 2026. After 26 McKinley Shepard novels, Thomsen began to write critically acclaimed literary fiction, beginning with “Sons Of Our Daughters” (2012) and continuing with “Rain On The Moon” (2016) and “The Queen Of Victoria” (2019). In 2021, Thomsen was severely wounded in a murder attempt at an Ottawa, Ontario book signing by a crazed fan, Temple Rabin, and wrote another Pulitzer Prize winning book based on his recovery, “Number One With Bullets” (2022).

Thomsen then took up sailing and world travel. He wrote “Heart Of The Islands” (2027) about a year spent in New Zealand, and “Sands Of The Peninsula” (2034) about a visit to Saudi Arabia. In a South Sea squall in 2039, his vessel was lost and he narrowly escaped drowning, floating for 47 days on a life raft before being rescued within days of death in the Fiji islands. He returned to Canada in 2041 and passed away on the morning of September 12, 2047 at the age of 82. His memoir, “One Dream At A Time,” was posthumously published to critical acclaim. His death was mourned the world over, and flags were flown at half-staff at both the Canadian Parliament and the White House. A monument to his life’s work draws millions of visitors each year in his hometown of Bainbridge Island.

Yes. It’s safe to say it.

I was one weird-ass 8-year-old.

Now I’m merely a weird-ass 43-year-old.