Our Stories
Peter's Story
My name is Peter Nelson. My next question is, what has been a milestone or achievement in your life that you want to be remembered for? Well, probably the number one thing, and a lot of people will say that would be having a child. I mean, I guess that's your legacy, and you're pretty much guaranteed at least one person will remember you. So, I'd say that was that was one.
You know? I published a novel, and I published a lot. I've written and published 30 books. And of those 30, I've, you know, some were collaborations. A lot were nonfiction.
I wrote four series of young adult books. And so those were fiction, but they weren't really novels. But I did sell one, novel called I Thought You Were Dead about a man with a talking dog. And I because I had this dog named Stella when I moved to town here. And, and it was really, you know, her the loss of her, that made me kinda wanna write this book.
But it's about a dog, you know, that can talk, and the dog helps this guy straighten his life out. And they have they have, my I think one of my favorite scenes in that in that book, they're talking about Darwinian evolution and survival of the fittest. And the guy, he's a he's a writer, and he's talking about how wolves are, you know, are the highest evolution of canine behavior. And she said, excuse me. Can you just stop it with all this wolf stuff?
Because frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing it. He said, well, you know, they live in more, you know, l you know, complex societies, and they she's let me just ask you a question. Survival of the fittest means that you adapt, and you have behaviors and traits that allow you to procreate, more than people who other species animals that don't have them. He said, yeah. That's it.
Alright. How many wolves are there alive in the world today? How many wolves are there? And he says, I don't know. 300,000.
And then she says, how many dogs? And he says, 50,000,000. And she says, so which one of us do you think is more evolved? Well, wolf? Yeah.
I could wolves could hunt deer. Why would I wanna hunt deer? You just gave me half your pizza. You know? So, they have the arguments like that.
And then and then there's a there's a very sad moment, I I warn people, where the dog he's sitting on his porch, and the dog comes up to him and says, it's time. And he says, time for what? She says, you know what I mean. It's time to go to that and to be put down. Because they don't tell you it's time.
You have to make that call. But, you know, I so I wrote that book, and I think when I published that, I kinda had this feeling of, okay. I could die. Not like I wanted to, but I could. Like, I've left something lasting and important.
And, you know, we're still trying to get it made into a screen clip so that it may not be just over yet. But if it was over yet, I would feel like that's kind of the crowning achievement of my writing life. You know? And