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With a rich tapestry of experiences and a love for storytelling, Neal De Geus invites readers to join him on his literary adventures.
Neal’s journey began in San Gabriel, California in 1956 and continued in nearby Artesia, California where his parents purchased their first home in 1960. His novel is dedicated to the memory of the good-natured boy next door in Artesia who although six years older allowed him to hang around. One summer’s day they had a water fight with garden hoses. The next time it was no contest: Johnny had pulled one onto his parent’s garage roof! He moved to Chino and then Lodi, California where he finished high school. Many years later I learned that Johnny Lockhorst had been killed in Viet Nam in 1970; he was only nineteen.
In 1968, Neal’s family, now numbering seven, emigrated to Canada and settled in a small farming community within the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Growing up on a rented farm along the banks of the Pitt River, Neal enjoyed fishing from the log booms and paddling his plywood Joh boat along the shoreline, much like his childhood hero, Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. He recalls seeing steam rise over the cottonwoods from the stacks of the Sampson V, a paddle-wheeler used to pull deadheads and being the center of a spiral of barn swallows as he chain-harrowed.
Following graduation from high school in 1974 he joined the US Army and the next March arrived in Anchorage to serve as a military policeman at nearby Fort Richardson. After earning his civilian private pilot’s license on post at Bryant Army Airfield over the winter, Neal went on to earn his commercial license and instrument rating at Anchorage’s Merrill Field. There were many adventures flying through the mountain passes and over the wilderness of Southcentral and Interior Alaska.
Later, while earning his airframe & powerplant mechanic’s license in Tacoma, Neal instructed from several airports in Washington State, including Seattle’s Boeing Field. During the economic downturn of the eighties he returned to farming. Two days spent sharing aviation with elementary-aged children led to completing a degree in Education in 2000 at Trinity Western University.
Although now a retired teacher, Neal remains dedicated to education and works as a teacher-on-call at local schools. He continues to be active in aviation as a hobby and enjoys taking passengers on sightseeing flights over the lower mainland of British Columbia. He and his wife Katy enjoy spending time with their family which now includes four grand-children.
She alone was what was left of her family, found two days later keeping vigil over the bodies of her two brothers, under which she had remained hidden until the first nightfall. The fury of the Danish Vikings was unleashed by a group of chieftains who rallied, routed the invaders that had remained and hunted the rest back by sea to their own villages. Gunnar had provisioned them.