P.M. Castle

Colorado Author

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Fun can be a funny thing

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I’ve often wondered about the nature of fun.

What is fun, really? We’re constantly encouraged to have it. More than a barrel of monkeys, if possible. Work should be fun. Weekends should be fun. Theme parks should be a whole lot of fun. And wedding nights … now those should take fun to a whole new level. Even if it isn’t supposed to be all fun and games, life clearly should include at least some fun. At least that’s the message.

Google “fun,” and the same terms show up: a source of enjoyment or pleasure, an amusing diversion. Yet, an image never accompanies the definition. Now, Google digestive system and follow the route from esophagus to rectum. Google warthog and take a good look at the wild African pig, wartlike protuberances and all. Fun, however, can’t be illustrated in a diagram or captured on film — or explained in a few words, for that matter.

An ephemeral thing, fun creeps up when least expected, tweaks a nose and then disappears without a trace.

Don’t look for fun in the obvious places. I’ve already tried, and it’s seldom there. As a child, I searched candy aisles and amusement parks. When I was a bit older, I was certain I’d find fun at Disneyworld. What I found instead was too many Snickers upset my stomach. So did roller coasters. Disneyworld was fun, but also required waiting in lines. A lot. Older still, I looked for fun in bars. I recall fragments of my 21st birthday and drinking something that was orange and served in a pitcher and set on fire. Big mistake. Huge. And definitely not fun.

I’ve rarely had fun at special occasions, either. My high school prom was supposed to be fun. My college graduation was supposed to be fun, too. Holidays like Christmas and New Years are supposed to be fun year after year. The problem is, events hyped as fun free-for-alls infrequently are. And I’ve waited, disappointed, for the fun to begin.

Fun is funny that way. Because places and activities considered dull, even dreary, turn out to be fun. I’ve had fun listing the principal exports of Brazil on a geography test. I’ve had fun at the office on a Monday afternoon. I inhaled so much nitrous oxide during one visit to the dentist, I giggled my way through a root canal.

Most often, though, I’ve had the most fun when I wasn’t trying to have any fun at all. The realization took me by surprise. I remember summer evenings spent riding bikes with friends in the small town in which I grew up. We didn’t have any plans or destination. We were just pedaling and talking until darkness fell and we had to go home. The start of school seemed like a million years away, and the summer break stretched ahead in an endless succession of carefree days. Everything just felt right.

These days, I experience the same feeling of contentment in scuba diving with my family or catching up with friends at a coffee shop — or, on those rarer occasions, writing a well-turned phrase. Neither a picture nor a thousand words quantify the pleasure of those moments.

It’s fun.

Dive right in, the water really is fine

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I have no memory of my birth. I was too young at the time, I suppose. Sixty years later, I can’t help but wonder if birth was like another event in my life — only in reverse.

With birth, I emerged from the fluid realm of the womb and pulled into new lungs a first breath of air. With scuba diving, I returned to an aquatic environment and pulled through a regulator a first breath of air under water. There’s a commonality, though: Just as birth heralds discovery, so does diving.

That’s why it’s been all the more rewarding to combine two of my passions in including scenes involving scuba diving in my second novel. I hope you’ll enjoy following my two protagonists into a cold mountain lake in search for gold bars hidden there more than a century ago by outlaws. What they discover instead is a ghastly corpse lashed to a rock. My protagonists will have to get wet again before discovering the treasure or truth.

Unlike birth, I recall with clarity my first breaths under water — initially in a dive shop swimming pool, then the dark depths of the Homestead Crater in Utah and finally the warm and welcoming sea off Cozumel in Mexico. Each breath was a tentative one in a bigger universe and came with the growing realization of what a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus affords. That’s freedom to explore the vast expanses of Earth accessible only to those with the right equipment — or gills. There’s another benefit no less significant: the opportunity to share the adventure with family and friends.

Scuba diving is nothing if not varied. Each dive is unique with its own conditions, depth and time logged. One dive could be as warm and shallow as the next cold and deep. Visibility ranges from crystalline to murky, from hundreds of feet to mere inches. Calm waters invite leisurely investigation. Ripping currents provide a thrilling ride. A quick dip might take only 20 minutes. A longer foray could extend more than an hour.

Dive sites are no less varied. I’ve toured spectacular coral reefs off the Cayman Islands, giant kelp forests off Catalina and foreboding shipwrecks off the Florida Keys. I’ve plumbed the depths of flooded quarries in Illinois and Kentucky, roamed the halls of a submerged lead mine in Missouri and watched snaggletoothed sharks make the rounds in a massive aquarium in downtown Denver.

Nothing fascinates or rewards more than observing life under the sea up close and personal. Nowhere are the creatures more intensely colorful or more frequently bizarre. Angelfish and butterfly fish dazzle like neon signs with their ostentatious displays. Eagle rays soar as majestically as any bird. Conversely, stonefish blend in with their surroundings so masterfully they remain undetected to all but the most wary passersby. In a place where some animals look more like plants, anemones bloom like flowers and worms pop up like tiny Christmas trees. When small fish swarm in tightly packed schools, they can form gigantic bait balls that roil like storm clouds and blot out the sun.

Jacques Cousteau, the pioneering oceanographer who helped develop scuba diving, famously warned: “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

I say this: Let the net tighten.

Call me chief storytelling officer

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I’m perfectly content, honored even, with my title as editor of the Business Times. Although editor of a one-man news staff isn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds and necessarily requires a lot more than editing. Like reporting, writing and occasionally hauling out the trash.

But I’ll admit it. I’ve long aspired to something my beloved late wife, ever the astute attorney, would have dismissed as ostentatious. Your royal majesty, perhaps. Supreme allied commander has a nice ring to it. Then there’s my personal favorite: illustrious potentate. For that matter, I wouldn’t mind becoming what the Beatles called a paperback writer.

All kidding aside, the one title that actually matters most to me also describes a function, and that’s storyteller. I use that word not at all in the derogatory sense of those skilled at fabricating exaggerations. Rather, I offer reverential praise to those who make connections, convey truths and perpetuate culture in ways great and small.

I love to tell stories. Hopefully, I offer some compelling ones in the mysteries I’ve written about a small town newspaper editor and brilliant history professor.

At work, I love to tell stories about entrepreneurs and their ventures. I love most of all to tell success stories with happy endings because I believe they offer lessons from which other entrepreneurs can learn. Kind of like the morals of the fairy tales that were read to us as children.

Not at all surprisingly, storytelling has garnered growing recognition as an effective form of brand promotion.

Kindra Hall, president of the Steller Collective consulting firm, also possesses a title of which I’m especially envious — chief storytelling officer. She comes by the title by education and accomplishment in both earning a master’s degree in communication and winning a national championship in storytelling. Yes, that’s a thing.

In her forthcoming book “Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences and Transform Your Business,” Hall details the four kinds of stories businesses can tell. They include the value story to convince customers they need what a business provides, the founder story to persuade investors and customers the business is worth the investment, the purpose story to align employees and the customer story in which those who use products and services share their experiences.

Let’s add to the conversation my observation from working more than 20 years as editor of a business journal. Nearly every business has a compelling story to tell. Few businesses tell their stories well. Some don’t even try.

Fortunately, part of my job as editor of a business journal is telling those stories. You could call me a storyteller, in fact. Actually, make that chief storytelling officer.

I treasure stories about treasure hunts

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I love stories about treasure hunts. How about you? What’s your favorite story about a treasure hunt?

The story that invariably first comes to mind was told by Robert Louis Stevenson in “Treasure Island.” What child — or adult, for that matter — can resist reading about Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver and the search for treasure buried by the infamous pirate Captain Flint?

Mark Twain told what I consider an even more compelling story in the “Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” Twain combines in his novel a murderous plot and treasure hunt, both of which are resolved in sometimes humorous and sometimes dramatic fashion.

Treasure hunts also feature prominently in works by everyone from Edgar Allan Poe in “The Gold Bug” to Ernest Cline in “Ready Player One.”

I knew I wanted to tell my own story about a treasure hunt the moment I aspired to write a novel.

“Small Town News” covers what happens when Tucker Preston, a big city newspaper reporter turned small town editor, uncovers a plot involving betrayal and murder. But a second story unfolds after Tucker meets Billie Brownwell. She’s a brilliant and beautiful history professor searching for — you guessed it — treasure.

As if looking for a cache of stolen loot hidden in northwest Colorado by the outlaw Butch Cassidy wasn’t enough, I wanted to raise the stakes even higher. I took advantage of an actual mystery in the fate of some of the rarest and most valuable coins in U.S. history. Of 24 dimes minted in San Francisco in 1894, only nine are known to exist. What happened to the other 15? What if two of the dimes were included in the mail stolen in a train robbery? By the way, an 1894 S dime sold at a recent auction in Chicago for more than $1.3 million. How’s that for treasure?

Of course, there are many kinds of treasure and just as many kinds of desperate searches for what’s truly valuable. What kind of treasure will Tucker and Billie find?