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Fattig without a paddle Snow falls around Paul and Maureen Fattig and their two dogs Waldo and Harpo at their beloved cabin up Sterling Creek in the Applegate Valley. Former Mail Tribune Reporter Fattig has chronicled his life and adventures in a new book titled "Up Sterling Creek Without a Paddle." [Mail Tribune / Denise Baratta] Monday Feb 27, 2017 at 12:01 AM By Tammy Asnicar for the Mail Tribune Paul Fattig’s recently published memoir, “Up Sterling Creek Without a Paddle,” is subtitled the “Confessions of a Recovering Journalist.” The retired reporter and columnist for the Mail Tribune jokes that he “fell off the wagon,” never really able to kick the writing habit. After a career spanning almost 40 years and stints at 14 different newspapers on the West Coast, including Alaska and the San Francisco Bay Area, Fattig’s last byline appeared in the Mail Tribune in 2013. Meeting daily deadlines at the Trib for more than a decade, Fattig “hoped to find another adventure involving playing with words.” That adventure includes pursuing his dream of writing books. “Up Sterling Creek,” set for release Wednesday, is the first of two books to hit the shelves this spring. The second, “Madstone,” is a 30-year labor of love that follows the saga of two of Fattig’s uncles who evaded the World War I draft by hiding out in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Humor, history and highlights from his newspaper career meander through the 482-page “Up Sterling Creek.” In the book, Fattig recounts the trials and tribulations he and his wife, Maureen, shared as they rebuilt a century-old log cabin in the Applegate Valley. He says it is the tale of “two admittedly slightly deranged folks, each with a wacky sense of humor and strange yearning for an adventurous challenge,” falling in love with and resuscitating an abandoned derelict dwelling that had been given up for dead. Over the years, they have discovered nuggets of history from the Applegate Valley’s gold rush era scattered across their approximately 45 acres, and rediscovered “the love, the laughter and the joy of life” that originally brought them together as high school sweethearts. “Up Sterling Creek” is a love story. The Fattigs spent their childhood in rural Grants Pass and the Illinois Valley. Choosing distinctly different forks in the road after high school graduation, the couple crossed paths again and re-kindled their romance decades later. Married for 25 years, they’ve spent the last 17 restoring the cabin. They have wrestled charred timbers, wielded drawknives to painstakingly peel logs and shooed away feisty rattlesnakes. Fattig says that “living with Maureen is a hoot,” but readers will soon discover that “she is the brains of the outfit.” Her only fault, he says, is that “she has never met an animal she didn’t fall in love with” — which explains the 10 cats roaming the homestead and the two 100-plus pound dogs who take him for a walk each day. All are rescue animals, he says. Maureen’s affinity for “rescues” may have been part of the charm that lured them into purchasing the cabin in the first place. “The place was a mess when we first saw it,” recalls Fattig. “The front door was bashed in. There were dead cars, trash all around, and even an old toilet sitting forlornly out back when we made our initial visit. “After being ravaged by fire and vandals, the cabin was occupied by bats and rats, all itching for a fight. “It was love at first sight.” Fattig says his book is meant to be “Oregon's answer to Peter Mayle's ‘A Year in Provence.’” Mayle’s New York Times bestseller is about a 200-year-old house he and his wife rebuilt in France. Their house was made of stone, the Mayles found several Napoleonic gold coins and “his wit and writing is par excellent,” says Fattig. The difference in the two books? “Our cabin had rotten logs, we found a 1907 Indian head penny and my humor and writing takes a little getting used to,” he says. In his book, Fattig talks of his “Forest Gump-like life.” One of his University of Oregon classmates in 1979 was Ann Curry, who later became a renowned NBC news correspondent. “We hiked up Bald Mountain (outside Eugene) to cover a timber protest,” he recalls. “She was very bright ... and certainly asked more intelligent questions than I did.” He interviewed President George W. Bush in summer 2002, when he made an official visit to survey the devastation of the 500,000-acre Biscuit fire in the Kalmiopsis. The wildfire was out of control, and so the president was ushered out of harm’s way to the Squires Peak fire — a 3,000-acre blaze near Jacksonville. As he stood 15 feet away from the president, Fattig had one eye on the flames racing across the ridge behind his cabin. He also interviewed George H.W. Bush, when he was vice-president. And while “the prestige of interviewing the president of the United States” brings some satisfaction, Fattig recalls that one of his all-time favorite interviews took place in Wainwright, Alaska, an Eskimo village near the Arctic Circle. Waldo Bodfish, the 80-year-old son of a New England whaler and an Eskimo woman, was the village dentist “by virtue of owning the only pair of pliers.” “He was a great guy to talk to,” Fattig recalls. Fattig, 65, jokes that “it is a race between me and the Grim Reaper” that prompts him to climb up to his loft at 4:30 a.m. each day, seven days a week. The early morning ritual is second nature, he says. A former Marine, he was trained to hit the deck at “zero dark thirty,” and after working in the woods as a choker setter and rising early to go fishing, he prefers the dawn’s early light. Fattig has a third and fourth book in progress; both are set in his native Illinois Valley. One focuses on the heroics of firefighting smokejumpers, and the other on the 1960s clash between “the counterculture and the rednecks.” Fattig admits the writing life he’s chosen is hermit-like. And, the cabin is still rustic, “but we love it.” “Up Sterling Creek Without a Paddle, Confessions of a Recovering Journalist” is a publication of Hellgate Press. It will be available in local bookstores, or may be purchased by going online to www.hellgatepress.com. — Reach Grants Pass freelance writer Tammy Asnicar at [email protected].