Somewhere on a lost camera card is a picture of a small overturned rowboat. I thought it looked lovely and desolate along the shore, wild flowers crowding around it and a vast expanse of water framing it, so I took a picture.
Someone else looked at that overturned boat and imagined something quite different—history—the beginnings of Scotland when Vikings roamed the seas and pillaged the land. Now where I merely saw an overturned boat, a Viking ship rules the shore.
Imagination.
We kids grew up in rural Georgia with a deserted house between our school and our house and when we walked that mile—we ran madly past that landmark because we knew it was a criminal’s hideout. We never saw him, but we knew he was there. Just like we knew the old man at the end of the road was rich and had a hidden stash of money even though he ate a can of sardines for every meal; and that we heard a werewolf in the woods; and that the house on another long, red clay road was haunted, and that the snapping turtle in our pond weighed 45 pounds.
Mostly, my family grew up without a TV. When we had a TV, my mother dictated what we watched and scary programs were forbidden. We mostly watched dog and horse shows, along with occasional westerns. I never saw “The Beverly Hillbillies” until I was an adult, and then I bought every episode I could find.
Books took us kids on journeys the TV couldn’t since we seldom had a TV. I rarely got to watch. I was always grounded because of failing math grades. So I sat in my room with an open math book in front of me and scribbled stories in my notebook. I graduated and went to college with a failing average in math following me and dropped out before I had to take math. Instead, I got a job at our local paper where most of the stories I wrote were factual and business and human interest profiles, but where I had my own column to fill up every week.
Imagination.
I love all of Valerie Poore’s books, but her fiction-based-on-fact “The Skipper’s Child,” and “How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics” are two of my favorites and I think of them often. https://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Poore/e/B008LSV6CE?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564986036&sr=1-1
There are so many other wonderful authors. I think of Tonia Parronchi’s “The Song of the Cypress” and “The Melting of Miss Angelina Snow.” https://www.amazon.com/Tonia-Parronchi/e/B00GNTVLG4?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_fkmr0_1&qid=1564986138&sr=1-1-fkmr0
I think of my husband Alan McKean’s historical time travel novels. https://www.amazon.com/Alan-T-McKean/e/B00BR1PM5Y?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564986333&sr=1-1
And my sister’s romances and poetry book, Leslie Garcia: https://www.amazon.com/Leslie-P-Garcia/e/B00B6LK4AI?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_7&qid=1564988961&sr=1-7
Then there’s Victoria Benchley: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=victoria+benchley&i=digital-text&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
And Michael R. Watson: https://www.amazon.com/Michael-R-Watson/e/B001KHVLMI?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564990058&sr=1-1
And Victoria Simcox: https://www.amazon.com/Victoria-Simcox/e/B005HFJL8K?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564990126&sr=1-1
Two fabulous authors who spin imagination into captivating stories are Caleb Pirtle III and his wife Linda. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=caleb+pirtle+iii&i=digital-text&crid=2LW9MQ0NMEBN0&sprefix=caleb+pirtle%2Cdigital-text%2C278&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_12
Sisters Vickie Jackson and Loretta Jackson are imagination building experts with their thrilling mysteries.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Vickie+Britton&i=digital-text&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
Mystery lady Lauren Carr’s imagination is legendary, as are her bestselling books. https://www.amazon.com/Lauren-Carr/e/B001JP4F0Q?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564986833&sr=1-1
Joy Ross Davis: https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Ross-Davis/e/B00BNKKR90?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564987386&sr=8-1
Murray Pura: https://www.amazon.com/Murray-Pura/e/B002IU3O6C?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564987431&sr=1-1
Author Beth Haslam writes non-fictions about their move to and life in France, but her books are filled with humor and colored with imagination. https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Haslam/e/B00RY1OF5Yref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1564998530&sr=1-1
Too many others to list, but they all have one thing in common—imagination. The same gift from God that turned a rowboat into a Viking ship. The same character of God that is noted in the first sentence of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Stephanie Parker McKean 
Bless you, Steph! That is a lovely post and thank you so much for the mention. Imagination is indeed a wonderful thing!
You are most welcome, Val. You belong here. Imagination is a necessity in the world. Imagine what it would be like if it were all numbers and math problems!