Sisters man recounts adventurous life

Bill Birnbaum has always had an adventurous spirit. Now the Sisters man has compiled his account of his explorations in the book "A Lifetime of Small Adventures," available at local bookstores and online sellers.

Birnbaum freely admits that he hasn't always channeled that spirit in the most socially acceptable ways.

"As a kid, some of that adventure got confused with mischievousness," he allows with a twinkle in his eye that lets you know that he doesn't feel too bad about it.

He once flooded the basement of his home - by accident, he insists. He used to place pennies on railroad tracks, positioned so the engine's wheels would squirt them out like a bullet. And his interest in chemistry led to some rather explosive experiments.

That Tom Sawyer-like kid matured, and his adventures became more focused - hiking and climbing in the Sierras, flying and four-wheeling in Baja California and, upon retirement from his consulting business, volunteering with his wife Wendy for Peace Corps work in Peru.

It was after that adventure that Bill and Wendy decided to move to Sisters in July 2008.

"We had vacationed here over the years a number of times," he explained. "I saw Sisters and Central Oregon for the first time in 1988."

After living in Peru, "we were homeless," he recalled. "We said, 'Where are we going?'"

The choice was obvious.

"Every place we travel, we compare to Central Oregon," he said. So that's where they landed.

Birnbaum's book had a very long gestation period.

"I'm embarrassed to tell you, I started those stories in 1983," he said.

He'd often tell stories of his adventures to his sons and their friends and "their parents would always say, 'Bill, you should put those stories into a book.' I guess my career got in the way."

That career was in business consulting, specifically strategic planning. In a roundabout way, that led back to storytelling. Birnbaum published a business newsletter that included a Page 4 "Personally Speaking" column where his adventure stories began to crop up.

"Darned if people didn't respond to those personal stories more than these brilliant business pieces I was supposed to be writing,"

he said.

About a year and a half ago, he moved the storytelling onto the front burner and put together his book.

Birnbaum notes that the subtitle - "Stories of Adventure, Misadventure and Lessons Learned Along the Way" - is revelatory of the content, which is more than a simple recounting of a life of trekking and exploring.

The lessons learned are important to Birnbaum, who discovered that "adventurous activities like climbing mountains are more than just a physical pursuit... they also contain intellectual and emotional dimensions."

Birnbaum counts himself lucky in his life's partner.

"I think a lot of people would like to do something adventurous, but their spouse may not share that sense of adventure," he reflected. "I'm a very lucky fellow. Wendy is every bit as adventurous as I am. Not as mischievous, I think..."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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