Papua New Guinea
In the late 1960s, Robert and Irene were stationed in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea, a few rugged hours from Goroka. Life there was both breathtakingly beautiful and deeply unfamiliar — woven huts tucked into the mountains, dense jungle paths, tribal customs, carved spirit masks, and villages that felt untouched by time. The mask found its way onto the cover of the book.
These images reflect the world that inspired many of the PNG scenes in They Called Him LongMan — a place where ancient traditions, missionary life, wonder, culture shock, and human connection all collided in unforgettable ways.
Some objects become more than objects.
They become promises… warnings… memories you can hold in your hand.
These wolf earrings carried far more than silver and stone.
During the early part of the Papua New Guinea story, Elyn shares the old Cherokee parable with Robert—the story of the two wolves that live inside every person.
At the time, they are standing dangerously close to a line neither of them should cross.
Later, during their unforgettable night together in Madang—inside a secluded cottage draped in mosquito netting, with the humid air pressing softly against the walls—Robert surprises Elyn with these earrings that were nested in a small wooden box he had meticulously carved for her. Not just any earrings, but wolves. The exact symbol tied to the conversation that had quietly followed them both since the moment everything changed.
Missionaries often traveled however they could, by trucks, bush planes and sometimes motorcycles.
This was Robert’s first ride on his motorcycle. It was a little 125 Suzuki he bought from Keller while building Kellar's house in town. The tiny bike became his transportation across rough roads, steep hills, and muddy stretches carved through the highlands.
Tall and lanky, with his knees sticking out at impossible angles, Robert looked less like a missionary and more like a giant grasshopper trying to balance on a toy motorcycle.
It became one of those small, ordinary memories that somehow stayed vivid long after the bigger moments faded.
Filmed by Robert himself on an old Super 8 movie camera, this rare footage captures a village ceremony deep in the jungle in one of the villages the missionaries oversaw. To me, it feels less like home video footage and more like something that belongs preserved in a museum — a fleeting glimpse into a world that was already beginning to change.
If you’ve read They Called Him LongMan, you may remember the first time bras are mentioned. It wasn’t during a ceremony at all, but over coffee and pastry at the pie shop, as Robert was learning the art of the monthly supply runs, what to order for the missionary families, and what to stock in the tiny station store. Among canned goods, flour, medicine, and tools… bras were surprisingly one of the most requested items.
Sometimes the native women would stand out as Robert surveyed the congregation on a Sunday morning...sitting proud as a peacock with just a white bra on, on top and wearing a traditional grass skirt.
But nowhere did they stand out more vibrantly than during ceremonies like this one. The women especially loved wearing them as part of their ceremonial outfits during singsings and dances. They loved the support provided as they leapt, stomped, and swayed to the rhythm of drums and chanting.
In a culture where ancient traditions and the modern world were colliding in real time, even something as ordinary as a bra became woven into the story.
Costa Rica
When Cole’s restaurant burned, it wasn’t just a scene in a story—it was real. By chance, professional photographer Sean Davis was there, capturing the fire as it consumed everything. It was the largest fire the town had ever seen and remains to this day.
The image made the front page of the country’s largest newspaper, The Tico Times
Some stories aren’t created. They’re lived.
Not every “story behind the story” came from decades ago in Papua New Guinea.
Some were born much later—under the warm Costa Rican sun, with saltwater, surfboards, and a slower rhythm of life.
Milagros offered the perfect beginner waves: small to medium sets rolling in steadily enough to learn, wipe out, laugh, and paddle back out again. Just a short walk away, Cole’s Surf Shop sat right in the heart of town, where tourists, locals, and first-time surfers drifted in and out barefoot and sunburned throughout the day.
Surf lessons became part adventure, part comedy, and part therapy.
There was always sand everywhere, boards stacked outside, sunscreen melting in the heat, and instructors shouting encouragement over the sound of crashing waves. Some people stood up on the first try. Others spent most of the lesson tumbling headfirst into the Pacific.
But that was part of the magic.
Those days—and the people who lived them—inspired many of the Costa Rica scenes woven throughout They Called Him LongMan.
Founded in 1989, the surf shop is still there today—still thriving, still teaching people to surf, and still woven into the soul of the town, and still owned by Cole.
Mt Everest
Las Vegas
Halloween at Tryst—one of those high-end nightclubs on the Vegas Strip! Three of the staff came as Motley Crüe. Daniel's on the left. Noelle arrived to work in a bedazzling jade colored corset --airbrushed on...
And then Becca walked in.
Not dressed for Vegas.
Not dressed for Tryst.
Definitely not dressed for this.
More Salvation Army than Strip.
And somehow… it made the whole night better. Some moments didn't need to be invented.They just found their way into the story.
Wisconsin
There is something almost sacred about old home movies.
The grainy film. The slight flicker of a camera trying to capture ordinary moments before anyone realized how precious they would someday become.
This footage shows Robert with his first born, Becca, nearly sixty years ago. At the time, it was simply a young father holding his baby girl—another ordinary moment in the middle of a busy life.
But time changes things.
The tiny movements, the way he looks at her, the gentle rocking, the laughter caught for only a few seconds on aging film… these moments become more valuable with every passing decade.
Long before phones and digital storage, someone had to consciously decide to pull out a camera, load film, and preserve a moment forever.
Thank goodness they did.
Across the US
Mt. Vernon, Ohio...
Do you remember the moment in the book when Daniel and Noelle are at Grams and Gramps, flipping through old photo albums? They pause on a photograph of two sisters in their Easter dresses. Not every part of this novel was invented. Some of it was simply remembered.
There was something about the Pennsylvania mountains that brought Daniel fully alive.
Behind Grams and Gramps’ home which had been built about 2/3 of the way up a mountain in the Alleghenies, the woods became his playground, his memory bank, and his sanctuary all at once.
Every climb up the mountain carried echoes of scraped knees, laughter, freedom, and the wild fearlessness of being young.
Noelle watched in stunned amazement as Daniel grabbed ahold of a big old vine and launched himself out over the steep mountainside, then caught one of the tall pines before letting go again—dangling nearly forty feet above the forest floor like some mountain-born Tarzan. Reckless. Exhilarating. Completely alive.
And suddenly, she understood.
This was why those trips to his grandparents and Emporium had always mattered so much to him. The mountains weren’t just scenery. They held his memories. His boyhood. The version of himself that still lived somewhere high among the trees.