Finding George Washington by Bill Zarchy

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Five Things You’d Never Guess About Me

1. For my first few decades, I hated basketball with a passion. That's what happens when you grow up very tall — so everyone assumes you’re good at basketball — and you’re not. After fielding a steady diet of “Wow, you’re so tall. Can you dunk? You must be great at basketball!” all my life, I grew to hate the mere mention of the sport and avoided watching it on any level … until the Golden State Warriors got good a few years ago. Since then, I can’t not watch the games! Yes, I know, I am the very definition of a fair-weather fan. Besides dealing with the “you’re so tall” thing since age six, I’ve also learned to hate its clever brother-phrase, “Say, how’s the weather up there?” which I usually hear from blue-haired ladies about four feet tall who need help getting an anvil down from a high closet shelf.

2. I’m over-educated. I grew up in the New York suburbs with a sense of Ivy League entitlement, groomed by a cousin for Princeton. When I didn’t get in there, I was crushed, but ended up majoring in government at Dartmouth, with an eye toward law school and a career in Washington, perhaps on Capitol Hill. None of that happened. After college, I taught high school social studies in Vermont for a couple of years, then moved to California and studied film at Stanford. That got me to the Bay Area, my home base ever since, and into a career in the film business.

3. In over 40 years as a cinematographer, I shot film and video projects in 30 different countries on six continents, and in nearly every state.

4. Since retiring from the film business about six years ago, I’ve reinvented myself in various ways. In 2018, I produced and performed a one-man storytelling show called Billy Solo. In 2019, I curated and hung my first photo exhibition. And in 2020, I published my first novel, Finding George Washington: A Time Travel Tale.

5. I’ve met six presidents in my work and shot five of them. Uh, wanna know more? During my senior year in college, Nixon came to New Hampshire during the presidential primary campaign. Another student journalist and I covered the story of his appearance at a local school, then had a moment to chat with him afterward. But no cameras. On the other hand, I filmed Reagan in his Sacramento office, endorsing a state apprenticeship training film I was producing for my Stanford thesis project. I grabbed a few shots of Bush the Elder in a parking lot at Disney World with Michael Eisner. And for the West Wing Documentary Special, I shot interviews with Presidents Clinton in New York, Carter in Atlanta, and Ford in Rancho Mirage. So I’ve met six presidents, but shot just five. Only Nixon got away.

On a freezing night in 1778, General George Washington vanishes. Walking away from the Valley Forge encampment, he takes a fall and is knocked unconscious, only to reappear at a dog park on San Francisco Bay—in the summer of 2014.

Washington befriends two Berkeley twenty-somethings who help him cope with the astonishing—and often comical—surprises of the twenty-first century.

Washington’s absence from Valley Forge, however, is not without serious consequences. As the world rapidly devolves around them—and their beloved Giants fight to salvage a disappointing season—George, Tim, and Matt are catapulted on a race across America to find a way to get George back to 1778.

Equal parts time travel tale, thriller, and baseball saga, Finding George Washington is a gripping, humorous, and entertaining look at what happens when past and present collide in the 9th inning, with the bases loaded and no one warming up in the bullpen.

Read an Excerpt

Paranoia

Chow stopped and glanced at his watch. He looked stricken.

“I have to go.”

“Go? How can you go now? I have a million questions! Where is the time machine? Can I see it?”

“In time, Tim, I have no doubt that you’ll see it.

“You can’t show it to me now?”

“I don’t have it with me,” he said, with careful sarcasm. “It’s not something that fits in your pocket.”

“What’s in the bag? Did you bring a laptop?”

“Yes, but it’s not for that. There’s something else I was going to show you, but I’ve spent far too much time explaining and not enough time planning. You’d be surprised to learn how little you really need to know.”

“Really? How could I possibly know how little I need to know, when, as it stands, I don’t know a damn thing?”

Chow shrugged. “You speak in riddles, grasshopper. The point is, for today I’ve run out of time.”

“What do we do with the General? How much danger is he in? And how about the rest of us?”

I had told Chow about Aunt Rachel’s hit-and-run “accident” and wondered aloud if it had been intended as an attack on George. I was desperate to resolve something, afraid that after this incredible tale Chow would slip away, and I’d never see him again.

“We still need to figure out what to do, Tim. The consequences of his not returning to Valley Forge are huge, as you can guess. We must get him back there. And soon.”

“Frankly, Mr. Chow, I fail to see why this is my problem. Why don’t you take him with you now?”

He smiled. “That does seem like it would be simple, doesn’t it? But there are dark forces at work, and we must sit tight for right now.”

About the Author:

Bill Zarchy filmed projects on six continents during his 40 years as a cinematographer, captured in his first book, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil. Now he writes novels, takes photos, and talks of many things.

Bill’s career includes filming three former presidents for the Emmy-winning West Wing Documentary Special, the Grammy-winning Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, feature films Conceiving Ada and Read You Like A Book, PBS science series Closer to Truth, musical performances as diverse as the Grateful Dead, Weird Al Yankovic, and Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and countless high-end projects for technology and medical companies.

His tales from the road, personal essays, and technical articles have appeared in Travelers’ Tales and Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers, and American Cinematographer, Emmy, and other trade magazines.

Bill has a BA in Government from Dartmouth and an MA in Film from Stanford. He taught Advanced Cinematography at San Francisco State for twelve years. He is a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and a graduate of the EPIC Storytelling Program at Stagebridge in Oakland. This is his first novel.

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Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984919120/
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NXXNLBB/
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