My Writing Progress

My loyal readers, I hope my last four blogs I sent had you entertained. 

I discovered through my lifetime friend that using my blogs to express my political beliefs tended to turn him off. I would assume many of you are in the same position. And heaven forbid, I might offend my loyal readers because their views doesn’t mesh with mine. 

Anyway, my writing progress is going steadily forward and I actually went back and did a major rewrite of another short story anthology that is part of the Four Seasons Series. The anthology I even renamed because one of the stories I wrote had the same title and it was confusing for the Microsoft cloud. I rename the book Road to Nowhere. Like I said the stories still revolve around the main character, Mark Marteau and the minor characters that give depth and enhances the readers’ experience and enjoyment. I found the book missing a key element and decided to add a story that I hope when this is published will be the diamond of the book. 

Now, time for good news bad news. Austin Macauley sent me a letter about a month ago informing me that because A Man’s Passion was less than stellar in sales, they released their rights to the book, and I was in a quandary as to how to proceed with this project. Good news is that another company has informed me of their interest in pursuing this book and rebooting it. I’m still uncertain how they want to do this, and they informed me today they want over $3000 for their efforts. Money I just don’t have at this point. 

The Nate Turner project is going as expected. It’s a lot more research intensive because I want the experience to be as authentic as possible. I want my loyal readers and any new readers, who may be into Western books, to feel like this is authentic. Where I’m presently at now is still before the telephone and electric light. It’s still a primitive existence for Nate Turner and his family. 

That’s all she wrote, excuse the cliché. Maybe later this month I might get on my soapbox and do something political. Enjoy your summer. 

Nathen’s Problem

Nathen arrived home and his five-year-old daughter came up to him with a book of fairy tales that she pushed toward him to read to her. “This one, please, Daddy.” She pointed at the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  

He pushed back his brown hair and pulled down his glasses before replying in his usual devious tone, “Honey, you don’t want me to read this again, do you? Why don’t we read something else that’s more realistic and poignant than that. Look here’s the local newspaper. I’m sure there are more interesting stories than a princess who is being stalked by an evil witch, looking for her Prince Charming and boarding with seven little men.” 

“Daddy, please, the teacher wanted me to learn how to read this.” 

“Oh, you want me to read so you can learn how to read? Well, honey, that’s not how it works.” He saw her doe eyed look beseeching him. “Oh alright, but then I will make you read it to me after I read it to you; deal?” 

“But Daddy I don’t know how to read!” 

“Once upon a time there was this evil witch who had this mirror that she would ask “Who is the fairest of them all?” 

“Daddy that’s not how it goes.” 

“Are you certain?” 

“Read it to me Daddy, please!” 

“I don’t have to read it to you, I know it by heart. Do you want to know what happened to Snow White after the happily ever after?” 

“Okay?” She gave her father a questioning, inquisitive stare. 

“Okay, come over here and sit on my lap and I’ll tell you what happened to her.” She took Nathen’s hand, and they went to his recliner and sat down. She climbed upon his lap. “Are we comfy?” 

“Yes, Daddy we are.”  

“Okay now after the prince married Sleeping Beauty, he found the wicked witch in her castle. It turns out she hadn’t died after all. You see the dwarfs made a pack with her that they would allow her to live if they could get some of her magic to use against Sleeping Beauty.” 

“No, Daddy Snow White, not Sleeping Beauty!” 

“Oh, sorry about that. You know they pretty much are the same.” She pouted at him. “Okay, Snow White gets married to the handsome prince. Now where was I? Oh yes, he goes to her and tells her, “I found out about your scheme with the dwarfs, you bad old witch. I want some of that magic too, or I’ll kill you where you stand.” 

“Okay, okay,” the witch says. “On one condition that you name Sleeping Beauty after me so that child will bear my name and be the fairest of them all.” 

“Daddy! Not her, Snow White!” 

“Oh, my bad, okay, Snow white’s husband has threatened the witch with death. Now may I continue? 

“Yes, Daddy, you may continue.” 

“Fair enough,” the prince says. He secretly crossed his fingers behind his back. “I will do that, name my daughter Hazel after you.” 

“So, the witch granted the prince the magic he desired so that too could control Sleeping Beauty, making her his and his alone. 

“DADDY!!!” 

“Sorry, I keep getting those two mixed up for some reason. It must be my old age.” 

“Oh, by the way,” the witch stated, “I understand you have a passion for oranges from the New World. I just happen to have one.” 

“The prince had forgotten about the poisoned apple she gave to Beauty, I mean Snow White, and took the offered fruit without hesitation. “Why thank you, witch. I take back all those nasty things I thought about you.” 

He left her peeling back the rind and plopping each slice into his mouth. It was a bit on the salty side for his taste buds, but he didn’t care as he got on his horse and felt an uneasiness settle upon him and finally the world turned dark, and his form fell off the horse and he became a toad. 

In the meantime, the dwarfs all went to the castle. Each one went into her chamber and had their way with her. She was impregnated and gave birth to seven little girls. Their names were all Hazel Witch. 

“Daddy, what does that word mean?” 

“What in the world are you telling our daughter, Nathen!” The angry shrill came from the kitchen where his wife stood, a crossed expression painted on her face. 

“It’s nothing I can assure you,” Nathen replied calmly to his wife of seven years. “I just told her a version of Snow White and the seven dwarfs after Prince Charming awakens her.” 

“Come on honey, let’s get dinner served. I’ll talk to you later, mister!” 

Nathen overheard her telling their daughter, “Don’t you listen to that nonsense. They lived happily ever after and that’s all you need to know about that story. I’ll read you a story tonight that is much better than that.” 

“Which story is that Mommy?” 

“Little Red Riding Hood,” she replied. “But it will be told a little differently this time.” 

“How will that be?” 

“It’s a secret, but I think you’ll like it even better than what’s in the book.”  

“What does impregnate mean, Mommy?” 

“Don’t you worry about that. You are too young to know those kinds of words.” 

“Did those dwarfs make her sick?” 

“In a manner of speaking, yes she got sick every morning until the fifth or sixth month.” 

“But the Prince was he still a toad?” 

Nathen heard a pause before his wife replied, “That’s another story that I will tell you later, my princess.” 

Tsunami

Kiyo walked quietly on a single lane road near Sendai in Northeast Honshu Island. Kiyo had dreams of becoming an actress one day, and she saw the audition in the daily newspaper. As she walked to the train station that would take her inside the town itself, she reflected on the role she wanted to perform for NO. She spotted her best friend, Junko who stood waving to her, dressed in her customary school uniform. 

Kiyo smiled at her friend, waved back and jogged to her. They exchanged polite bows to each other and walked side by side toward the train station a kilometer away.  

Junko started the conversation first, her framed glasses enhancing her brown eyes. “Kiyo-san, it’s nice to see you this morning.” She noticed Kiyo wasn’t wearing her dark skirt and knee-high stockings like she normally would, instead wearing blue jeans and a light coat that was zipped up to keep the coastal breeze off her slender form. “Are you going to school?” 

“No Junko-san, I’m going to audition for a role of NO.” She stopped and pulled from her satchel that hung from her shoulder an advertisement she removed from the morning paper. “It will be at the Civic theater.” 

“Oh, that is wonderful. Is it a starring role? You are quite good, Kiyo-san.” 

“No, Junko-san it is a minor role as a maid,” Kito replied with apprehension in her voice. 

“I’m sure as good as you are, you will be chosen, my friend.” They reached the train station and saw the train had just pulled up and they both ran to the platform where the usual conductor was checking tickets with his paper punch. He smiled at the two teenagers. 

“Good morning, Kiyo-san and Junko-san. You have your passes?” Both pulled their monthly passes out and handed them to him, a weathered face man with gray hair and smiling brown eyes. “Have a good day. Maybe I will see you this afternoon on your way home.” 

“Yes sir, see you later,” both replied as they boarded the train found a nearby seat and sat down together. 

Both saw two boys their ages walk by oblivious to them. They giggled and Kiyo said, “Oh those two are so cute!” 

“No, they are too immature for my tastes, Kiyo-san.” 

The train whistle blew, and the car lurched forward, and they rode into Sendai, whispering and pointing at the boys between fits of giggles. The train stopped at the station, and they disembarked. The boys went the opposite direction they did and then when they reached the school, both left again as Kiyo continued to the Civic Theater to audition for her role. 

A tremor underneath her feet made her legs wobble briefly. It happened a few days before. According to the news it seemed to be coming from some undersea volcano out in the Pacific, though there were also rumors about the goings on at the reactor at the Fukushima plant, or the North Koreans making trouble again.  

All of this caused Kiyo to worry overmuch about her world around her. She increased her pace to a near trot as she entered the theater. The stage was alit and already auditions were underway. A knot of anxiety hit the pit of her stomach as she slowly walked down the aisle to a seat next to other hopefuls awaiting their turns. 

The others acknowledged her with a smile, but it seemed disingenuous. They had the scripts in their hands and were studying the lines they were prompted to read. An anxious panic rolled over her like a tidal wave and she searched frantically for the director or casting agent. 

She spotted a man with spectacles hung halfway down his nose watching a potential actor perform her lines. 

“Stop, thank you for your time,” he interrupted her abruptly and called out, “Next!” 

“I’m so sorry sir, but I have no script for the audition for the maid role.” Kiyo felt on the verge of being sick. 

He looked down briefly at her. “You’ll do! There are no speaking roles in this part you will play. Unless you are a clumsy fool, I believe you will be fine. Rehearsal is tomorrow at 1600.” 

“Thank you, sir,” she replied. In relief as she respectfully bowed to him and scampered to the end of the theater. 

“What’s your name?” He called out to her in a booming voice. 

“Kiyo Yamamoto,” she yelled back down to him with a bounce of enthusiasm in her voice. 

She saw the time was nearing noon by the time she left the theater. Her stomach rumbled and she knew she needed to eat so she indulged herself by buying a cup of Ramen noodles that she slurped up, guiding the noodles into her mouth with a pair of chop sticks. 

She took her time going back to the school to meet Junko after 1400 when classes let out for the day. She felt another tremor, stronger even than the earlier one, causing concern…” Oh dear,” she cried out getting curious looks from pedestrians who walked by, seemingly oblivious to the vibrations under her feet. 

At two o’clock she met Junko as she came outside greeting each other. “I got the part,” Kiyo exclaimed to her friend. Both exchanged hugs of appreciation and continued walking to the train station 

“Tell me. How was the audition?” Junko asked with excitement in her voice. 

“Oh, it was nothing,” Kiyo told her with a smile. “The director gave me the part by just looking at me.” 

“Were the lines hard?” 

“No, not at all. Then again, my part requires no lines. I’m just a prop, serving drinks to the main characters.” 

“Oh, do they need an extra?” Junko laughed in glee.  

“Oh, I don’t know. I could ask. She absently looked at the clock over the main square that showed 2:45. A sudden rumble was felt unlike anything she ever experienced in her short fourteen-year life. Both girls eyes became wide with fear and acknowledgement when the tremors rocked and swayed as if they were aboard ship in the ocean. They both clung to each other as they fell to the sidewalk. Cars in the street suddenly stopped and many got out and ran in different directions. 

The tremors felt like they lasted an eternity as structures up and down the street either collapsed or loss bricks or facades, windows breaking or shattering and an alarm blaring in their ears. Then it stopped. Both girls slowly got up off the sidewalk and made their way toward the train station. With the exception of horns blaring and that siren wail, it felt eerily serene… 

Both girls noticed a small pooling of water running up the street, and then it ebbed away. Then another, slightly bigger than the last came up to their knees.  

“What is happening?” Kiyo asked. 

A high surf of ocean water rushed into them and over them and Kiyo saw God… 

Petrus

Pompeii seemed like a paradise to Father when we moved here from Rome two years ago. I was named Petrus from a friend who was crucified. Someone apparently mistook him for the heretic who founded the sect called Christianity.  

At any rate I lived in Pompeii, and we lived in the richest and best house of this town. I was seven and had curly black hair and light brown skin like my mother. She had a lovely smile and Grecian nose with brown eyes, like mine. An artist painted a fresco of her on the east facing wall so when the sun arose in the morning her beauty was enhanced tenfold. The harvest moon was waning this night when we all heard a tremor and then the eruption, awaking us all from our slumber. The great mountain called Vesuvius had bellowed and coughed and sputtered these many days and no one paid it an attention. The shaking earth was more a nuisance than cause for concern. We ignored them. 

This evening though a snowstorm of ash fell from the sky, sounding an alarm amongst the residents. Father, a noble and brave man of great stature and large muscled form appeared as determined by this event to remain and defend his house at all costs. 

“Claudius, shouldn’t we at least pack our belongings and leave before the next eruption?” Mother asked. I prayed to our deity, Venus for guidance. 

“No, Julia, we will be safer here in our house. I do not trust the Napoleones. They will come and rob and plunder if we dare leave.” He hugged me close to his chest after lifting up effortlessly. “You are not afraid of this volcano, are you Petrus?” 

I looked at him in the eyes, a kind hazel that had copper flecks in the irises. “If you aren’t afraid, Father, neither am I,” I replied with pride, though inwardly my stomach was tied in knots of fear. 

“You run along and play. You will be fine. Julia, prepare our breakfast. I am hungry.” He set me down on our tiled floor and I ran outside. The sun was up but the ash cloud made it seem as dark as night. I caught sight of the volcano bursting with the anger of Jupiter as fire and smoke billowed from its chimney. 

“You don’t scare me!” I screamed at the mountain. I coughed at the inconvenient ash that fell like fine snow, creating a blanket that was hot on my bared feet. The ash felt too hot, and I ran back inside, still coughing. 

“Are you alright Petrus?” Mother asked with genuine concern in her voice. 

“Stop cuddling him! He is fine. Why are you back inside?” 

“The stuff that’s falling from the sky, it’s very hot and was burning my feet. And it’s burns my throat and it’s hard to breathe, Father.” 

“Oh, very well, go into your room and play then. It is your fault that he is so weak he can’t even go outside with having a slight sting. Julia, where is my morning meal? I am hungry!” 

“On the way,” I heard her complacent reply as I ran to my room The glass that covered my window had become gray. I played my legion soldiers made of clay. I pretended father was the centurion and we invaded the Carthusians. I thought about what Father said to Mother. I didn’t think she spoiled me any more than any of the other boy’s mothers I had befriended over the last couple years. 

Day never materialized and it all seemed as if the world was ending just as the Christian heretics kept proclaiming. The darkness settled on us like a suffocating blanket. I stayed in my room but could hear my parents’ coughs becoming worse. 

I fell asleep and though I thought it was still day, my mind must have decided I was night and needed to sleep. 

“Oh, by Jupiter!” I heard Father’s curse. It awoke me and I ran out the room and before my eyes I saw a horror that was as unspeakable as it was terrifying. Mother and Father had their naked bodies pressed against the door, but it didn’t stop this flood of hot gray flow, of what, water, mud, fire? I screamed at this living nightmare. The door disintegrated, burning through the heavy wood and this flow overwhelmed them. I was next… 

Many Ways To Go

My loyal readers, last night during fiction writer group meeting we were given a writing prompt for next month that dealt with the end of human existence on this planet.  

Here is my personal thought on the subject. We as a species are mortal. We all will eventually meet our personal demise, whether alone or in some horrendously dramatic public spectacle that will be viewed by millions of people around the world. That being said our experiences of the past tells us that the end of the world has come many times to many people throughout history. 

I wish to gauge from you three stories that I will write and the most popular I will present to the fiction writers’ group next month: The first one I’m going to call Asteroid. These of course will be something might occur in our future, though the dinosaurs experienced their extinction from such an event over 60 million years ago. The second I will name Pompeii that historically dealt with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the pyroclastic flow that killed hundreds of people in 79 AD. Finally, third story will be about the tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011. 

Since it is fictional, the characters are products of my imagination, and with the exception of the first story, will be nearly as accurate as I can make it using search engines and other reliable resources. So, with further ado, let’s begin with the first story. 

Asteroid 

I awoke from a terrible dream. I can’t make heads nor tails of it except I felt myself flying and the exhilarating feeling suddenly turned to terror as I saw a deep cavernous hole suddenly appear and I was sucked inside Earth itself. 

I’m Michael Cunningham of Rochester New York. I live in a basement at my mom’s house after Dad left. I work at McDonalds and don’t own my own car. I don’t even drive, relying solely on public transport to get me to work and back. My gen z architype, maybe even stereotype is me to a tee.  

I reached beside my bed and opened a gallon jug of water and drank down a goodly amount, spilling some onto my t-shirt and mouth. My hands still shook from that dream. I crawled out of bed and went upstairs, grabbing my I-phone 14. The house was dark. Mom was at work working for the hospital as a lab technician or something of that sort. 

I turned on the app and watched Sports Center on ESPN. The talking heads spilled double-speak monologues of this team or that team or that sport or this sport, using platitudes, witticisms, quips and simple phrases to keep us dummies entertained and describing the play-by-play highlights as if our teams were the most important in the universe. 

I was about to nod off when someone else suddenly and for no rational reason began telling us of an asteroid coming here to this planet called Earth. It had somehow ricocheted off one of Jupiter’s moons, and like a careen of a cue ball off the six was barreling toward this planet at four hundred times the speed of sound; really fucking fast. 

“Is this for real?” I asked myself. I was thinking but not fully aware of what in the hell I was supposed to do. I wondered briefly if this was what those poor dinosaurs must have felt or thought just as the asteroid that slammed into the Gulf of Mexico. It had to have sucked to be them on that fateful day 65 million years ago. 

“Where is this supposed to hit? Do I have time to pack my bags? Will The Russians launch their nuclear missiles at this thing? Do they have time? Do we have time? What time is the dooms day clock set at?”  

I asked myself all these questions while this talking head journalist with his sober expression sat behind his anchor desk and calmly told us we were all going to die in a manner of hours if not minutes. 

I called Mom to see what she wanted me to do.  

Obviously, cooking chicken soup was out of the question. 

“Mom,” I called her in a frantic, nearly panic-stricken voice. “Have you seen the news?” 

“Are you smoking pot again? I’m at work, in a lab in a basement. I don’t have time to watch TV.” Then there was a brief pause. “Why? What’s going?” She read my voice like a deaf person read lips. 

“I just saw this special report of an asteroid coming to Earth.” 

“You are smoking pot. I knew it! Do me a favor, quit that shit and get yourself a real job. You’re wasting my time with…” The connection went suddenly dead. For some reason I glanced outside through the bay window that faced south on our east to west street and saw this wonderful sunrise. The prettiest sunrise I’ve ever seen… 

Say Hey Kid 

“When I broke in, I didn’t know many people by name,” Mays once explained, “so I would just say, ‘Say, hey,’ and the writers picked that up.” 

The world lost another icon of sports and our own collective memories. Willie Mays died on Tuesday and as Barry Bonds stated on X, “I’m speechless and devastated.”  

For people in my generation, he was the greatest, Tom Brady had nothing on him. Only a select few players could imitate or by some fluke of fate come close to catching “the catch.” Even he didn’t think that was his greatest catch back in 1955 against the Cleveland Indians during game two of the World Series. 

What seemed to set him apart from others of that time period was his charisma, his personality, and his humanity. Though he could have been as bitter as any black man born in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow segregation. He chose not to be that way, which made him such an incredible human being. 

This weekend the Giants are playing St Louis at the ballpark Willie got his feet wet, Rickwood Field. That I’m sure will now be as much a memorial honoring Willie, as it had planned to be to honor the legend himself, who on Sunday declined the invitation to attend because his health was failing. 

However, the outcome of the game, whether St. Louis or the Giants prevail, it is more than apparent we all lost the greatest of all time. I will remember him up to the day I breathe my last breath. 

Happy Flag Day 

There are things—historical facts—overlooked by the dusty books of American History that even I didn’t know about Flag Day. 

A teacher from a small town in Wisconsin asked his students to draft an essay of what they saw in the American flag back in 1885. After that it took two Presidential orders from Woodrow Wilson and Harry S Truman to make it something of an observance, though for many, it’s overlooked. 

Like many who went to elementary school, the notion that Betsy Ross designed and created the first “Old Glory,” is a great American myth. Francis Hopkinson, one of the delegates of the First Continental Congress was actually the person responsible. 

Flag Day is as much about we view our country and ourselves than about a piece of cloth stitched together to form our national symbol. After all, all flags around the world are symbols of each country’s national pride. We Americans have a different view, as I’m sure those citizens there view our flag for good or ill. 

For me, I grew up pledging allegiance to the flag. Every person in this country has done so. Our Constitution doesn’t mention that in their articles, yet it is one of many things in our collective nationalism that we adhere to because it’s expected of our citizenry to honor our symbol that represents so much to so many. 

Being a veteran and older and wiser, I have a view of our flag that might differ from others. When I see that flag, I remember those who fought and died for what it represented, a choice of freedom or despotism when we had to fight for democracy in two horrific world wars in the twentieth century.  

I also remembered how we had to fight to save the union from forces of slavery and what they thought was the right path for our country. The move westward that for right or wrong gave us the land needed to prosper and grow. 

I remember after 9/11 the destroyed World Trade Center Buildings, turned to rubble and yet our flag somehow still survived, as we all did. Do I need to say more? It’s not nationalism that moves me to look at our flag as it’s being raised that I salute it with pride, but the honor I have of serving this country because it’s my patriotic duty to do so. 

The Price of Patriotism 

Back when I was in the Army National Guard, which seems like a lifetime ago, someone asked me how I could be in the military and still call yourself a democrat. At that time, I couldn’t tell him what Adlai Stevenson so eloquently expressed. I actually told him then that I joined not out of a sense of patriotism or call for service but as a way of making money part time while going to college. 

But, as the years rolled by and I left college, pursuing my writing career, which took various turns along the way, I got promoted, demoted and promoted again, and this journey lasted twenty-three years.  

The weekend following 9/11 we were fundraising for the victims, one of my compadres expressed that country western musicians were more patriotic than rock musicians. I wasn’t in the mood to argue his point or opinion. I just thought that maybe he was dropped on his head too many times when he was a kid. 

I didn’t think of myself as a flag waving, jingoist who looked at others with disdain and thought only of my country alone. I always looked at other nations and their people as a place to go and visit someday, take in their beauty, culture and sights that makes them proud of their land. 

I also read a lot of history and learned about others’ societies and had more cosmopolitan belief than many of my brothers in arms or even fellow countrymen I worked with or came in contact with. 

There is confusion between what one considers patriotism and nationalism. They are not the same. Nationalism is where one’s belief is rooted in their country no matter what. It’s a take or leave it attitude. Something I don’t agree with. Patriotism is an idea where we cherish our country, right or wrong because we who have served know the great sacrifice involved.  

Patriotism is not a political ideal or a philosophy of conservative regularity in their cause. When someone else asked me why I joined the Army National Guard years later, I told him I felt it was a way of proving my duty to serve even though I’m a democrat. Patriotism is a credo to serve. 

Recently, within the last twenty years my attitudes have changed to one that sees love of country as, like Stevenson stated, “steady dedication of a lifetime.” It isn’t flag waving in the back of lifted four-wheel-drive trucks that displays not just their belief in country but belief in a single man. 

I don’t know if their patriotism is rooted into something of a knee-jerk response or a culmination of years of living here and seeing its greatness through many lenses. While I watched those true patriots stand at attention on Normandy beach eighty years following that fateful landing, their weathered and worn faces show us what patriotism is truly about. 

A Two State Solution 

Let me see here, since I was born there was one Israel, and the bad people were the Arabs and the PLO who demanded a free and independent Palestine. So, then we get all of these talks and bargaining, and one thing leads to another where finally something tangible appears accomplished and then consequences, both covert and overt happen that derails this entire process. 

It makes perfectly good sense that a deal of a two-state solution become a reality, but Extremists Israelis and Palestinians do not want this to happen. It has become apparent by the timeline of the past eighty years that peace is only an illusion that the extremists wish to avoid.  

Both sides, the extreme right represented by Hamas are hell-bent on the destruction of Israel. Members of the extreme right in Israel have same opinion about those who live in West Bank and Gaza, seemingly prefectures of what could be a Palestinian state.  

Moderation apparently has no voice in this discussion, although moderation would eventually bring about peace this region needs, but unfortunately are silenced by those radicals who speak loudest. 

The adage that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter holds quarter here where it has been a contentious ongoing conflict, not just recently but going as far back as Biblical times. Their voices scream and they pound their chests because now in the extremists’ mindset, there must be only one nation: Palestine without Jews or Israel without Muslims, Palestinians, or anyone else not Jewish. 

I want the two-state solution, but as I stated earlier after the October 7th fiasco—one man’s massacre is another man’s victory—I am neither Arab nor Israeli, Muslim or Jew, my point of view is moot to those who are and look upon us Westerners with contempt and scorn. 

Awkward Times 

As I have mentioned in previous blogs my personal growth was retarded, not because I had a mental condition where I was incapable of learning, but because of my speech impediment and sheer laziness on my part that before I knew it, I was three years behind in my schooling. 

It wasn’t bad, especially when I finally got out of the Special Education program, I had spent a good portioned of my early learning at, to find myself in regular school with “normal kids.” 

Here’s where it became interesting and awkward for me in that time when at twelve years old, I entered fourth grade and also started puberty. Can you imagine my embarrassment upon going into the restroom and seeing preteen boys who weren’t blessed as I was when I noticed I had hair down there and they didn’t. Needless to say, I went last or used the toilet stalls for privacy. 

There were more disadvantages later on, especially junior, and senior high schools where I could not ask a girl out on dates because I was already legally an adult. The girls were at least fifteen to eighteen years old, and anything more than a casual get together at the local Dairy Queen, was more than likely illegal, so I never bothered. 

That of course, caused another issue that plagued me later, rumors that I was homosexual because I hung out with guys and not girls. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. I was and still am 100 percent heterosexual. The rumors, I suspect were created by those who didn’t like me and considered me lacking somehow because of my cleft lip and pallet, my age in relation to everyone else in my class, and my own awkwardness, lack of confidence with the opposite sex that most likely motivated these buzzes. 

As Goebbels, Hitler propaganda chief famously stated, if one told a lie enough everyone would believe it as truth. Hence, years after I had graduated from high school, and even after coming back from college, the gossip of my sexuality persisted. Out of both frustration from these allegations and my own conflict with my roommate of that time—also a man—I moved away from West Richland, ending up in Pasco and later, Kennewick before ultimately coming up to Spokane in 1998.