BOOK ONE -- THE FINAL CHAPTER
Two weeks before I posted Travels with Gerald, I felt it. I saw it. I knew it. The creative flame that burned so intensely throughout the first two months of my writing began to transform itself into a different kind of light. I saw the end of my first collection of stories.
Without any sadness but with much satisfaction, I was ready to put a bow on a very personal gift. The twenty or so stories herein tumbled easily out of my head…they were a joy to see on paper and I was often surprised at the twists and turns that the tales sometimes took.
The stories represent a proud and permanent record of my childhood that, I hope, someday my grandchildren will read. Perhaps they will then know a little bit about me beyond the old man in the pictures they’d been shown all their lives. I was real, I lived, I was a boy in a big city who found love, had children who, in turn, had them. Their future comes through my past.
Perhaps stories of another segment of my life will once again flood my brain and demand to be spilled onto paper. If so, I will record them here. Until then, let this collection stand for all to see and for some to enjoy. They are dedicated to Evan, Bella and Natalie: the newest generation of the life I am so blessed to lead.
The Real Me