What was a life event that made you decide on writing a book?
The Festival Of Storytellers
October 24 to November 6
© 2022 by ReadersMagnet. All Rights Reserved
Custom Built by Blue Marble Office
October 24 to November 6
© 2022 by ReadersMagnet. All Rights Reserved
Custom Built by Blue Marble Office
3 Responses
On a dark, rainy morning I was driving a long freeway 80 on my way to my first meeting with my “Go-getters” for the Channel 6 auction. I had volunteered for this event for several years, but this was the first time that I had beensde a supervisor. I was both excited and frightened. As I drove further on, the rain became heavier and heavier. Soon I was driving as if in a tunnel. I could see nothing but the rain obliterating my vision. Suddenly I could see motion and rain was fling onto my windshield in buckets. Out of the darkness a large black car appeared, heading straight. My father had died the previous Christmas Eve, and I spoke out loud, “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you Daddy.”. I felt that there was no way that I, iny little truck, would survive. A grinding crash, and rain falling in on my face
. My glasses were on the dashboard and I picked them up and looked down aty legs. On my left side, I could see the sole of my boot looking back at me. I could see the bone glowing white on the other side. And blood… blood everywhere. As I sat there pinned on the wreckage a voice spoke to me
It was neitheralr not female, and very, very kindly. “Everything will be alright,” I heard the voice say — and I was instantly calmed, though the engine compartment hissed menacingly. It could catch on fire at any moment.
So began my nine month odyssey of pain and healing..
and trying to make sense of the voice that I had heard. Was I my guardian angel, God? I, to this day, still do not know. With so much time on my hands I began to write. Poetry and prose flowed from my pen. Since then writing has become easy to me. I worked as a journalist for several years. I returned to college to get my degree and fell in love with the feel of clay slipping between my fingers. I became a sculptor, creating whimsical dragons and other fanciful creatures to make viewers laugh. Life was good ….
Then the dreaded words from my doctor’s lips: “You have cancer. Again life changed drastically. The cancer is considered to be incurable. It has come back 3 times. For the last 5 years I have been cancer free… but, who knows what the future holds?
It took my broken marriage and a discriminatory criminal system and family courts going against fathers to have propelled me to write and publish my memoir as there is something in it for everyone.
I had been born an oral story teller, used it as sales tool as a businessman. It was not until 1994 that I wrote one down. It was for the Texas State Fairs “Tall Tales” contest. I won first prize and it planted a seed. But it would take an accident in 2010 to give me time to put pencil to paper for the first time. Four months of morning re-hab and four months of writting the rest of the day. First book done, I thought. I went back to real work and book went into a book bag and then the closet. It sat here until 2015 when my wife of 28 years got seriously sick and I became a 24/7 caregiver. Over the next 9 months my wife was in and out of the hospital 12 times. On her second stay, she greeted me from her bed and said, ” Steve I want you to go home, pull the book out of the closet and finish it. The book is our past and possibly our future, so get the hell out of here and get it done.” She passed in early 2016, The book was published November of 2017 I was 70 years old and know she would have loved it and would have been proud.