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Cheyenne . . . The Beginning.
What the Sam Hill (as my father used to say) does that mean? It means the start of my completely mismanaged life. While at Lackland everything was organized right down to when and how long I brushed my teeth. Beginning now I would have a little "private" time allotted to me. Although the Air Force still regulated my life, it wasn't so in your face about it. I was allowed to make decisions and this was new to me. For eighteen years I had had decisions made for me by mother. For the last six weeks the decisions were made for me by the Air Force. Now the Air Force was going to attempt to train me in the strange world of teletype communications, plus crypto, where I was allowed to carry a .45 while on duty.
I was ready for all this new found freedom. Freedom! That is how I felt about it. No more would I be at someones beck and call twenty-four hours a day. Finally I was in charge of myself. How stupid and naive I was to think that. How wrong I was in thinking that I knew all the answers and did not need to abide to any rules. But these points would take many years for me to understand, and in the meantime I fell headlong into the world of teletype, it's coded tape, which, by the end of the school I was able to take the perforated tape and pull it through my fingers and read it like I was reading a newspaper. I thought I was a hotshot.
Man, did I ever think I was in seventh heaven? The communications school they send me to was right up my alley. I took to the teletype keyboard and its intricacies like a newborn to its mother's tit. Later on in my life, and not all that much later either, I would again find the keyboard of an entirely different machine, one which would help me roam this great country, from one city to another, one small town to . . . well, you know, and make a decent living as I did it. Being able to operate with professionalism this machine was always my ace in the hole when I had my back up against the wall. To put it bluntly, I was what they called a "tramp printer," and the machine that allowed me to do that was the Linotype.
But as I settled into a routine in Francis E. Warren AFB, those days weren't even a glint in my thoughts. As I said, this was the beginning. This was the open door to my future and what would I do with it? I had no idea, and the future was NOT something I was worried about. It was the here and now which was important, and although I got through communications (teletype) school in good shape I was forming thoughts and habits which would evolve into the person I would become, most of these thoughts and habits would prove to be self destructive . . .
Chapter 19 coming up . . .
MY BOOKS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Finally! The day is here. Chapter 17 finds me on my way to seeing what lies beyond the city limits of Taylor, Arkansas. My indoctrination into the United States Air Force was lackluster compared to what I had been facing in the Marines. Still, it was such a drastic reversal of my life that it seemed quite radical, and at times, almost unbearable. I understand the reasoning behind basic training where you are treated much like an animal, the T.I's (Technical Instructors) in my case were complete buttheads. That, of course, was their job, but it didn't help matters when one of the two T.I.'s put his face inches from yours and screamed at you, showering you with his spit and rage.
I was one of the unlucky ones who was spotted for a trouble maker as soon as I deplaned on the base. T.I. Knox let it be known to one and all that he thought my job was to be ridiculed, among my other duties as an Air Force recruit. I had thought I would only spend one chapter at Lackland, but it looks as if I need another one to get through basic, before they fly me on to communications school in Wyoming. We'll see.
One thing about writing this book is I am dragging up people's names and faces I haven't thought of in years, many years, like the two T.I.'s Erwin and Knox. There will be more as my life continues to unravel and spin completely out of control. some of these names and faces I won't care to revisit, some I will. Also, there is the problem of not remembering certain people's names. I am not sure how other memoir writers approach that, but I'm just going to be honest and tell the reader I can't remember their names. Is that kosher? don't know. Don't care at this point, I just want the story told.
The story told.
Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is something I never thought I would write. Yes, I knew I wanted to writer a novel about my life, but an autobiography? Never entered my mind. Maybe I thought my life wasn't interesting enough without me fictioning it up. I do know that the main players, mother and daddy, Marionette and Nanette and Dottie, plus the children were one of the main reasons I didn't want to write a "tell-all" book. Like I have said, the fact that all of my children are account for has spurred me on to thinking and doing the memoir. And it is going quite well, which surprises me. The first batch of chapters, the early years, were difficult to deal with and write. But about a week ago everything began to fall into place.
Do I expect for the book to start getting harder as I really get into the core and wastefulness of my years on the road, going from town to town, woman to woman, seemingly on a quest for destruction? I thought so when I began the write. Telling things about yourself, even in a book, that you might not be so proud of is always difficult. But I really feel that I have turned a corner insofar as the writing of the book is concerned. That pleases me, for if I had to deal with the book like I did in the earlier chapters, by the time I got through with it, I would have been a mental wreck. I think who I don't believe that will happen now, is simply the fact that I have accepted the fact that I am going into this telling truth. When you can come to grips with that the battle is won.
Tomorrow . . . Chapter 18, still in Texas . . .
MY BOOKS:Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Chapter 16 is important in two respects. One, I was disappointed again. I had asked someone to inquire from his parents if they would tell him who my real mother was. He did and they clammed up. The other important thing was that, at the age of eighteen, my mother actually whipped me like I was a child. I could have stopped her, but I allowed it to happen without a sound from me. That angered her to the point that I thought she was going to have a heart attack. She had one last beating in her black soul, but she knew, as did I, the beating was not having the affect on me she wanted it to. If I hadn't grown up hating my mother before that night, the beating would have done it for sure.
But it was my senior year. Graduation. Freedom! Leaving Taylor, Arkansas in the broad daylight to rephrase the words to an old song. This was what I had been waiting on for so long. Eighteen! Old enough to join the Marines. Well, that kinda fell through and I wound up in the Air Force. The reason? The Marine recruiter was out to lunch when I came calling and the Air Force one wasn't.
If I wanted to leave my hometown so bad, why did I wait until I finished school, you might ask? I don't know, in those days, in small town America, running away from home just wasn't done that often, at least not around where I grew up. So, I never even thought once about cutting out until I was old enough to do it right. But my mind was dizzy with expectations about what the world would be like when I crossed the Taylor city limits for good. At least I though it would be for good. It didn't quite work out like that, I would be back . . . Many more times.
Looking back now, older and possibly wiser, I was ill-equipped to tackle the world in the frame of mind I was in. I'm not exactly sure what I thought I was heading into, but I do know I wasn't prepared for any of it. I left Taylor with a chip on my shoulder that seemed to grow and get heavier as time went on. I wound up in places I never thought I would. I did things I never thought I would be capable of. I turned into a lost soul adrift on the ocean of man and THAT, my friend, was treacherous and filled with rip tides which almost carried me into an early grave on more than one occasion. It also filled me with hate, self-hate for the most part and thus I came close, again, on more than one occasion, of taking a life, not my own. Misdemeanors and Felonies: A Memoir is about to become something more akin to its name. The fireworks are about to commence.
Tomorrow . . . The United States Air Force . . .
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Truer words were never spoken than what is aflame on the left. "You don't have eternity." Until you have something enter your psyche which is so dramatic and, well, important do these words begin to come into play. And when this important and dramatic thing suddenly, after all these years, appears in your life it is a wonderful feeling and you just can't wait to get started doing it. But this important thing you feel you must do, you have to do, brings to mind questions you really have never entertained before. Questions like what if you die before you can finish it? Unthinkable. The mere fact that life as tenuous as it is could cause you to leave the sphere of the living in the blink of an eye, and this important thing you feel is the culmination of your life's work will not be finished. It cannot happen. Ah, but it could, and you know it. Oh, I guessI have brought this same question up a few times before, but usually only in passing, like, "I hope I have time to get this done." That is an anemic way of putting it. I find myself lying awake at night thinking of the possibility that before Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is finished I could die. Hell, I have enough wrong with me, that any one of a half dozen of things could take me out. Let's see, I have high blood pressure, thyroid problems, kidney dysfunction, emphysema, and diabetics. I am lucky, I suppose, that I live in an age and in a country, where research has made it possible to, if not beat these diseases, at least prolong life much longer than it could in the past. But that doesn't matter, because with all the miracle drugs I am taking, and I am taking a lot, I could go out before I finish this sentence. I'm not getting morbid here, it is just a fact of life, or rather, death.
Chapter 15 took place during the summer vacation between the eleventh and the twelfth grade. A very pivotal time in my history, because of something a little neighborhood boy said to me. What he said drove me into a drunken rage and I demanded some answers from my parents. They did not answer my drunken questions the way I wanted them to, therefore I became violent. Not with them. No, I never struck them, but I did commence to wreck mayhem in the kitchen where our conversation was taking place. That, at least got an answer from my mother, but it wasn't the answer I wanted to hear, because it was a lie. That night served to change the way my parents looked at me. It changed nothing about the way I looked at them, for nothing had changed in my way of thinking. The whispering rumors I had heard all my life had finally been addressed. It scared them and pissed me off, because I was still being lied to like I had always been lied to. It was getting close to the time I would be severing ties with Taylor and all that went with it, but if I thought I had cowed my mother into leaving me alone, within the next year I was to find out how wrong I was.
New chapter tomorrow . . .
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
This chapter is one which begins to come to terms with what is going on in my head as I look forward to checking out of Taylor, Arkansas and taking on the world. In Chapter 14 I am in the eleventh grade and a lot is happening. I have finally learned how to "get around" mother and actually get out there and have some damn fun in life. Oh, she still rules the roost, but her bite isn't quite as vicious as it used to be. Either than or by this time I am becoming immune to it, and have also learned to bite back. She still has a lot of stamina left for lording it over her subjects, there is this brand new child to see after as only Orean Bolton can. Ssshhhhh . . . There will be two more in the next few years. She reminds me now as I look back on it, like some of the movie stars who go around the country and "adopt" babies of all nationalities. She told me once that she would love to have a little black baby. I wondered then why and I wonder why now, because she, as were most people back then, and I include myself, was a racist. Nigger was a word not to be ashamed of in those days, it was what it was. I notice none of her babies turned out to be black, however, and I know her, if she had really wanted a black baby she would have had one.
I know what I expected Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir to be when it is finished, but I wonder if that will, indeed, be what it will turn out to be. When Patricia sent me that email August 15 and asked me if I knew a woman by the name of Nanette Bolton, maiden name Schiavo my world nearly collapsed around me. With my heart beating crazily I managed to look at the email harder and saw the name Patricia Jurek and then I knew it was my sweet little Patricia asking that question. There are few who can relate to how I felt when I realized who it was. After answering a few more question to her satisfaction, we communicated for a few days. The only question she has ever asked me, and I know she must have many more, was did I ever try to find her. Yes, I did. Was trolling the Internet within the last couple of months before she got in touch with me. Anyway, in about a month of communicating with her the book reared it head at me and I knew what I must do. Write what happened to her father which could make him such a full-fledged bastard. She deserved knowing a few things. So I have set out to do that, but what will the book be when I am finished? Will it satisfy her hunger to comprehend? Probably not. then again, maybe. I just don't know. I can only write it the way it happened. I promised myself I would not make myself out to be anything other than what I am.
Tomorrow . . . Chapter 15 . . .
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Chapter 13 was all about the arrival of Joe Steve to the Bolton family. Steve, like me, was not born from my mother, rather he was adopted sort of clandestinely from persons unknown. Again, much like me. That my father had no earthly idea he was going to have another mouth to feed was about par for the course. Mother never was one to consider other peoples feelings when there was something she wanted. It was a case of full steam ahead in Steve's case. I can only assume because I have never been told, but I imagine my Aunt Dick (yeah, it's Dick), who lived in Shreveport, Louisiana heard about some young girl in trouble and was looking for a way out of it and she called mother. Anyway, Steve arrived in 1955 I think. I was sixteen-year-old. It took me a few days to absorb the fact that I had a little brother, let me tell you. And although after I finished high school and left Taylor I came back and lived there many times, so I got to know him and love him. He did me also, in fact there was a time he probably idolized me, but of course the years found a way to tarnish that somewhat. He probably finally realized that Buddy (his name for me) wasn't as fantastic a guy as he thought I was.
Another good day for writing. Yes, it is coming easier, this makes three days consecutively that I was able to sit down and DO IT without much of a problem. I'm beginning to believe that I had so much trouble with all the early chapters because those younger days are more blurred to me than other, later days. Also, the last three chapters, at least the last two, were about things very important to me. The discovery of rock and roll, via Elvis and today's one about bringing little Steve home. Both those situations meant a lot to me, so therefore I was able to recreate how I felt and what happened with a little more clarity than some of the others. Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir as as I hoped, is becoming easier to write. Still, I'm not getting cocky, the tough chapters are yet to be written.
Short entry today.
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
This is a red letter day. I put Chapter 12 together in recod time. I started writing it around 7:00 a.m. and I just finished it a few minutes ago and the time now is 12:55 p.m. This is a good feeling, let me tell you. I have been telling my wife, Dottie, ever since yesterday that I think I have "turned the corner" insofar as how Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is progressing. Today chinched it, I believe, for the time being at lest, I have a good handle on the book. The words are coming easier and I have a better feel about each chapter that I write.
Chapter 12 takes place as Elvis Presley comes screaming onto the world stage and rattles my brain. Actually Jerry Lee Lewis coined the phrase "rattle my brain" in the song "Great Balls Of Fire." But it was Elvis who affected me the most early on. There would be pleanty of time for The Killer, and actually I liked Jerry Lee as a ballad singer rather than rock and roll, but that's just me. The sudden appearance of Elvis Presley on the radio and even television was really something else. I sure had never lived through anything like it in my young life, and I don't think most people even older than me had either. His songs, his in-your-face persona took hold of me and I began to think seriously at that time about about leaving Taylor. I was in the ninth grade and it would be three more long years before that could be accomplished. The book is about to take a drastic turn as I, myself, took a drastic move in my life . . . The begining of my misdemeanors and felonies as it were.
There is something very strange, however that is going on with me as I turn this corner. Although the words are coming, and are coming pretty easily, something is going on inside of me. It is like, as I write the words onto the screen there is a very pronounced "hollow" spot inside my chest. It doesn't exactly hurt, this hollow spot, but it is there and it is real. I have a funny feeling that this sensation will continue as I go continue knocking out chapters and may even start hurting for real. Just now, in fact, I had to get up and take an anti-acid pill because, well, my chest began to feel like indigestion. Do the things I write about, and will write about, cause a physical reaction? I think that it probably will, and already is. For someone to write about his life when his life hasn't been such a steller one can give him pleanty of tension, I can already see that. Can that tension promote chest pains and even eventual physical problems as I write about my life when it really get to be bad? I have a feeling that it also can do that. I don't care. Well, I do care that it could affect me to such an extent that I am unable to continue writing the story, but the "hollowness" and other feelings inside my body will not deter me from my goal, the finishing of the book and its eventual publishing. I imagine I'll go to Lulu for the publishing, they turn out a good product.
NOTES:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Once upon a time I was going to try to write my life story and use this as its title. I still think it is a good title, but have since decided that honesty is the best way to go in search of a title, therefore Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir is the best by far. Because I certainly have committed my share of misdemeanors and felonies enough to fill a book, so here we are trying to do just that.
Chapter 11 is in the can. I am surprised that it is, because I didn't really get started on it until after three o'clock and it is now 5:17. But it is one of those chapters I had assumed the whole book would be like. What I wrote about I knew what happened and all I had to do was put it down. Like I said, I had hoped that would be the way the whole book would be, but so far it hasn't been that way at all. Oh, I knew what I wanted to write in the previous chapters, but knowing and doing proved to be a problem. I am optimistically hopeful that this will be a harbinger of things to come.
Chapter 11 is mostly background stuff about my hometown, Taylor, Arkansas. Some might argue that I should have the background already embedded into the story at an earlier time. There is some merit to that, and I imagine when I rewrite the story I will include more background in the first couple of chapters. But the background I put in Chapter 11 is revelent to the age I was at the time.
It happens to me every time I write something. There is always a point in the writing where I say either I am on a roll and are doing well, or I should chunk what I have written out the window and start all over again. Well, that feeling has taken hold of me today. I feel good about this project like I have never felt before. I don't know how to explain it, except to say that my doubts, however slight, about getting this book done are vanquished. I know now it will be done and I know it will be done in the fashion that I want it. Honesty all around. I don't know if I will write a book that anyone can even read from cover to cover, because this is a different kind of writing. But I do know that my words will be as truthful as I know how to make them. I am not gojng to bash people, except my mother. She deserves my bashing. For many, many reasons. I have brothers and and a sister-in-law who might not like what I have to say about her, but my words will not be silenced. My mother should have never been given children to raise.
Tomorrow is another day . . . Chapter 12 coming up . . .
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
It is raining like hell today and has been since early morning. Well, not continuously, but off and on. My wife and I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon, maybe it will slack up some by then.
Days like today, when I know I have things pending, i.e., a doctor's appointment, or whatever, I find it very difficult to write, especially when the writing involves some very deep, or at least concentrated thinking. I find my thoughts easing away from what I am supposed to be doing and into what is going to happen in a few hours from now. So! Today will be a malingering day, I am afraid. I must have been somewhat delirious when I made myself a promise to get a chapter a day. That's stupid. I'm stupid. Easy for me to say.
I am wondering how, when the book is finally done and published will I feel about it. I am sure that I will feel good if Paula, Patricia and Nick will take the book and find something inside of it which will comfort them and maybe soothe over old worries and downright angers. That is a given that I will feel pleased about that. But what if they don't have that reaction? What if they decide, from my own words, that I am a whining, no-good-for-nothing bum? That could happen very easily I am afraid. Will these thousands of words I will write mean anything in the end? And what about me? Never mind the kids and their reaction, what will I feel after it is all "out there?" There is only three people whose reaction to the book I value and by now, those three people should be apparent.
Still, after the book is close to being published, what will I be thinking? A job well done? Not enough attention to this? Or to that? Too little much said about . . . Have I done the very best job I could have done? Is this really what I want to world to see? Do I really want the world to see my scabs and scars and all of my Misdemeanors & Felonies? Although the only three people I care about how they take the book is my kids, still I know other people will read it. Human nature being what it is, will I care what they think? Yes, I think I will, but I don't believe it will devastate me if they have not-so-nice things to say about it.
Regardless, the book is slowly taking shape. Misdemeanors & Felonies will be finished if I can live long enough . . . Actually, I find myself getting into a hurry. Wouldn't it be a nice (hopefully) Christmas present for Paula, Patricia and Nick? I hope that it would . . . Tomorrow . . .
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
I feel like Yosemite Sam . . . Shooting from both barrels. Well, that may be a little more optimistic than I feel, but I did get through Chapter 10 yesterday and it felt good doing it. I have had the feeling -- this hope really, that as the story progresses it will be easier to write. The further into my life I delve I'm thinking, the more comfortable I will become in the telling of it. This first draft is just that . . . The accumulation of bits and pieces of the whole of the story.
Whenever I write I always print the chapters out as I compose them and read them to Dottie. In that way, between the both of us, we catch things wrong with it, and not necessarily typos or grammar. I am not doing that with Misdemeanors & Felonies, however, because I realize these first scribblings are just that . . . scribblings . . . and the real work will begin on the second draft, which I will then print out and read to Dottie. I will have already inserted material I forgot or decided not to put in the story by that time and the story will begin to start taking shape. By the time I will have finished the second draft I will have probably inserted whole new chapters and made the chapters I already have longer. I am making the first round of chapter short, 5-6 pages, because, first of all I believe people in this modern age do not have, or will not take the time to read fifteen and twenty pages of chapters. As hard as it is going to be to write the story, it is also going to be hard to read the parts of my life with Marionette and Nanette (Yeah, I was partial to the "ette's it seems) to Dottie. She says she understands, but still . . .
Yesterday's effort concentrated on some tidbits of my two grandparents on my mother's side of the family. There wasn't much effort to reach out to the Bolton side of my family. She treated my father's side of the family much like she treated him, with disdain. In Chapter 10 I am on the cusp of the tumultuous teenage years, which was a springboard for how I would be for those lost years where I accomplished nothing much except learning how to operate the Linotype and fathering three beautiful children.
Tomorrow . . .
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
I guess the graphic link is out of order again. Oh well, such small bad news does not dampen my spirit, because Chapter 9 in the can. You just don't know how good that feels to post. Because of being sick so long I have found out that it is too easy to blame that on my non-productive days. The truth is, however, that I am continually fighting each chapter, paragraph and sentence. I can't seem to let go. I know that I will eventually. I'll have to. It may be on the rewrite, but I have to let go.
Chapter 9 was about the little town I grew up in and the growing paranoia I developed as I began to hear whispers around town about my heritage. I already had known since a little boy that something wasn't right with who I called mother and daddy. But as I grew older I began to pick up things from other people and it really did send me into a tailspin. I never let on to my parents that I knew something was wrong, because I didn't know how to. My first venture into that area when I was about six-years-old was met with mother-inspired violence, so I kept things to myself. But I took on a roughhouse persona even at ten or eleven years of age, never mind what I would be when I hit my teens.
I know that I keep beating the dead horse, but this is absolutely the hardest writing I have ever attempted. I am only in my young years, and if it is this tough now, what the hell is it going to be like when things really begin to start jumping? I have a feeling that it may be easier. These so-called "young" years I have alluded to are really the seeds of my rebellion and learning how to be an out-and-out bastard. There is no doubt about it, your formative years ride with you wherever in life you go. If those years have been unjust or just plain bad, some people have the strength and courage to rise above them. Some, like myself, tend to feed off it and use it as an escape clause for the things he has done that he knows is not right. There comes a time when your past needs to be just that . . . Your past. For some of us it is harder to do than with others . . . I suppose Misdemeanors & Felonies, although it is written for my children, may very well be a severing of my past . . . Finally!
Looking for Chapter 10 tomorrow!
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
I kinda feel like the man here beating his fists on the ground in frustration. The second day of my promise to write a chapter a day and I am not going to get it done. I don't even have a page of Chapter 9 written.
Drat!
We had to go to the hospital today for lab work and I had to go to the EKG Department for more prodding and poking. AFter I got back home I fell completely apart as far as writing is concerned. I knew what Chapter 9 was going to be about -- my family -- the aunts and uncles andassorted relatives. I wanted to draw the reader a picture of how it was in the 1950's in Taylor Arkansas. I failed miserably.
It's just one of those things. Hopefully I'll be okay tomorrow and who knows, maybe even get two chapter to make up for today. I'm a little down, so I'm outta here . . .
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
The rat on the left seems a bit impatient . . . So am I. If you read the title of today's posting you may get an inkling of what I'm thinking. I am weary of my screwing around. The hell with it . . . What is so different with Misdemeanors & Felonies than any of the rest of my books? It is non-fiction where the others are fiction. So what? Why am I spinning my wheels and using the old worn out excuse of since-this-is-different-than-what-I'm-used-to-writing-I-need-to-take-it-slow.
BULL!!
This is the only kind of writing I have ever done in which I know how the damn thing is going to turn out. Never mind knowing how it will end, I know every little nook and cranny on the way to that ending. So what's the big friggin' deal? That ought to make for easier writing, shouldn't it? I have everything all laid out in front of me. I have all these notes I've taken for all these many years and all I have to do is string everything together . . . How damn hard could it be, fer christsakes?
Well, harder than even I thought. I kept saying that writing down all this . . . history . . . would be difficult, to say the least. But I have to admit that I didn't know just how difficult it would actually be until I sat down and began it. I have spent quite a bit of energy about mother in these early chapters, because the reader needs to understand the situation I grew up in to maybe better understand me and my choices in my later years. To say that Orean Bolton was a huge corrupting influence on me and the way I thought would be a great understatement. Looking back on it as I am able to do now I realize that I was not aware of her influence even as my actions were obvious to anyone who knew me. Now, of course, I realize that the choices I made, and the flights from anything which even faintly smelled of domesticity, was me running from what my subconscious mind thought of such an arrangement. To me, although I wasn't able to understand the implications of it, I ran from town to town, from woman to woman, in a headlong flight to keep from ending up with anything which resembled the "nice" family I was raised up in.
Misdemeanors & Felonies has taken on a whole 'nother perspective in the last day or so. I have been going at it halfass afraid of it. No more. This is my story. The story which has been lying dormant all these many, many years waiting for me to get to the point in time where I could write it. That time is now. But if I continue to go about it the way I have been; like it is something to be fearful of, the story will never be written. So yesterday I resolved I would not allow anything to get in the way of getting this thing done. A chapter a day. I know that probably won't be set in stone, you know, life has a way of throwing things at you to stop your progress, but I mean to stay as close to a chapter a day as humanly possible.
That is another thing. I feel okay. I'm not sick, except for this hell of a cold or whatever it was which has kept me down for over a week. Still, I am sixty-eight. That in itself is hard for me to understand. How in the hell did I live this long? Anyway. I could go out tomorrow. Or tonight in my sleep. I need to get this damn thing written and in the hands of the four people whose hands I want it in before that happens. It is important to me. It has to be.
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
This is the second day they do not have graphics . . . I like them . . . Maybe they'll fix it so they'll be ready for tomorrow . . . Okay . . . Here I am back putting ther graphis on . . . I'm applauding . . . See?
Today I worked very little on Chapter 8. I called myself making an outline for what the rest of the chapter will be about, because I wrote two pages yesterday. Horsefeathers, as my father would say, since he did not curse, I just didn't work on it . . . Why lie about it? I don't plan to lie as I write Misdemeanors & Felonies so why do it here. If ever there was a damn time to tell the truth it is now.
Sometimes, however the truth is hard to swallow. It may be the case here. It doesn't matter. I never gave my children any part of me except my genes and it hurts me to admit that to the world, but that is what must happen. Will Misdemeanors & Felonies makeup for what they missed out not having a father, their real father? No. That is silly. But I want them to find out, from my point of view, what happened that sent me away from them. It is important to me, I think it will be to Patricia and maybe Paula. Rick? Maybe. I dreamed about Rick last night. Patricia also, but it was Rick and I who was featured most prominently in the dream. Nothing spectacular. No hugs and tears. We just talked and I can't remember what we even talked about. I wrote a poem about it this morning and posted it on www.AuthorsDen.com. I think I'll include it here:
DREAM
Dedicated to Patricia and Nick . . .
I dreamed of Patricia and Nick
We were close and everything clicked
It was a homey kind of a site
We laughed, smiled, everything looked bright
We were somewhere, looked like a home
Although both Trish and Nick were grown
Nick and I spoke, me with some shame
Knowing that it was I to blame
Tension in the air, but it was brief
To my everlasting relief
Unease lifted between us all
I was so happy I almost bawled
Dreams are dreams and that's what they are
But some come true if wished on a star
©October 17, 2007 / Jerry Pat Bolton
Tomorrow I begin in earnest on the story . . . Hell, if I get down with it I might have it by Christmas . . . wouldn't THAT be something?
NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
There is a light at the end of this tunnel of sickness and malingering . . . Although I am still a bit shaky, I feel good considering what I have been through. So good that I went out and bought a big tub of Popeye's Fried Chicken and pigged out . . . First solid food I've had in a while . . . Good . . .
I also did some work on Chapter 8 of Misdemeanors & Felonies, which comes to a huge shock to you (Who am I kidding, I know no one is reading this stuff) as it was to me. I used up a couple of pages to analyze the beginning of the story. In Chapter 1 I told about a time when I overheard a couple of my aunts talking about me, and what they said was not very charitable, especially considering that I was not even of school age at the time.
I attempted, as well as I could, to bring out the fact that what I heard that day and what awaited me after I ran home as fast as my little legs could carry me, never left me. The words of the two women and the treatment I received when I finally got home and told my mother stayed with me forever. From that day forward little Jerry Pat Bolton began to develop a chip on his shoulder, one that he carries to this day. It was a shocking statement to the world we live in that a small boy should never have had to been subjected to. I could never learn to like the two aunts, although I suppose the word hate isn't the right word to use. They didn't know I was there, I mean it wasn't on purpose, but still . . .
Like I said, I only wrote a couple of pages today, but I think they were good pages. After I am away from a project such as Misdemeanors & Felonies for longer than a couple of days it is difficult to get back into the groove, as it were. My thought process refuses to just pick back up and continue like nothing has happened. So I am proud of the two pages. Tomorrow I will finish it up, going back to the early days with Charles, school and all that comes with it.
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Okay, the storm clouds concerning my week-long illness seems to be dissipating . . . Slowly, but maybe I am finally on the mend. Dottie too. I sure do hope so, it has been tough. Still, I'm not feeling good enough to go the the hospital for scheduled lab and EKG tests. I called and postponed them.
The day has been pretty good and I still have my aches and chest problems, but it does seem to be getting better. I haven't been able to concentrate on the book at all for quite a few days, but hopefully tomorrow I can at least begin Chapter 8 of Misdemeanors & Felonies. I am going to try it if I am feeling as well as I hope to be. Sorry this is as much as I can get down at the moment, and I am upset at myself, but can't do what I can't do . . . Tune in tomorrow . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
The sunshine I am referring to is the sunshine in my life. I've been sick so long I'm beginning to forget how I felt when I wasn't. Damn! Give me a break here! For the last few days, until today, I have not had an appetite. I ate, but it was to put fuel in my body, nothing tasted too good.
I don't know what I have. I think it is the flu. When I called the doctor and described our symptoms, homing for some antibiotics, or SOMETHING! she said it was a bad cold and wouldn't prescribe anything but some old cough syrup which we didn't need as we were not having any trouble coughing. Haha! Anyway, I have been trying to doctor it from across the counter medicines . . . It ain't working, Maude.
I don't have the energy for anything. I'm letting things go around the house because I don't really give a shit. Dottie sure can't do it, so it'll just have to wait until I am well enough to take care of it. Misdemeanors & Felonies has taken a backseat because of all this, not that I was sitting the world on fire before the plague visited us. Still, I was doing something. Now I am doing nada.
I am supposed to go to the doctor tomorrow for blood work and EKG, etc., all that jazz, but if I feel like I do today I'm not going . . . the hell with it. It seems this blog/diary/whatever has turned into a whining place and I hate whiners! See you tomorrow . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Still feel rough, this thing just doesn't want to let me go . . . Dottie either . . . It's like rolling dice and everything comes up snake-eyes. Still I've decided to go to the library-sponsored "Authors Appreciation Day" regardless. It might even do me good and hopefully I'll sell a book or two or three. I could use the money. Got a check in the mail yesterday which was payment for Write To Murder from a woman in Mississippi who found me on Myspace. She even overpaid, that was nice of Sandra.
Although I felt very bad yesterday I did manage to go through my notes I've accumulated on Misdemeanors & Felonies and pulled all the ones which pertain to my formative years in Arkansas. At least now I have some sense of which direction my next few chapters will be going in. And I have to pretty much follow the notes and not allow myself to become distracted to the point that I wander off into things which are figments of my imagination. I do that a lot in fiction, but I can't allow that to take place in this personal and accurate writing I am involved in.
I keep thinking that this part, the young years of moi is going to be the worst. I guess I am hoping it will, but even as I say that I know the truth, that everything is going to be hard to put down, knowing people will be reading it and judging my words. Especially my children. Do I want my children to come away from this tome with good feelings about me? Yes, I do. Will I shade what has happened to me, or things I have done? No I will not do that. Am I writing the book so that they can look upon me with feelings not borne out of hate or even worse, apathy? Of course I am. But I cannot paint a picture of me which is not real, otherwise Misdemeanors & Felonies will be a colossal failure and that would almost kill me. But yeah, I can hope my words will give them another look at the man who deserted them.
Deserted them. That is a word I have lived with for these many, many years. It is a hard one to digest. Whether or not I was the one who did the actually leaving, I was responsible for it. And I did not fight to get them back. THAT, to me, is the worse sin, the sin of omission. I sit here and analyze all I want to about what was going on inside me during those times, but the fact was, at that point in time, I leaned toward excitement in the form of what was sweeping the country to that of being married with children. Saying it like that, in print, pains me so that I want to delete those few words, fearing Patricia will read them and think terrible things about me. But if I can't make a true statement about how I was in those days here, in this blog/diary/whatever, how in the hell will I be able to put everything relevant down in the book? So the words shall remain. Patricia is the only one who is reading my words, at least she told me she reads it on a daily basis. I hope so. It makes me feel more connected to her if she is, in fact reading this.
Gotta go . . . Tomorrow . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
I haven't written much in the last few days. In my defense I have been sick with either an old bad cold, the flu or the jungle rot, take you pick. Dottie has also, and hers is even worse than mine is. Hopefully it will begin to go away sooner rather than later. Sick or not, I plan on tackling Chapter 8 at some point today, you can't fill up a book sitting around feeling sorry for yourself because you feel like crap.
The graphic on the left is how I picture my mother trying to climb into the upper echelon of my hometown's so-called elite, which is almost laughable. I am noticing a trend as I slowly compile this book. I am painting mother as a 100% tyrant, with no redeeming features. I also find that I can't help but portray her that way, because that is how I think of her. When my mother was "good" it was always for a purpose, and that purpose constantly was meant to showcase her own self in a good light. I don't believe she did anything spontaneous, she was like a master craftsman in that she crafted her life and those closest to her, namely me and my father, in the image she had envisioned for many years. That vision had to do with disassociating herself from her birthplace, Walker Creek. She was a cruel woman who used whatever means necessary to achieve her place in our small southern town. She never made it, however, although I imagine she thought she had. Taylor was a one-horse town with a one-horse mentality and she never came close to being in whatever passed for "high society" in that small southern Arkansas town.
She had her "good" moments, however, and I assume I will begin to insert some of those attributes of her when I begin the rewrite. I imagine there will be a LOT of revision for the simple fact that as I go along with the writing I find myself remembering more things I wish to include. This memoir is supposed to be about my life, and so it shall. But my life was influenced by many things, not the least of which was my mother's domineering, no, totalitarianism way she ran her household and raised me AND treated my father, who was a good, but weak man. We are all the results of our upbringing. That accounts for a good percentage of why we do as we do. The nation also has an influence on us. Back in the nineteen fifties we were programed to fear the Soviet Union (with good reason I might add) and when I decided to leave Taylor Arkansas to see what the country held in store for me, our nation was in the beginning of a sure-fire revolution. I darted in and out of this revolution, never quite able to give in to the anti-American voices -- That was where my upbringing came into play, the one who grew up in the patriotic fifties -- But I did find out that those days made it very easy to become a wanderer.
All this, and more of course, will soon be in the book . . . Stay tuned . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Everybody in this house has been sick with something not very nice. Actually there are only two people who love in this house, so I guess you couldn't call it an epidemic . . . Uh, oh and there is The Nipperdawg who, for the most part, considers himself human also.
That being the case, I haven't had much luck with Chapter 8 . . . I even missed my daily entry here. But just didn't have the wherewithal to get anything put down on the chapter or here. Today is much the same, especially for my wife, Dottie, but I am maintaining I suppose. Still feel rough, but able to deal with it.
Well, this is short and not so sweet . . . Still feel the effects of the crud or whatever I have . . . I have determined on thing today, however . . . Time is not predictable, so with that in mind I will begin Misdemeanors & Felonies in earnest tomorrow . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Jimmy. My grandson with the cheesy smile, at least that's what his mother says he inherited from her, who am I to argue . . . Gotta love it!!!
What can I say? I've come down with the flu/cold/jungle-rot or something less exotic. Still, Chapter 7 awaits no man and I will be getting into it today. I will be working on it later on in the day. I hate to keep belaboring the fact that I don't know what the hell I am doing with the writing of this memoir of mine. It is taking me some time to make peace with myself for not using dialogue to help carry the book. But I have looked at other memoirs and they pretty much stay with the narrative. It's just that it is so very difficult to break old habits. I am hoping, and will try to work towards that end, that when I finish the second draft I will be able to have someone edit it for me who knows what the hell they are doing. I want this book to be my crowning achievement in my writing life.
No, it is not ego which has me saying this, it is just that I want to record, faithfully, the days of my life (sounds like a soap opera, huh?). Or rather the high and low points of it. The so-called experts say there is one big no-no in the craft of memoir writing. That no-no is do not start at the your earliest memory and write everything you can remember down. I understand the point, but in my case, as in a lot of others I imagine, you have to speak of your childhood, because that is part and parcel of who you are. My take on it is this, although I am beginning my story at a very young age, I am telling it in my voice of old age. Also, I am trying to interject some well-learned wisdom here and there as I go along. Or even stopping the flow of the story to dwell on something which needs to be dealt with.
Misdemeanors & Felonies is going to be, as I mentioned earlier, my crowing moment in my writing career. Whether or not it will be written well, that remains to be seen. One thing it will be is straightforward, cutting through the bullshit to tell it like it was. My reason for writing the book is, as I have also said, for Patricia, Candence/Paula and Nick, plus Jimmy, my grandson because my actions reached out to touch him, however slightly for the simple reason that Patricia is his mother. Sure, I hope other people will want to read it and I imagine there will be some, you know, the people I know either personally or through the Internet.
A preachy book Misdemeanors & Felonies will not be, but if one reads it they may come away with some life's lessons learned. At least I hope so. When writing anything so personal as Misdemeanors & Felonies there must be moments of awareness of life's problems and maybe even ways to avoid the pitfalls our psyche leads us toward. If written correctly this story of mine will not be just that . . . A story . . . Rather it can be a road map with all of the hazards on that road plainly marked, life's land mines identified for the reader to absorb and understand and maybe it will help him in his journey. I'm thinking of Jimmy here.
Is that ego talking? That I am so self-centered that I think my pitiful words will make an impact on my grandson? I don't think so. I think it may be wishful thinking, because I know that life rises up and begins to slap us around when we start easing into our teenage years. So if there is one line in this book that will save Jimmy (and others) pain and suffering the book will have been a success. So you see, Misdemeanors & Felonies, in my opinion, and if I can write it correctly, will be much more than only the addled ramblings of an old man about his checkered and sometimes shameful life . . . Absolutely . . . See you tomorrow . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
The subject of this posting, I'm Not Worried simply means that I don't become unglued when I don't get something written on my project every day. It didn't used to be like that. When I was writing novels if I didn't put out something each single day I feel that I was malingering and it irked me, but you know, some days the words just would not come. I don't have that problem with my memoirs. If I miss a day, or even two days without writing anything it settles easy on my mind, because I know this story will be written and by the projected date of April 2 of next year. I think the reason I am not bothered with my lack of production is this story is me. And being about me I don't have to invent things, just tell it as it was. Even so, doing that can be problematic. But, like I said, I'm Not Worried.
The woman in the photo above is another reason I am writing Misdemeanors & Felonies. Nanette, the mother of Patricia and Nick, two of the other reasons. Candence/Paula is the third reason. We may be on the "outs" these days, at least I suppose we are because I don't hear from her anymore since I told her mother what I felt she needed to know. I know she will come back to me, it is just going to take some time.
I have had people ask me why I put my whole life out there for everyone to see. They tell me that they, too, have done things they are not so proud of, but they could never write about it as I have. To me it is something I did not choose to do, it was chosen for me long before most of the bad stuff had been perpetrated. I'm not much of a believer of predestined events per se, but I knew there was a book in me that was going to say something about how weak some humans are and on the other side of that weakness, how strong others can be. On the one hand, you have people such as I, who has never meet a sin he didn't like, on the other hand you have people such as Nanette. A saint.
Was she perfect? Close to it, but no, she was not perfect, otherwise she might has looked around for a better man to fall in love with. But then, sometimes we haven't a choice, do we? But Nanette did what she thought was the right thing, but she hung her heart on a very confused and desperate person. I had been running as hard as I could toward destruction when she found me at The Crystal Palace Apartments in Los Angeles, during the terrible Watts riots. She saw in me something she thought she would be able to love and be loved in return. I failed miserably on my end of the bargain time and time again. In the face of awful odds Nanette continued to try, to take me back when I would leave, until, when I finally left for the last time I never returned. Not because I did not want to, but because after the uprooted and left New York, where she had to go for help, I could not find her. If you are reading this and wondering if I loved her, and if I did why haven't I said so.
Yes, I loved Nanette.
How could I have not loved Nanette? She was everything good and sweet that I was not and I suppose that goodness and sweetness scared the fuck out of me, I don't know. All I do know is that my steadfast, secret desire to commit suicide by putting myself in every dangerous situation I could find won out over the love I held for this beautiful in body and mind, person.
Well, as people are wont to say, "Stuff happens." Yes, indeed it does. It happened. Some of the players in the sometimes turbulent drama of Jerry Pat Bolton's life are no longer with us, but most of the probably are. I know I am not the only person who has been down that destructive road, but I feel I am one of the lucky ones. I trod dangerous paths and survived whereas some were not so lucky. Plus, in my advancing years I have had the good fortune of seeing the faces of those I thought I never would see. For that I feel God, or whoever is looking out for silly humans, smile big time down upon me . . . See you tomorrow . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
It appears I have brushed off that monster on my back, you know, the one which has had me tied up in knots almost ever since I began trying to write Misdemeanors & Felonies. I have muddled along, writing, but not putting down exactly what I wanted . . . what I needed to put down. I knew why that was, but knowing is one thing and being able to do anything about it is quite another. The monster was, although I suppose I hate my mother (after all these years) as much as I do anybody, I have been hesitant to put her crimes of the heart and soul out there for all to see. But if I am ever going to write about my life, I must include her in all her sadistic vainglory. Today, I took the first step in that direction.
But it's your mother, how can you write about her like that for the whole world to see? Au contraire, she did not carry me for nine months and give me birth. She took someone else's child and compounded my natural mother's mistake by showing the whole world that there might have been a reason why she was barren. Actually, I don't know if it was my dad who could not father children or my mother who could not conceive them. It matters not; in the grand scheme of things the mystical powers that be assumed that Georgia Orean Bolton was not mother material.
That she adopted three more boys and those boys, plus me, wound up on the wrong side of the law should tell the whole world that she was not a very good parent. I'm not cutting my father any slack here, either. Contrary to what the prevailing knowledge is, a dominate father, combined with the nurturing mother is essential to the mental and physical well being of children. And yes, you can point out cases to refute my contention, but it doesn't matter, I know I am right, and since this is not a legal or binding treatise I stand by what I said.
I have given myself April 2, 2008 to have the first draft of Misdemeanors & Felonies finished. That is the day of my birthday. Although there is a lot of ground to cover, after today I feel I can actually get it done. All my other writings, the novels, the short stories and poetry have been in preparation for the writing of this one. Actually it could come sooner than my birthday, but I'm not depending on it. After it is finished will come the rewrite and probably another rewrite. Then, I hope I can find someone to edit the damn thing that will be easy on my checking account, but I'm not depending on that either. We'll see. Again, a corner has been turned today. No longer will I have qualms about inserting parts of the manuscript that does not reflect nicely on certain people. I plan to write the truth.
Today is the monthly meeting of BRAAG (Bayou Readers and Authors Guild). I am happy with our little group. We have finally found a niche (critiquing each others word) that seems to get everyone involved. This is a much needed thing and the few who have contained with the group are very focused and welcome other peoples take on their writing, which is as it should b.
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
That graphic on the left just about sums up what has been happening for the last three days . . . Not much. Don't exactly know why, but Misdemeanors & Felonies has taken a backseat to . . . Oh, let us say . . . life. Or rather the subtleties of life. Plus, it seems I am trying very hard to make the writing of Misdemeanors & Felonies difficult and it really shouldn't be.
At least not the first draft.
The first writing of anything should be more or less a blueprint of what will eventually, if the author can pull it off, a polished and well-written book. Well, I'm not exactly going for the "polished" part of that equation, but I do want it to be written well. Still, I know not to be too concerned with how well I am writing something in the first attempt, I should only be worried about the content! I know this, but I find myself fighting my literary demons, never mind my own, tangible demons, as I go about trying to get this book under way.
Is it because it is different than anything I have ever written? Yes.
It is because it to so very, very personal? Yes. I am finding it tough to go back and get into my life. Hell, I'm only as far as starting school and it seems almost impossible to take it on. But I kinda knew this going in, didn't I?
Enough malingering . . . It is time to put up or get the hell outta town . . .
MY NOVELS:
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Cheyenne . . . The Beginning.
