Hello all,
I'm a virgin here, so be gentle.
I was ten when the sickness sequestered my soul. After returning home from a fruitless fishing trip at one of Bakersfield, California's scenic aqueducts, the six Dr. Pepper's and five Slim Jim's I'd ate earlier that day, had turned my gut into a three-legged dryer. I grabbed the newspaper on the way to the pot, expecting an extended stay there. While reading the sports page, I stumbled upon the address to the editor. Once my stomach settled, I ran to my room and grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen. I wrote that I'd caught a thirty-pound pound striper that day and had given it to a needy Mexican family of eight. Then I put it in an envelope and sent it off.
At school, three days later, the principle called me to his office. He sat me down and smiled. Then he unfolded the day's paper on his desk and said, "Mr. Hill, I'm proud of you, son. That was a damn fine thing you did for that family."
Twenty-two years later, I still search for the rapture I felt when I was ten. I write. I read. I doubt. I believe. I doubt again. I expose my soul. When I have nothing left, I query. Then my work lands on some assistant's desk, who between texts, gives it a fugitive look and decides my work sucks.
So, why do I do it?
I do it because Golding, Faulkner, and Joyce did it for me. The potential to bring one person joy through the written word, for me, is worthy of a fight.
I'm a virgin here, so be gentle.
I was ten when the sickness sequestered my soul. After returning home from a fruitless fishing trip at one of Bakersfield, California's scenic aqueducts, the six Dr. Pepper's and five Slim Jim's I'd ate earlier that day, had turned my gut into a three-legged dryer. I grabbed the newspaper on the way to the pot, expecting an extended stay there. While reading the sports page, I stumbled upon the address to the editor. Once my stomach settled, I ran to my room and grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen. I wrote that I'd caught a thirty-pound pound striper that day and had given it to a needy Mexican family of eight. Then I put it in an envelope and sent it off.
At school, three days later, the principle called me to his office. He sat me down and smiled. Then he unfolded the day's paper on his desk and said, "Mr. Hill, I'm proud of you, son. That was a damn fine thing you did for that family."
Twenty-two years later, I still search for the rapture I felt when I was ten. I write. I read. I doubt. I believe. I doubt again. I expose my soul. When I have nothing left, I query. Then my work lands on some assistant's desk, who between texts, gives it a fugitive look and decides my work sucks.
So, why do I do it?
I do it because Golding, Faulkner, and Joyce did it for me. The potential to bring one person joy through the written word, for me, is worthy of a fight.
I hope you felt better after that.
