When I first started writing novels, I sought anonymity for my own reasons. I succeeded beyond my greatest expectations. Now, those reasons are passé, and I feel unburdened enough to talk to you about myself.
My mother loved me to distraction. She did know that every day in grade school I had fights with the local bullies. She more or less saw me as Little Lord Fauntleroy, and my father saw me as his firstborn boy who was gonna be tough, or he would know the reason why. I used to cover up my bruises and abrasions and come home to Mom. She met me at the front door and waited patiently until I put my stuff down.
Then, she would ask, “Tell me about your day.”
I had to leave the fighting part out which left very little of interest frankly. So, I made stuff up. I became adept at creating young boy stories out of very little background or thought process, and she loved my embellishments and enjoyed our fifteen-twenty minutes together five days a week. She encouraged me to read stories about real people and their real adventures which added a touch of research for my stories. I remember those characters and their stories even now nearly eighty years later.
My mother described my Dad as harsh. That was a euphemism for mean. Another reason I loved my mother so much was she protected me from the man until I could stand up to him. He was the only man I ever feared. He loved hard work. He loved that I should do hard work; so, he put me to work on our big yard when I was five. He got me a job with some neighbors who had a lumber business, a petroleum business, and a motel business. I was eight years old at the time. One had to have a social security card in order to have a real job, and I got mine that year. I did learn to work, the value of money, and what a pain it is to have a boss (in addition to my Dad). All of that stood me in good stead when I turned twelve.
I had a job working for a local sawmill and doing the yard work at the hospital. I took pride that I was paid almost as much as a man doing the same work. Then, my Dad had a massive heart attack and had to go to bed. He was the town doctor, and his illness was a blow to everyone. Because my Dad was a doctor, and because we had a big house, all the boys considered me to be rich. That was a bad thing in my little town among boys; so, I learned to fight better. After a while, they lost interest in the fighting because now I had to provide a serious amount to keep the family going. When I was fourteen, he died. That was quite a life changing day in my life.
` At the moment, I was working as a laborer at a swanky local resort and had graduated to receiving equal pay for equal work with the other men. The boss walked out to where I was working and told me that I had a phone call from the sheriff. I didn’t worry about being found out for some of the pranky kind of things I had done, and besides, Sheriff Payne was one of my Dad’s best friends.
I went to the hotel and answered the phone, “Doug, I want you to come to the hospital now, please,” he said.
I lacked tact and was a boy of few words in those days except when I was telling stories.
I asked the sheriff, “Uncle Gene, is my Dad dead?”
“Doug, come to the hospital. Get Uncle Buddy to give you a ride.”
I did as I was told and rode along in silent foreboding. My father owned the hospital, and I knew it intimately. I walked into the front entrance and found it to be conspicuously silent and devoid of people. I looked to my right into the open door of my Dad’s office. At that point, Dad’s three long time great nurses who had been with him through thick and thin slipped into view and stood silently watching me. I knew what awaited me because the three of them were silently weeping.
I walked alone into Dad’s office and because I had no experience in these things, and I was all alone, I determined for myself that he was indeed dead. Sheriff Payne had been waiting in the wings. He came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
He told me two things: “Don’t cry. Big boys don’t cry.” And “today you are the man in your family. Go home and tell your mother.”
That day, I became a man. I have a question: how much is a childhood worth? and of what value is early experience? And what kind of experience should be encouraged for growing children? I write unabashedly about such struggles, failures, and triumphs in my novels. Are you up for that?