I had a pleasant surprise this morning, aside from discovering that I was still alive thanks to some minor miracle. The advanced copy of my latest and greatest (Refractive Reflections) was waiting for me outside my door. The months of labor were near an end, though writing for me is hardly work. That is a good thing since I consider ‘work’ to be the worst four-letter word of them all.

I must admit. Writing has taken over my life in these so-called golden years. Perhaps that is not such a surprise. As a young kid growing up in an ethnic, Catholic, working class neighborhood in Worcester Massachusetts, I was an oddball. I still am. Okay, I was a misfit in many ways but one stands out in particular. I dreamt of being a great writer. No one else on my block had such an aspiration. The only thing my ruffian friends read was the side of the cereal box in the morning. In my home, I was lucky enough to have a collection of Reader Digest’s Condensed books and a bunch of Earl Stanley Gardner’s Perry mason mysteries (my dad .

True enough, I never recall any of the budding delinquents among my circle of buddies sharing anything about the latest literary gem they had just finished. None joined me when I mentioned I was heading off to the library, treating my destination as if it were one step below Devil’s Island. They all had the common aspirations of my world in post war America. They talked about becoming soldiers, cowboys, athletes, and mobsters … though there were no Italians among my friends which made the final option less likely.

I never knew where such goofball ideas came from, and I had many. For example, as a rather young kid I joined the World Federalist Society, a group devoted to moving away from nationalistic identifications towrd the concept of a single world. It likely was a Communist Front organization but it cost nothing to join. The only other group I signed on for was th Boston Celtics Junior Boosters. That didn’t cost anything either, money was tight. I did give the Boy Scouts a look but they kicke dme out beffore I made ‘tenderfoot.’ My craziest thought was becoming a missionary Catholic Priest but came to me senses after about a year and a half.

But being a writer remained my secret and unexpressed passion. In high school, I was an unispired and uninspiring student, to say the least (in truth, I was never a great student at any level but HS was the worst). Still, one day our English teacher had us write a short story for homework. This was great. It was not like those algebra conundrums about the boat going upstream at 10 MPH and the rive rflowing the opposite way at 5 MPH, and a wind hitting the craft obliquely at 15 MPH. Then the question: How long did it take the captain to eat his lunch? I had a better chance of curing cancer than figuring those things out.

But a story… somehting creative that did not involve numbers. That wa sin my wheelhouse. That night I was busy scribbling out my first masterpiece. When our teacher (a Xaverian brother) asked for a volunteer to share his creation, my hand shot up as the other students slunk under their desks. he looked at me with a familiar ‘oh no, not that moron.’ But i was his only option so he sighed and gestured to me. I rose and started reading. As I came to the end, sweat broke out on my brow as my confidence ebbed. What if my clasmates were laughing at me, storing up their insults to hurl at me at theoir earliest convenience. Why had I subjected myself to such public ridicule.

I had written a simpple story but one that drew the audience in one direction until the very end when there was an unexpected twist. I thought it clever but now that I had revealed all in public, my confidence evaporated like a snowball in July. I looked up with great trepidation. There were no smirks, no usual looks in my direction that screamed ‘what a schmuck.’ They were shocked. The teacher was shocked. I wasn’t as dumb as a sack of rocks. Who knew?

Perhaps this one gift came my father, an Irishman blessed with that Celtic blarney. He was just a working stiff after a youth walking on the wild side but I could tell he was smart and a good story teller. Once, perhaps after he had passed, I was going through his effects. I came across a story that had been printed in the local paper from the ealry 1930s. There was a picture of his HS basketball team and a narrative that included questions of the players about different things including what he wanted to do as an adult. My father said he wanted to be a journalist, a dream beyond his reach as a por Irish kid during the height of the depression. But his aspiration always made me wonder.

When I somehow made it to college (you would think any decent school would know better than to let me in), I recall the time I ran into my English Lit professor. Here was another coourse I loved. We were in a food line so he had no escape. I shared my dream of being writer one day. He did not laugh as I recall. He simple had one question for me. “Can you tell a good story?” I had no freaking idea so remained moot in that moment.

Other than writing a novel while in India (Peace Corps), I put aside that childhood passion. I now wonder if that first try was any good. I think it got thrown out with some dirty underwear after a decade or two. No, I stumbled into a career as a policy wonk and an academic. It was a fun life where I got to work on interesting challenges of my own choosing while working with really smart people from around the country. I even loved teaching. The classroom can be fun when you are on the correct side of the desk … LOL. Besides, they paid me to have fun so I always had a roof over my head and three-squares a day. Not sure that would have been possible as a writer.

So, as my spouse’s health began to decline (alzheimers), there was less travel and other things to keep me occupied. I went back to that early passion about a dozen or so years ago. Since then, I’ve rolled out works of fiction, memoirs, and policy works … at least a dozen, more if you include rewrites of the early works. And guess what, I’ve loved every minute of it.

Below are a few of my fictional works. I’ll share the non fiction gems in the future.

Did I choose the right path in life. Who knows. I loved doing policy work. I always received wonderful feedback as an acadmic writer, even from those hard ass economists. And I loved the college students whose lives I shaped. But there will always be a nagging doubt that I compromised in life … that I did not pursue my first passion.

Oh well!