Lemons to Lemonade

In my 74 years of life on this earth, I have learned a few things. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I learned this lesson in the school of hard knocks, because, in this life you never know what's going to happen, and if you do know what's going to happen, you can still make choices that do not deliver the conditions that you anticipated. In 1973, I left LSU with a diploma with this printed on it: BS, General Studies. But I was really just an English major. This means I can read well; I can even study and pass tests. Good to know. So I sold life insurance for about a year. Then I switched to selling newspaper advertising; then I switched to selling printing for a print shop. Then I switched to carpentry. It was in my family background, but so was selling insurance, so go figure. Long about 2005, I got the notion that my English background might be a leg-up to becoming a teacher. In my chosen hometown, Boone NC, Appalachian State University educates teachers for North Carolina. So I took nine education courses, then the Praxis tests for four subjects, obtaining certification to teach English, Language Arts, and Science to middle school and high school students in North Carolina. While taking the education courses, I got the bright idea to write a novel. So I did. In fact I wrote two, "Glass half-Full", and "Glass Chimera." Meanwhile, back in the wider world, It was 2008. Wall Street crashed. In summer of '08 I got a call from the school principal. She said that budget-cutting would prevent me from teaching next school year. Life had dealt me lemons. So I made lemonade. I walked across the street from the school, around a block, and found an apartment complex, with 92 apartments, that needed a maintenance man. I spent the next five years maintaing apartments. . . cleaning, painting, un-stopping toilets, fixing broken drywall, painting, mowing, listening to Diane Reem on NPR.  After a few years there, in a typical day, I entered an apartment that was being vacated. I was looking around on the floor when I saw this: I gave the tenant a few bucks for the old newspaper, an original edition of the Times of London, special Commemorative Issue for the coronation of King George VI of England, King Charles' grandfather. While perusing the tattered old tabloid, I found content in there that prompted my imagination to write a third novel, "Smoke."

Here's a snippet from Smoke: " For the love of a woman can change the course of the world. As Helen's face had launched a thousand Greek ships, so the affections of an American divorce'e had turned the tide of royal authority from one brother or another." . . . or, maybe it was King George's brother had secret nazi connections? But we'll never know. Anyway, he abdicated; George was crowned. His wife, Elizabeth, gave birth to the later queen, Elizabeth(1952), the longest sovereign in British history.  The point is: when Life gives you lemons, make lemonade, so to speak. I never got a teaching job. But I did discover a point of inspiration to write a third novel, my longest one, Smoke, at 300 pages. You should read it. You can find it on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. And if that's not enough lemonade to wet your whistle, maybe have a look at the fourth novel, King of Soul, which is what happened to America, from the 1950's to May 4, 1970. Smoke