The Kessler Syndrome

 

Tax accountant Raymond Phillips has just taken over his father’s firm, but his life is about to change dramatically when he is mistaken for aerospace scientist, Timothy Walker, a spy selling Defense Satellite secrets to China.

An elusive spy ring dubbed the China Connection by the CIA has delivered our latest space technology to China and Walker is suspected of being the inside man. When Walker is found dead, a plan to use Walker to export a package of data that will shut down the China Connection has to be terminated, that is unless they can convince, look alike, Raymond Phillips to deliver the package.

What was supposed to be a simple operation goes terribly wrong when China decides to take Phillips and undercover agent Lora Gains hostage. The president must give the word to destroy the plane on which Phillips and Gains are being transported, or risk losing the control of the worlds communication to China. The stakes are raised when it is found the data they are delivering may innitiate the Kessler Syndrome, destroying our ability to put a satellites into orbit for decades to come.

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MY DOG JIGGS

I wasn’t expecting a puppy for my fifth birthday. I wasn’t expecting anything. Things were really tough in those days and I wasn’t even thinking about it being my birthday, no one mentioned it.

My best friend Billy had leukemia and had passed away that windy November day. I was sad at the news and had been sleeping in my upstairs room when I heard my mother call. “Larry, it’s time for dinner.”

I got up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I noticed it was dark outside. And I turned on the bedroom light.

“Hurry, Larry,” I heard my sister call.

I wandered down stairs. The kitchen was lit up and the room filled with balloons. In the center of the table was a cake with candles burning. My dad was standing behind my mother and my sister was jumping up and down with a big smile on her face.

“Happy birthday,” they yelled as I came through the door.

“Wow! I forgot it was my birthday,” I said.

“Make a wish,” my sister said.

I made my wish and climbed up on a chair and blew out the candles.

My dad came from behind my mother and held out my present, a brown and white puppy with floppy ears and big brown eyes. I took the puppy, unable to speak in my excitement. I had always wanted a puppy, but my mother told me she didn’t want a dog in the house. I looked down at the little thing in my arms and couldn’t believe it was true. It looked up at me and licked me in the face.

“Look!” I exclaimed, “Jiggs likes me.”

“Jiggs,” my dad said. “What kind of a name is that for a dog?”

I looked at my dad. “He’s my dog and I like the name Jiggs,” I said.

“Then Jiggs it is,” Dad said. “Who wants ice cream with birthday cake?”

We all had birthday cake before dinner that day. The day I lost my best friend Billy, I gained a puppy that would be a bitter sweet story in itself. 

Several months after my birthday, my parents separated and got a divorce. By that time Jiggs had grown into a mischievous teenager, chasing cars and getting injured on more than one occasion. Jiggs didn’t seem to realize chasing cars was dangerous, but he survived the scrapes with the moving vehicles.

It was during the divorce that my two sisters and I were taken to live with an aunt an uncle in Patton Valley, a tiny community in Oregon, not far from the town where I was born. We arrived at the farm of my aunt and uncle, but my dog Jiggs was nowhere to be seen. My uncle said Jiggs jumped out of the pickup truck somewhere between Sheridan and Patton Valley. That should have been the end of the story of Jiggs, but the story takes up again nearly ten years later.

I was a teenager starting my junior year in high school. My sisters and I were living with my father in McMinnville, Oregon. My father had a sewing machine store and was on the road several days a week demonstrating the features of the latest sewing machines. On a Friday afternoon he came home with a story that to this day I am certain was something not too short of a miracle.

“I think I found Jiggs,” my father said at the supper table. “He was your dog Larry, and I think he might still remember you.”

“Where? When can I see him?”

“I checked with the people and they say we can see him tomorrow morning. They were just as surprised as I was that this may be Jiggs. They renamed him, but he answers to Jiggs and seemed to know me. The people found him nearly ten years ago at their front door in Hillsboro, a town Uncle Ray passed through on his way home to Patton Valley. The time frame fits and the area fits, and get this, the dog chased cars until it got seriously injured and nearly had to be put down. After that accident he never chased a car again.”

The next day we visited the people we believed had Jiggs. When I called Jiggs, the dog, now old and slow, immediately came up to me and jumped up. I petted him and my dad, the people and I talked about what we should do. The people with the dog had a boy who had known the dog as his own from the time he was two years old, when Jiggs had shown up on their doorstep.  I couldn’t imagine taking the dog from him, they were so close, like Jiggs and I were so many years earlier. We went home to McMinnville and I, somewhat saddened by the event, was moved by the experience. I may never have remembered Jiggs the way I have, had not that day later in my life happened. Jiggs came into my life at a sad time. I had lost my best friend and then my parents went through a divorce and we three kids were placed in a strange home with an aunt and uncle. I could have remembered Jiggs for those sad days in my life, but that all changed that day, when I found Jiggs in a home with another boy. Now, Jiggs reminds me of those things we don’t have control over in our lives, and regardless of how bad we think things are, there is always a greater purpose at work. Jiggs took my mind off the loss of my best friend and filled my days with joy for several months, then went on to another home, to lift the spirit in another young boy.  

Jiggs reminds me today that there are many things we don’t understand and there are things we don’t need to understand. We need to count our blessings today and not worry, for tomorrow will take care of itself.  

Inspiration is nothing without Verisimilitude

The other day I was telling a friend about my latest novel. He looked at me and with wonderment in his voice asked, “Where do you come up with these ideas?”

To be truthful, I had never considered the question of inspiration before. Things happen in life, and almost anything can be an inspiration for a story, but only if  you can write it with verisimilitude. If you can make a story believable, no matter what the subject, science fiction or real life, set in the past or the future; if the story is presented in a believable manner, the reader will buy into the premise. If you haven’t set up the story with verisimilitude you have failed before the first word was written. I remember reading the late Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and, on a dark and lonely night, looking outside to see if there were any velociraptors wandering about the neighborhood. Crichton made an unlikely event believable by introducing the reader to the science of cloning and Chaos Theory. I was hooked from the start.

When I was in the seventh grade my class was given the task of writing a short story. At twelve years of age, I wanted to write a story that would inspire. My story had tragedy, a unique setting and a fulfilling ending, but I hadn’t done my homework and I placed the story fifty years before it could have happened. The tragedy, an automobile accident, could never have taken place at the time I set the story. After reading the story to the class, the teacher said, “You know, Larry, the automobile wasn’t around in 1850.” I was crushed. I went back to my seat, embarrassed and humiliated. In reflection, I learned a valuable lesson. If you are going to write about something, make sure you do your home work. Your writing needs to have verisimilitude.

If I think I can write a story with verisimilitude, then I am inspired to write it. It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter what the subject, what the setting, or how fantastic the plot is, if it’s not believable the story will flop. Be inspired to write your story, but do your research. I learned a valuable lesson in the seventh grade. Verisimilitude, verisimilitude, verisimilitude.

Cliches of Life

Clichés of Life

While taking a writing class, the instructor informed us of the danger of the common cliché. A writer uses a cliché at the risk of being round filed, or maybe even death. This got me to wondering, just how common are clichés? I started looking for clichés in the books and magazines I was reading and seeing bloviating where a common cliché could make the point much more efficiently, I decided clichés are getting a bum wrap. Don’t they hold a special place in writing? I decided clichés are not all that bad and wrote this short story as an ode to the much dreaded cliché.

Once upon a time, on a dark and dreary night, I was stranded in the most god forsaken part of the city. Mark my words, I was down and out, more than up to my ass in alligators. I was in way over my head, so to speak. I was homeless and penniless, in the coldest time of the year. I had better shit or get off the pot or I would freeze my balls off. I picked up my belongings and made a bee line, for the nearest shelter, though I was going nowhere fast. Time flies when you’re having fun and this was about as much fun as having my teeth pulled. I was drowning in a sea of debt, and it looked like a long and bumpy road to recovery. I knew it would be all up hill from here and as luck would have it, I came upon another poor lost soul.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said. “I haven’t seen another living soul out here in this storm. I could see, he too, had hit rock bottom, lying there in the gutter, drunk as a skunk, higher than a hawks nest, shit faced, plastered; He was white as a ghost. He must have balls of brass to be out here all by himself in the snow, I thought. It was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey so I knew, like me, he’s up shit creek without a paddle. I wanted to help him, but I was fit to be tied. No way was I in a position him. Am I my brother’s keeper?, I asked myself. God helps those who help themselves, I mused. Whoever said, Life is just a bowl of cherries, wasn’t living in this cherry bowl, for sure. Maybe, in another life I could have helped. I tried to speak, but the cat had my tongue and to make a long story short he was a blithering idiot anyways, and wouldn’t have understood a word I said. You can imagine my shock when he spoke. He said, “I’m colder than a well digger’s ass, sitting on a brass toilet seat on the north side of an iceberg.” As it turned out, he was a bald face liar; there was no well digger, brass toilet seat, nor iceberg, for that matter. He was completely spaced out. No harm no foul, I thought, mind your own business, don’t butt in, he made his bed now he has to lie in it, my mind said to me.

But alas, I couldn’t help myself. “Penny for your thoughts,” I said, wondering if he would stop whining and sniveling, long enough for us to get a fix on things. He looked older than dirt and must have had a cast iron stomach the way he guzzled the booze. I was dry as a bone and still wet behind the ears when it came to drinking, but that’s another story, a tale for another time. I asked him for a drink and he gave me that deer-in-the-headlights look, you know, the look you get when you catch someone, red handed, with their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. Then he smiled as if he wasn’t sure if he had stolen it from me and handed me the bottle. You’re a new man on the block,” he said. “You drink this stuff, you’ll be drunk as a sailor, in no time.

 Most of my life I never had a pot to piss in and what little money I had was burning a hole in my pocket. Maybe my down fall was my nothing ventured, nothing gained, attitude. “What the hell, live and let live,” that’s what I’ve always said. We all gotta go sometime. Maybe our number was up. I had always lived one day ahead of yesterday anyway. Let the devil take tomorrow. Eat drink and be merry. I took the bottle from the old timer.

 “Down the hatch,” I said.

That drink was smooth as silk and made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. It wasn’t long before I was tight as a tick, green behind the gills, shit-faced and having a bad hair day even though I’m bald as a billiard ball. That’s just a figure of speech, but you get my drift. I passed out dead away. I’ll bet he thought I was deader than a door nail, lying there tits up on the sidewalk.

That’s the last thing I remembered until I woke up. It was pitch black, blacker than the ace of spades and hotter than Hades. My mind was racing a mile a minute. Have I died and gone to hell? I thought of turning over a new leaf, no time like the present but reality set in and I knew this hunk of humanity, tough as nails, brave as a lion and proud as a peacock wouldn’t let that happen until hell freezes over.

Outside it started raining cats and dogs. That’s when I realized I was inside, sound and secure. I’m not usually fainthearted and I never thought if I wet my whistle I’d be climbing the walls, maybe bouncing off the walls, but nevertheless, I didn’t know shit from Shinola. My daddy always said the proof of the pudding was in the eating and if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem and I’ll be the first to say that goes double for drinking.

At the crack of dawn I realized I was in a trailer house.  Then I saw her. Trailer trash, I thought. She must have read my mind. If looks could kill, I’d be dead meat, but she must have looked at me through rose-colored glasses and that caught my eye. Somehow I knew she had saved my sorry ass.

“Where am I?” I asked. “And where’s my drinking buddy?”

“It was a million to one that you didn’t bite the bullet and only once in a blue moon I am able to save lost souls like you two,” she said.

She seemed pretty keyed up, up-tight, but some how not put out.

“If you and your friend had brains you’d be dangerous,” she continued. “And I’ll bet you, dollars to donuts, you’d be stone cold, frozen like a Popsicle, waiting to meet your maker, if I hadn’t gone bananas and taken that walk in the storm of the century. You two were huddled up like two peas in a pod. Someone reported the two of you asleep in the street. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But it wasn’t rocket science, locating you. I just followed my nose. Just the same, it was like trying to find a piece of paper in an e-book, but it was your lucky day, you escaped the grim reaper, stared death in the eye, beat the odds.”

 I was hoping she’d wind down and wrap it up when I got the first good look at her. She was a bit more than pleasingly plump, to say the least. She was as big as a battleship. I know, you’re thinking, don’t judge a book by the cover and beauty is more than skin deep and I should be more grateful, but the truth be known, the story she told had me quaking in my boots and I knew she was right as rain. Only time will tell if she did the right thing by saving us.

My partner in crime walked in from the other room. He looked fit as a fiddle. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Oh no! The Bible thumper,” he shouted. “The lady preacher from hell. Did she find all the skeletons in your closets?”

I know we all have our crosses to bear and I shouldn’t criticize, but he was a few beers shy of a six pack, not the brightest bulb in the bunch, truthfully, he was dense as a doorknob, so I gave it little thought. I wasn’t exactly as sharp as a tack myself, so I thought gave him the benefit of the doubt and considered he might be putting me on.

“Are you shittin’” me?” I asked.

“Wake up and smell the coffee,” he said. “I’d rather be dead than hear her pound the pulpit again.”

“Why don’t you go?” I asked.

“I’m Damned if I do, Damned if I don’t,” he replied.

Our conversation fell on deaf ears. She went to a podium and started to preach. “We are each the keepers of our own soul,” she started out. At first she went fast and furious then slow as molasses in January. She used phrases like, there is no time like the present, you’re playing with fire and it’s now or never. “hell is filled with people with good intentions,” she yelled. She was really ranting and raving.

I’ve heard my share of preaching and when the fur flies and you hear the fire and brimstone you can bet your bottom dollar she has only just begun to turn up the heat and sooner rather than later she would be fanning the flames. I wasn’t going to wait until the shit hit the fan so during a pregnant pause I yelled, “I’m starving to death, I could eat a horse.” This was just a figure of speech, of course, but then my partner chimed in, “I could eat the ass out of an elephant.”

She gave us the evil eye and continued on, for what seemed like forever and a day. She must have had her knickers in a twist over something, but eventually she hung it up and said, “We’ll eat after I sing the closing hymn.”

Now, I know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I should give her the benefit of the doubt, but I think any preacher worth her salt, to coin a phrase would have fed us first. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink and you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We were starving to death. Not only were we lean and mean we were getting meaner by the minute. It was either feast or famine with us and we were literally famished. We were ready to pig out. My buddy, who had his own rags to riches story, only visa versa, was starting to squirm, like he had ants in his pants. “This is like déjà vu all over again,” he said. “Will it ever end?”

I leaned over to comfort him. “Patience is a virtue, my friend. It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

THE END

I remeber the song, but the girl?

I was on a long trip in my car the other day and as I listened to oldies on the radio it occurred to me, nearly every girl I ever dated reminded me of a song.

It all started, when I was nearing my teen years and the radio was playing day and night. Music, sports and girls were possibly the most important things in my life at the time. My freshman year we would sometimes meet after school at Sweeny’s Bakery for a Coke and a donut and listen to the jukebox, go to the sock hops after the big game or hang out Saturday nights at an impromptu gathering, all with music the central part of the event. Rock and Roll songs spoke to us as teens and music was an integral part of our young lives.  

The first song I remember associating with a girl was Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue. Did sock hops or Buddy Holly give my age away?  You guessed it, the girls name was Peggy. I was barely thirteen at the time and we were at a party at her house. Back then every girl wanted a song named after her. Then there was Patricia, who happened to love Ricky Nelson more than she did me. And Leslie, who dumped me at a drive in movie while the Brothers Four were singing Greenfields. Did I mention I inadvertently called Leslie by another girls name while we were kissing. That may have had something to do with the break up, you think? Sometime later Joanne was in love with singer Roger Miller instead of me. Carlene owned every record Johnny Mathis ever made. I never visited Sheryl when Brenda Lee wasn’t on her record player.

I’m sure you get the picture. Memories are somehow conjoined with the music of our subconscious. When I married the love of my life I thought my new bride loved the music I always listened to. She never indicated she liked any music other than what I liked. We had been married a few years before I uncovered her stash of Barry Manilow tapes hidden away in the glove compartment of her car.

Still, whenever an oldie comes on the radio, I may think of those I dated long ago and wonder what they are doing today, but then I think of my wife of nearly twenty five years who never listened to any music but mine. She does not bring back old memories. She’s right by my side, sitting beside me, still listening to my favorite oldies without complaint. We no longer have a tape player and I thought about downloading Barry Manilow’s greatest hits for her birthday, but why spoil a good thing?

A Dog Named Jiggs

I wasn’t expecting a puppy for my fifth birthday. I wasn’t expecting anything. Things were really tough in those days and I wasn’t even thinking about it being my birthday, no one mentioned it.

My best friend Billy had leukemia and had passed away that windy November day. I was sad at the news and had been sleeping in my upstairs room when I heard my mother call. “Larry, it’s time for dinner.”

I got up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I noticed it was dark outside. And I turned on the bedroom light.

“Hurry, Larry,” I heard my sister call.

I wandered down stairs. The kitchen was lit up and the room filled with balloons. In the center of the table was a cake with candles burning. My dad was standing behind my mother and my sister was jumping up and down with a big smile on her face.

“Happy birthday,” they yelled as I came through the door.

“Wow! I forgot it was my birthday,” I said.

“Make a wish,” my sister said.

I made my wish and climbed up on a chair and blew out the candles.

My dad came from behind my mother and held out my present, a brown and white puppy with floppy ears and big brown eyes. I took the puppy, unable to speak in my excitement. I had always wanted a puppy, but my mother told me she didn’t want a dog in the house. I looked down at the little thing in my arms and couldn’t believe it was true. It looked up at me and licked me in the face.

“Look!” I exclaimed, “Jiggs likes me.”

“Jiggs,” my dad said. “What kind of a name is that for a dog?”

I looked at my dad. “He’s my dog and I like the name Jiggs,” I said.

“Then Jiggs it is,” Dad said. “Who wants ice cream with birthday cake?”

We all had birthday cake before dinner that day. The day I lost my best friend Billy, I gained a puppy that would be a bitter sweet story in itself. 

Several months after my birthday, my parents separated and got a divorce. By that time Jiggs had grown into a mischievous teenager, chasing cars and getting injured on more than one occasion. Jiggs didn’t seem to realize chasing cars was dangerous, but he survived the scrapes with the moving vehicles.

It was during the divorce that my two sisters and I were taken to live with an aunt an uncle in Patton Valley, a tiny community in Oregon, not far from the town where I was born. We arrived at the farm of my aunt and uncle, but my dog Jiggs was nowhere to be seen. My uncle said Jiggs jumped out of the pickup truck somewhere between Sheridan and Patton Valley. That should have been the end of the story of Jiggs, but the story takes up again nearly ten years later.

I was a teenager starting my junior year in high school. My sisters and I were living with my father in McMinnville, Oregon. My father had a sewing machine store and was on the road several days a week demonstrating the features of the latest sewing machines. On a Friday afternoon he came home with a story that to this day I am certain was something not too short of a miracle.

“I think I found Jiggs,” my father said at the supper table. “He was your dog Larry, and I think he might still remember you.”

“Where? When can I see him?”

“I checked with the people and they say we can see him tomorrow morning. They were just as surprised as I was that this may be Jiggs. They renamed him, but he answers to Jiggs and seemed to know me. The people found him nearly ten years ago at their front door in Hillsboro, a town Uncle Ray passed through on his way home to Patton Valley. The time frame fits and the area fits, and get this, the dog chased cars until it got seriously injured and nearly had to be put down. After that accident he never chased a car again.”

The next day we visited the people we believed had Jiggs. When I called Jiggs, the dog, now old and slow, immediately came up to me and jumped up. I petted him and my dad, the people and I talked about what we should do. The people with the dog had a boy who had known the dog as his own from the time he was two years old, when Jiggs had shown up on their doorstep.  I couldn’t imagine taking the dog from him, they were so close, like Jiggs and I were so many years earlier. We went home to McMinnville and I, somewhat saddened by the event, was moved by the experience. I may never have remembered Jiggs the way I have, had not that day later in my life happened. Jiggs came into my life at a sad time. I had lost my best friend and then my parents went through a divorce and we three kids were placed in a strange home with an aunt and uncle. I could have remembered Jiggs for those sad days in my life, but that all changed that day, when I found Jiggs in a home with another boy. Now, Jiggs reminds me of those things we don’t have control over in our lives, and regardless of how bad we think things are, there is always a greater purpose at work. Jiggs took my mind off the loss of my best friend and filled my days with joy for several months, then went on to another home, to lift the spirit in another young boy.  

Jiggs reminds me today that there are many things we don’t understand and there are things we don’t need to understand. We need to count our blessings today and not worry, for tomorrow will take care of itself.    

Bullet Bob and the benchwarmers

I attended my high school reunion a few years back and made the mistake of attending the Homecoming football game. My high school was clearly the underdog and, while we all like to see the underdog win, this was not to be. By the start of the second half, the rival team was four touchdowns in the lead and they had already started using their second string. By the third quarter the rival team was using a few of their third string and all of the fourth string against my school’s starting team. It was a disaster, but it brought back memories of a homecoming game I played in many years earlier, and although I was on the winning team that time, the real story was the player who got his fifteen minutes of fame in that one game.

We had a second-string quarterback who had warmed the bench most of the season, but with our team clearly in the lead, the coach was determined to give all those on the bench a chance to show their mettle. So was the case with the second-string quarterback, later nick named, Bullet Bob, by the state’s largest newspaper. Anxious to make a good showing, Bullet Bob threw a pass and we immediately scored a touchdown. After our defensive team got possession of the ball again, our Bullet Bob called for another long pass and we scored another touchdown. By the time the game had ended, the bench  had scored more touchdowns than the starting team and the sports reporters were clamoring all over themselves to get an interview with Bullet Bob.

Bullet Bob never went on to play college ball, nor did he ever have another near flawless night on the high school grid-iron, but that one night he was the hero, he got the sports page headlines and his, once-in-a-lifetime, fifteen minutes of fame. For the rest of his life Bullet Bob never made the sports page headlines or any other headlines for that matter and as the years went by he was known simply as Bob, but that one evening on the grid-iron was the highlight of his life and the one moment of glory every bench warmer longs for. So here’s to the coaches who give the Bullet Bobs of the world a chance for their fifteen minutes of fame and here’s to the bench warmers, may they all have the opportunity Bullet Bob had so many years ago.

Life Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

 

I had a little business to do in the quaint historical German town of Regensburg. Fortunately for me, I was able to spend a few evenings in the beer garden of my hotel. A friend said I couldn’t find a bad beer in Germany and although I was only there for a few days, I concluded he was right. I’m going back soon to continue the search.

What’s with the men’s room at the Munich airport? Going to the restroom was a unique experience. All the urinals have a common ‘house fly’ image fused into the porcelain, dead center in the bowl. I was told it cut down on the cleaning requirements for the restroom. This leads me to wonder if German men are poor shots, or are they just not paying attention to their business when their zippers are down? Either way, I have to agree a target makes the restroom experience more interesting even if it is only a fly. By the way, the restrooms were cleaner than I have seen them on prior trips.

Even though my stay was only four days, I managed to gain two pounds. Bavarian food, German beer and Pretzels and all consumed in a setting that brought me back in history 500 years. I can’t wait to return and spend more time sight seeing, lounging in the beer gardens and dining in the authentic Bavarian restaurants. Life doesn’t get any better than this.

Why Billy and Jiggs are special to me

I was nearing my fifth birthday when our family moved to Sheridan, a tiny town in western Oregon. That’s where I met Billy, a boy my age, who lived across the street from our house. Billy was only allowed to play indoors, but we soon became best friends.

 It was the late nineteen-forties, before the days of television or electronic devices. Billy and I spent the autumn days using our imaginations to keep us occupied. Our favorite pastime was acting out western themes in Billy’s bedroom using our collection of miniature cowboy figurines and a western village made from empty cereal boxes.

Billy’s dad had built shelves on every wall of Billy’s bedroom and lining the shelves was a western village made from shredded wheat boxes. In those days, Nabisco Shredded Wheat could be purchased in a rectangular box that was decorated like a western building. Among the many choices were, a bunk house, a saloon, and the most coveted sheriff’s office complete with jail. Billy had nearly all of the cereal box buildings.

 One morning, as I doused the final biscuit of shredded wheat with milk and blanketed it with sugar, I could hardly wait to add the empty box, a frontier hotel, to the collection in Billy’s room. That day I anxiously loaded my collection of miniature metal cowboys into the box and rushed across the street to Billy’s house, excited to share my newest treasure. But this morning there were a lot of people at Billy’s house. I knocked on the door and Billy’s dad answered. I could see tears in his eyes and knew something was wrong.

“Billy has gone to be with God,” he said.

For a moment I just looked up at him and stared. Billy’s dad was a tall man and he squatted down and took me in his arms and hugged me.

“You were his best friend,” he said. “Billy loved it when you came to visit.”

I looked down at the box filled with metal cowboy figurines. “I was bringing these to give to Billy,” I said.

He stared at the box in my hands. “Come here,” he said, taking my hand. He led me, through the crowd in the living room and we ended up in Billy’s bedroom.

I stared at Billy’s empty bed and looked up at the frontier village we had built. It was lining the walls like always.

“Where do you think Billy would want this?” Billy’s dad asked scanning the dozen or so buildings of the western town.

I checked every building, the Sheriff’s office with the jail, the saloon with swinging doors and the corral with horses, a cowboy on a bucking bronco and another cowboy swinging a lasso. My eyes stopped at the church. It was white with a tall steeple and a big front door. I pulled Billy’s favorite cowboy from the box and handed it to his father. “Put him at the door of the church,” I said. “Maybe he can go visit Billy.”

Billy’s dad opened the door of the church and placed the cowboy at the door. I imagined the cowboy was walking into the church and was the first visitor Billy would have in Heaven.

That afternoon I was sad, very sad. I told my mother about Billy and sat on my bed, wondering what I would do without my friend. My older sister came home from school and I told her about Billy. She said I could play with her and brought a game into my room, but I didn’t feel like playing. I curled up on the bed and fell asleep.

“Larry,” my mother called from downstairs, waking me up. “Time for dinner.”

I got up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I noticed it was dark outside, and I turned on the bedroom light. “Hurry, Larry,” my sister anxiously called.

I stumbled down stairs, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The kitchen was brightly lit and balloons dangled from the chairs. In the center of the table was a cake with five burning candles. My father was standing behind my mother. My younger sister, with blond curls dancing from her head, was jumping up and down, a big smile on her face.

“Happy birthday,” they all screamed as I entered the room.

“Wow! I forgot it was my birthday,” I said.

“Hurry make a wish,” my sister said.

I made a wish and climbed up on a chair and blew out the candles.

My dad came from behind my mother and held out my present, a brown and white puppy with floppy ears and big brown eyes. I took the puppy, unable to speak. I had always wanted a dog and looked down at the little thing in my arms. I couldn’t believe it was true. It looked up at me with sad eyes and licked my face.

“Look!” I exclaimed, “Jiggs likes me.”

“Jiggs,” my dad said. “What kind of a name is that for a dog?”

I looked at my dad. “He’s my dog and I like the name Jiggs.”

“Then Jiggs it is,” my dad said.

I didn’t have Jiggs very long, but that’s another story. To this day, when I see a child with cancer I remember my two best friends, Billy and Jiggs, and I offer up a prayer for children with cancer and remember Billy and Jiggs, my two best friends.

Natural Disasters

Fortunately not many of us are faced with natural disasters, maybe that’s why we are fascinated with them. Everyday, somewhere in the world there are people thrown into a disaster they were not expecting and they are called on to react to uncontrollable circumstances.

I was in Portland, Oregon on May 18th, 1980, the day Mt. St. Helens decided to wreck her havoc on the area. I remember the ash covering the streets, the nightly news coverage and the terrible loss of life when 47 people were lost to the eruption. granted, Mt. St. Helens was the first volcano that the USGS was able to get there hands around and accurately predict an eruption was eminent, but what if a super volcano decided to wake up and you were the person on the scene, the one everyone else was relying on to save the day? Would you run and leave everyone else to fend for themselves, warn your closest family members so they would be saved, or put yourself in harms way in order to save as many lives as possible?

I wrote Caldera, not as a typical disaster novel, but as a study of the people who are forced to make decisions that affect all our lives in a natural disaster. After all, those who must make the decisions that affect our lives in extraordinary circumstances are not unlike the rest of us. They have families, loved ones, and tough decisions to make which should put those they are there to protect first and foremost in their plans. We all hope they will not think of themselves first and leave the rest of us to our fate.