I still want to be a Hero

I have found that by writing, it has become very therapuetic for me. When I was in gradeschool I was always in the creative writing classes if they had them. I liked science fiction and fast action. I think in some respects I moved away from writing because of poor grammar skills and I was intimidated by the highly developed skills of my wife ( I am only a few sentences in and my wife is pointing out I still have poor grammar skills).

I first started getting enjoyment from writing when I was in the 5th grade. We had creative writing hour once a week and I so enjoyed that hour of the week. ...5th Grade, the year was 1980, I was 11 years old and my childhood was, well, bad. I leaned towards anythng that allowed for escapism... unfortunately, this pattern of escaping is something that will not be broken in my life until 2006. Anyway, back to writing. Some people wrote their stories about the flowers in the grass, the color of the grass, and then there was Terry James, he would write about the benefits of smoking grass. Some of these writings were a few paragraphs, mine were usualy a few pages and people always seemed to be anticipating my next 2 or 3 page creative story. Usually they were short stories about some kind of heroism. You know, a kid detective busts some adult group or gimpy, spineless individual, he has a fast, bright red spots car (it was always a t-top).

When we got to 6th grade, at Washington Monroe, a friend of mine, Craig Strampp, and I asked if we could write our short stories together. If I wrote 2 or 3 pages and he wrote 2 or 3 pages, then we could lengthen the story. Our 6th grade teacher was Lenny Janet ( professional name Leanord) and he was the most influential person in my character developing as a pre and early teen. He agreed we could write our stories together.
Craig and I decided we would take turns starting the story and the other would finish it. We always made our villian the notorious Mr. Janet. A fiendish individual who was always plotting some bad caper. We were the t-top driving, beach boy detectives who were always being called into action because he had been spotted somewhere again.

In 7th grade, I added my creative writing skills to our Jr. High paper, the... dang, the name slips me at the moment.. I'll remember. In 8th grade, I was the editor of our Jr. High newsletter. My freshman year I started in a new town with new people and I never picked writing back up... unless it was a hap-hazard attempt to write a research paper or something that was emotionless in nature.

There were a few writing excersices I did when I was trying to attend Bible school... but 'things' in general in my life were never condusive to writing.. or so I thought. Isn't everything worth writing about? I venture that I am glad to be doing it again, but fear it could only be a short lived fad or a new form of escapism... I don't really know. But I am going to continue to try and write and hopefully get better at grammar... my wife has promised to help me in that area. She is the best darn wife ever!!

[This week a special thank you goes out to a very good friend. He is true in nature, kind at heart, and has the compassion of a skilled physician. I really think he is a super hero and we only know him by his mild mannered secret identity. If I am correct, I don't want to reveal his super heroism by revealing this very good friend's name. He knows who he is, I enjoyed one of the best darn breakfast's with him the other morning... Part Store, Part Restaurant, All Country.]