Friday, June 29, 2018

Up a Tree...


This awesome climber is nonother than a 6 year old Dan Dwayne. While most boys were out climbing and playing in their jeans and t-shirts I was fashionably dressed for the excursion in chinos and a shirt suitable for any golf course. This was my usual... the unusual. But, it was 1961 and things were different then. JFK was inaugurated president of the US, Aretha Franklin's debut album Queen of Soul hit the market, the bay of pigs fiasco festered ill-will between the USA and the (then called) Soviet Union, and Earnest Hemmingway died. All that was a lot to take in for a guy who just started the first grade. It was just a year later when the Cuba missile crisis happened. I was seven and I remember refusing to go to school. I sat in the dining room listening to the radio as the announcer told about the naval blockade challenging the Soviet Union. I'm sure I wasn't the only one holding my breath that day. Nothing felt safe. It was clear (even to a seven year old)  that if the event became an actual battle and atomic bombs started flying... we all would be doomed. As a writer I don't think I could ever portray that kind of suspense accurately. It was too intense for words. Those were the days of the cold war and spy verses spy. Speaking of spies… if you haven't checked out my book 'Spies Lie and Spies Die' then do...  I'm sure you'll enjoy it.