Tag: Reading

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Reading, by Gillian

I was probably lonely as a child. I had good friends at school but when school was out I had no nearby children to play with, and I had no siblings. But I don’t recall ever feeling lonely as I was always accompanied by friends from books. (I originally wrote ‘from fiction’ but as The Bible was one of the few books available to me, I imagine some might take exception to including The Bible as fiction.)

I say few books were available not because of any failure on the part of my family to love books, but because paper was scarce in post-war Britain and so few books were published. There was a library in the local town but that was a long and infrequent bus ride away.

So my personal book collection contained four Winnie the Pooh books, published long before the war and once belonging to my mother, an old and very tattered family Bible, and a book called Mystery at Witchend by Malcolm Saville, a prolific author of children’s books in Britain in the 1940’s and ’50’s.

So I roamed the countryside accompanied sometimes by the roly poly Pooh and a bouncing Tigger, sometimes by all or some of the five children from Witchend who formed The Lone Pine Club and together had many harmless adventures and solved gentle crimes with never a hint of violence. Indeed the only violence I ever read about was in The Bible. But the Jesus who occasionally accompanied me was the gentle fatherly figure depicted in The Children’s Pictorial Bible which we read in Sunday School. Because of one of the pictures in this book, my friend Jesus always had a lamb draped around his neck like a fat wooly scarf. Looking back I rather suspect that my child mind had confused the picture of Jesus with one of the shepherds greeting His birth, but never mind. As Jesus and I frequently walked through fields dotted with grazing sheep my vision was appropriate enough.

Fast forward a few decades. I am in my early forties and finally coming out to myself, and very shortly after, to others. So. I was homosexual. A lesbian. What did that mean? Obviously I knew the meaning of the words, the definition, but what did it mean? To me, to my life. Where did I go from here? I felt very alone. Who could I talk to about all this? My friends might be very supportive, but what could they tell me? No-one I knew would have any answers.

So of course I turned to books and headed for the library. This was before the advent of internet so I searched through the catalog card files, in their long narrow boxes, for the pertinent categories. Although I was ‘out’ to anyone who mattered, I must confess to peeking furtively over my shoulder as I searched the LESBIAN section, the word seeming about a foot high and glaringly obvious to all who passed by.

There was amazingly little available regarding lesbians at that time, fiction or non-fiction.

What little there was, was awful. I rushed home with the few books on the library shelf, avidly read them, and wondered why I had bothered. Beyond depressing, they were just plain frightening. If this was where I was headed, I was in serious trouble. The Well of Loneliness, by Radcliffe Hall, was my introduction to lesbian fiction; one of the most depressing books I have ever read. The title alone, if you know that is the road you are now taking, is enough to to make you rush back in the closet and throw away the key. This book has become something of ‘classic’ in the lesbian world, in the sense that most of us have read it, though not a ‘classic’ in a positive sense as any mention of it is greeted by groans. I don’t recall now the titles of the other few books, but in all of them the lesbian character seemed destined for a life of abject misery, or suicide, or else they are saved by a return to heterosexuality. My reaction to this introduction to lesbian fiction was, essentially, what the hell have I done??

So, lacking new characters to jump from the pages and accompany me, I thought longingly of my childhood buddies. Somehow I didn’t think they would be much help. Pooh Bear would just sink his chubby head further into his honey pot, Tigger and Kanga are too busy bouncing and hopping to listen. Eeyore would say, as always,

‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’

But it does. It matters very much.

Those kids from the heterogeneous, clean-scrubbed families of Witchend, would look ascanse at each other and say,

‘Oh dear oh dear but this is awfully difficult,’

and probably run home to mother.

I, who do not identify as a Christian, actually did have a little chat with Jesus. And He actually helped. Asking myself the question what would Jesus do, I answered myself, with every confidence, that he would love me and accept me whoever and whatever I am.

Pretty soon, I discovered Beebo’s bookstore in Louisville and discovered that there really were positive portrayals of fictional lesbians. Claimed as the first of these is Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, in which neither of the two women has a nervous breakdown, dies tragically, faces a lonely and desolate future, commits suicide, or returns to being with a male. But by then I no longer had need for fictitious playmates. Women at Beebo’s had introduced me to the life-saving – or at least lesbian-saving – Boulder group TLC, The Lesbian Connection, which in turn introduced me to many wonderful women; real women, who in turn led me to my Beautiful Betsy.

With a real woman like that, who needs fiction?

© November 2017

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Escape, by Phillip Hoyle

Years ago I’d escape to the hideout in the attic of the garage where this boy with no brothers hung out with boy friends. I’d sometimes go there alone or at least sit downstairs in the garage with my dog Tippy. In Jr. Hi years I’d close the door to my room. I’d matured and moved from sharing a room upstairs with two sisters into my own bedroom across the hall from my parents. Mom consulted with me about color and I ended up with dog wall paper—a mix of portraits of several dog species. Having my own room was great. It was my escape and it had a door! I did my projects and reading there. I enjoyed the solitude.

My friends and I made escapes to the countryside—both on our own and with the Boy Scout troop. We’d hike or ride bikes, or sometimes pull our sleds through the snow. With Scouts we were driven to a campsite south of town where hundreds of years before Native Americans had camped, grown crops, and lived out their summers, one of my favorite places on my great grandparents’ homestead. Kansa and earlier tribes had lived in the valley for centuries. While there I had the further escape of dreams and imagination. I knew I was camping and swimming with Indians long gone from the place.

My other great escape took form in 8th grade with my discovery of the historical novel. I started with James Fenimore Cooper’s stories, The Spy and The Last of the Mohicans, but then found more by contemporary writers like Kenneth Roberts’ book Arundel. I was hooked and spent much of my escape time tramping through forests and prairies with explorers and pioneers, spies and troops, and American Indians of many tribes. Books are still a major escape for me.

Escape is an important factor in personality development (as Don Johnson might point out), to independence (as my daughter would avow), to maintaining long-term relationships (as I testify, both as related to my 29-year marriage and 32-year career in churches). I found meaningful the saying: when a minister leaves one congregation for another, it’s turning in one set of tired problems for a set of new ones.

I still need escapes in retirement. They relieve pressure. Some days escape takes the form of going for coffee, having lunch out, searching a public library, or visiting a museum. These mini-breaks remind me of childhood’s yearly one-week vacation trips with the folks. I recall the morning we woke up in the tiny motel room where we’d slept. Dad complained about how the blinking red neon sign announcing “FULL” had kept him awake, but then, putting his arm around Mom said, “But in all it was a really good night.” My junior-high eyes and ears realized that while we kids slept, Mom and Dad had sex. I’m committed to working hard and then escaping to a change of pace or another book. I guess my upbringing taught me that.

© 19 February 2018

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Hobbies Past & Present, by Ricky

          Not much of a story here to tell.  As a child, I had two electric trains and some track.  Both were made by Lionel.  One train was an Empire Line twin diesel-powered locomotive freight train; the other, a steam locomotive (with coal tender) was a modern passenger train (for the early 1940’s/mid 50’s.  For a long time, I was enamored of model trains and envious of those who had any kind of a train “layout”.   I never had a layout and I sold both trains at a flea-market in Tucson during my late 20’s.
          From age 8 through 13 my interest centered on assembling plastic model airplanes; specifically, warplanes from both world wars.  I loved to put them together and then play with them; having dog-fights with my 3-year older uncle and his planes.  While living on the farm with him, I received my most challenging model for a Christmas gift.  It was a scale model of the USS Constitution; Old Ironsides.  It took me many days to put that one together as it seemed to have some zillion little pieces including two decks of cannons, four masts, helm, rudder, anchors with chains, and miscellaneous rigging.  I was really proud of it when I finished.  I didn’t bother to paint any part of it as I learned that my painting skills were not worth the paint in the bottle from the disaster of painting a green plastic Japanese Zero silver.  It looked more like melting tin than silver aluminum.
          As a youth of 11 to 15, I was sort-of trying to collect little flags of countries, states, or places I visited.  Not much of a collection really.  I had one from Canada (their old-style flag); one from the US of course, and one from the Seattle World’s Fair.  The world fair flag was special as it reminded me of three of the things I saw there; the Space Needle; the “car of the future”; and a clear plastic cylinder containing one million US silver dollars (very impressive).
          Also, during that period, I worked as the attendant at a laundromat owned by my parents.  Because of the world fair experience, I began to collect silver dollars as soon as I began working there.  Unfortunately, that was the same time silver dollars were rapidly disappearing from usage at the casinos at Lake Tahoe, so I was not able to collect very many.
          No more hobbies existed until I discovered computers while attending Sacramento State College in 1966.  This hobby morphed into almost a compulsive-obsessive activity affecting me to this day.
          If reading can be considered a hobby, then I have that as one also, because I am an avid reader of books, magazines, and (because either I’m not perfect or bored a lot) junk-mail.
© 9 Feb 2011 
About the Author 
I was born in June of
1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was
sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for
two years during which time my parents divorced.
When united with my
mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and
then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in
1966.  After three tours of duty with the
Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four
children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days
after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man
in the summer of 2010.   I find writing
these memories to be therapeutic.
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Reading, by Gillian

I was probably lonely as a child. I had good friends at school but when school was out I had no nearby children to play with, and I had no siblings. But I don’t recall ever feeling lonely as I was always accompanied by friends from books. (I originally wrote ‘from fiction’ but as The Bible was one of the few books available to me, I imagine some might take exception to including The Bible as fiction.)

I say few books were available not because of any failure on the part of my family to love books, but because paper was scarce in post-war Britain and so few books were published. There was a library in the local town but that was a long and infrequent bus ride away.

So my personal book collection contained four Winnie the Pooh books, published long before the war and once belonging to my mother, an old and very tattered family Bible, and a book called Mystery at Witchend by Malcolm Saville, a prolific author of children’s books in Britain in the 1940’s and ’50’s.

So I roamed the countryside accompanied sometimes by the roly poly Pooh and a bouncing Tigger, sometimes by all or some of the five children from Witchend who formed The Lone Pine Club and together had many harmless adventures and solved gentle crimes with never a hint of violence. Indeed the only violence I ever read about was in The Bible. But the Jesus who occasionally accompanied me was the gentle fatherly figure depicted in The Children’s Pictorial Bible which we read in Sunday School. Because of one of the pictures in this book, my friend Jesus always had a lamb draped around his neck like a fat wooly scarf. Looking back I rather suspect that my child mind had confused the picture of Jesus with one of the shepherds greeting His birth, but never mind. As Jesus and I frequently walked through fields dotted with grazing sheep my vision was appropriate enough.

Fast forward a few decades. I am in my early forties and finally coming out to myself, and very shortly after, to others. So. I was homosexual. A lesbian. What did that mean? Obviously I knew the meaning of the words, the definition, but what did it mean? To me, to my life. Where did I go from here? I felt very alone. Who could I talk to about all this? My friends might be very supportive, but what could they tell me? No-one I knew would have any answers.

So of course I turned to books and headed for the library. This was before the advent of internet so I searched through the catalog card files, in their long narrow boxes, for the pertinent categories. Although I was ‘out’ to anyone who mattered, I must confess to peeking furtively over my shoulder as I searched the LESBIAN section, the word seeming about a foot high and glaringly obvious to all who passed by.

There was amazingly little available regarding lesbians at that time, fiction or non-fiction.

What little there was, was awful. I rushed home with the few books on the library shelf, avidly read them, and wondered why I had bothered. Beyond depressing, they were just plain frightening. If this was where I was headed, I was in serious trouble. The Well of Loneliness, by Radcliffe Hall, was my introduction to lesbian fiction; one of the most depressing books I have ever read. The title alone, if you know that is the road you are now taking, is enough to to make you rush back in the closet and throw away the key. This book has become something of ‘classic’ in the lesbian world, in the sense that most of us have read it, though not a ‘classic’ in a positive sense as any mention of it is greeted by groans. I don’t recall now the titles of the other few books, but in all of them the lesbian character seemed destined for a life of abject misery, or suicide, or else they are saved by a return to heterosexuality. My reaction to this introduction to lesbian fiction was, essentially, what the hell have I done??

So, lacking new characters to jump from the pages and accompany me, I thought longingly of my childhood buddies. Somehow I didn’t think they would be much help. Pooh Bear would just sink his chubby head further into his honey pot, Tigger and Kanga are too busy bouncing and hopping to listen. Eeyore would say, as always,

‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’

But it does. It matters very much.

Those kids from the heterogeneous, clean-scrubbed families of Witchend, would look ascanse at each other and say,

‘Oh dear oh dear but this is awfully difficult,’

and probably run home to mother.

I, who do not identify as a Christian, actually did have a little chat with Jesus. And He actually helped. Asking myself the question what would Jesus do, I answered myself, with every confidence, that he would love me and accept me whoever and whatever I am.

Pretty soon, I discovered Beebo’s bookstore in Louisville and discovered that there really were positive portrayals of fictional lesbians. Claimed as the first of these is Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, in which neither of the two women has a nervous breakdown, dies tragically, faces a lonely and desolate future, commits suicide, or returns to being with a male. But by then I no longer had need for fictitious playmates. Women at Beebo’s had introduced me to the life-saving – or at least lesbian-saving – Boulder group TLC, The Lesbian Connection, which in turn introduced me to many wonderful women; real women, who in turn led me to my Beautiful Betsy.

With a real woman like that, who needs fiction?

© November 2017

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Reading, by Phillip Hoyle

Mom read to us kids with expression she had developed in high school drama. The five of us liked our introduction to children’s literature and to poetry—especially the poems she had memorized—and others she read out of books. It took a long time for me to start reading much on my own although I did like books, studying the pictures, reading the captions, and sometimes reading paragraphs. Still I didn’t read many books for myself until 8th grade when I discovered historical fiction, chapter books in story form. I soon became addicted to reading stories, a practice that continued uninterrupted until about age 42 when I went on a book fast. For a year I determined not to read any whole books.

My confession: During my fast I did re-read one favorite novel (perhaps Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony) and then allowed myself one new novel (probably on a gay theme).

My success: I turned my free time into piano practice.

My practicality: I still consulted books when I had to teach a class or preach a sermon.

My learning: I already knew enough about the topics I was teaching so began relying more and more on my memory.

Perhaps I had read just too many novels beginning in junior and senior high school, during five years of undergraduate school, during three years of graduate school, and during two and a half years of graduate seminary. None of these books were required reading but they probably did help me keep balance in my life. I read many international books in translation thus broadening my view of the world. I read novels between semesters and years of schooling. I read on family vacations. Plus I read every assigned book and textbook and many more related to my studies.

I’m still at my reading although my practice has changed. I’ve added memoir to my list, also books about writing. I read quite a few books about visual arts as well, but now I spend more time writing and doing visual art projects. (Well I AM retired.) I’m reading books I borrow from several libraries, buy at bookstores, receive from family members, or find at ARC; and I keep reading and revising stories I have written. In my retirement I don’t read five books a week anymore but I often am reading five books at a time. In short, I continue my almost life-long practice of reading, and I love it.

Over the past several weeks I have been reading and re-reading Phillip Lopate’s To Show and To Tell, a fine book on essay writing. Lopate teaches non-fiction writing in the graduate program at Columbia University, NYC. On Tuesday I read through his very long suggested reading list and noted Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. On Wednesday I stopped by a used books store and was surprised to find the book on their shelves. Now I’m reading it, tickled by its style, intrigued by its information, analyzing its writing given what I’ve been learning from Lopate and other teachers, and taking note of how one of the founders of our country understood what he was doing. I never expected to read such a book but am so pleased I knew about it, stopped to look through it, and paid the five dollar price. I’m still reading. This book may take awhile.

© 6 November 2017

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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The Shooters: A book review by Louis

Telling Your Story theme of the day: Reading

Plot Summary of The Shooters (2008) by W. E. B. Griffi,

Genre: International spy thriller

Style of writing: soap opera, episodes based on quickly shifting scenes.

Carlos Castillo was an officer in the Department of Homeland Security. Then there was a Presidential Finding that authorized the setting up of another agency, the Office of Organizational Analysis in reaction to the assassination of some important ambassadors in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina, one of whom was Ambassador Jack Masteson. Carlos Castillo’s middle name is Guillermo. He is the son of Jorge2 Castillo who, when he was stationed in Germany in the U. S. Army, had sex with a German woman who later became pregnant. J2C did not know she was pregnant and was shipped off to Vietnam where he died in combat.

12 years passed and the unnamed mother of Carlos learned she was soon going to die of pancreatic cancer. She goes to local army base and inquires about Jorge2 Castillo’s whereabouts. She learns he died in combat in Vietnam. For his first twelve years Carlos Guillermo3 Castillo was named Karl Wilhelm3 zu und von Gossinger. In other words, he was a German boy growing up in Germany in an impoverished German aristocratic family. Even when he was older, he was blond and fair-skinned, Nordic. Still he was half “Texican,” the grandson of Juan (Don)1 Castillo and Doña Alicia Castillo. A “Texican” means a native of Texas whose ancestry is Mexican especially those who were living in Texas when Texas was still part of Mexico.

Don Fernando1 Castillo was wealthy and owned a Learjet, that is, he was also an airplane pilot.

When Karl Wilhelm’s mother contacted this elderly Texican couple, Doña Alicia flew to Germany and met her grandson whose existence she did know of until then. Karl’s mother was bedridden. Karl’s impoverished German family could not really help him. Of course, Karl was technically illegitimate and was a minor embarrassment. Dona Alicia took right over, took good care of Karl and dying mother. Once mother died, Doña Alicia brought Karl back to Texas where he was of course renamed Carlos Guillermo3 Castillo and where he spent the rest of his childhood, that is, in San Antonio, Texas.

As a result of his childhood in Germany and his subsequent service in U. S. military, CG3C speaks English, German but also Hungarian. As an adult, CG3C worked in the American military, he was a Gulfstream airplane pilot, and all his colleagues called him Charlie. Many other characters in the novel have first name Charles or Charlie. So when reader reads Charlie said this or that, he has to be aware of which Charlie is being referenced (which can get complicated). One of CG3C’s colleagues, Alfredo Munz, is German, so he calls CG3C “Karl”. Other of his colleagues call him “Ace.” Reader gets confused.

Before entering military service in the U. S. Army, CG3C went to West Point as a cadet. He and a fellow cadet, named Randolph Richardson, let’s call him RRIII, frequently played dirty tricks on one another. This led to a serious dispute between the two that resulted in a hearing before the Cadet Honor System Tribunal. RRIII lost his case but never forgave CG3C and his cohorts. And vice versa.
Later CG3C went to Fort Rucker, Alabama, to learn how to fly an updated version of the Gulfstream super airplane and again met RRIII and his fiancée, Bethany2 Wilson, daughter of Harry Wilson, deputy commander at Fort Rucker, Harry Wilson had an important connection with CG3C and that was that he was copilot in the Vietnam War with CG3C’s father, Jorge2 Castillo. The name of Bethany2 Wilson’s mother was Bethany1 Wilson. Both women called themselves “Beth” just to confuse the poor reader even further. B2W and CG3C were of course at odds with one another since her future husband and CG3C would never really get along with each other and she sided with her future husband, RRIII. After a while, however, CG3C and his colleague, TomPrentiss, recounted his biography to B2W and she was so impressed, let her guard down, and she started getting attracted physically to CG3C and eventually had sex with him. They were both of course hush-hush about their romantic interlude, their tryst.

Once the Office of Organizational Analysis was set up, CG3C was sent to Uruguay to protect the Masterson family. Jack Masterson a U. S. ambassador to Uruguay was assassinated in a massacre that took place on the Estancia Shangri La, located in central Uruguay and owned originally by Jean-Phillippe Lorimer, the son of another retired Ambassador who later on in the novel went down to Uruguay to live in his late son’s estate, estancia, despite OAA’s opposition. His son had been assassinated. Presumably, all these assassinations were committed by drug lords.

The novel does not discuss specifically how CG3C was held accountable for his technically unsuccessful task of protecting the Masterson family. He was sitting with his innumerable colleagues in a safe house, a mansion in the Pilar suburb of Buenos Aires, called Nuestra Pequeña Casa. It had originally been purchased and set up by two CIA agents, Paul and Susanna Sieno. While he and his colleagues were sitting in the quincho (a sort of fenced in patio), assuming they were operating in complete secrecy, CG3C’s dog Max detects the presence of an intruder, Colonel Jacob (Jake) Torine, a black U. S. Air Force Colonel who tells them he and a significant number of local U. S. Air Force personnel inferred why and how CG3C’s “secret” operation was all about. CG3C and company were horrified that their so-called secret operation was virtually public knowledge. A bit later, Colonel Jake Torine was inducted as another officer of OOA. Torine was actually motivated to ask for CG3C’s assistance in preventing harassment of his fellow USAF personnel by drug lords.

Once Torine showed them that their operation was not all that secret, they had to return to another safe house in Alexandria, VA. Once things cooled off, they returned to Nuestra Pequeña Casa. CG3C and company, that is, the Office of Organizational Analysis, were sent back to Argentina, to Nuestra Pequeña Casa, safe house, to retrieve Byron J.3 Timmons, the grandson of Byron Timmons Sr. who was a close friend of the unnamed POTUS, and POTUS owed him a favor. Byron Timmons Sr. was a retired chief of police of the Chicago Police Department. BJ3T had been kidnapped by local drug lords, tied up in a secret location with two other Uruguayan anti-drug police officers. 
Until recently, the drug lords never killed drug enforcement or any other law enforcement officers in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. BJ3T with two anti-drug trafficking Uruguayan police officers were turned by their kidnappers into drug addicts themselves. The three were tied up with hands over head to a cable above their heads and were injected intraveneously at regular intervals with heroïne.

During the course of the novel, after much hopping from air base to air base, CG3C returns to Fort Rucker, Alabama, and, in order to observe the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina along the gulf coast, jumps in an airplane, accompanied by RRIV, son of RRIII, and RRIII’s father-in-law, Commander Harry1 Wilson. They fly east first along the southern coast of Alabama then the Florida pan-handle coast. CG3C even lets the 8 year old RR-IV pilot the airplane for a few minutes, of course under his close supervision. One of CG3C’s colleagues takes a picture of this outing on one of his cell phone photography devices.

On this reconnaissance flight were CG3C, RR-IV, Niedermeyer (one of CG3C’s colleagues), Commander Harry Wilson, RR-IV’s maternal grandfather. Later Niedermeyer shows the photos to CG3C, and RR-IV uncannily looks a lot like CG3C. Coup de foudre, CG3C realizes he is RR-IV’s real father, and RRIII does not even know or suspect the truth. If he did know or find out, then what? CG3C writes a report on what he found out in an encrypted message to himself on his laptop. His grandmother, his abuela, Doña Alicia Castillo nagged him about not having a family. Little does she know she has a great grandson. RR-IV is of course the result of CG3C’s romantic interlude with Beth2 Wilson, and Commander Harry1 Wilson is not aware either of his grandson’s actual paternity.

CG3C’s superior is General Bruce J. McNab at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but CG3C is given so much leeway and independence that General McNab’s input into the plot is minimal. CG3C is actually directly responsible to unnamed POTUS. To reiterate, the OOA or Office of Organizational Analysis was set up in response to the Presidential Finding which gives it legal authorization to set up clandestine operations on foreign soil. The Presidential Finding came into being as a reaction to the assassination of U. S. Ambassador to Argentina, Jack Masterson.

CG3C recommends that a fleet of Huey helicopters, being kept originally in Fort Rucker, Alabama, be flown to Jacksonville, Florida, where they were to be landed on an aircraft carrier, the Ronald Reagan. Once on the Ronald Reagan, they could be transported to a certain point off the coast of Uruguay. Three different officials are hostile to CG3C’s mission, and they are Milton Weiss of the CIA who feels CG3C’s mission is going to interfere with his mission of interdicting illicit drug sales in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Eventually these illicit drugs, mainly heroïne, are smuggled inside of cruise ships. CG3C requests permission from José Ordoñez, Uruguayan Policía Nacional Chief Inspector who tells him, in so many words, that he would rather that he, CG3C, and his operation stay out of Uruguay altogether, but he does not enforce his real wishes, and CG3C is able to plan to refuel his Huey helicopters in the Lorimer estate in central Uruguay, the Estancia Shangri La, which previously was the seen of a massacre one of the victims being Ambassador Jack Masterson. His other 3rd nemesis is Liam Duffy, Commandant of the Argentine Gendarmería Nacional, some of whose anti-drug police operatives had recently been assassinated by drug lords. Duffy was originally an Irish cop from Brooklyn, NY. He would rather CG3C and his operation not conduct business in Argentina at all.

To make a long story short, OOA does send in the helicopters and rescue the three anti-drug police agents, including Byron3 Timmons. He had been turned into a drug addict, but was subsequently detoxed.

Moral of story: Despite one’s intense desire to act on one’s patriotic instincts and on one’s general need to enforce the law and out manuever criminals, in this case, South American drug lords, one’s efforts can be foiled by human foibles, politics and in-fighting inside the establishment of the powers that be. CG3C does triumph in the end, however.

9-26-13

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.