Richard T. Stevens

One fine spring morning, so many years ago, I came into this world. As I grew, the family dog decided that I was his responsibility. The two of us became best buddies, and what adventures we had. Unfortunately, time passed on and I had to grow up and go to Junior High.

Being a more mature person now, my interests changed. I left my fantasy adventures behind and concentrated on my studies, especially the sciences. After three intense years of study, I could electrocute a hot dog; tell you the life story of a flame; explain how baby Dungeness Crabs crawling out of a lunch bag scares girls; and how to blow up your back yard.

Time marches on, and all to soon it was time to move on to High School for more serious studies. More serious, like getting a Driver's License and girls.

My formative years were not without their problems, like "No I didn't cheat on the test. "Yes, I really can memorize the teacher's lectures and repeat them back word for word." Dating was a problem too. Who wanted to date a guy who drove a 1951 Studebaker? A hurricane, in the meantime, didn't help much either.

High School taught me many important things; like how to type 45 words per minute; how to catalog books in a public library; and how to stay warm at a football game by hugging twin girls. (Hint: Never date both twin girls at the same time.) Other important things were Vector Analysis, Advanced Algebra, and Chemistry. Not to forget that beautiful blonde teaser, err teacher in Senior English, but that's a story for another time. All in all, High School prepared me well for college, where I failed my mother terribly by not becoming a dentist, but going for an Electronic Engineering degree instead.

In college, my curriculum included Electronics, Architectural Drafting, and how to use the Slide Rule, among other classes. Why I needed to study drafting, I'll never know. And who's used a Slide Rule in the last fifty years? At the end of the first year, I had failed my mother even more, by marrying the girl of my dreams and being drafted into the Vietnam War.

Fast forward a lot of years and I found myself telling stories to five angelic children. (Who's kidding who?) Surprisingly enough, they liked them so well that they have been bugging me to someday write them down. Who knew my High School Typing class would come in handy some day. Hopefully, someday my grandchildren will stop playing video games long enough to read them.

Nowadays, my wife and I are making our fourth attempt at retiring, and we seem to be busier than we ever were when we were working full time. All the various characters in my stories are arguing back and forth, in my head, as to who's story gets written down first. Looking back on my 22 years in the military, my visiting 48 of the 50 U. S. States, three-quarters of the Canadian Provinces, and seven different countries, I have a lot of background material to go on.

So grab one of my paperback book, an e-reader, tablet, or computer, lean back and enter my fascinating worlds of "what if?"