THE CALL of FRIENDS

About the Book

Most of the time, there were many other kids around, but I didn’t participate. I’d only sit and commiserate with a female visitor or two. I wasn’t even aware of it being nighttime when I’d wake up and go home for breakfast. But that’s the kid. I became aware of Pat’s death again at retirement time. A time of great boredom. And that’s when it hit me right in the face and all the memories came flooding back, so fast that I couldn’t write them down quickly enough. And so . . . the story.

About the Author

I’m a retired machinist, and I started writing this in 1999. There was not much time for organized grieving in those days, so this fourteen-year-old boy spent two or three weeks in solitude at the old swimming hole with nothing but my bathing trunks, a sandwich that I’d make while getting my father’s lunch at home and then back to the creek for more contemplation of why!