Living in Texas has reminded me that when I was little I wrote a couple of books. The first one was full of political intrigue and was titled "King Howard the King". I can't remember all of it but I remember that it started out with the inviting lines "King Howard was the king. He gave the children candy". I remember writing that book, and I remember being disappointed that it wasn't going quite as well as I had expected, and feeling bad that I had to rely on the "gave the children candy" thing. I knew that it wasn't true or honest, insomuch as if King Howard was the ideal king that I, as a little tiny kid, was trying to conjure up he would do better things than give the children candy. I didn't even *like* candy. Well, of course I liked candy but I wasn't so crazy about it that I would summon a king to give me more of it. I was more of a cold cereal kind of guy and I was, frankly, relying on a cliche. At six years old I was already a hack and I knew it. My second book was quite a bit better, if I do say so myself. I was older when I wrote it. I think we lived in Massachusetts by that point, so I guess I was in third grade maybe? I can't even remember any of the book, except that I spent a lot more time drawing the cover than I did on actual content. But heck, with a title like "The Maggot That Ate Texas" the book essentially writes itself. "The Maggot That Ate Texas". God that's good. When I remembered that book I laughed out loud. I wish I still had it. Mom might, I suppose. I recently went through a box of stuff that mom sent us when we were still in Brooklyn. It was full of old school stuff, mostly. Yearbooks from sixth, seventh and twelfth grades, a few issues of "MIRAGE" (my high school 'literary' magazine) and stuff like that. The yearbooks were a hoot. In the sixth grade one, in the class picture I had a piece of string with a bunch of paper clips and stuff stuck to it in my hand and I remember thinking how CRAZY it was to UNDERMINE the integrity of the class picture with this wacky device. I will reiterate here, for those just tuning in, the SHOCKING fact that I was among the most reviled students in the school, and I had no idea why. Ah, youth. Actually, I still think my string and paperclip caper was a pretty good one. My senior yearbook didn't have much embarassment in it, suprisingly enough. I was wearing a pair of earrings that I wouldn't wear now, but that's no big deal. My senior quote is pretty innocuous, if a little bit pompous. It was cool to see Andy's quote, which was very well thought out and perfectly Andy. The literary magazine was tough though, really cringe worthy. Erin was reading some of my stuff out loud and I had to HOLLER at her to make her stop. Lordy. My writing was just excruciating, for the most part, and had this contrived depth that only High School misfits can muster and that I find, now, hard to deal with. Short stories that always ended up with some innocent getting killed, or killing themselves (note: I was not then, nor have I ever been at all suicidal. It was like King Howard the King giving the children candy. I just would find myself written into a corner and have to use some trite plot device to end the story. Ick.) They were well received by my peers at the time, though, so I guess no one really cared. It's funny. Other than the raging hormonal stuff I think I was pretty much who I am now, then. But boy, did I write some crappy stories. Ah, well. At least I was writing them.