From the book I am never going to write

[oneighty]

Don and I decided to run away from home and live in the woods near the NY Central RR tracks. On the way we stopped by Carl's house to see if he might want to run away too. Carl was not home. Nobody was home.

Our small bodies slipped easy through the cellar windows of Carl's house. In the cellar we appropriated (Stole) a quart of Jennie's peach preserves. Upstairs we located a half full pack (or was it half empty?) of Lucky Strikes and some matches. We left with our bounty and continued to run away.

It was dark now. In the woods we located our hut made of small trees leaves and grasses. It was a very small hut being about two feet high four feet long and a couple of feet wide. By the hut was a five gallon steel open top bucket. We built a fire in the bucket and placed it at the entrance to our hut.

With our hands we reached into the open top of the mason jar to snare a peach half. It did not take long to eat all the peaches and drink the sweet thick syrup.

In the hut with our feet at the open end we lay and smoked a few of the Lucky Strikes. For blankets we had some burlap sacks. Don slid his body into one of the sacks and when he straightened his feet out he touched the hot bucket of fire. Whoosh! The burlap caught fire but Don quickly extinguished it.

So we lay there and soon the fire went out and we shivered and shook. Many trains passed in the night a hundred yards or so from where we shivered and shook. They were mostly steam trains but now and then a diesel would hum through. Had it been daylight we would have run to see the new fangled train, the mighty diesels.

Come morning time we decided running away was not really a good idea. So we went home to where I lived on the cliff over looking Lake Erie.

There we learned nobody had missed us.

It was not many years later when Don was taken prisoner in North Korea and I was off shore there on a minesweeper.

Don told me years later that being a POW was not much worse than his life growing up at home. It was that way.

And nobody missed us then either.

180

[Jade Fox]

1. Write the book!

Why not? You have been entertaining us here on DU for years!:)

[oneighty]

6. Thank you Jade Fox

Yor name reminds me of many things. All good-adventure.

180

[kaygore]

2. Check out http://www.writing.com

You have talent and writing.com is a great place where you can share and grow that talent!

[oneighty]

4. Thank you kaygore

I have written hundreds of little stories on DU. DU and the many kind comments has been one of the most fun experiences of my life. I will take a look there at writing.com


Thank you all.

180

[oneighty]

9. Interesting site

I think I will try it.

Thanks

180

[kaygore]

10. This is NOT to suggest that you should deny your talent to DU

But Writing.com is also a great community and one that focuses on writing and supporting writers.

[oneighty]

11. Do you write there?

Just curious.

180

[kaygore]

12. My nephew does

When Writing.com first started as Stories.com some years ago now, my nephew was an aspiring 5th grade mystery writer.

My work centers on the Internet and at that time I was tasked with finding interesting educational sites. That's how I found Stories.com (AKA Writing.com). I encouraged my nephew to start posting his writing there. He writes under the name Alex_G or Alex G, I believe or Alex D Writer (he's a kid, what can I say). (By the way, a few years ago, Alex got kicked out of a Johns Hopkins Gifted and Talented Summer Marine Biology Camp when he got punched by some Republican kid with whom he was trying to discuss the lack of merits of the Bush administration. Like any good progressive, Alex did not fight back with aggression but with facts, logic and words--and we all know how much the Republicans hate those things! Alex also joined his Dad in Washington DC during Bush's first inauguration to riot against Bush's appointment to the role of president. Finally, Alex often refers to himself as "Al" Gore, as a tribute to his hero, Al Gore--no relation.)

But more to the point of your question, I do critique and offer reviews of the writing on Writing.com as I have taught writing from middle school through post-secondary (encouraging reviews as writing is, after all, thinking made visible and thinking is one thing this nation needs more of).

Anyway, over the past five or so years, I have watched the site grow. It is a great community and the Story Master and Story Mistress (who might be in their early 30s if that now) have done a great job of not only keeping the site alive but also growing it.

[zanne]

3. That's alot better than the book I never wrote! n/t

[oneighty]

5. Never writing a book

is great fun.

Hee hee hee!

180

[murray hill farm]

7. I have never read your other stories,

but that one was excellent! I do so agree...that never writing a book is great fun! I used to say that i would one day write a book...and would often say to folks..is it ok if i put that in my book...but ya know...writing a book is sooooooooo much work! Once in a very great while i get the thought again...but not too often any more. it sounds waaaayyyyyyyy to much like the "w" word..and i am retired and so loving it.

[oneighty]

8. Actually I am writing it.

One little story at a time. There are quite a few here in writing and some narrative poetry in the Poetry Forum.

The input from fellow Duers is a guiding light. Really.

180

[JitterbugPerfume]

13. this is a new story Ed

I don't think I have heard it before

I love your stories

Voyages of the Vicky Mary is one of my teeasure

[oneighty]

14. It is from the book I am not going to write

Miss Jitterbug.

The next story is going to be 'We Were Pirates Once'

Wherein I "Shot him with my dirk." And a sword is pronounced sWord and an island is an is-land. A pirate did not need to know very much except in school or Mrs. Swartz would make you sit under her desk; a terrible experience that.

It is not necessary for pirates to speak or spell rite neither or know anything other than pirate stuff like "Avast there me matties."

Hee hee hee

The Barracuda AKA 180

[JitterbugPerfume]

15. cool