(Last installment of this section of my book, “The Girl who Changed my World.”) The next morning I awakened with a headache after the previous day’s emotions! I rang up Christine, a friend from college who lived in France and had invited me to come stay with them for a week. I told her I…
Category: memoirs
Three Carnations
(This is the ongoing love story which has lasted decades…) It was nearly midnight, in Alexandra Park under a black and brilliant, starlit sky, Karen and I walked home from a play. We stopped to behold the beauty above us, then ended up looking at one another as well. She looked more deeply at me, looked…
London at 19
London as a 19-year-old—friends and I hitched rides, visited Brighton, Bath, Salisbury, and Stonehenge. We met in pubs, drank lager, laughed, told stories, and philosophized about life. One friend, Cammy from my university, and I especially took many walks and short trips together. We had plenty of work on our classes, visited art museums, studied…
First Stop: Joy.
After a summer knocking on doors, I was full of enthusiasm. I’d been acting enthusiastic all summer, as Southwest Publishing taught us, and now was totally filled with it. Much of my outward expression, my super interest was in order to be liked. But it was not a lie. It was the best way I knew to be myself, and…
The Meeting
I felt shy, self-conscious, and little, but could not resist the draw to meet her. I reached my right hand across the barrier, “Hi, my name is Brian Shimer, what’s yours?” “Karen Cook” she said, shaking my hand. Later I learned her last name was spelled K.O.C.H “Good to meet you. Are you seeing…
The Gate
(Continued from last week’s post titled “Walk by Faith.” This is from the opening chapter of my memoirs. I’m 19-years-old, selling books door-to-door.) Door-to-door, I walked on that summer of 1978 in Newton, IA. In my flip-top steno pad I tracked every house on every street with a box and house number. I tracked who…
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