I was born and raised in a small Northern California town. At one time, the population was very near that of the fictitious town of Payton Place with equal amounts of gossip and everyone knowing everyone else's business. I graduated from the local high school in the late '60s and couldn't wait to get out of town. I moved to the city and began a series of counterculture adventures, which ultimately landed me in jail. Over the course of time, I came to think fondly of the time I spent in my then small hometown. The town has grown since then but is still small, relatively speaking. I have always enjoyed writing and sharing my experiences with other people and now, at this point in my life, would like to relay what it was like growing up with "country ways." Plain ole everyday events are what make up all our lives. What follows here are some of those events that have made up my life and those around me. Some of these stories are pieces I wrote for a writing group I was involved in at our local library. The group was "Down Memory Lane" and was anything about our past in our small town. Our pieces were usually printed in the local newspaper, and I came to appreciate the comments I would get on the articles. Of course, this is life in a small town, so usually everyone knows everyone else and their dogs. But, as Wallace Stegner once said, "How do you make a book that anyone will read out of lives as quiet as these?" This is that attempt. This is just plain old everyday events. Fellini once insinuated that what he creates is more real to him than what actually is or was. He created his own reality. Most of these stories are just as they happened. I did these stories in an effort to explain the time and the events that made up those experiences (my life and times).
