James Cagney Jr. (memoir) (Short Story) - 1/2/2022 1:47:10 AM
I'm so sorry that Jimmy was not able to reconciled with his father and that he died so young at 42 year of age. Jimmy was a product of a severely divided family. Very sad indeed! Thank you for sharing his life with us!
Sandie
James Cagney Jr. (memoir) (Short Story) - 2/7/2019 4:48:34 PM
I can relate as was friends with them. I was in President Kennedy funeral march 1 or 2 behind his horse, Lot of memories since reading your memoir,
The Baker's Son (Chapter 5) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:59:48 AM
you have fashioned a highly readable beginning of your memoir
hope to see it published one day
NEVER STOP WRITING
m
The Baker's Son (Chapter 4) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:55:26 AM
riveting, sorry you had to endure the bigotry of the time
off to read the next
The Baker's Son (Chapter 3) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:50:18 AM
powerful writing, the narrative builds suspense and wonder and craving for more
off to read the next
The Baker's Son (Chapter 2) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:48:30 AM
interest continues, you build intrigue
off to read the next
The Baker's Son (Chapter 1) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:47:31 AM
well written, holds reader interest,
off to read the next
The Storm (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:46:39 AM
holds reader interest,
well done
NEVER STOP WRITING
m
Vietnam-- Post Traumatic (based on a true story) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:46:06 AM
powerful narrative re a difficult time for our country, and in particular the soldiers, citizens, parents and all who had a loved one in Nam and during the years following
James Cagney Jr. (memoir) (Short Story) - 5/29/2018 7:30:06 AM
ENJOYED the read!
soon grasps and holds read reader attention first line to the last sentence
well done
NEVER STOP WRITING
m
The Baker's Son (Chapter 9) (Short Story) - 12/25/2017 8:00:11 AM
With each chapter, you court death. Riding motorcycles does seem to be a death sentence waiting to happen. Ironically, my cousin, at 15, while earning money running a lawn mowing service with other kids doing the work in his small town bought a Triumph Bonneville. I only rode with him once on the winding highway west of that town doing about 90 miles-per-hour, he had his left hand on the handlebar and turned right to talk to me over his shoulder as the curves came up very fast.
Like you, he ran through his nine lives quickly. In two years he had three accidents with the bike. One knocking himself out and a broken collarbone on a telephone pole on a lonely stretch of country road. And then, T-boning cars that pulled in front of him like you. On the first one he actually put the bike down and flew over the hood of the car, landing on his feet. After collecting himself, jumped on the bike and tried to catch his stupid causer that ran a stop sign. On the second, coming down a hill in town with a male college student friend, he smashed his right hand and leg into the back quarter of a car who ran a stop sign. He gave up motorcycles at 18.
Later, after he learned to fly and eventually got a commercial license, he almost, "bought the farm," when he was flying to see me from Dayton to Morgantown, West Virgnia, encountering a storm and coming out of the clouds upside down at 500 feet. He eventually quit flying as too dangerous, but a few years ago, while driving alone at night in North Dakota, died outside his Expedition window (no seatbelt, window down?) In late December at 57. I tried to write his story from my point of view, but his sisters did not want me publishing it. "He was no angel," one sister told me. Are any of us?
I really felt bad for Carol. What happened ruined what seemed to be a good relationship. There's no good way to have a motorcycle accident at speed. You are both extremely lucky.
Methinks you have more chapters in your storied life. Looking forward to them. Death wishes all?
Ron
The Baker's Son (Chapter 9) (Short Story) - 12/25/2017 2:20:33 AM
I can understand why shock caused that Good Samaritan to suffer a heart attack. I was visibly shaken before the conclusion of this chapter.
The Baker's Son (Chapter 8) (Short Story) - 12/21/2017 1:52:51 AM
To say this is another fascinating read sounds sacrilegious because "this is your life" which took dramatic turns aside from the reels. In college, I'd taken a sociology course on comparative religions and did an in-depth study of the Jehovah Witnesses, attending many of their services and interviewing several members, so became privy to their thoughts on higher education.
The Baker's Son (Chapter 8) (Short Story) - 12/20/2017 6:52:10 AM
This chapter covers a lot of territory, including your reception as a returning veteran, your connection to Hollywood and to the Jehovah's Witness cult, seemingly direct opposites, as well as your falling out with your father, your struggle with marriage and children, and finally, your near death experience with an overdose of cocaine.
While I was against the war and did talk to people guns ho with joining the service, not to go, I never treated, or knew of anyone who treated, returning veterans with ill will. I'm so sorry that you were treated badly by your family (shame on them) and high school buddies. I remember taking some returning vets in my car to San Francisco for one wild night. One guy had a $3000 reenlistment bonus that he wanted to spend. One of my best friends served in the Navy At the Alameda Air Station and was the commander's driver. He never went overseas. I do recall talking to one of my high school classmates who tried to get my brother and I to join in the buddy system like he did. He and his buddy were separated right after Boot camp and he was very discouraged upon returning as I recall.
I came to Stanford to begin my Masters degree studies at Stanford in 1966. While I met women who were caught up in drugs and alcohol during that period, I was lucky not to run into someone like Michelle. From what I read, was a drug addict and actually was no angel when she overdosed you on cocaine.
It would've been nice to know something about remodeling work. Especially since you said you received the national award for your work. You certainly have led a checkered life that does look like a Hollywood movie material.
Ron
The Baker's Son (Chapter 7) (Short Story) - 12/20/2017 2:30:49 AM
I recall reading this memoir at a previous time. It certainly deserves entry into your book. Reading all of the previous entries, puts everything into better perspective.
The Baker's Son (Chapter 7) (Short Story) - 12/19/2017 7:51:31 AM
I have read and commented on this terrifying story before. Only true stories are like this. Fictional stories are much less interesting and the heroes in them never sweat, get dehydrated, or almost killed by the women they seduce.
The only thing strange that I find is that you claim to have not eaten in days at the end when you were being chased. I do understand dehydration. It appears that all you are doing was drinking liquor. That would definitely dehydrate you very quickly. But all you were doing before going to the hotel and the apartment, all within a day and a night, was touring. With those travelers' checks, I expect that you were eating well while touring.
So, perhaps it was the dehydration that made you lose track of time and not that you went "days" without eating. Unless the Chinese man who saved you, kept you in that room I couldn't get into the room while you slept. That also may have accounted for your time loss.
Your near loss of life was very real in this one. The stuff of legends. Enjoyed reading it again very much.
Ron
The Baker's Son (Chapter 6) (Short Story) - 12/14/2017 2:06:38 AM
Your detailed account brought this conflict to the forefront again along with the scars of emotional anguish.
The Baker's Son (Chapter 6) (Short Story) - 12/13/2017 8:53:09 AM
I recall previously about your marriage (?) to Yoshiko and your failed attempts to get her to come to the US. A very sad situation.
Your first beachhead and unfortunate encounter with a mortar certainly does add to your nine lives with one more place where you were destined to die, but didn't. It does seem strange that you tried so hard to get back into the fight. You must've had a death wish during that time to want to face the enemy again.
I'm not sure why you were ordered to be locked beneath decks when threatened with being torpedoed. A ship like yours should have had some kind of torpedo protection rather than being a sitting duck.
It is firsthand accounts like yours that are giving us old picture of what the Vietnam War was all about. For being noncommissioned, you certainly were placed in the midst of things from the very beginning. Maybe that's why you wanted to get back… The adrenaline.
Ron
There were some slight punctuation errors and these: "Hanoi [surely] didn't want…" "[… ship's] landing [craft]."
The Baker's Son (Chapter 6) (Short Story) - 12/13/2017 2:40:22 AM
these were times and had such events that are still shrouded from all but who were there
The Baker's Son (Chapter 5) (Short Story) - 12/10/2017 7:33:02 AM
What started as a good-natured buddy helping out fellow Marines certainly turn into a terrible tragedy. I have been riding with for driving when drowsy and it can be quite dangerous. The Sergeant was surely trying to protect his shiny new ride from any damage by continuing to drive himself, but he put you all in harm's way.
When I was alternately hitting the ceiling of my 35 Ford hot rod and then the seat as it rolled over more than 10 times at about 60 miles an hour or more with the door pulled open by centrifugal force, I found myself not thinking about God, but reaching up and grabbing the roof to stop the up and down slamming. And then, again not thinking about God, I pulled my hand and arm inside so they wouldn't be crushed, just as I was being ejected from the car on the last roll. I think your early indoctrination into the Catholic Church, followed by your Baptist baptism, made you think of God during that terrible few seconds of a horrendous crash tangling with a semi tractor trailer.
I believe the Marine you saw in the full body cast may have survived as well, and if he had read this, he certainly would probably try to contact you. I'm very glad you are able to tell the truth to your readers after having to hide it when you return to base for fear of not being shipped out.
Ron
The Baker's Son (Chapter 5) (Short Story) - 12/10/2017 2:01:20 AM
That private was your guardian angel who buffered you from death.
The Baker's Son (Chapter 4) (Short Story) - 12/8/2017 10:09:26 AM
You certainly were lucky to have survived that beating. And, not lost that eye as well as get some revenge. Like you wrote, so much more, "a few good men."
I hear stories about how great it was back in the 1960s, but your story reminds me of the bigoted and bad side of that era where beatings like yours commonplace. Maybe the story writers are longing to go back to that kind of behavior that's becoming less and less tolerated with cell phone videos and rules of behavior.
The neighbor of mine who entered the Navy at that time was a tough farm kid who had to save an Indian buddy of his who would often get drunk and get into scrapes while they were out together. Those were the days…
Ron
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You have apparently become quite conservative in your elder years like so many who remember the "greatest generation" fondly and its innocence, while conveniently forgetting segregation, colonialism, and all the other ills that faced our nation and our world in those innocent times with tyrants a plenty. I seem to recall that a certain Charlie Chaplin, later condemned and exiled in France did a spoof of Hitler called "The Little Dictator." Was he insane? I don't think so. He was brilliant.
Dennis Rodman's inroads into the life of the little dictator is no more bizarre or dangerous.
Last Sunday I watched the first episode of "Tyrant." It appears to be a slightly veiled parody of what is unfolding in Syria.
I would agree with you that the media, especially movies, while heavily censored for a natural and wonderful experience, sex, seem to have increasingly violent content as some sort of redeeming value. In fact, the heroes of these encounters always survive violence that would have had them killed in the first few minutes of the movie as they kill countless nameless others on their way to victory in final defeat of their archenemy, usually down to a hand to hand fight to the death. This formula always seems to create blockbusters.
And the ultraviolent Transformer empire appeals to the youngest kids, when they only really want to transform their cars and trucks into robots.
Ron
