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Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Blinders, Bucket Lists and Queenie

Sometimes I’ll walk around a
library or a bookstore and stare at the kadzillions of books stored on
the shelves, and I think to myself, “What chance would I have writing a
book and trying to get it into readers’ hands when there are already
countless millions of books out there, and many of them are really great
ones?” And then I answer myself and say “not much,” and I go home.

I did just that for a whole lot of years, far
too many, and eventually decided to get over myself, to stop sulking and
comparing, and to take out that bucket list, look into it, put on a
pair of good heavy blinders and get on with it. Becoming 80 had a lot to
do with this decision, too.

You know what blinders are, I’m sure. They
are those leather square things put on a horse’s bridle next to his eyes
so that he can only see straight ahead. He cannot be distracted by
anything else going on, and so can only focus on the finish line, the
final objective. Blinders, to a person striving to attain success, can
help to keep one's eyes on the goal. I finally decided to put on my
blinders and get on with it, so I wrote a book. It is called “Queenie.”

This is a story about a young girl in the 1950s
who is suddenly, and with no explanation, torn from her well-heeled life
for reasons she is never told. She is forced to leave her school, The
Academy, and her friends and to go to public school with kids she had
always thought were her inferiors, kids from blue collar and even poor
families. She is nicknamed “Queenie” by the public school students,
because of her snobby airs and accent, but what the public school kids
don’t realize is that Queenie is overwhelmed with terror every day. She
hides in the girl’s bathroom at lunch time. She keeps her head down and
won’t engage with “those “kids. She is badly beaten up at one point. A
friend dies. In short, Queenie’s “new” life is hell for her, a strange
and vicious struggle, and she does not know why she was forced to
endure it.

In time these young public school kids teach
Queenie about racial prejudice, homophobia, poverty and intolerance,
things that had never occurred to her before. She even learns about some
of the unpleasant aspects of America’s history, which until then she
had not known.

Queenie can never really know in her lifetime to
which group she belongs, or which accepts her. She was educated by
both. She does however, learn whom she can trust.

In time she finds out the horrifying answer as to why
she was pulled from a wealthy safe life to one quite the opposite. And
yes folks, there is a bit of sex, drugs and rock & roll in Queenie.
But just a bit, I promise.

Did I have to write this book? Yes. I well know
that Maine is filled with great writers. Do I presume I am one of them?
Absolutely not. But write it I did and the devil take the hindmost.
“Queenie” was ably edited by the editor and general manager of the
Coastal Journal, Raye Leonard, and if my book flows and sings in places,
that’s why.

Queenie can be found in local bookstores as
we speak, and on Amazon too. The cover is bright yellow and there’s a
photo of a public high school on the front with two red painted doors at
the school’s entrance; it was through these doors she, as a terrified
young girl walked, and two years later walked through them again, to the
outside, no longer afraid, and she was a far stronger and better person
than she had been going in.

Click on author's byline for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.