That Was Yesterday (eBook)

Steven Curtis (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
80 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-2643-7 (ISBN)

Infos

In an amazing turn of events, a nine-year-old boy profoundly changes the lives of four adults and a lonely dog in the course of one day. It's the day before Christmas, and in a desperate attempt to remove him from a violent living situation, his aunt puts him on the Greyhound to Reno to live with the father he has never met. With nothing more than a few belongings and a note with his father's phone number pinned to his shirt, his aunt bids him a tearful farewell. When he gets to Reno, he discovers his father, a Vietnam vet, to be a raging alcoholic with a living situation even worse than the one the boy left behind. The father insists that the boy is not even his son and threatens him if he does not leave at once and not come back. The boy, heartbroken, is convinced nobody wants him, and the only option left to him is to spend Christmas at the police station; that is until the Greyhound driver and a cafe waitress come up with a better idea. In the process of them being so anxious to help him, they realize that in so doing, he has inadvertently enriched their lives beyond measure.

Steven Curtis was a US Marine Corps combat photographer in Vietnam for two tours (1968-1970) and a photographer in Hollywood for 30 years. After he was discharged from the Marine Corps and before he started working for the Hollywood motion picture studios, he was restless and wanted to see the country so he signed on with Greyhound bus lines as a driver. He always said it was his most favorite job that he ever had and this story is based on some of his experiences there. A photo book by Steven Curtis, The Vietnam I Remember, can be found at WWW.TheVietnamIremember.com.

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This story was over 20 years in the making. It started as a series of abstract recol-lections in the back of my brain. I would revisit them at random moments and add more mental notes. After a number of years, it had taken on a life of its own. One afternoon, I was returning from dropping my friend off at the airport. It was a week before Christmas and raining heavily. I had the car radio tuned to Christmas carols and was a bit de-pressed when the story came to life with a vengeance and consumed my entire being. I turned down a deserted side street and pulled out a yellow legal pad and started writing furiously. The story just exploded from the confines of my memory and onto the printed page. Like a demon possessed, I continued to write frantically; It was no longer a search for words; It was free association. This went on for over four hours and ended up being fifty-two pages in length. Upon my return home that night, I was exhausted both mentally and physically. I put that yellow legal pad in the back drawer of my office desk and never looked at it again for at least five years. Only then, when my agent asked me if I had any more good stories, did I feel ready to dust it off and take a second look. At his urging, I undertook the arduous task of transcribing my barely legible handwriting to a properly typed-up book proposal. This is the result of my effort and, it will have been worth it if my story brings meaning and inspiration to an appreciative audience.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.12.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-2643-7 / 9798317826437