Altimexis

How could I have forgotten about pasties? Detroit can have its Conies. Nothing beats a pasty. Definitely not on my Mediterranean pescatarian diet though. I can’t help but think Mr. Johnson is punishment for inciting a student revolt.

Friday, July 29, 1972 “So where are you taking me?” Paul asked. “We’re going to an Iowa City icon,” I explained. “I guess it started out as a small theater in an old mill, but that was a long time ago, before it moved to its current location. It’s still a dinner theater, but tonight they’re having live entertainment. They’ve had some name acts perform there in the past.” “So who’s gonna be there tonight?” Paul asked. “Never heard of them, but they’re supposed to be good,” I re

It was apparent that SOotB was posted as it was written. It was an excellent story, but the quality of your writing improved significantly over the course of the story. It was good, but you could make it better and if you're game, I'd welcome a rewrite. I agree that it shouldn't be your first priority though. I never write from notes or character profiles, but every author has their own style. When I write, I start with a concept, an idea for a beginning and an end, and a series of characters with well-defined personalities. Sometimes the characters lead me in unexpected directions. I like to write story series because I can watch my characters mature in time, often over the course of several years. LB, you have to do what's right for you, but I would encourage you to reread WISYA. It's really outstanding and it has so much potential. It deserves to be finished. It doesn't matter what your original intent was at all. Let the characters guide you. Breathe new life into them and develop new character profiles based on how you would like them to be today. No one should leave behind an abandoned story. Please do something with it.

With the introduction of the HP35 scientific calculator in 1972, it was easy to predict that miniaturization would bring us computers in increasingly smaller packages. However, I doubt that anyone could have predicted the way technology has evolved or the past fifty years. Regardless of size, a computer was a tool for computation - hence the name. Elementary word processors were beginning to appear and the two would ultimately merge, but that was only the beginning. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak brought us the first true personal computer, but it lacked any real purpose until VisiCalc appeared on the scene. With the introduction of the first spreadsheet program, suddenly a PC could do something useful that no other device could do. Xerox developed the first graphical user interface, but they never took it beyond the proof of concept stage. Apple reversed engineered the concept into a useful machine and although limited by today's standards, it was truly revolutionary. I'll never forget the first time I saw a Mac. It was so intuitive to use. It blew me away. Before the Mac, most people would have predicted that computers would evolve into what was shown in Star Trek - i.e. they'd use voice control. We have that now, but the graphical user interface remains the way most people interact with their computers etc. I remember when engineers were discussing the difficulty of the last half-mile - the enormous expense of running optical fiber into people's homes. Now, that kind of discussion seems laughable. Verizon proved that if you build it, people will come. For what my parents used to pay for telephone service at the time of this story, adjusted for inflation, I have gigabit internet and can stream multiple 4k-HDR movies simultaneously. All of that pales in comparison to the smartphone. No, I didn't see it coming, and I don't think many computer scientists did either. I'll never forget the first time I held an iPhone in my hands. Outside of the automobile and television, few technologies have been so transformative of society. Now, AI is reaching a point where it could be equally transformative, but that was entirely foreseeable. People have been writing books and making movies for more than a hundred years about how AI would enslave humankind. Most such sci-fi, however, is terribly flawed. I'm not sure we'll ever build a machine that's truly self-aware in the way that even a house cat is - not that it matters if an AI model leads to a machine that decides humans are't needed anymore.

Those pictures of Jack could open up a legal minefield. By law, any professional who sees evidence of child abuse is obligated to report it. If Nicky showed those pics to his mom, she could lose her medical license if it came out that she had seen them and didn't act on it. Likewise, the teachers, house parents and administrators at Harrison West would be under similar constraints. That's why sharing those pics has to be handled with caution. Keep in mind that Jack's parents are the ones paying his tuition. Jack isn't a scholarship student. If his parents were arrested for child abuse, Jack could lose his access to Harrison West and end up going into the system. It's not clear whether that would be in California or in Michigan. CPS offices tend to be rather possessive when it comes to kids who are physically located in their state, but are obligated to try to return them to their parents when possible. Kinship care is another option, but we don't know if Jack has any relatives who could take him in. The best use for those pictures might well be the threat they pose. Nick could always discuss them with his mother in a hypothetical sense. At the least, I think he should let Jack know he has them. Nick took them without Jack's knowledge and against his wishes, so he needs to build trust and that includes coming clean about them. The fact that he hasn't shown them to anyone else should help to overcome any anxiety Jack might have that a well-intentioned Nick would do anything behind his back. Should Jack's parents try to remove Jack from Harrison West, however, Nick could use those pics quite effectively to blackmail them into backing down. The more significant issue might be how to help Jack over the summer. Ideally, Jack should stay with Nick and his mom, but getting his parents to agree to that would be daunting.

Saturday, July 23, 1972 “So how about we grab some chow and then maybe go bowling?” Steve suggested. We’d just gotten out of the weekly research symposium, and it was time for lunch. “Sorry guys, but I need to take advantage of the weekend to log some time on the computer,” I replied. “Wait times are much shorter when it comes to getting results back. It takes over an hour on a weekday afternoon. On Saturday and Sunday, it takes only ten or fifteen minutes. I hope to polish things off t

I remember reading this when it was first posted, and then waiting for a Part 2 that never came. @LittleBuddhaTW pretty much dropped of the face of the planet after that, at least when it came to this and other gay fiction sites. Now, he's writing and posting again, and in a big way. I do hope he'll come back to this story! If the author was not himself a participant in the Little League World Series, he must have done a phenomenal job of background research for this story. I was never athletic enough to participate, so I can't speak to its authenticity. I passed by the Little League Museum many times, On Thanksgiving weekends and for birthdays, driving from Rochester, where we lived, to Washington and Baltimore, where my in-laws lived. Williamsport is one of the most picturesque towns in America. The beauty of the Susquehanna River was one of the few things that made the 6-hour drive tolerable. Part 1 ends with Grady coming to the realization that he's gay. He's twelve years old, very likely soon to be thirteen, and about to enter the eighth grade. His parents aren't much interested in him, but I suspect they wouldn't take the news that their son is gay very well at all. Grady must be frightened out of his mind about that, but more importantly about how his best friend and his best friend's father would take the news. They are his lifeline. Brennan already suspects something about Grady and it's only a matter of time before he figures it out. There are a lot of possibilities upon which to build Part 2 of the story. I hope the author does so very soon.

Perhaps Noah will contact his very rich and powerful parents in New York.

I apologize for making such a broad generalization. However, I did note that even in deep blue Detroit, the African American community tends to be very religious and not all that accepting of gays. I know Michigan fairly well. I lived in Midtown Detroit for three years and traveled extensively in the state during that time. Further, I grew up in Indianapolis and although the city was heavily Democratic, about 2/3 of my suburban classmates were Republican. I'm Jewish, but my sister's an Evangelical Christian with a gay son. She votes Republican but is more or less tolerant. Perhaps it was jumping to conclusions that might not be warranted, and again, I apologize for that. Of course with a school such as Harrison West, Karen might not even be from Michigan. For all we know, she might be from Nigeria, which isn't exactly friendly to gay people. However, if she is from Michigan, there's a better than even chance she fits the MAGA mold. It would have been better if I'd phrased it just that way.

I know I may be stepping on a few toes, but Karen wears a red MAGA hat - figuratively if not literally. Twice, a slight majority of Michiganders picked Donald Trump for the presidency. Saying that Michigan is a purple state hardly tells the whole story, though. With the exception of of Detroit, Ann Arbor and Lansing, the state is deep red. Even in Detroit, which is overwhelmingly blue, the African American community is very religious and not that welcoming of diversity other than their own. For three years, I worked at one of the hospitals in the Detroit Medical Center and every evening, the announcement that visiting hours were over concluded with, "Have a blessed night." I should probably mention that the Detroit suburbs, particularly Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, have a very large Muslim population, but I never had the impression they were intolerant. Confronting Karen is absolutely the WRONG thing to do. You aren't going to change her mind and she has an entire movement behind her that extends all the way to the White House. We live in perilous times, but that doesn't mean laying low and letting the religious right run roughshod over us. Karen's a lost cause. The best we can hope for is that in forcing the school to back down, she will become disgusted enough to pull her kid(s) out of the school and enroll them in a Christian academy. The boys need to protest enough to get the school to back down, but not enough to cause a backlash. Nick's comment about the lack of black students is a sad commentary in an age when DEI initiatives are under attack. I went to a public high school in which 21% of the student body was black, but there were never more than one or two black students in the accelerated courses that formed the backbone of the high-achiever curriculum. Elsewhere in the U.S., so-called elite public high schools have a preponderance of Asian students and few African Americans. Proposals to improve the mix have met with fury from the Asian American community and have done little to improve minority enrollment. In my opinion, trying to address inequality in high school is too little, too late. That said, diversity is an important component of education. I appreciate the background research the author did for this story. It's that kind of preparation that separates the ordinary stories from the ones that are compelling. By grounding Swing for the Fences in the plausible, the author has brought us a story that is believable. I don't know squat about life at boarding schools, but I did a ton of research into sexual consent case law when writing one of my own stories, Brilliant Boy Billionaire. That story involved a protagonist who at one point was sixteen but passing for nineteen and his boyfriend, who at that point was fifteen. The protagonist perceived there was a real risk of being tried for statutory rape. He also had concerns that the past he wanted to keep secret might be discovered. What I learned from my research is that the federal definition of the age of consent is the age at which a minor can consent to sex with an adult, age 21 or older. In other words, consent laws were written before the age of majority was lowered to eighteen. Every state handles sexual consent differently. New York has an age of consent of 17, but that only applies to sex with adults, age 21 or older - a four-year age difference. Minors 17 years and older can consent to sex with an adult, but the law is vague when the minor is under age 17 or the partner is under age 21. Generally, New York doesn't prosecute cases when the age difference is less than four years, but the prosecutor has broad discretion and there are numerous laws that can be applied outside of the consent laws. A 17-year-old who has 'consensual' sex with a 13-year-old might well face prosecution. A 13-year-old who has so-called consensual sex with a 9-year-old would likely spend time in the juvenile justice system.

This chapter is almost entirely autobiographical. I embellished the trip to Amana a bit, but the charge for a meal we thought was included really happened. However, we let it slide. More than likely, it was a misunderstanding, as I’ll explain shortly. It’s only in retrospect as an adult that I realized we should have challenged it. Amish furniture has become very popular - much more than it was in 1972. I ordered a desk and bookcases 8 years ago. I spent quite a bit of time researching the fabrication and design process, and contacted several companies that sold custom Amish furniture. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t get them to answer all my questions. I even considered making a weekend trip to Lancaster to visit the showrooms myself. I ended up ordering from a company in Florida, Dutch Crafters, that had extensive connections with Amish factories in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. I had thought it would be better to deal with the Amish directly, but it definitely helps to work with people who understand the Amish way of doing things. In retrospect, I suspect the double billing for the meal in Amana was a cultural misunderstanding. By the way, if you’re ever in the Lancaster area, which is a short drive from Philadelphia, Miller’s Smorgasbord is a dining experience that mustn’t be missed. The Pennsylvania Dutch food served is second to none and it’s an all you can eat buffet. Their traditional shoe fly pie, which is made with molasses and so named because you need to shoe away the flies, is a must. Wernher von Braun’s Nazi past wasn’t discussed back in 1972. The Cold War and the initial success of the Soviets in launching the first satellite made rocket development a priority for the US. It didn’t help that the Russians grabbed the best rocket scientists during their march through Germany. We started the space race from behind and even though we were first to the moon, we never did catch up with Soviet rocket science. The US government whitewashed von Braun’s history and most of us were naïve enough to believe them. As to why I didn’t have Wernher von Braun give the talk, the main reason is because he didn’t give the talk. I was in the audience as a participant in the research track of the SSTP, when James Van Allen spoke. However, bringing von Braun to Iowa City to give a talk to a group of high school students would have cost a pretty penny. The university would have been on the hook for his transportation, meals and lodging, not to mention a sizable honorarium. Van Allen didn’t cost them anything, and he was just as famous.

Tuesday, July 11, 1972 “Oh wow, Dr. Ellis. What do we have today?” I asked as I took a seat at the table in his office. It was Tuesday, and I was meeting with my mentor to discuss progress with my research project. My place at the table was set with a dinner plate and silverware. Arrayed in the center was a large platter with a host of different kinds of food. “There’s a new Mediterranean restaurant in town. I thought we’d give it a try. We have Donner kabobs with beef, lamb and chicken

It seems a bit premature to say the story has an agenda. I can't imagine things unrolling much differently anywhere - at least not in the U.S. No school want's to be seen as condoning free sex among minors, no matter how inclusive they might seem to be. In fact, I'm surprised Mr. G. didn't follow his condom/banana joke with a serious discussion about switching roommates. Of course there would definitely be sex at any school, but they sometimes look the other way except when forced to confront it, as happened when Johan announced it so publicly. Let's give the author a bit more space to see where he takes us. It's still a very engaging story, even if it isn't all peaches and cream.

Thanks! It's nice to know people notice my efforts. For this chapter, I even looked up the weather on the July 1, when the high was 92°F and there was 0.12" of precipitation. By the way, on July 4, the high was only 75°F, which would have been much better for playing sports, but not for swimming. Why sweat the weather? Because invariably if I get it wrong, someone will complain that they were there on that date and they remember that it poured rain all day.

I think Mr. G. was ripped a new one. He was told to discipline his house kids or face suspension - or worse. Granted, he could have applied discipline with much more compassion, but he was probably seething at the time and unfortunately, he took his anger out on the students. Another important point is that with the exception of Detroit, Ann Arbor and to a lesser extent, Lansing, Michigan is extremely conservative. Remember that Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, had help from Terry Nichols, a member of the Michigan Militia. Harrison West might be a liberal boarding school, but the people who work there - who prepare the food, mop the floors and maintain the facilities - are more than likely upstanding Christians who don't look too kindly on homosexuality. Harrison West isn't Harvard, but it may well receive federal funding, as do many private educational institutions. Under the current administration, they could well have their funds frozen or revoked. The IRS could revoke its tax exempt status. The State of Michigan could revoke whatever funds or tax breaks it provides. Most significantly, the major donors who make it possible to maintain the endowment could simply stop giving. Now, putting all that aside, I'd be shocked if Harrison West doesn't have rules regarding sexual activity between students. For one thing, the age of consent in Michigan is sixteen, so in legally, neither Nick nor Jack can consent to sex. Most states don't enforce sexual consent laws when it comes to consensual sex between minors, and some will look the other way when it comes to consensual sex between an adult and a minor when the age difference is, in the case of New York, four years or less. Harrison West has an obligation to ensure that a student doesn't coerce another student into having sex with them. Had Noah succeeded in getting Nick to have sex with him, he might well have been expelled. In any case, appearances are everything and I think most schools would view two boys snuggling in bed in the nude as being engaged in a sexual act, whether or not there is an exchange of fluids. Although Nick and Jack are boyfriends at present, they're minors and there is always the potential for the relationship to change and the sexual aspect to become coercive. Remember, neither can give consent. The bottom line is that Harrison West could have gotten in major trouble if it were found that they knowingly allowed two boyfriends to room together. It's no problem when it involves two 17-year-old college students but it's a big problem when it involves a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old high school student. In that context, it's understandable why the dean might have torn Mr. G. a new one. Realistically, Nick and Jack should be split, but not into separate houses. That's just cruel. Ideally, I'd like to see Jack room with Christian, who would look after him. I'm really worried about Jack. Already, he's living in abject fear. His parents wouldn't want him home, but they might well decided to take him out of Harrison West and to stick him in a military academy, where he wouldn't last more than a few days. This might be the time for Nick to talk to his mother about the physical abuse of Jack and to hint that he might have evidence, should it be needed.

If the first was on Saturday, the fourth would have been on Tuesday. I even had a 1972 calendar open on my computer, yet still, I slipped up. Thanks for mentioning the error. I’ve corrected it.

Friday, June 30, 1972 “So in summary, the rabbit provides a unique opportunity to study atherosclerosis and to evaluate dietary and pharmaceutical interventions that might have application in treating the disease in humans.” We all clapped politely as Stephanie finished the last presentation of the afternoon. I’d already presented my research proposal and undergone a thorough grilling by the research track faculty and by my fellow students. Kyle raised his hand and when called upon

Friday, June 23, 1972 As the Friday research forum let out, I joined the stream of boys heading back across the river to grab some dinner. Kyle walked right with me, but we were soon joined by a group of SSTPers who were in the Physics track and who’d just finished their last session of the week. Paul and Gary were soon at our sides. There was still a symposium scheduled for tomorrow morning, but then the rest of the weekend would be ours to do with as we pleased. Work on my project was

Monday, June 19, 1972 By the time we finished the morning orientation session, it was already 10:30 and I was surprisingly hungry. I was scheduled to meet with Dr. Ellis, the chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department and my research mentor, at 1:00, right after lunch. With some time to kill, I decided to head back across the river to pick up my allergy serum and take it to Student Health. It took a while to find Student Health, which was located on the ground floor of the

Wait a minute. The author says he doesn't remember how Nick's dad died? Perhaps I'm placing too much emphasis on that aspect of Nick's background!

Can anyone confirm this? If he was a police officer, killed in the line of duty, there would be a pension. I’ve read that private school tuition can rival that of a private university, which is in the six figure range. Out of curiosity, I looked up the cost for a boarding student at the Phillips Academy for 2025-26 and it’s $76k. The median salary of an emergency physician in the US is $240k, but Nick’s mom works at a busy county hospital, which might pay less. However, I worked as an attending at the Detroit Medical Center in another low-pay specialty in the early 2000s and adjusted for inflation, that’s in the ballpark. I couldn’t live in New York on that and pay $76k annually, but the cost of living in the Detroit suburbs is way less than NYC. I’m surprised Nick qualifies for a scholarship, but then compared to other Harrison West students, it sounds like he’s a pauper. Guess we aren’t going to get all the answers until then, if ever.

There are a lot of very good points being made here. I’m sure there’s a lot more to Nick’s mom’s work hours than a desire to throw herself into her work, though. There’s no incentive to work more hours in Emergency Medicine, other than to make money or to fill a staffing shortage. Emergency physicians don’t make a lot of money relative to other specialties. We don’t know what her husband did or if he had life insurance, so she might really need the money to be able to afford to send her son to an elite boarding school.

This chapter was a nice change of pace. I still think Nick has a lot of counseling ahead of him. It's interesting that he mentioned his session with the psychiatrist but not the psychologist. I wonder if he has yet to start his counseling sessions. Perhaps he's subconsciously putting them out of mind and hence out of our view, or maybe the author is shielding us from this aspect of Nick's life for now. That things are getting worse with Jack's parents is concerning. Jack is a trophy child and very few teenagers look much like trophies. That his uniqueness is something to be treasured is lost on them. However, the vehemence of their hatred to their own child speaks to something much deeper. I suspect that all is not well in the relationship between Jack's parents and they're taking out their animosity toward each other on Jack. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a divorce coming in the near future and ironically, that could put jack squarely in the midst of a custody battle.

Sunday, June 18, 1972 Paul helped Mom and me put away my things. He pointed out some of the furniture’s idiosyncrasies, making it easier to organize my things. “Is this an original Carry-Corder?” he asked as he took my cassette tape recorder out of one of the boxes. “I think it’s like the third model Norelco made,” I replied. “The first one came out in 1963, just after Philips introduced the compact cassette. I got this one three years ago. It set us back fifty bucks, but I really wante

That's actually how most parents perceive their of own teens when they show signs of clinical depression. Although the vast majority of teens dealing with loss adjust with the passage of time, the failure to recognize clinical depression is one of the most common issues in teen suicide. Nick had clear signs of clinical depression. He wasn't sleeping and he was skipping meals, not doing all his classwork and failing to socialize. It was only because of the strong support he had from his network of friends that he got through. Even so, he wandered off late one evening. A former classmate of mine did exactly that during his freshman year of college and his body was found the next morning in a snowbank. He was seventeen. We don't know if Nick's friends tried to get him to seek help, but teens are often the last to go to adults for help and even less likely to suggest their friends do so, even when there are obvious signs of danger. I shudder to think what might have happened if Nick hadn't asked for help on his own. The use of an SSRI to increase levels of serotonin, which are usually depleted in clinical depression, can help to reduce the feeling of hopelessness that's common in depression, but it's no substitute for dealing with the underlying causes of situational depression. Time will heal the loss of Noah, but there's more going on here. As nick admitted, he's felt depressed since his dad died. I lost my father when I was sixteen and it took about a year to get over the feeling of grief. That's typical, but not universal. After five years, Nick still has unresolved grief. Grief has to be dealt with. One can't simply ignore it and wait till it goes away. Some people compartmentalize their grief and set it aside, letting it fester. Nick needs counseling more than anything, but he needs a counselor who can help him work through his unresolved grief.