rec

Chapter 10, in which a rare violin and a rare boy meet.

Chapter 10 Guarneri – March 1988 Ten Months Later “I have a violin I want you to try, Micah,” Jake said as they sat in the living room in Jake and Robbie’s Queen Anne house on one of his trips. It was just the three of them in the living room, relaxing after dinner and a weekend of lessons for Micah with Marcia Vilas. Marcia had dropped Micah off earlier in the day, begging off from a dinner invitation due to a prior commitment. Jake rose from the sofa, untangling himself fro

Chapter 9 Provenance – May 1987 A Few Days Later Betty decided to return from staying at her sister’s for Robert’s last full day before he set off for Pennsylvania – with that odious man, Sam. She was reluctant to return home, but Robert was her first son, so she wanted to prepare one last home-cooked meal for him despite his repugnant lifestyle choice. She convinced herself that she would simply have to bear it for only a few hours. Maybe he and Sam would break up; she’d h

Chapter 8 Eastbound – May 1987 Two Days Later “Why don’t Jake and Robbie have two beds in their bedroom? It’s big enough for two beds,” Micah asked as the car was climbing back up eastbound on I-90 toward Snoqualmie Pass the next day. Robert looked at Sam, trying to find an answer to the question that he was facing. Sam nodded his okay. “Micah, they have only one bed because they are a couple – as if they are married. Just like us.” “But isn’t Jake

Chapter 7, in which Jake and Robbie from Jake's Hand and Jake's Side make a cameo appearance.

Chapter 7 Homecoming – May 1987 The Next Spring Robert Kingman was coming home – in two weeks. He was bringing someone with him. The letter announcing this, mailed from Djakarta, Indonesia, arrived in the morning mail one day in early May. It was the only personal message among a maze of catalogs and bills that arrived that day. It had been almost 15 years since Robert had left home. The communications from this oldest Kingman child were infrequent – occasional letters and phone calls on birt

Chapter 6 Kingman Farm – March 1987 Four Months Later An 11- but almost 12-year old Micah was home alone. Betty and Stan had left early to go to Pullman, taking Greg and Kat along. His younger brother and sister were visiting friends. Micah had always wanted to see what was in the attic room above the second floor, and he knew this was his time to explore it. He pulled up a chair and opened the attic hatch and climbed up into to a dark room; there were no windows. He flipped th

Chapter 5, in which Micah's career takes off.

Chapter 5 Competition – November 1986 Two Years After Micah’s First Lesson “I’d like to enter Micah into a violin competition in Seattle,” Rudy announced one day at the start of Micah’s third year of lessons. “He needs performance experience, which is a bit hard to get in Colfax, as you might imagine.” Betty agreed and was overjoyed to give her permission. “Just tell me where and when, and I’ll get him there.” The drive two months later was the first of many for the 11-year-old Micah and hi

Chapter 4 Another Boy, Another Place – Fall 1986 A now 11-year-old David Stirling sat outside the Spokane music studio in his father’s Jeep Cherokee while his parents talked to his cello teacher. On the seat next to him was a musical instrument that was half as big as he was. It had been two years since he had started on the cello, and his parents had asked to confer with his instructor, Ivan Raminski. The Navajo decal that he had stuck on the outside of the instrume

The fourth and very short chapter will be up this afternoon, expanding on the second major character, who will become much more important in later chapters.

Chapter 3 Change of Direction – Fall 1984 Six Months Later Betty’s hopes and dreams were forced to change several months later, however. A large package, insured and marked fragile, arrived for Micah from Arizona. Betty puzzled over it, wanting to open the large envelope that was taped to the box and wanting to open the box itself. But Micah was at school and wouldn’t be climbing out of the yellow school bus until after 4 p.m.; it wouldn’t be fair to open Micah’s mail. Ha

Chapter 2 North to the Palouse on a Jet Plane – April 1984 A Short Few Weeks Later The line at the ticket counter was long. Phoenix to Spokane wasn’t the most traveled route and there was only one airline that served it, so the airline company assigned only one check-in agent to handle the passengers. Micah stood next to Betty; he was a little bewildered at what was happening. He pushed his luggage ahead when the line moved. It was a way to be helpful. “Hey,” a voice behind him said.

Palouse Chapter 1 An Arrival and a Departure – March 1984 In the spring, the Palouse becomes a giant quilt of green, beige and earth-brown. The land is not flat but seems to billow up from below, as if pushed upward by air currents. From the air the fields form square patterns, but from the ground the fields slowly climb and descend, leaving the undulations of the property lines as the seams stitching the landscape together. And the plows’ furrows try to fit workable undulations onto squar

Palouse Disclaimer: The towns in the Palouse area of Washington State are real, as are the cities of Walla Walla, Colfax and College Place, but there is absolutely no relationship between anyone living or who has ever lived in those towns and the characters in this story. The town of Endicott was a dot on the map that I chose for this story, as was the location of the Kingman farm. I have no knowledge of anyone who lives or has lived there. This story is a work of fiction.

Palouse is a coming-to-maturity story of a half-Navajo boy who is a virtuoso at violin. The story traces his rise, fall, and reemergence in the context of a domineering mother. It is a story also of a developing love between the boy and a gay friend.

I highly recommend the stories of Cole Parker which are hosted at awesomedude.com. Well-written and well-plotted.

Palouse is done. It will be posted in chapters or parts starting next week. rec

I'd appreciate a copy. vwl1999@lycos.com

As noted earlier, the start button can be resurrected at low or no cost. I've tried and like the low cost Start8 program.

For about $4.50 U.S., you can get a program from Stardock called Start8 that effectively returns the Windows 7 interface (including jump lists) and hides Windows 8 unless you want to use it. Apparently there is some freeware that does the same thing.

This new story/chapter is nicely constructed and written.

Try Love on the Rocks, which is at http://www.nifty.org//nifty/gay/adult-friends/love-on-the-rocks/ and is one of the best stories around. Don't be deterred by a couple of early chapters that are a bit too graphic for me. The rest sails. Also, the stories of Tim Mead on CrvBoy.org, particularly the Colby series, have adult protagonists.

The final chapter of Marcus McNally's wonderful story is being posted. The directory is http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-friends/love-on-the-rocks/ His final email note to his readers is: G’day! Sorry! Really, I’m sorry. I know it’s been a wait … Here we are – you and me – faced with the final chapter of ‘Love on The Rocks’. I’m going to miss this cast of characters, and I know many of you will too. Ty and Mike, Lachie and Ellie, Scott and Simon, Dot and Frank, Steve and Fran, George, Vince, Monique, Scruffy and Floppy … they’ve been a part of my life for more than a year and a half. Amazingly for me, they’ve somehow found their way into your lives, too. You’re reading this because at some point, you wrote to me about ‘LOTR’. It might have been one email, or it might have been an email after every chapter was posted – either way, you’ve made me aware you’re out there reading, and your feedback has encouraged and helped me more than you possibly know. I’ve told some of you that when I first started ‘LOTR’, I really had no idea if my “little Aussie love story” would ever be read. There was that nagging doubt that it might be too much of a romance for the ‘Nifty’ audience that, it turns out, I so grossly underestimated. But find an audience, it did! I’m taking this opportunity to let you know that your concern for and appreciation of the characters I somehow brought to life, means more to me than I can express in a few words. I have marvelled at the wonderful, kind things so many of you have written, and I’m equally grateful to those who’ve taken the time to challenge and criticise my work. What a learning curve this has been. Let me take this moment to say to you all … thank you, thank you. Funny to think that when I started writing ‘LOTR’, I expected it would probably run about five chapters. You have all helped me push my own boundaries to somehow keep it interesting for 40 chapters. I know me. When I’ve had a break I’ll want to write an epilogue, a “five years on” in the lives of the Hills and the hot lawyer. That’s the plan – let’s see! In the meantime, happiness and good health to all of you, always. Marc

Try Second Wind by Mickey S at Nifty: http://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/beginnings/second-wind/