Will Hawkins

I am not familiar with ANY role playing game, so this story is going to be an adventure for me, new characters, new names, new personalities, but most of all, new goals. The best way to start is to START, so I will do that. Mister Will

You have obviously used a spell-check program on your story because there are several places where the software has chosen the wrong word to replace a misspelled one This means that in addition to using your spell check you should re-read paying special attention to every place the spell check changed a word to make sure it picked the correct one. Mister Will

Has anybody in their comments noted that 'Davy Jones' was closely connected with the navy in the previous Do Over, and as well in this one. I would be surprised if nobody gets the connection! There is a continuing pattern of antipathy to a 12-year old among the smaller minds involved with Davy, fortunately not so with those connected with the Presidency or the Navy, but certainly, that pattern is going to create difficulties for Davy. I am glad to see his panic button works well. I fear he may need that more often in the future.

don't try to loose us – don't try to lose us

I had forgotten the firestorm of fear that went through, not only the gay men, but all of humanity when HIV/AIDS first entered intp the public awareness. It is fortunate that it was not as easily transmitted as is Covid-19. Yes, it is incurable, but it is treatable, and with current medications is a disease that can be lied with. By the way, there are several instances of pronoun errors in this and the preceeding chapter. The proper pronounto use in the case of noun-pronoun combinations (as John and I/me) is the one that wiuld be used if the noun preceeding it were not there. It may be either nominative or objective case, which-ever would be appropriate were the noun not there.

Father and Jenny seems to be a problem that can come up at any time, but now, Jenny knows she need not put up with those advances, so maybe it will calm down. It seems that Father is a big bear in the woods to the entire family.

Dad is showing how small a man HE is, and his son will come out on top in the long run.

Religious hypocricy, these are the key words in this chapter. Many. if mot all of the wars in history, except for the acquisition of land for trade routes, etc. have been caused or worsened by religious hypocricy. The Christians hate the Jews, the Jews hate to Catholics, the Catholics hate the Muslims, the Muslims hate the Christians There is so much hate in the world, it circles around left to right and right to left, and most of it is religious based, yet every religion preaches love for one another. Mister Will

Whether ir not he saved his sister's life, he saver her from parental abuse and a lifetime of bad memories.

One small homophone in this chapter 'having free reign', should be 'having free rein', a very common error (I noticed one of your commenters made the same mistake) – rain rein and reign – si easy to mix up.

My situation is the same as CincyKeis, I saw the two books listed and decided to read them in proper order. The idea of the tale of having the opportunity to do something over, relive a portion of your life, appealed to me. As I started reading, I began to wonder, what would I do differently, if I had a do-over to my life. Of course, in that brief thought I decided thath it would take a larme amount of thought to decide to do anything different, but it was a challanging thought experiment.

My memories of a trip to Oz ae still a highlight in my biography. The Seattle Men's Chorus first landed in New Zealand but after about a week there along with several performances, flew over to Sidney then trekked up the East Coast. Good memories of that trip! No, I don't sing, but somebody has to keep all those performers (polite term for other fags) in line and that was my job as Rehersal Manager. I did discover Aussies are very hot under the covers – wonderful trip! Mister Will

Well.it depends upon which alley you are speaking of. But more to the point … I cannot be sure at this many years remove, but I do not believe anybody at the College knew about my 'other life'. I know the several sets of students that boarded at my home from time to time did not have any clue, even though I was working as a Rehearsal Manager for the Seattle Men's and later for the Seattle Women's Choruses. My life for those years was pretty asexual. Shit, I consider those lost years – and I could do with a nice warm snuggle now. Where I am living, there are a couple of natives working for me about the place (one of whom is totally hot!), taking care of the animals and the yards/gardens, but just like my time at teaching, their presence is completely asexual (except for my drooling).

I would not object to editing your work, but I am very weak in computer operations and don't know how to do it. And for someone my age, 'not knowing how to do it' is really strange. Oh, you mean editing, strange how other things come to my mind! I am old, but not so old that I have forgotten those things! Mister Will

The contrast between Grainger and Winkler freezing their asses off in Russia and Will surfing in Hawaii certainly makes for interesting reading. Oh, speaking of Russia, isn't it about time for the Tsar (Czar?) to get what's expected and the Tsarevitch to take over? Russian history is not my strong suit! Mister Will

Of information, I have a plethora, ofi insight, not so much. One cannot live as long as I have without garnering loads of information, but insight is not so easy. By the way, the retired schoolteacher in me requires the following information: you are typing on a site, not a sight. Homophones are a bitch, and don't get me started on punctuation, that is a quagmire from which no one ever recovers.

Davewri is correct, hens don't need a rooster to lay eggs, but the eggs that they lay will be infertile without a mister in the hen house. One rooster per 8-10 hens makes a happier chicken family and a rooster will protect his hens from preditors. Two or more roosters will fight unless there are enough hens to keep them happy (about 8 to 1 is a good ratio.) So, for right now jim needs one rooster. If he allowa the hens to be 'broody', that is to sit on and hatch eggs, his rooster requirements will increase slowly. If he lives in a city or there is a Home Owner's Association (HOA) involved, he may not be allowd to have a rooster, as they are noisy (especially very early in the morning, usually at first light which is long before most city folk want to wake up) and, while keeping hens is usually loosely regulated, roosters are frequenly forbidden as they disturb the neighbors. Sometimes even hens will announce the successful laying of an egg with a short crow, (Cluck,cluck. cluck, kadaket!) but that may not disturb the peace of the neighborhood too much. A well-designed hen house and fenced run can be an addition to a home setting and there are many free plans afailable on the net for every need, small, easy to build up to chicken palaces, that can match any style. Somethings I did't know but learned by reading; domestic fowl can lay several different color eggs. Okay, I knew about brown eggs, but it was interesting to find out that certain breeds of hens lay red, blue or green eggs, a real Easter basket of colored eggs and, while a box needs to be build for hens to use for their nests, one box will be used happily by 2-3 hens, especially if there is roosting space (about 8-10in of 2x4 per hen, and square corners are more comfortable than round rungs)).

'The Systen' … Government care for abandoned children has such a universally bad reputation, it is good that a caring individual found the boys. Two boys and two chickens – well, at leastthey will supply their own eggs! Mister Will

I found this chapter of your story very interesting. It started out with the escort being very negtive and the reader could feel the tension between the two men. As the tale proceeded, the negativity began to fade, slowly of course, but steadily. All the emotion which lay beneath the surface was brought out beautifully in the conversation, and we began to feel the causes for the problem, the lack of communication, as it slowly faded. A masterful product and handled well.

Of course you are going to write your character into a corner, that is the essence of characterization – but to rely on Deus to get him out is not writing it is just putting words to print. You have provided us with a superb method of avoiding the corner painting (maybe a previously unseen window to escape out of)(Oh, no, that is a Deus ex machina isn't it?) I love your advice, now if I could only remember to take it all the time!

I keep running into new reasons why I like GA. I started out reading Circumnavigation about 8-9 years ago and have been a constant reader ever since. For a while it struck me that there were too many '15-yo coming out' tales. but I am begining to learn author's names and the type of story they write so I am finding new material for my habit day by day. Many of those 'coming out' tales were rife with technical problems, grammatical errors and homophones especially, but I now find the quality of writing improving – perhaps because my selection of authors is improving. My most frequent plea at first was 'get an editor – please', but spell-check programs have improved author skills now. It is interesting to read a story and just know, oh, he used a spell checker which corrected his spelling to the wrong word. The next step after the spell-check is editorial reading to clean out the homophones. Maybe I am super-sensitive to them and some are actually a little funny. But I am learning to ignore them and just sit back and enjoy the creativity of the author. And God save us all from punctuation errors, those I have to ignore as nobody catches all of them.

Somebody should tell Zoltan that slavery in the USA officially ended April 9, 1865. I am going to read on to see what happens with the School Board meeting – I have a feeling that Rita and Willy have made serious inroads there already.

Rick has finally begn to grow a pair as far as Senior is concerned, though I am sure that situaton is not yet taken care of, he might be able to exchange his work on Beck's potty for legal help, not advice, Rick has difficulty carrying thru from advice. As far as the School Board is concerned, we will have to see just how deep Rita and Willy have gotten into their pants before anything can be done there.

College Hill was too great a temptation for an aggressive 'developer' like Rita. I can only hope that Senior will burst a blood vessel, Rita and Willy fall into each others trap and Gus stands up to his 'managers'. They have lived off his talent for too long and deserve to fade to dark. Maybe Gus and Rick can get ahold of the mansion, marry and live quietly ever after, but, having some tiny comprehension of this author's style, I don't believe that can happen.

Many of your commenters are seeing the control by Sebior, Zoltan and Nagda, with Rita's schemes clouding the issue. I am in love with Gus and of course, he and Rick deserve to escape the storm that is brewing. But will they, only the Author knows!'