Let's drift awhile!

So, who invites you to drift with him awhile?

I could start at the beginning, like any good story. Or start at the end, like we do when listing our employment history. Or perhaps, start in the present and weave in the past when needed, as I did in my novel, Appearance & Reality.

You know my name -- Andrew Badger. I also go by Doc, Granddad, NeeNee, Dad, and The bastard. I used to go by Andy and for a while I answered to Sarge. But decades ago I thought Andrew went with Doctor better than Andy did -- more dignified. Thus, Andrew. I’ve always liked my name.

I’ve spent my entire life figuring out what I wanted to be if I grew up. I had fleeting ambitions for garbage man and cowboy, but my first serious goals were missionary or preacher: my parents received both goals warmly. Despite much preaching practice in rescue missions as a youth, I was not as fluent nor as successful as Balaam’s ass.

By the time I retired in 2004, I’d been kicked out of seminary for unChristian attitudes, been a GI over seas, been a 9th grade English teacher (9th graders and I still loath one another), a university English professor, and then a high school and community college instructor, However, halfway through my careers, I nursed intermittent dreams of writing -- being a writer. But not until last year did I dare call myself a writer. I was used to teacher/professor. But writer? What kind of writer? (I've stuck one of my sardonic poems at the bottom!)

Before I go into “What kind of Writer,” a little disclaimer: I have no magic, no expertise that will guarantee anything. I’m not a saviour, a guru, a mentor, or an expert. I’m a fellow traveler, a coconspirator in a community of learners.

I was first an academic writer in the “publish or perish” professorial mode, then I wrote many love poems and many religious poems expressing my spiritual angst, third I wrote a weekly column of vignettes for a local paper, and finally I wrote some poems without my former angst. Then in 2005, I started on my first (and only, to date) novel.

I’ll continue tomorrow with this “Who am I” drift. But check out The Fly!

Hope you’ll drift in for a spell.

THE FLY

It’s just a fly, nothing more,

Buzzing zigzag through the air,

Lighting here and taking off

To eat and breed another heir.

He’s not at all what we must be;

He doesn’t read or wash his face;

He doesn’t sing or go to work;

He merely buzzes any place.

So, smack him dead! He doesn’t know

The proper rules of a regular guy!

Let’s make him pay the final price

For living blithely as a fly.