Where Did That Dream Go?

(So I asked  a Shrink!)

By BR Chitwood

Where did that dream go, you ask?

Beyond your grasp, sadly…

You had it, but you let it go…

You did not pursue it to the end…

Other diversions caught your fancy…

The phrase is: ‘wine, women, song’…

Sound familiar? ‘wine, women, song’?

WWS slowed and finally ended your dream…

But they were part of the dream…

Too many working dreams spoil the broth!

You’re mixing metaphors, Doctor…

But you have no trouble grasping meaning?

Grasped, Doctor. So, you’re saying, ‘no chance for me’?

There’s always a chance, but youth is gone. Maybe your next life chances will come again…

Whoa, Doc, you believe we get to come back?

That’s not so crazy an idea. A colleague of mine, a hypnotist, has written about taking some patients back to former lives, even having some patients talk about their time while in training units between lives. He has done ‘case studies’… Go to a library, book store, and look under hypnosis, case studies, psychiatrists, former lives…you can find them if you’re interested.

Oh, I’m interested. I just find it so hard to believe.

You wouldn’t be human if you took it at face value. Remember, most of us are ‘doubting Thomas’…many did not believe we would put a man in space, go to the moon, have ‘space stations’, diseases cured, knowledge re-doubling every few months, and all of these life-changing events are being challenged, joined by nefarious rioting groups trying to destroy our cherished freedom and liberty. It is a crazy and wild time for the history of the world… I just hope our kids in the future will be able to read and know of this history… Sorry about the digression, but, in your case, from what you’ve shared with me today, you have had a comparatively good life. You have accomplished many of your goals – which a lot of folks would die for. I really cannot find any major anomalies in your life. Keep your dreams alive. That’s a good thing. The large news I would give you is: be happy in your life – you’ve got more living to do.

Thanks, Doc. You’ve got me feeling better about things… I’m going to find the book or books you were talking about. When I absorb them, I’ll call you for another session.

*

BR Chitwood – August 12, 2020

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Hear My Scream

by BR Chitwood – My Archives

Lost my family! A devoted wife and two sons who cherished me!

Lost my job! Lost the right to call myself a responsible family man of Faith and Fidelity!

Lost it all to the fickle finger of fate and, more likely, a sinister weakness within my genes!

What happened to this man of ideals and noble purposes? With a work promotion to a corporate low-rung Vice-President of ‘Acquisition Management’ came a salary boost. There came, too, that exhilarating sense of pride and accomplishment. For months, we, my family, enjoyed our new luxurious living. We went to the park on weekends. We took trips to historical landmarks. We got a spacious new van, and our Russian Blue cat, ‘Vlad’, and our Golden Retriever, ‘Toby’, were as thrilled as the kids on trips.

We even built up a tidy rainy-day fund in our bank. Life was so good!

Then, the company merged with a larger corporation that was global and had a financial sheet far exceeding our own, a ‘Pac-Man’ hungrily gobbling up many big, small, and medium businesses at a voracious pace. The rumor mill made work difficult…people were going to be dismissed. It took six months for the head honchos to announce that my position was no longer needed as the buying behemoth had their own people in place.

For the first time in my working life, I was unemployed. Trying to keep my family worry-free I put on a happy face and left the house in the morning as was normally my wont. I job-hunted all day, every day, for months, even tried executive head-hunters, but I found I was ‘too qualified’ for some jobs and ‘not qualified’ enough for others. My patience at a low level, our rainy-day funds going down rapidly, pressure mounted. Frustration became an emotion I couldn’t hide and it filtered down to the family.

A huge Indian Casino opened a few miles from our house in Chandler, Arizona. It sat on two hundred acres and looked like an ‘Arabian Nights’ apparition in the desert. It was lunch time, and I thought, why not have some lunch and see if the casino could use my corporate experience. It took a while before I found the executive offices and someone in authority, but it became immediately clear that all of their executives had the Indian connection and there could be no position for me.

In the dining room I ordered a hamburger, fries, coke, and thought about my dilemma.

In the background I could hear simultaneous shouts of joy out in the gaming areas. A thought stirred in my mind, dumb in hindsight… Why not try a few turns at ‘21’? Not much of a gambler, but my Dad taught me how to play the game, what to do, what not to do, and I became good at ‘21’. Just maybe I could build up the ‘rainy day’ account and buy more time in looking for a job.

I hurriedly finished my hamburger, fries, coke, and walked around the casino’s rows of ‘21’ tables. I was now excited about the possibilities – people won big in gambling because they knew and practiced certain rules. My Dad told me he always found a table where he felt the people playing knew what they were doing – watching a dealer’s ‘show card’ to determine whether or not to take a card: if the dealer’s ‘up card’ showed a possible 12-16 and the players’ down cards amounted to 12 or above, players stayed ‘put’, hoping for the dealer to bust.

Of course, ‘21’ – Black Jack – was an automatic winner – unless, of course, the dealer matched with his own Black Jack…the player didn’t win the bet but gained a ‘push’ with the dealer. Tied hands with the dealer meant no loss of the bets.

Dad also told me about the psychological aspects of ‘21’ – know when to play, know when to quit. Dad felt there was a time of the day or night when a person could win but that person needed to follow their self-imposed rules.

So, I found a table, watched the players and dealer for a while. Satisfied the players knew the game and would not make stupid moves, I sat and exchanged three hundred dollars into chips of various colors – $5 chips, $10 chips, $20 chips, $50 chips, $100 and so on.

The time was 12:45 PM.

In the next few hours I learned the highs and lows of gambling. I reached a euphoric stage when my neatly piled chips amounted to $6900…including the original $300 buy-in. People gathered behind our stools to see how far I could go. Surprisingly, the time was 6:00 PM. (Dad’s rule about knowing the time to quit had somehow by-passed my mind’s circuitry.

By midnight the $6900 was gone back to the casino, along with another $3800. My face was flushed, my stomach was in knots, and my mind was numb with anxiety and regret. I cashed too many checks at the casino and was also feeling the consummate moron.

With my head reeling with uncertainty, I left the casino and drove home. My wife was frantic. She tried to call me several times during the afternoon but I never answered the cell phone. She cradled me in her arms as I told her about the day, about the frustration of looking for work, and my stupid behavior at the casino. She was not happy but she told me I was entitled to a mistake…a lot of bad stuff landed on me in the past few weeks.

The next day I looked for work.

In between stops, I thought about the gambling…had I stopped when I was ahead, there would be $6600 added to our ‘rainy day’ fund. Thus, my mind told me, you need to know when to stop while you’re ahead – good luck cannot last forever.

Back at the casino that afternoon, I stopped gambling at the ‘21’ table at 6:25 PM, my winnings totaling $3200. I left the casino feeling good, having gotten back almost half of the losses the previous day. I did not tell my wife about the gambling, and I took her and the boys out for pizza.

Without giving a day to day count, I’ll sum it all up.

In the next six months I looked for work in the mornings and gambled in the afternoons. My wife knew what was going on and pleaded with me. The boys sensed there were problems and walked around the house in a timid slow motion. The ‘rainy day’ account was gone. Suffice it, my marriage could not survive the constant arguments, my excuses and broken promises. My lovely boys were cautious and fearful to be around me. The wife could not take it any longer and took the boys to live with her sister in Oregon.

What about me? What about the tattered and torn fabric of my soul? What about the man who used to be?

I’m in prison, serving time for robberies…had to have money to gamble.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone feeling as small and insignificant as I do. I don’t need a mirror to see a man with a prison pallor and a broken heart. I know the damage I’ve caused, the other hearts broken, and two wonderful boys growing up without a father.

Several days ago two inmates attacked me in the yard, cut me up pretty good, broke some ribs, and I kept pleading with them to finish me, to get me out of my misery. I truly wanted to die, but no such luck, and I’m too much of a coward to find a way to kill myself.

The wife and the boys will never know how much I love them and regret the terrible mistakes I made. I only hope they find happiness, love, and forget their terrible wretch of a husband and a father. Perhaps in some other dimension I can make atonement.

For now, “I long for death…death longs for me, but it is dark to die and I fear that I still wish to be.” *

Flash Fiction by Billy Ray Chitwood (From my Archives)

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*

NOTE:

* The last line quote in italics (above) is from a book of narrative poetry by a good friend from my publishing days.

The book: HELL’S MUSIC\

BY Jerry Miller and his fox-hole buddy!

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The Final Speciation

-A Denouement-

By BR Chitwood

 

All humans, all animals, all still life in the verdant valleys, deserts, unrippled water below, look skyward in awe and wonder of new climactic wonders. New lovers, old lovers, would-be lovers, lovers to be or not to be, and those many beasts of prey, tangled plants of unknown qualities and quantities, they all hear the whispering sound in the air like a soft mesmerizing musical coda of a thousand hypnotic violins and the near-inaudible notes of a misty, magical piano.

In its fast and vast-spreading movement, visible as an image of some spectacular musical composition that floats by and covers all the great expanse of sky, the notes all a golden shade, each note quakes in its own turn  an ordered  totality of its mauve composition. This you will see and hear:

Those who have yearned will know…

The epochal wonders of all the years…

The scenes and signs that have come to you for all these millions of years…

Those who are weary…

Those who cry in the night…

Those who hunger and thirst…

Those who do not wish to be…

Those who seek love but do not know its meaning…

Those of all persuasions, all will be as it is to be…

Listen to the music of ages…

The final Epoch Comes…

*

The tablet of stone was found on a mantle in the home of an aged Ascetic, a man who, from reports of only two people found by  authorities were able to find who knew him, said no words were ever exchanged with the frail and pallid man with a long white beard white hair, deeply-wrinkled skin, and short, thin stature. When two people on a neighborhood walk tried to talk to him, the Ascetic simply walked down a side-yard of his modest house and disappeared. He was never seen again – by anyone…until his death.

The Ascetic’s picture was taken in death, distributed throughout the Metro area of Los Angeles, but given special coverage on local television for the attention of people within a large quadrant of Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu, and would spread eastward and nationally. The home of the Ascetic was in Venice, next door to Santa Monica. Why the ‘spread eastward and nationally?

Shortly after the picture and article about the Ascetic and his death flowed through News wires, his body disappeared. Yes, disappeared…never found…to this day, never found.

Now, more fuel was put to the already very hot story. Suspicions, assertions, all kinds of speculation were to appear in the news. It became a media blitz. The County Coroners were shamefully, mercilessly, and too vigorously investigated, received some nasty innuendos laced with vitriol. The two people who, once, actually saw  the Ascetic  alive were found and doggedly hounded until lawsuits were filed

There was the normal volume of weirdo-replies that jammed up editorial offices in the greater Los Angeles area, both TV and newspapers, but only one cryptic and mysterious reply caught the Media’s and Public’s desire to know more about this Ascetic’s life and death, in fact, a reply with only four words… Bronson Caves – Griffith Park.

That one reply would cause a stampede of sorts. Bronson Caves after all carried an awesome ‘neon-flashing’ alias: Batman’s Cave.

Lest excitement builds in intensity, the Batman’s Cave was not where George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Michael Keating, and Christian Bale ‘Batman’ movies were shot.

The Batman TV Series in the 1960’s starring Adam West and Burt Ward were filmed with footage in Bronson Caves.

With a few deft strokes of a journalist’s pen, magical scenarios begin to appear in many newspaper editions: ‘what if the  Ascetic was somewhere in Batman’s Cave?’

In their ‘What Iffing’, some in the media ranks thought a ‘Jesus-Link’ was needed and created a ‘cave’ to entice readership and cause an alarming ‘nay’ and ‘pro’ rush to conclusions that had no merit.

Sorry, that’s all the time I have today…

*

Okay, interesting story line, but where’s the beef?

Where’s the Ascetic?

Is he, or, HE, in Batman’s Cave?

Was the Ascetic and Jesus just playing around? Wanting our attention?

How does a man, an ‘Ascetic’ live in the crazy community of Venice, California, and nobody knows him, or, HIM?

*

Okay, Okay, I’ve got the message.

Now, I could tell you this little post is part of my next book that will have all the answers you might be craving, but…

The hesitation comes from my having a new Driver’s License and Passport picture taken… Sweet Jesus, tell me that it is not me in those pictures.

The best I can do is explain it this way:

When a ‘Pantser’ writes, the reader must be patient… It will all be explained…

If I’m not around for the explanation, look upward and listen to the music.

BR Chitwood – Feb. 22, 2020

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Brotherly Love

 

Brotherly Love

“So, what’s up, big guy?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Okay, I know what’s next. My ‘You’re right, I don’t want to know,’ is not going to mean a twit to you, and you’re going to spend the next unquantifiable seconds telling me anyhow. So, again, what’s up, big guy?”

“Oh, you think you know me so well, but you don’t. Unquantifiable? Really! What does that mean? Never mind, I don’t want to know. I have a pretty good idea what it means. Look, this will take only a minute…I need to borrow $500 so I can get this remarkable deal on a laptop that has all the ‘goodies’ and the mega high numbers on everything – it’s got mega-bytes up the grommet.”

“So, why the hell are you asking me to give you $500. It would be, giving you, $500, because you would never pay it back. We’ve been there, done that before.”

“Aw, come on, you’re my big brother. You’re a handsome dude with a wife ‘to die for’ and you love me. You want to see me succeed, and, with this web puppy, I will succeed. I’ll pay you back when I get my income tax ‘money-back’ check…stop laughing, I mean it, I will pay you back.”

“Listen to you. You are insulting me, little brother…Elaine has gone grocery shopping so it’s a good time to have my chat with you. Sit and let’s allow me to give you some facts…

“Mom and Dad have been gone for a while, and I admit I’ve been over-accommodating you and your spurious needs. Elaine was the vote that got you living here with us, but there is a time-limit for you, Axel. I know you had tough emotional times, but so have I, and you need to put your life back together quickly. Elaine and I are not your mom and pop. God bless them, they’re gone. I love you and want you to succeed in your writing. However, your job at the tire factory pays you enough to be on your own, but you prefer living with us and partying way too much. Elaine must clean your messy room, pick up food droppings, do your maid duties for you, and that stops NOW! No more eating in your room for the remainder of your stay with us. No more messy room. No more mooching money.

“So, Axel, you get no more money from me or Elaine, and you have thirty days to find your own place and be out of here. As for your request for $500, that is a non-negotiable, NO! You’re my brother and I do love you, but your stay here is over in thirty days. If you are not out of here in thirty days, you will find all your meager belongings gone, given to Goodwill.

“Do you understand the ‘program’ I’ve described, Axel?”

“You really would do all that, Matthew?”

“Yes, and I might and will add, at twenty-four, a college drop-out, and a real presumptuous ass, I’ve put up, we’ve, Elaine and I, have put up with you too damned long. The thirty days can and will be moved up based on your attitude. We have simply had it, Axel. You are a brother I don’t recognize anymore. Mom and Dad would be so ashamed of you during these months you’ve been with us. I doubt if you would have left on your own terms, so I’m making that decision for you. You have taken advantage of us and our home for too long. Family love is important, but not so much under these circumstances. Please understand, I mean every word.”

“Wow! Why don’t you tell me what you really think, Matt! Damn, I never knew you felt like this. I just assumed, you know, family and stuff… Suddenly, I feel sort of dirty, you know, like a homeless bum. But, yeah, I understand. I thought you were grumpy at times, but I never thought the grumpiness was about me… Well, my being sorry won’t hack it, but I’ll say, I’m sorry, very sorry, for the way I’ve acted. I’ll be out of here before using up those thirty days. A buddy has been wanting me to move in with him. That suddenly sounds like a winning offer. Don’t misunderstand, Matt, I’ve heard you loud and clear. I will change – for the better, I promise. I needed this ‘Big Brother’ session. Believe me, it all makes perfect sense to me. I really have been an intolerable ass. Thanks, Matt, good ‘Bro’, I’ll surprise you. Wait and see. I love you, big guy. Is it okay if I hug you, Matt?”

“Sure, it’s okay. You’re still my brother. I just played Dad for a few moments, but I still meant everything I said.”

“I know, Matt…guess this is not the right time to mention my affair with Elaine, huh?”

Billy Ray Chitwood – June 17, 2019

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Confused and Mystified

Confused and Mystified

Participating, watching others participate, wondering what and where is the magic in this digital mind-boggling world. You are a writer. You write because of need and because you have identified writing as the talent you most likely possess more than any other, because just maybe that activity keeps you alive and in tune with the world around you. You go through the spasms of depression, frustration, and an occasional adrenaline rush of encouragement and excitement.

Then, you take a look at the marketing aspects of selling your books, the various providers of platforms, tools, and applications. Perhaps, like me, you become aware of the specialized and confusing language used in the digital market places, things like Avatar, widgets, SEOs, RSS feeds, URLs, hash marks, and all of it somehow cannot seem to make sense to you. You become angry with yourself, with the computer and its devious foreign language, and with the madness of minds making life so much more complicated than it really needs be. You wonder what you should be doing that you are not doing but most of all how to do it. Could you have been selling more books and yourself if you had joined this group, used this platform, done this, done that?

Sure, you can hire someone for a tidy sum you think you can trust to take the marketing worries away that allows you to concentrate on your writing. Yet, you either feel not quite comfortable among the so-called professional or you are too money-tight to give it a try. So, you muddle on, writing good books – books that should be selling – and attempting a one-person publishing house. Is there an answer? Is there a Nirvana out there for you?

The odds might not be great, but you figure to keep on writing – because that’s what you love to do. Hopefully, before the grim reaper comes calling, a benevolent event, a magic will come your way and finally make all those moments at the laptop pay off. A Publishing deal with a handsome sign-up bonus? An Amazon selling spree that puts your books virally in the top echelon of the Indie market? Okay, more realistically, beautifully written and sincere heartfelt reviews may lack the money and fame but they do make you soar for a few moments in those heady clouds of success. Maybe that is all we can hope – that and learning the foreign language that is the internet.

Writing mimics life and weather! Just wait a few moments with the emotion you are currently feeling…it will soon pass and be replaced by another. Time is the arbiter of all things – it is here and gone!

Just in the time it took me to write this blog post, I became a famous writer! Talk about an emotional uplift… A good caring and loving spouse can do that for you.

Keep Writing! Good things can happen!

Billy Ray Chitwood – November 1, 2018

NOTE: If you’re into faith,family, abuse, love, redemption, please check out my NEW BOOK:

“Hammer’s Holy Grail” – It’s a great read ! 

Here’s a couple of Amazon Reviews to entice you:

5.0 out of 5 starsLife reflections woven into a powerful story

September 10, 2018

Format: Kindle Edition

– by Gwen Plano –

Billy Ray Chitwood has a wonderful way of telling a story. He writes as though he is sharing with a close friend. With humble casualness, he draws the reader into situations often hidden from sight and exposes a deeper story. His characters are familiar and their passions relatable. Through their vulnerabilities, we see our own. We experience domestic violence – as the hurt child, as the beaten spouse, and as the abuser. We experience love – driven, consuming and also tender. Hammer’s Holy Grail takes the reader on a journey through life’s challenges and life’s gifts.

*

– by Timothy M. Tays –

5.0 out of 5 starsInteresting twists and synchronicity for multi-generational love story

September 3, 2018

Format: Kindle Edition

Billy Ray Chitwood again shows how clever plotting and passionate characters come together for an excellent love story.

 

*

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Life With Some Luxuries

Life With Some Luxuries

It is supposed that most of us have heard the expression, ‘I felt sorry for the man without shoes until I met the man with no feet’.

It is supposed that one living in the proverbial lap of luxury, say, in a penthouse on a lovely sea, has the world by the ying-yang! That is, perhaps knowing the ‘dark negative side’ and knowing the ‘bright positive side’ of life. Or, not.

It’s doubtful that anyone ‘has the world by the ying yang’, but so many do know and can clearly distinguish between the two. My friends are farmers, pest-control people, and some wealthy folks as well. You can find that kind of living quite often in the small town scenario. Everyone is treated equally, though the register might show some big deficits in terms of wealth.

Take me, for example, I was born in Appalachian poverty and remember so well the kerosene lamps, bed chambers, and the occasional trip in dark of night to the outhouse.

Now, that doesn’t buy me a ticket anywhere, but those memories surely make me duly appreciate of a nice home with some luxury features. Those memories are always with me and they provide a ‘stop’ measure if there comes a time when I so easily ‘wear’ luxuries and forget how life can be in the lower rent districts…I’ve lived there, know them well.

In fact, I can track my memories and remember some lovely simple moments of youth, like, when my grandmother held me on her lap in an old stuffed chair, her spittle can on the floor next to her. She would cut a big red apple in two halves and with that knife ‘mush’ that apple up it into her version of apple sauce, then fed it to me…

I can remember when my Mom was a boarding house cook, when we had a room across from the kitchen, and, as I sat listening to a radio broadcast of a baseball game she brought me a plate of her wonderful cooking – kissing me on the cheek and saying her love words to me…

I can remember my club-footed cousin JD and I playing ‘cowboys and indians’ on those old country roads, exploring around the old sawmill watching for copperheads…

I can remember my grandpa coming around the mountain on an old railroad track tooting the old steam engine’s whistle, announcing the arrival of another bunch of logs from the other side of the mountain.

Well, I grew through those early days and experienced the comraderie of my football and basketball buddies in a gated historic city there the ‘Atomic Bomb’ was built, and on the periphery, watching my Mom struggle still with the rent payments and a sister that was growing too fast, age fifteen, going on twenty-one.

So, why all this rummaging through the past, the ‘ying and yang’ of living? Here in ‘Twilight’ there is time to reflect likely too much on the past and the present, how people make their adjustments as they play out their lives. Compared to those long-ago days I’ve fared very well in the pre-twilight years, not a ‘fat-cat’ by any stretch but will likely be buried with a bit of legacy for the kids. I’m envious of no one, but I still have my dreams as an author of a ‘best-selling’ book. My 17th novel, “The Pickett Factor” is being launched in a couple of weeks, and I like its chances…if I get some help from my friends.

As I ramble here, I’m just hopeful that people can understand that where they are on any kind of measuring chart, financial or otherwise, it’s basically where your heart and mind are that truly matters.

Billy Ray Chitwood – October 30, 2018

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Meet Gwen Plano

Gwen Plano is a person who knows there is a purpose for all of us on this orbital spacecraft called Earth, and she shows that purpose in her writing, in her daily living, and in her kind words that kindle other writers to believe in themselves, to never stop striving.

I’m honored to know this great lady and to ask that you read “Letting Go Into Perfect Love” – you know, with 76 5-Star Reviews, it’s a darn good book. So, do yourself a favor, get uplifted through the sharing of Gwen’s heartfelt story, weep along with her as she finds her guiding principles in a difficult life, and rejoice with her as peace quietly settles into her being. A most charitable lady, she will not compromise that spritual gift to which her faith binds her. She is truly RWISA quality, and then SOME!

Billy Ray Chitwood – September 20, 2018

(Scroll down to Gwen’s Book)

“3rd #RRBC “TREAT” Reads Blog Hop Day 3: Gwen Plano”

3rd #RRBC “TREAT” Reads Blog Hop Day 3: Gwen Plano

Greetings!  Welcome to the 3rd RRBC “TREAT” Reads Blog Hop!  These members of RRBC have penned and published some really great reads and we’d like to honor and showcase their talent.  Oddly, all of the listed Winners are RWISA members!  Way to go RWISA!

We ask that you pick up a copy of the title listed, and after reading it, leave a review.  There will be other books on tour for the next few days, so please visit the “HOP’S” main page to follow along.

Also, for every comment that you leave along this tour, including on the “HOP’S” main page, your name will be entered into a drawing for a gift card to be awarded at the end of the tour!

Author, Gwen Plano

Book: LETTING GO INTO PERFECT LOVE 

Book Blurb: Inspiring and unforgettable, Letting Go into Perfect Love is a riveting account of a journey through the terror of domestic violence to a faith that transforms all. As a college administrator, Gwendolyn M. Plano lived her professional life in a highly visible and accountable space–but as a wife and mother, behind closed doors, she and her family experienced unpredictable threat. The statistics are staggering–every 9 seconds in the United States, a woman is assaulted or beaten–but to Gwen, this was her secret; it was her shame. When her husband eventually turned his brutality on her son, she knew she could no longer remain silent. 

Alternately heart-wrenching and joyful, this is a story of triumph over adversity–one woman’s uplifting account of learning how to forgive the unforgiveable, recover her sense of self, bring healing into her family, and honor the journey home. Accompanied by glimpses of celestial beings, Gwen charts a path through sorrow to joy–and ultimately, writes of the one perfect love we all seek.

Twitter: @gmplano

Billy Ray Chitwood – 9/20/18

https://www.billyraychitwood.com (Website)

https://www.brchitwood.com (Blogsite)

 

Family Love

   e                               Billy Ray and Julie Anne

Upon the laptops across the globe, authors take to their keyboards to peck out their stories, opening their hearts and their very souls to seek some arcane knowledge of their own existence. It is a two-way street, I believe, this writing business. Authors surely wish to entertain their readers. Authors are also writing in many ways to find themselves in their narratives. At least, this one is…

Take me, for example, I put my life under many of the microscopes of readers almost daily in search for the essence of the man behind his words. On the surface of those words I believe it easy to discover some superficial nomenclature to describe myself – a man who ate some emotional soup in childhood and has spent a lifetime in search of himself, that essence, the reality of his soul. Of course, I can immediately acknowledge in all my lucid candor that the simple ‘nomenclature’ I’ve discovered at best can only scratch the surface of who I am, what and where I’ve been. The ultimate truth lies out there in the void of the ‘dark veil’!

What I can be certain of is what I label, ‘my orbital truth’. It is a truth I’ve dodged most of my life as a wanderlust, what many would call a ‘romantic’ or a ‘lotus-eater’, a man hungry for the fruits that can be found in the nether world of women and song, in and out of love, playing the role of dismayed man sorry for himself, or the role of a poet and soothsayer – ‘hey, look at me, am I not a good and solid actor in this not-so-great B-level  Movie’?

My children, two of whom I present to you above, love me for some obscure reason for I was absent for days, weeks, months, and years of their lives – sitting likely in a motel room writing about them on cheap stationery, how I missed them, how much I loved them, only to es-cape the motel room for more women and song. They are wise enough to know all of this and most of them are now closely-knit families with lovely children of their own.

My daughter, Shelley Jean (top picture), her handsome husband, Greg, are shown above, below them, my son, Scott and his lovely wife, Carla. Another son, Brandon, is a PhD in Literature, a professor living in Minnesota, unmarried at last report. There is a school teacher daughter and two engineers in the mix – Chemical and Electronic. All have wonderful children of their own… As a sad footnote: One of my sons, Steven Ray, was lost to us because of his life on the dark menacing streets of Las Vegas in drug dealing and use. If one might presume I could have made a difference in his life had I been there more, you would be presuming correctly… I carry that ignoble deed to the black void mentioned earlier.

With this righteous candor, I can say in honesty that all of the other children now have families and a good life. Shelley and Greg rejoice in their God and their blended family. Scott and Carla, having lived productive business lives, spend most their time in a Utah mountain retreat. The engineers and teacher whom I love come to me via Julie Anne, my most generous and loving wife of some thirty-five years. They are all family-oriented and have clearer truths for living than their father.

So, why have I shared all of my children, myself and wife with you, my compatriots on the writing circuit and some few reading fans? Surely, you did not need to read this, to hear it, as it were. No, of course not! It is all for me, this long missive of contrition. I’ve made you, the readers, my altar of remorse!

 It seemed necessary for me to share the larger truths of my life. Somehow, with the allocation comes ablution, some semblance of playing straight without falsely presenting myself. I served honorably in the United States Navy, have a loving and cherished wife, and felt the simple need to share the beauty that now pervades my life…the children, their families, their devotion to their own families and their charitable aid to others.

In pondering my life’s rather rascally environments at times I’m reminded of how truly lucky I am to have so very much love in my life.

That’s really comforting here in ‘Twilight’, where I plan to live until age 105 and write many more novels…

Surely hope those novels get read… 

No groveling, please, BR! 😀

Billy Ray Chitwood – September 1, 2018

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Re-Launch of “Mama’s Madness”

“Mama’s Madness” – Re-Launch – June 21, 2018

One more time! 

“Mama’s Madness” has been among my fourteen books my best seller, and I’ve changed the cover a few times. WHY AM DOING IT AGAIN?

Call me crazy, but this time I also did some re-writing, making some changes here and there – nothing major but enough, I believe, to make it even better. The old edition had some sixty reviews, most of them 5-STARS and 4-STARS, so maybe I am a bit nutty to be making a change again. However, I’m committed to this change and I hope that my friends and followers will help me with this re-launch…I’m awaiting proof copy and will be shooting for a June 21, 2018 publication.

The changes I’ve made to “Mama’s Madness” do not lessen the evil transgressions in the book. It is still a book that will shock readers, make them angry, make them not believe what they’re reading, but this book is inspired by a true California case some decades ago. When I read the newspaper clippings of this ‘mother’s’ brutal treatments of her six children, it made me angry, made me sad to the point of tears, made me think of my own children and their lives…thank God, they never suffered the beating, the dark-closet confinements (for days, NOT hours!), the unsavory introduction to sex, the eating of lard and their own retch. Because my kids did suffer the emotional stress of a divorce, they never suffered from a lack of love.

In short, I had to write this book!

No one needs perhaps to be reminded of the evil in our world, but the urge was so powerful to fictionalize this mother’s brutal and psychopathic behavior for my own inner compulsion but, hopefully, to also remind people people of their vigiliance  and environments, to be aware of that solicitous smiling stranger in the park, that passing car with a weirdo at the wheel making gestures, the friendly co-worker who offers a ride home.  

Yes, there will be some who see “Mama’s Madness” as a gratuitous penning of some lurid and sensational events. Those who feel that way will not have seen an author’s tears as he wrote some sections of the book.

“Mama’s Madness” will always be to me my favorite book, NOT so much because of the evil portrayed within its pages, but because it awakened me as an author, made me so much more aware of the events in our world, and the ultimate power of words.

May I ask of my friends and followers to assist me in getting this new edition of “Mama’s Madness” re-launched. It is a novel I believe to be by anyone’s writing standard a quality book.

“Mama’s Madness” was recently posted by Caleb Pirtle: “Five of 100 books you should read before you die.”  https://calebandlindapirtle.com/five-100-books-read-die-2/efore You Die!

At the top you see the new cover for “Mama’s Madness” – Do you like it!

Any assistance you can give me will be appreciated – reblogs- suggestions.

You can read part of the ‘Prologue’ of “Mama’s Madness” here:

~*~

PROLOGUE PORTION “Mama’s Madness”

 “Help me! Please help me!”

It is a piteous whimper, lost in the black void of the narrow closet. The weak and eerie sound of her own voice chills her more fiercely than the cold. The thought brings an aberrant amusement. Her own small voice frightens her!

A sound! A creaking sound. Far off. A footfall! Is it?

No. It is not a footfall. It’s just one of the strange noises that comes in the night.

Is it night?

Time is lost. Time is gone from her world like a chunk of youth. The black hole draws her toward an uncertain vortex. She must close her eyes. But, not so tightly. She sees less with her eyes lightly closed. There is better control of her quivering body. With eyes open, the blackness comes alive with trickery.

Some crawling thing moves along her upper arm. That is her perception. She shifts and finds a wooden wall protrusion. A vertical beam. She moves her arm and body in back and forth rushes to accommodate the itch.

Her wrists are painfully numb and raw. The handcuffs seem now natural extensions of her hands.

Her shoulders ache in their sockets. They are taut from the pull of arms bound behind her back.

How long? God! It seems an eternity! A small lifetime she has lived in this palpable darkness. Maybe, it has been two days. The air has no texture or stir. It hangs there, stale and dank.

Her face is flushed with fever. It feels stiff and crusty from the tears running over her abrasive wounds. She squints and contorts. She opens and closes her mouth. There are sharp responses of pain. Her entire body feels leaden and bloated. When she moves there is a burning chaff between her thighs. A complacent soreness pervades. It no longer matters. Nor does the stench from her body’s waste matter.

It is her mind which throttles her. Whisks her off in searing flashes, abates, lingers amid the blackness. A fragile sentry. Both enemy and friend.

It is all happening again! She is next to die. Just like Celia. Was it a year ago? Two? Time, again, is elusive, lost. What does it matter? A year or an hour ago! Sarilee knows she is next. Just like Celia…

End of ‘Prologue’ portion…

~*~

Again, thank you for helping me in this  re-launch. I’m trying for a pub-date of June 21, 2018. Any suggestions you have will be welcomed, as will any and all re-blogs. If you have comments about the cover, please let me know.

Billy Ray Chitwood – May 21, 2018

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Mission of Hope

The Mission of Hope

• Where have all the ‘Mother Teresas’ gone?
• Are there no more Francis of Assisis’?
• No more Billy Grahams?
• Can we not see our Nation and our World in crisis? Wars all over the globe? Power brokers in every corner of the earth? Souls void, empty of caring and feeling, cutting off heads, bombing innocents to present their robotic and Satanic message of doom, laughing at their livid liquidation?
• Where did Love go?
• Where did Faith go?
• This is a Sunday of reflection for me on the life of one of ‘God’s Ambassadors’, Billy Graham, a man who found God early and never wavered from his Biblical message of Faith and Hope:
• “I have one message: that Jesus Christ came, he died on a cross, he rose again, and he asked us to repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Lord and Savior, and if we do, we have forgiveness of all of our sins.”
• Billy also believed at our earthly ending our journey was only beginning.
• I prefer to believe that, despite much of my own life spent in playgrounds of ‘lotus eaters’, chasing ‘white buffaloes’, a cute euphemism for searching in the wrong places for love and family. While at times a dashing life of lovely ladies and booze, actually enjoying that playground, falling in and out of love, I had those days of sad Appalachian regrets, feeling those soul-stabs of remorse and loss, betraying my Bible-Belt inheritance.
• In no way am I made of the ‘Saintly Stuff’ of Billy and his good son, Franklin, but I still cling to my fragile Faith and believe that this mortal residence leads to something far greater for those of Faith, for those who allow some Biblical relevance to why we are here. This might seem too adolescent to some of little or no faith, but I figure it this way:
• It seems to me the order in our Universe is too precise to have come from a ‘big blast’. The orbital and angular journey of our planet that bring us days, nights, Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, beautiful sunrises, sunsets, rain and snow, all say to me a divine intelligence is at work.
• If more is needed, consider the magical miracle of birth, that intricate and precise time-table of growth inside a mother’s womb.
• Consider the creation of a painting by an artist who has just witnessed stars shooting across the sky, a sunset with a big bright orange globe falling off our horizons, a woman so dazzling in her beauty we call her Madonna.
• Consider the Bible, words and phrases we don’t always understand, yet a history given to us by the Prophets and Scholars through Time.
• Most of all, consider your Love for your wife, children, your sweetheart, grandfather, grandmother, all representing our passage and moments in Time.
• That’s what makes my opening so compelling and resonant. My thoughts might seem anachronistic to the new generation, and, throughout history we have faced similar holocaust-like events (Terrorism, Wars, Self-Doubts, Faith and Soul), and we somehow make it to the next generations.
• Okay, I’ve had my say, all words fueled by the news of the days… And, really, I’m an upbeat kind of guy, calm, nice…
• I just won’t watch the stupid news!
• Billy Ray Chitwood – February 25, 2018
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