Lurking

I started painting houses for my father
at the age of ten years old. He paid
me $2.00 per hour. In 1972 at age
fourteen my father gave me a pay raise,
from then on I worked part time in the
winter and full time in the summer and
I was fi rst introduced to books around
the same time by my reading teacher who asked me to
write a paper on an author. My selection was Edgar Allen
Poe. I found him to be an inspiration. His stories really
came to life and opened my eyes. My next taste of literature
was a book called "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkin. This set
my mind in motion to write. In the mid "80s" when I really
started to write. I was twenty-eight years old, still painting
but I wanted to write as well. So I set out to write poems. I
modeled my style after Edgar Allen Poe by trying to keep
it short and to the point. I didn't try to write "macabre" but
what I felt. I made my own style. I wanted to write for my
own amusement. I worked as foreman for my father for eight
years till the crash of 1987 and suddenly found myself out of
work. Two years later I started my own painting company.
I continued to write while painting houses. In 2008 went
to school at Long Ridge Writer Group. This is how I got to
where I am today.