The only name you may recognize in this list is the Waltons. Earl Hamner, Jr. created this TV series that first aired in 1972. I graduated from high school in May of that year. The first episode of the Waltons aired on CBS television on September fourteenth of that year. You can say that my adult life began with this creation of Mr. Hamner.
This was not the first incarnation of this story by the author. “Spencer’s Mountain” was first published in 1961. He had begun his writing career as a script writer. His first short play that was produced was “The Hound of Heaven” that aired January 15, 1953, on The Kate Smith Show.
Spencer’s Mountain became a movie in 1963 starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara. The plots are similar. The characters are familiar from the Waltons series. This book was the story that John Boy wrote about his family. As writers, we are told to write what we know.
The character John Boy in the original book and movie was named Clay Boy after his father Clay Spenser, Sr. This makes me wonder if Earl Hamner, Jr., was called Earl Boy when he was growing up. He was the first one in a large family to go to college and become a writer.
Most of The Walton episodes were not written by Hamner. He was the Executive Producer and had final say on the scripts. While every story was not his he did make sure they were true to his concept of who his family was. As always, literary licenses were issued as needed.
Many of Hamner’s personal beliefs appear in these episodes. He was constantly exposing problems to those who were trying to take advantage of others. The Ballwin sisters, who were bootleggers, even though they did not know it, were not viewed as criminals. Blacks and orphans were seen as being oppressed.
Walton’s view of World War II was very much the way my mother remembered things as she was growing up at that time. Walton’s was a favorite of hers. She shared with me that many of the news reports of things that were occurring in Europe were viewed with doubt by her family as well.
Many of the story lines resonated with me. John Jr. wanted to be a writer and went to college to study. He was always writing a story or book. The season he purchased an old press and published his own newspaper was especially interesting to me.
The idea of living with grandparents was not that familiar and I was used to having two brothers and a sister at home. I sympathized with the Walton children when they wished they were only children. The different interests and occupations the family chose were as varied as my own. The main variation was that no one in my family became a musician or nurse.
My columns do follow a similar tack that John Boy followed by writing about the family and those things that happened to them. If you are like me and wish that the producers would come up with more family programming like this, at least with our current technology, we can watch these older shows on our streaming services. Happy watching, and I’ll share others that I have watched when they were new.
Have you ever seen this TV series from 2007 to 2012? I am going to tell you something that has never been published anywhere before now. This story is about me. It has been altered greatly from my true original story. I did not go to Stanford University or work as a computer nerd.
I do not know Chris Fedak or Josh Schwartz who are the creators of this show. How they were able to link this fictional tale to my name is beyond me. I do not want any royalties or profit from their scripts. Titles cannot be copy written and I have no claim against anyone for infringing upon my privacy.
Why do I say this series was based on my life? First it is my name. Then there is the beautiful woman that I am married to. The character of Sarah Walker and Cindy do not have the same hair color. Cindy has never worked for the CIA and the way we met was completely different from what the series shows.
My best friend at the time ended up being my best man at our wedding and surprisingly, they got the part correct that we worked together. They also got it right that I have a sister. They did leave out my two brothers. Neither of my parents were spies and they were at our wedding as well.
They also got it correct that I did not finish at the university where I started my degree program. However, I was not expelled, I transferred and did receive my diploma from another college. I also never let my girlfriend drive my company car, so she never wrecked it. I played video games but not much after Cindy and I began dating. As I recall, neither did Chuck after he met Sarah.
That is another way that the writers hit my story head on. I know that if they tried to stay closer to my real life it would have been boring. I am just glad that they did not make it a situation comedy. The dramedy genre was a much more flattering format.
I can just see if they had titled it everybody loves Chuck or according to Chuck. All the crazy stuff my brothers and sister and I did would not have been half as interesting as the scripts for those two shows. I do wish that one of the characters in M.A.S.H., the Waltons, or Dr. Quinn Medicine woman had been Chuck or Cindy. In that case the show I claimed as ours would have lasted a lot longer.
Is there a show that you wish you could claim was about your life? Comment below and tell me the similarities and the differences in yours. If no one comments I will know that I am still a unique individual. Happy watching.
I’ve been a writer for over sixty years. I do not remember ever having writer’s block. I developed a habit in grade school of writing what I wanted when I wanted to. Most of my teachers were just happy that I never asked what to write about. It was usually “write about something that happened to you or something that you are interested in.”
In junior high my teachers were more demanding. I had to write fiction or non-fiction, essays, or reports. Often, I would start more than one paper. If they wanted a particular piece but gave no restriction on the topic, I might write two or three different items. The day before it was due I had to choose which would be submitted.
More than one educator would suggest that we submit an additional paper for extra credit. I was always prepared for that. The fun thing about doing this was that often when a new assignment was given, I had at least one written that could be used.
In high school it became more difficult. Each paper had the maximum and minimum number of words required. Topics were more difficult to choose because the requirements were more restrictive. When I began taking journalism I continued to write multiples of each assignment.
News stories, editorials, features, and even sports articles seemed to come easily. My feature articles were the ones that were accepted most often. News items were not as well accepted. Sports was definitely not my bailiwick. When the staff for the paper senior year was announced, I was the page three feature editor.
Page one was the editor, page two the associate editor and of course page four was sports. Two photographers were chosen as well. Other jobs like yearbook staff were also filled. Our sponsor told us she made the decisions based on our strengths.
Senior year I wrote pieces that appeared on each page including page four. When we selected a theme for the feature page for each week everyone in all the classes were asked to write columns for each issue. Our teacher selected articles from the ones I gave to her. I submitted only one of mine to insert for each edition. We did not submit copy with bylines to prevent preferential treatment.
Each issue featured a bylined piece of mine on at least one page. Photographs from my camera also appeared in the paper and the yearbook. I had editorials that were requested on certain topics for specific issues. These were published with no acknowledgement of authorship.
My skills included interviews which were a mainstay of page three. If no one in the classes volunteered for these stories, they were handed to the feature editor. I spent a lot of time interviewing the principal and most of the staff. Today my favorite joke is to tell people that I was in the principal’s office at least three times a week. I just don’t tell them why I was there.
In my files I have close to a hundred ideas or partial columns. I have been gathering these for over ten years. Each piece I publish may be written completely within the last few days. Others are finished after they have sat in the files for as much as three years or more.
I hope that this has helped you with ways to avoid the dreaded writer’s block syndrome. I always tell young authors that the only way to learn how to write is to write. It always works for me. Tell me if I publish something that you think should have stayed in the file a while longer and gotten more polish.
This is a story I heard many years ago. I wrote it out and saved it in my files. It went into my files for my columns years ago. Before I tell you the story I must make a disclaimer. Although my friends call me Chuck, this story is not about me.
“A fellow named Chuck encountered a farmer one day. The farmer said he had a real deal for him. He was selling raffle tickets to win a horse. Chuck purchased one of the tickets and went on his way.
A few weeks later Chuck gets in touch with the farmer who tells him that he won the horse. Chuck says that is great and asks when he can pick up the horse. The farmer tells him that he regrets to report that the horse died last night.
Chuck demands to claim the horse even if it is dead and shows up at the farm with a truck. The farmer is perplexed as to what Chuck plans to do with a dead horse.
Several months later the two meet up again and the farmer asks about the horse. Chuck tells him he made $2500.00 off of the horse. When asked how he was able to get that much for a dead horse he is told that Chuck raffled the horse off and when the winner came to pick up the horse and was told it was dead, Chuck gave him his money back and disposed of the dead horse.
The farmer then explains that Chuck is now a congressman.”
There are many morals to this story that I could give you. One is that a creative person can accomplish a great deal even with a dead horse. Or I could tell you that caveat emptor is Latin for “let the buyer beware.” I could even explain to you the U.S. economy. It is based on buy low and sell high.
This is Father’s Day and as a dad I am enticed to just accept this as a good dad’s joke. Or you might call it a bad dad joke. I have told a lot of those over the years and a few of the former.
My favorite story about my joke telling experiences is the time we were moving our youngest daughter from one dorm at Rolla to a different building to become a residence assistant. Some of her friends brought trucks and we were using our van to load, move and unload her possessions.
We were all visiting with each other and my daughter told first one and then another of my tales. After a while I had the opportunity to speak to her alone and I mentioned that she was using the material that she always told me was not funny. Each time she told a joke her friends laughed.
Her response was that she knew how to tell a joke better than I did. This was a line from another of my anecdotes. On this occasion I want to wish all dad’s a happy Father’s Day and apologize if once again I have confirmed what Kayla said.
No, it isn’t Kay or Hallmark. It is with desire. When my wife and I watch rom-coms I have a saying, “It’s a Hallmark.” Most Hallmark movies have the starring couple kissing in the last five to fifteen minutes. Others like Larry Levinson productions have lovers kissing much earlier.
My wife and I kissed for the first time after our first or second date. I can’t remember exactly. I think it was the first time. It might not have been. I know I wanted to kiss her every time I saw her and I still do. This was the start of love.
Remember that I do not believe love and lust are the same. Lust is a kind of desire. Love prompts desires of its own. These are not the same. Love makes you want to be with someone. Not for sex or any of that superficial stuff. You want to spend your life with them.
We have been together for over fifty years. Today is our forty-ninth anniversary. We are both retired now and spend almost every moment together. We don’t have to be together all the time; we just enjoy each other’s company. We share the chores around the house, run errands together most of the time, and still sleep in the same bed.
We both have sleep apnea which means without our CPAP machines we snore. During the first year we dated I spent ten weeks over a thousand miles away for the summer. When I returned home, I had turned twenty-one and decided that we needed to be married as soon as possible after I graduated from college the next spring.
Two weeks after the wedding My job moved us to another city, and this gave me justification for marrying her before she graduated from high school. She completed school in the new community and found a job after she was out of school.
Many people think that if you get married at a young age it will be difficult to stay together. For us that has not been a problem. We have learned that the key to loving each other is forgiveness. Everyone has disagreements and makes mistakes. Don’t let these problems break up your relationships.
What we need to do is watch what we say to each other and forgive when we have differences in opinions. Another requirement is to make compromises. When our first daughter was born Cindy wanted to start a tradition of talking about Santa Claus with our daughter. I disagree with that idea.
I felt that promoting this kind of falsehood in our children’s lives would make them distrust what we told them about Jesus and God. She wanted them to be given the fun things these fantasies could bring. It turned out that we were able to explain the differences between real and pretend at the appropriate ages with each of them. Love sometimes is a compromise.
“There’s a package for you on the entry table,” came my wife’s voice as I opened the kitchen door from the garage. “It’s marked ‘urgent,’” she added as she wiped her hands on her apron and kissed me hello.
“When was it delivered?” I asked as I headed to the front door.
“I don’t know. It was lying outside the front door when I went to check the mail.”
Not unusual. It was an express mail package & I zipped it open quickly. Inside were the files I expected to have on my desk in the morning. Interpol printouts, investigation reports from all over the world on probable killings by Mike Richards, etc. Grainy surveillance photos, numerous other items, and a handwritten letter. It was “the note writer.”
It started, “Be very careful. Manny has not left the area. You were supposed to find David Weber. He will take action if he learns you believe he is involved. Quietly investigate the research Carl Freeman has been doing on his own time. Contact his wife at the funeral home through an intermediary. Do not let anyone know that you are looking for Manny or you will be the next victim. I’ll be in touch.”
After a quick dinner, I was back in the office. I usually don’t get spooked, but this case was getting to me. I looked at my mirrors closer than usual, checked to be sure my piece was ready, and made sure I walked in with other officers I knew. I was very cautious.
I accessed Interpol. The pages I had looked at were exactly what was currently posted. “Note writer” must have access to Interpol. He must be another officer or an excellent hacker. I called the funeral home and found out what time Mrs. Freeman would be there tomorrow. David Weber was more cooperative after I told him who the man was in the mug shot, he had identified. When I told him I was going to charge him with possession of stolen goods, so I could hold him, he seemed relieved.
Sleep did not come easy. Too many questions kept coming to mind. What was Freeman working on? Why did it cost him his life? Who was the Note Writer? Could I keep David Webber alive, if Manny wanted him dead?
When the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., I was still asking myself questions. Today promised to be as strange as yesterday.
By 10:30 I had already checked for additional information on Mike Richards, aka Manny, and was at the funeral home. Mrs. Freeman was surprised when I asked if her husband had any “special projects” he was working on.
“For years he has been working on a new car engine. He applied for a patent a few months ago but found out recently that his design is already patented,” she told me.
“Has any of the stuff in his shop been taken?”
“Not that I can tell,” was her response. “I rarely go out there. The only thing I am sure is not missing is the car with the engine in it.”
I made arrangements to meet her that afternoon to look at the shop. I still did not see why this was important. I drove back to the station and was almost hit in the parking lot as I left my car. Some people even drive like maniacs in the parking lot of a police station.
When I came back to my car to go meet Nicole Freeman, The Note Writer had struck again. “Manny has made you,” it began. “He knows you have Weber. You should watch your step in the parking lot. Next time he won’t miss you. Do not contact the Freeman woman again directly. If Manny thinks you are interested in the car, you and Weber are both dead.”
Could that car that almost hit me have been driven by a paid killer? It made me think. I went back to my office and called a friend to go see Mrs. Freeman. I needed to know all I could about that car and engine.
Mike Richards was a very interesting man. Suspected murders in over twenty countries. Last ten years he had almost been caught at least five times. No indication in my information of who had been close to catching him. No one knew who he killed for, and all the murders seemed random. No known link had been found, yet. That was the Interpol report.
The other papers were clippings that described the deaths of an FBI agent, several police, and assorted citizens. Many were in the U.S., but close to half were from other countries. A few of the articles mentioned experimental work on engines or alternative fuels. Some were murders, but most were accident reports or obituaries. If The Note Writer was to be believed, Mike Richards must be very wealthy, indeed. Between these clippings and Interpol’s report, he had killed over a hundred people. The official score was twenty-two.
I found the reported suicides of three police officers, the accidental deaths of four more, and the killed in the line of duty of two and the agent to be the most disturbing. Each of the officers and the agent was investigating an unsolved death at the time of their deaths. One clipping had a photograph of a group of uniformed officers at the scene of the fatal shooting of another officer. One of the faces was circled. An arrow drawn from the circle pointed to the name “Manny” written on the side. With this clipping was an artist’s sketch entitled “Manny today.”
The articles on the death of the FBI agent described his family, and his partner and showed a map of the area where his body was found in his burned car. Thomas Winston Riley was a twelve-year veteran of the FBI, former military intelligence, and trained hostage negotiator. His partner, Sam Wilkens reported nothing unusual in their cases that would indicate anything other than an accident. The investigation concluded with the statement, “Death due to severe trauma inflicted during an automobile accident.”
There was ice, the guard rails had been taken out by an eighteen-wheeler two days earlier. He ran off the road and the car rolled down an embankment and burned due to a punctured gas tank. Due to the snow and ice, there were no marks on the pavement. All the tires melted in the fire. There was no way to tell if the accident was the result of a blowout.
I know that it is the tenth of November and that I was going to start writing on the first. I wanted to share with you what I have written. This is the first chapter.
The clock read 1:33. Four rings, maybe five . . . six . . . seven.
“Yeah.”
“Detective Sammon?”
“Yeah.”
“We have a homicide.”
“Where?”
“4212 S. Larson Boulevard.”
“I’m on my way.”
I’ve developed my technique to the point I can dress and be out of the house in five, or ten minutes tops.
“Another murder?” my wife asked.
“Yeah. I’ll call you later this morning, O.K.?”
“K.”
At 1:40 in the morning, most of the lights are blinking, but when you’re a cop, you don’t stop. The dashboard clock blinked at 1:59 as I pulled in behind the third patrol car.
“Who was first on the scene?”
Sam Wise, a twenty-year veteran on the force answered. “I was.”
“What’s the story?”
“Neighbor on the south saw a car pull away about midnight. She thought it unusual. Her husband came home after 1:00 and told her the front door was open and a light was on the inside. He came over and saw drawers out and I had her call it in. I found the body in the kitchen.”
“Burglary gone bad?”
“Looks that way.”
“Anyone else lives here?”
“A wife. She’s out of town. Neighbors don‘t know where. We found an address book. The wife‘s sister, Elaine Newton is in the book.”
Less than an hour later, Mr. Newton had called his wife at the hotel where she and her sister were. They started on their way back. All Nicole Freeman knew was that she needed to go to the local hospital to see her husband. There had been a break-in at the house.
It’s part of the job, but not an easy part, to meet the family at the hospital and tell them the bad news and escort them to the morgue to identify the body. Mrs. Freeman was genuinely surprised to hear and see that her husband was dead. Or maybe she’s that good of an actress.
Nothing was unusual about this case. Mrs. Freeman left two days earlier for a weeklong shopping trip with her sister and some friends. Carl Freeman, the deceased, had worked until his usual 5:00 p.m. at a local factory. He had prepared a frozen meal his wife left for him. Worked in his shop till 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. Watched the news, and went to bed around 10:30. The neighbor saw the lights go off while she read and waited for her husband to get home. The late model car she saw left, could not be identified by anyone and no one saw the driver.
Mrs. Freeman did an inventory of the house. All her jewelry was gone. Most are not worth much. The most interesting missing items were three guns. One, a .38 pistol. A single .38 slug was taken from Carl Freeman’s head. Shot between the eyes. Not the way most burglars would do it. This case was going to be hard to solve. Or was it?
When I went to my car at about 2:30 that afternoon, I found a note under the driver’s windshield wiper. Addressed to “Detective Sammon” it read “FEX237 dirty brown 1998 Honda Civic.”
No one had seen anyone around my car when I inquired later. I went back to the station. David Wever was the owner of the 1998 Honda Civic with the FEX237 tags. 243 W. Main Street was the listed address. The car was parked in front of the dilapidated house. It smelled of everything you could imagine and so did Weber.
“Mr. Weber?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Detective Alan Sammon.” I showed him my badge.
“Yeah, I’m Weber,” He didn’t seem concerned.
“Where were you last night?”
“Right Here?”
“All night?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone with you?”
“Nope.”
“That your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it there all night with you?”
“Yeah.”
“You did not make a trip to Larson Boulevard about midnight?” Did he just take a deep breath?
“Nope. Stayed here all night.”
I wanted a search warrant but knew I had no chance. No one could even I.D. the car, except the note writer. I went back to my car.
Had Weber seen the note writer? Maybe? He had struck again. The note said, “Patsy’s Bar from 10:30 to 11:30.” I was headed up to the house again when I heard the back door slam. I caught Mr. Weber before he could get all the way over a privacy fence in his backyard.
I cuffed him and called for backup. White we waited, I read him his rights. Then I asked if he would let us search the house.
“Hell, no!”
While I was going back to the station in my car, I requested a search warrant be issued on probable cause. He had bolted after initial questioning. That didn’t make him guilty of murder, but the judge thought he must be running from something.
David Weber sat in a holding cell with two other guys while I went to Patsy’s Bar and the uniforms searched the house. Derek, the bouncer, and Bob, the bartender, knew Weber. He was there last night and left with another man around 11:30. They could not give a good description of the other man. I thought it might have been Carl Freeman.
Weber’s house had many items that did not appear to belong to Mr. Weber. Why would a man who lives alone need twelve televisions, six-CD changers, and five DVD players? Nothing found there matched any of the items missing from Freeman’s house. No guns were in the house or the car.
I could only hold Weber for 24 hours without proof he committed a crime, but he helped me on that one.
“I know you left Patsy’s with Carl Freeman around 11:30 last night.”
“Is that the guy’s name?” was his response. “All I know is he asked if I wanted to make a quick heist and I said sure. He gave me the address in the parking lot and told me to take whatever I wanted. I didn’t know he had killed a guy and wanted me to take the fall.”
I was surprised. “So, the man at the bar wasn’t the guy we found dead at the house?”
“No. That’s probably his wife’s boyfriend. He told me to take whatever I wanted out of the house because the judge had just given it all to his wife in a divorce. He had left the doors unlocked and no one was home. It sounded too good to be true.”
“Had you seen the man at the bar before?”
“Not before last night. He was there earlier and asked me to hang around. Told me what he wanted me to do, but said he needed to be sure his wife and the boyfriend were gone.”
“When was that?”
“About 10:30”
“What was he driving?”
”Didn’t see.”
“Did you go back to the bar after you left the house?” I knew the answer to this one.
“No. I just went home. It shook me up bad.”
I had him look at mug shots of locals and even some known contractors. After the first hour, I thought it was hopeless, but then he spotted one. A worldwide contractor known as Mike Richards, Richard Michaels, R. Mann, Manny, and the list went on. No confirmed, true, identity.
I requested an Interpol search, filed the paperwork to hold David Weber as a material witness, and went home.
Charles (Chuck) Kensinger 