Gone, But Not Forgotten

As I mentioned in my last post, my freshman year in college started off by having to take fundamental courses that I was not overly enthused about.

The dreaded English 101 was at the top of my "uninterested" list.

To my surprise, Professor Mitchell was a different kind of English teacher that I had not encountered in the past. She wasn't focused on grammar, sentence structure, and the other building blocks of English, but was geared more toward creativity. She was all about writing stories, and testing our ability to tell a good story through writing, whether it be fiction or nonfiction.

I received high marks for my off-color humor and graphic detail in the stories I wrote. She never mentioned all of the misspelled words or incomplete sentences. It was all about good storytelling.

She wrote a note on my final exam (for which I got an "A"), that said, Continue writing. You're good at it.


Emeritus Grace Clayton Mitchell passed away in 2006. Although, I never saw her again after that Spring in 1972, her encouraging words remained in the back of my mind until I started my first novel, almost thirty years later.

Out of the Navy and Back to School

I managed to survive the Navy and the Vietnam War. Although, I didn't encounter any Viet Cong, thank God, there were some tense times sitting on top of 8 million gallons of jet fuel in a war zone.

Before I left Vung Tao in 1971 to be discharged from the Navy, I received a letter from my mother. Enclosed was a letter that had been sent to me from Uncle Sam. It stated that I had been drafted into the Army. The letter was a little late, so I had managed to dodge the bullet, literally.

Back home in Joplin, Missouri and in civilian status, I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life. My friend, Bob, who had been discharged out of the service earlier, turned me on to college. Since Uncle Sam was graciously paying for it via the G.I. Bill, it sounded like a hell of a better idea than getting a job, so I enrolled right away.

Unfortunately, I found out you couldn't just take any courses you wanted to, because there are such things as prerequisites. English 101 was one of them, and I was definitely bummed out about that!

I had no idea this would be the class that would pave the way to a writing career many years later.