So it’s time for another lopsided look at the topsy-turvy world we live in.  The facts that are thrown at us every day sometimes makes me wonder if I’m living them or dreaming them. And these are just a few things that have happened in the past week that I have to train myself to get used to.

•  Peyton Manning is no longer the quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.

 Come September he could possibly be wearing someone else’s uniform and someone else will be wearing his. I don’t know if I can lunch in front of the TV on Sunday afternoon under these circumstances or not.

• Pat Robertson wants to legalize marijuana. 

Boy, I could go on and on here but I could never top that simple last sentence.  I had to double check my sources when I read this one to make sure this wasn’t maybe some Patricia Robertson in San Francisco…but no, it was our ol’ Pat right here in Virginia Beach.

• United States Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu told a House Subcommittee that he does not own a car.

 Let me check the wax in my ears.  Our Energy Secretary who is supposed to be curing America’s ‘pain at the pump’ doesn’t even have a vehicle?  It’s like hiring a jockey who doesn’t know how to ride a horse.  Or hiring a drummer to play the piano.  Or….no, I won’t keep on with these all- too- obvious comparisons.  You get the drift.

• Snooki is getting married and will soon be a mother.

 Okay, now certainly this one is a joke.  No?  She’s really engaged with a little Jersey Shorean on the way?  It only assures me that there is someone out there for everyone.  And if I have to tell you who Snooki is then there is still some hope in the world.  If you don’t know – enjoy the innocence.

• The Houston Astros will be in the American League next year.

For the past 50 years I’ve known them as a National League team and now I’ll have to try to fit them into the American League side of my brain?  Somebody is ‘messin’ with Texas!  Could this sort of thing happen to the Yankees or the Braves?  Crossing the ‘aisle’ of baseball?  I figured Republicans and Democrats would vote for one another before anything like this was allowed to happen. A Yankee pitcher actually batting?  I don’t think so!

• Bill Gates is no longer the richest man in the world.

How embarrassing for poor old Bill who this year is worth 53 billion while a Mexican by the name of Carlos Slim Helu has topped him with 53.5 billion.  He only lost by a fraction so maybe he’ll come back next year and save face.

• A new show just premiered on ABC titled ‘GCB’.

“Good Christian B……”   And I can remember when NBC wouldn’t let Jack Parr say ‘water closet’ at 11:30 p.m.  Google that all you who are too young to recall it and you’ll be shocked at how far television has come in five decades.  How far has it come you ask?  Way too far.  Way too far.

                                        March 10, 2012

                                        DSR

     I hear from the publisher and the powers-that-be that The Mulligans of Mt. Jefferson is doing really well in the bookstores, on the online outlets and with the ebook markets.  The Statler Brothers mail order website has been jumping and I’ve been busy with phone interviews all over the country with the press.  I think I have answered every question imaginable about the who, the why and the how of the story and all its characters.  Just the other day someone asked me in an interview what my most asked questions were about the book and because it took me a few seconds to think about it, I was very impressed with the question.  I thought I’d share the answer with you.

    These are probably the three most asked questions I get from interviewers and readers alike:

Is Mt. Jefferson a real town?

     Yes, it is but it’s not known by that name.  My hometown, the place where I was born and still live is Staunton, Virginia.  It’s a small town, about 22,000, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley in the mid-western part of the state.  I have stolen its identity and location and renamed it to my liking, and used it as the setting in two novels – O Little Town and The Mulligans…   Then I’ve written about it, not as it is but as it was.  I was a child in the decade of the 50s and the streets and the stores, the merchants and the people are as I see them in my sweetest of memories.  So, yes, it is very real to me.

Are any of your characters actual people you know?

    Yes, but the names have been changed to protect the guilty.  (I couldn’t resist saying that even though it is fundamentally false.)  I have never taken a complete person and transferred him or her to the page.  I do admit to taking a little of Tom, a little of Dick and a smidge of Harry and making a ‘new and improved’ character.  If any of my old or current friends (or enemies) see any of themselves in anything I write, it is only fleeting.  They can never say, “That’s me he desecrated and defiled!”  They can only say, “I think that might have been me he was thinking about.”  This not only preserves friendships, it also discourages lawsuits.

What’s the difference in writing songs and writing books?

     My standard answer is, “About 300 pages.”  But the long answer is this.  I trained myself for 40 years to tell a story inside of three minutes and make it rhyme.  Then I get this wild notion to write books and I’m told to take as long as I like.  It was like diving into a pool of chocolate.  I couldn’t believe the luxury I was being offered.  I can take months to write it; use as many pages as I desire; have as many characters as I think necessary; and don’t have to worry about a word to rhyme with orange.  (I used that example because there is no word that rhymes with orange.  Just a little tidbit that every songwriter knows.) 

   As I get more MAQs I’ll share them with you.  Right now I have to run.  I have an interview in ten minutes with someone who is just dying to ask me one of these three questions.

                                           –DSR    

                                              Feb. 13, 2012