Tag: LocalAuthor

Margerumalia – Writers on Display

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 12, 2025

I was honored to receive an email recently telling me that my book would be featured in a display at The Caretaker’s Cottage curated by the West Lafayette Public Library. My wife and I went over to see it and she took this photo of me. You can see MAMLA on the top shelf of the display case farthest to the right.

It’s quite the incentive to put my nose to the grindstone and finish my sequel, The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago. I have 10,335 words written on my first draft, so that’s not nothing! 

The Caretaker’s Cottage was remodeled into a beautiful little museum that the public library set up and it sits on the edge of Grandview Cemetery, where my parents and grandmother are buried. The cottage was built around the turn of the twentieth century and housed the cemetery caretaker and his family.

The grand view, now hidden by majestic maples and towering oak trees, looked down the hillside and across the Wabash River, providing a spectacular vista of Lafayette.

I used to walk or ride my bike past that cemetery on my way to junior high school and always found it calming, not frightening like cemeteries in the movies.

The rotating displays of the museum honors West Lafayette residents from soldiers to sports figures to writers, telling the story of our city. There used to be a display of my mother’s campaign memorabilia and some highlights of her twenty-four years as mayor. That exhibit and more are now housed on the top floor of the public library.

A less comfortable story, but vital to tell, is that West Lafayette was once a sun-down town. That means that everyone who was not white had to leave the town by the time the sun went down. Non-whites were allowed to clean houses and do manual labor, but they could not live here. 

This practice ended before I was born, but it sends a cold spike into my guts when I think about it. The docent admitted that she benefitted from generational wealth, living in the house that her grandparents built about a century ago. She even showed us a copy of the deed they signed with large letters excluding non-whites. It was poignant. 

What is it they say in Alcoholics Anonymous? Before you can begin mending, you have to admit you have a problem? I’m glad to see the racial mix across the city and when I work part time at the Junior/Senior High School. I hope we, as a nation, can continue to mend and learn from our history how ever uncomfortable it may be. 

We are, after all, the human race. We are one people. 

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – 20 Years Since Katrina

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 5, 2025

I was preparing to direct a stage version of Dead Man Walking in Wichita when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

The Death Penalty Discourse Center operated out of that area. Had they even received the check for the performance rights? I had no way of knowing, and they were unreachable. Louisiana was hit hard.

There was nowhere to go but forward. 

Sister Helen Prejean’s bestselling memoir had been adapted into an Academy Award winning movie and, as a theatre professor working in a university founded by nuns, I knew this would be a significant opportunity. The hurricane turned many lives upside down and this play did the same.

I gathered a cast of very talented and dedicated actors who understood the gravity of this story and the questions of life and death. Even my eight-year-old daughter played an important role as the surviving sister of the murder victim. She delivered a haunting performance as the forgotten child, emotionally abandoned by her parents who were drowning in their own grief.

A local sister who ministered to prisoners on death row came to speak to the cast about “her men.” She told us moving stories of the men who lived daily with the regret of their deeds and their desire to make things right with the survivors, their consciences, and God. Her words transformed them from monsters into flawed human beings. 

For the execution scene, the university choir recorded a moving rendition of “Amazing Grace” that played through the prisoner’s death and the removal of his body on the gurney. The audience didn’t know that the sweet tenor solo in the recording was sung by the actor playing the prisoner. 

I have personal notes from several actors thanking me for the opportunity to live and feel the reality of their characters. One even described how she and the actors playing the parents of the murdered girl broke down in a group hug backstage, holding one another and weeping. She was thanking me for that experience.

My wife and I watched TV for weeks during Katrina recovery efforts, saddened by the mounting death toll.

Eventually the check did clear. Sister Helen and the members of The Death Penalty Discourse Center were among the survivors. I’m sure they were changed by the experience. I know we were.

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Vaccination The Old Fashioned Way

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 20, 2025

My mom poured the medicine into the spoon and put it in my brother’s mouth, then she crossed the room, poured out another spoonful and put the same spoon in my mouth.

That’s how I got the mumps when I was four years old.

A few days ago my doctor was reviewing my vaccinations and I told her the story of how I got the mumps. Mom gave it to me. And it was intentional. 

It happened in Germany when my Dad had the opportunity to work with a world renowned chemist and scheduled his first sabbatical leave to take advantage of the offer. Mom loved to travel and fully embraced the experience. Bringing along two boys under six? No problem! 

When I say “world renowned chemist” I’m not kidding. Dr. Eigen would be awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry a couple of years after we came back to the States. 

The family spent a total of nine months living in Germany—I should say West Germany, before the reunification of the two Germanys.

My brother and I each had a birthday during that time, his sixth, my fourth. We celebrated Christmas in that little German house and Dad laid the track for an electric train to circle the tree. On Christmas morning a toy bunny peeked out of my stocking and I played with him all day.

In the spring it was time to get ready for the return trip and my Dad came down with the mumps. My only memory of that was the doctor coming to give Dad a shot in his bare behind. I felt sorry for him but better him than me! 

A couple weeks closer to our departure date and Dad was feeling better but my older brother came down with a case of the mumps.

The vaccine hadn’t been invented yet and we wouldn’t be welcome to travel while infectious. If it took that long to reach to my brother, would it take that long before I got it? Time to consult the doctor.

My mother had earned a degree with majors in Chemistry and Biology and she knew the doctor was right: she had to infect me sooner than later. Still, she felt guilty about putting that spoon in my mouth. It went against all of her motherly instincts.

It was a classic textbook example of vaccination by exposure. I came down with a very mild case of the mumps from which I recovered quickly and we were all cleared to travel home. 

Mom? Oh, she never got sick. Ever. I couldn’t tell you why, she just had a robust immune system. At her funeral I thanked her for passing that gift along to me and my brothers. 

And Bunny? Yeah, he came home with me, went to college with me, grad school, too. Everywhere, in fact. He sits on my bookshelf now, his pink ears smudged, his whiskers bent, and his red ribbon bow now faded, but seeing him still makes me smile. I’ll put a picture of him below.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Pain Experts

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 15, 2025

I had something to say to the guy wearing this T-shirt. 

Trust me, I’m not stupid. I know better than to get all confrontational. Especially when the guy next to him looks like he eats three bowls of Steroidios for breakfast every day. Besides, I saw the pack of shirtless teens jogging past me in the park. They’ll be back soon.

I had just finished listening to the latest Serial podcast: “The Retrievals, Season 2.” It’s about women who have gone through Cesarean Sections with inadequate anesthesia. Remarkably, the message from these women is that if they say they can feel everything, that’s because THEY CAN FEEL EVERYTHING.

And you know what the problem has been? Communication. 

The good news is that nurses, doctors, surgeons, and anesthesiologists really don’t want their patients to suffer. The bad news is that they haven’t learned the language skills to understand the difference between discomfort and pain. Until now.

Through the harrowing stories of the patients and staff, we learn what they are thinking, what their expectations are, and what they’re assuming rather than understanding. With the right words, the right communication skills, the difference is revolutionary, giving everyone the basis for understanding and permission to change the process. 

My wife can tell you that I’m more than a bit squeamish about graphic imagery. And I admit to crossing my arms across my abdomen a few times while listening. But that’s empathy. That’s the experience of stories, truth or fiction.

So I had to say something to this marine. 

I approached the car and said that I saw the words on the back of his shirt and wanted to tell him that pain is an indicator. A message that something needs attention. So it’s important to listen to your body. 

I told him how my wife and I encourage one another to take our cues from pain to change what we’re doing or to take a break from what’s causing that pain. 

Both young men listened respectfully—as marines are taught to do—but I saw that quick glance they shared, so I tried to lighten the moment. 

“Age is probably a big factor when you’re 40 years older than those boys running through the park,” and we all smiled knowingly, “but there are times when you have to pay attention to that indicator and not do more damage.” They nodded and thanked me, calling me sir. “I just needed to say after reading your shirt,” I added.

Did I make any difference? I don’t know. Did the NFL listen to accounts of Traumatic Brain Injury? The jury may still be out on that question.

It’s so important to speak up. To communicate. To listen. 

Maybe you can make a difference. 

Serial episodes are available wherever podcasts are offered. Both seasons of “The Retrievals” are excellent. I recommend them. 

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – Jawsiversary

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 8, 2025

PHOTO: Pinterest

Jaws. The beginning of the summer blockbuster, they say. 1975. Fifty years ago! 

Jaws. The most intense abs workout of my life. 

My stomach ached more after seeing that movie than it did after 100 sit-ups in junior high gym class for the Presidential Physical Fitness Awards.

I blame the shock value. Hundreds of teenagers screaming at full volume every time the shark showed up…or when, say, a severed human head floated into view. [Spoiler alert.] My stomach muscles clamped together like a rusty bear trap with every screech.

And then there was the shark story delivered at night in the bowels of the little boat headed out to defeat The Great White. Robert Shaw, delivered that monologue with a deft mix of Ahab, Odysseus, and Falstaff. You can find it easily online and it’s worth the watch. Spielberg is quoted as having said that speech was probably his favorite scene from all his movies.

About a decade after seeing Jaws I was talking to a WWII vet and suddenly recalled that another vet had told me about his Navy experience in the Pacific where his ship was torpedoed and hundreds of men floated in the middle of the night while sharks picked them off one at a time. He even remembered having grabbed another sailor who had fallen asleep only to discover that the lower half of the man was missing. 

I’d been so drawn into that story from the film that I actually recalled it as a personal conversation. Imagine my embarrassment on realizing I’d heard it along with several hundred other people in the movie theater.

Wow, what a story. Who knew words could be so haunting?

AND it actually happened. It was the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis after they had delivered the first atom bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima. 

That’s what makes a summer blockbuster. Real human emotions that you remember like it was your own experience.

To lighten things up, I’ll close with a meme I ran across that made me laugh:

PHOTO: Pinterest

TTFN

P.S. For those of you keeping track, I just made up another word to add to the English Language, a portmanteau: Jawsiversary.

You’re welcome.

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Thesaurus Anyone?

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – August 1, 2025

PHOTO: Facebook @ForReadingAddicts

Have you had it up to here with hearing the word “unprecedented”? I have. 

The other day a news anchor interrupted herself to apologize for using the word before she said it. Again. When “unprecedented” becomes attached to “sorry for using this word so much” it’s time to stop using it. Don’t ya think?

It’s like the commercials on TV that cause us to dive for the remote and desperately stab at the mute button so we don’t have to hear that annoying voice yet again. 

I don’t do that with Progressive commercials because they’re so creative and humorous, and they’re usually replaced before I can grow weary of them.

Using my Merriam-Webster Thesaurus app, I found several substitutes for unprecedented. Words like fresh, new, novel, original, pioneering, and trailblazing all have a degree of admiration that might be too much praise for a news program, but words like unconventional, unheard-of, and even unique would be welcome replacements.

Notice in the paragraph above I referred to synonyms by mentioning a thesaurus and then used the words “substitutes” and “replacements” rather than using “synonyms” several times over. 

This is the joy of the English Language! We have so many options with so many shades of meaning. 

The other day I started a short story completely unrelated to my drafting of The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago and I couldn’t quite find my way into writing it until I tried it in second person (using the pronoun “you”). Suddenly it landed just right, creating a mood I didn’t even know I wanted. But that word “you” tripped me up a bit. There’s no alternative word in second person, even first person has the variance of I/me. 

That’s my challenge as a writer. What are my options? How do I solve this puzzle so my reader doesn’t dive for the remote. I don’t know yet but I’ll be working on it.

It’s strange, it’s novel, it’s new. Just not unprecedented.

By the way, precedence just means it happened before. It’d be okay to say “nothing like this has ever happened before.”

We have a saying in theatre: less is more. 

Would less use of “unprecedented” be more than I could hope for?

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – A Spotlight on Betty White

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – July 11, 2025

I stood in line behind Betty White. I was nineteen and she was legendary.

I wanted to say something, but knew it had to be worth saying.

This moment happened in Akron, Ohio, where I was working as an apprentice for The Kenley Players. Kenley also had summer contracts with theatres in Dayton and Columbus. Most of the summer I worked in the box office but I also got to do an occasional load-in or a load-out because it was an eleven show season. One week performances with one day of travel between cities. John Kenley was great about making sure his apprentices were included in free dinner events put on by local restaurants. 

I did this for two summers while I was in college.

Betty White was there both times. 

The first season began with the musical Chicago featuring Alan Ludden, known mainly as the long-running host of “Password.” He played the flamboyant lawyer Billy Flynn, who gave them “the ol’ razzle dazzle” to secure a not-guilty verdict for Roxie Hart. He was good with the role, too, playing just the right balance of manipulation and charm. 

He was also married to Betty White. 

Here’s a charming clip of Betty White flirting with Allen Ludden the first time she appeared on “Password” as one of the celebrities. https://tvline.com/news/betty-white-allen-ludden-password-romance-974130

In many of my celebrity meet-ups I only thought of the right thing to say five minutes afterwards, but this time I think I nailed it. After complimenting her work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” I asked her whether she preferred performing on stage or for the camera. 

She told me that a sitcom like MTM was the best of both worlds. They got to perform in front of a live audience as well as playing for the camera. She proved that a few years later when she co-starred in seven seasons of “The Golden Girls.” Living her best life even after the death of her beloved husband. 

My second year with The Kenley Players I was stationed in Dayton where I spent a lot of time with the stagehands in addition to working in the box office. That was the year Betty White was the star in “Hello, Dolly!” and I played a big role in letting her shine. 

I was assigned to sit in the fly rails for that show, where a huge dimmer board controlled all the lights of the production. The union man, an Old Pro that I looked up to, operated most of the dimmers but in the days before computer-operated boards sometimes three or four hands were needed. I took great pride in pushing the sliders to just the right levels at the right time. 

When there were lighting problems in Akron and the Old Pro was needed there, he told me that I knew how to do it all and that another union guy would be brought in to be my assistant. I was in charge, he told me, mounting his Harley to zip out to Akron.

My new assignment included the moment in the title song when Betty White appeared at the top of the stairs to be serenaded by the waiters in the restaurant. The only part of that entire show that I remember was timing the Betty White Special to the music after the cue from the stage manager. (We could see the top of the stairs but the SM couldn’t.) I’m proud to say the Betty White Special was perfect every time. 

Next time you watch a movie, a TV show, or live theatre, take a moment to appreciate the many names of people behind the scenes who really, really care about getting it right every time. 

I’ve been a fan of Betty White to this day.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Stories From The Professor

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – June 13, 2025

It’s kind of incredible for me to imagine that this picture of my father was taken when he was younger than I am now. He was almost ninety when he died, so I still have a ways to go, but this picture of him is solidly placed in my memory as “Dad.” 

Dad, whose work as a Professor of Chemistry took the family on two sabbaticals in Europe. Dad, who planned camping trips and canoe trips, who played tennis and squash, who liked listening to jazz, who had season tickets to Big Ten football games. Dad, who was quick to pull out a pen and write on a napkin when we had math or science questions at the dinner table. 

Dad, the teller of stories!

Mom read us books as we travelled cross country and she was very much a part of the hiking, tennis, music, sports, and wanderlust, but when we found our campsite and built the campfire, Dad had a story to tell. 

Dad and his brothers grew up in a small town outside of St. Louis, now part of the greater metropolis, and when he was a teenager he got a summer job with the Parks & Recreation Department that included, among other things, telling stories to the younger kids. I imagine them gathered beneath a shady elm tree to stay out of the sun in the hot, humid Missouri afternoons.

He couldn’t remember the content of those stories. Like improvisation, you’re only in the moment, following your imagination, following your impulses.

I later learned that this was my preferred approach to writing stories, the “pantser” approach (from “flying by the seat of my pants”). I think my improv training played into this approach, but with Dad it was instinctual. 

He got ideas from people around him or the landscape or the animals. When my younger brother was avid about collecting rocks and we were traveling west, Dad invented a character who was nicknamed Rock Hound because he, too, had a huge interest in rocks, and his tracking skills were developed from that fascination.

Fast forward about twenty-five years to when I was teaching Theatre at Carthage College.

My wife and I still talk about the lecture Dad gave when he offered to tell the chemistry students about his latest research. There were about a dozen students and a couple faculty, so we sat in on the lecture, too. 

Neither of us can remember the content of his talk, most of the science was over our heads, but we still recall that he was telling a story. He presented the question that the research team wanted to solve, told about the experiments they created to find the answers, described the hurdles they encountered along the way, and wrapped it all up with what they discovered. 

Classic story structure! Short of ending it with “…and they all lived happily ever after.” 

Thanks, Dad, for raising me with stories to show how it’s done. 

Fast forward another twenty years.

Dad was in Memory Care when I was writing MAMLA and I would spend three days a week with him while Mom was getting dialysis all afternoon. He’d read the newspaper while I wrote the latest adventure of the Shafer Family. One time he asked me what I was writing so I read him the passage where Ryan and Maria were escaping the dire wolves and he said he it was very exciting. 

That memory makes me smile. Approval from the teller of tales.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.

Margerumalia – Out For A Spin

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – June 6, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: http://www.swient.com/how-to-recognize-vertigo-in-children

I went to see my doctor to tell her I had vertigo. She said it was all in my head. [Rim-shot.] 

I always wanted to try stand-up comedy, but could never come up with any good material. Having seen the recent trend toward life-experience-as-stand-up I thought I might have something. 

I do. Or I did. I had vertigo.

Do you remember going on a ride at the playground where the whole point is to enjoy the dizzy? Where the spin is the fun? Vertigo feels like that, only it’s not intentional, nor fun.

About 3 AM I woke up to a shout. It was me. I stood up from the bed and the entire room was doing that spinning thing. I fell back into bed. Which didn’t help. At all.

I reverted to the earliest skills of childhood and grabbed onto furniture to toddle my way to the bathroom. I collapsed in front of the porcelain god and waited for the inevitable upheaval. It didn’t come.

I’ve learned a thing or two about my body over the years, and one is that it prepares for the old heave-ho with a few deep breaths, much like a pearl diver getting ready for the big the plunge. That night I spent over thirty minutes clutching onto the toilet bowl while hyperventilating. 

Let me be clear. There were two of us there in the middle of that whirlpool. Me, hugging the bowl. And my body, preparing for that dive.

For. Thirty. Minutes. 

I know because I wear my Apple Watch to bed so I can keep track of my sleep statistics. Turns out that Apple doesn’t clock vertigo. 

Last year I was teaching high school students how to fall safely on stage so they could do it over and over again in performances without getting hurt. THAT was when Siri checked in on me and offered to call 911. During a case of the spins? Not so much.

It was time. I needed help. I called out for my wife.

We sleep in separate bedrooms. I snore. She tosses and turns. We learned long ago that if we wanted to stay together we were going to have to split up. At night.  

I’d like to be able to say I called her name with a robust voice like Tarzan summoning Jane in the jungle. Instead I was more like a toad in the pond. 

“Debbie!” I croaked. “Come here, I need you.” 

I’m sure Alexander Graham Bell summoned Watson with much more panache on the world’s first phone call. 

Debbie, bless her heart, has baby monitor hearing and was at my bathroom door in three seconds flat. Well, I was flat. She was standing there asking me what was wrong, and should she call for an ambulance. 

Why did I do the stereotypical guy thing and say she didn’t need to call the ambulance? I mean, did I call out so she could wake up and enjoy the phenomenon of my total disorientation?

After ten more minutes of hyperventilation and I finally agreed to the ER Express. 

Somehow, even amidst the mind-storm of staggering to the bathroom, I had managed to slip into some sweat pants. Which was handy because one wants to be fully clothed when visitors come to call. I also dragged myself into the hall so the EMT’s didn’t need to extract me from the vomitorium.

In the ER they gave me the vertigo diagnosis, or labyrinthitis. Hey! Perfect for a guy who just released a middle grade novel about a family that has to find their way out of a museum through a maze! …or labyrinth.

I’ve got pills now, because, you know, the world revolves around pharmaceuticals. (Had enough with the revolving metaphors? Me, too.) At least the pills dull the nausea and the rotation sensation. (That was the last one, I promise.)

And I’ve had an MRI. Who knew a brain could be clinically described as “grossly unremarkable”? 

That phrase sounds like it should be from a play by Oscar Wilde: “She lacked poise, she lacked depth, she had a distinct paucity of charm, wit, and acumen. She was, in fact, grossly unremarkable.” 

The acupuncturist is the only doctor who has helped me get better. I hate needles, but that’s another story.

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles

Margerumalia – My Brush With Fame

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – May 30, 2025

PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries/george-wendt-cheers-dies-76-rcna208080

“Norm!” everyone yelled when George Wendt walked into the bar. We raised our beer mugs in tribute to his passing this past week.

I started watching “Cheers” on TV the first year it came out. The show had an endearing theme song and it centered around a group of people who were a little quirky and enjoyed a good chat. I felt like I knew them immediately.

I almost did.

I was working as an assistant manager at Crown Books in Studio City when one of our regular customers—not unlike the regulars on “Cheers”—came into the store and asked me if I’d heard the news about the actor playing Coach. He had died.

Yes, I assured him, it was on every channel. The befuddled but sweet character was a favorite who was nominated for three Emmys over three years. I really liked that guy. 

“Did you know they’re planning to replace him?” 

“Really? That’d be hard to do. I don’t know if the audience would accept a different Coach.”

“They’re not gonna have another Coach,” Regular Customer told me. “They’re going to replace him with one of his ball players who is exactly like him, only younger.” 

“That’s a great idea!” 

“The character’s name is Woody. And he’s your age.” 

That’s the thing about working in LA, in a place called Studio City, the information orchard was always ripe for the picking, and this was within arm’s reach. RC was eying me now, waiting for my next thought. 

“Have they cast him yet?” 

“Not yet. You should call your agent as soon as you can and get that audition. You’re perfect for it.” 

Not to say that I was dim-witted like Coach, but that I could play Woody easily.

When my agent took my call she admitted she was looking at me and one other client to submit. They would only let her choose one. I assured her that I was the one for the job and that I knew the series well, and please, please, please give me a shot. 

Okay, maybe I only said please once, but I got the chance to audition! 

I went to the casting agent’s office off Sunset Boulevard near the Hollywood Freeway and got to read the sides. Those are the script pages they give you for the audition. It featured Woody in a one-sided phone conversation where he clearly didn’t understand what the other person was saying. 

Did I ace it? I don’t know, I was pretty nervous and bubbling with adrenaline. They told my agent I did a good job, so that was nice to hear. 

And then they hired some guy named Woody to play the role of Woody. C’mon, people, you don’t have to take the script literally!

I continued watching the series after that and Woody Harrelson hit the mark on every show. Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t fault his performances. 

I kept watching “Cheers” all the way to the last episode and often thought about how my life would have been different. The closest I got was doing a play with one of the semi-regulars who hung out at the bar with Norm and Cliff.

I could’ve been friends with those guys. And they would’ve known my name.

TTFN

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If you received this email because it was forwarded to you by a subscriber, welcome. You can subscribe as well by following the link on my website: ericmargerum.com. A free story awaits you there.