The Stories of My Youth

By Jerome Francis Lusa

These are the stories from my youth that have weathered the erosion of time. Now that I have made 50 plus circuits around the sun, I feel that it is safe to put them in print. The statues of limitations have expired and the players have all grown or moved on.

Many of these stories share a singular theme, the idea that I've been really lucky. Not lucky in the sense of winning at bingo or the lottery more than the average person, but in that I am still alive after so many mishaps and misadventures where natural selection would normally have selected against a peculiar set of traits.

Perhaps there is some caution in these stories that others might find profitable. The same propensity to think abstractly rather than pragmatically that motivated a school boy to dive head first into a snow pile also propelled me through to degree in mathematics and a successful career as a computer software architect. If a child appears to particularly devoid of common sense, they might yet have a bright future. Just make sure to instill in them some sense of caution.

I want to thank the people who made this book possible. I thank my wife for proofreading the drafts as they emerged over recent years. I also thank Vanessa aka “Boo” who edited the book into its present form. She's already a better writer than I and yet she is barely in her teens. I truly think this collection of stories will ultimately be known as her first book instead of mine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerome Francis Lusa
• Release date: Jan 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466085435

Jerome Francis Lusa

Jerome Francis Lusa has been dabbling in writing since attending the University of Connecticut in the late 1970's. Jerome's professional career has been writing computer software systems for many businesses throughout the State of Connecticut. His numerous letters to newspaper editors have appeared in The Hartford Courant and the Glastonbury Citizen. Now that his children are grown, he has started publishing his older stories and writing new ones, all as ebooks. Jerome publishes stories under his own name, and also as his alter ego, Lorem J Fause. The themes of his stories vary from a deer's stream of consciousness, to courage, bereavement, and several stops in between. Jerome sketches the covers and artwork for his stories. In his youth, writing was a way to explore ideas. Lately it has become a way to cleanse his demons.

Book preview

The Stories of My Youth

by Jerome Francis Lusa

The Stories of My Youth

Copyright (C) 2010 by Jerome Francis Lusa

Cover drawing by Jerome Francis Lusa

Book design by Vanessa L.

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Preface

Story 1 Cut

Story 2 Newton's Apple Tree

Story 3 How to Kill A Raccoon

Story 4 Vertical Wrecker

Story 5 Reset Button

Story 6 Street Sign

Story 7 Firecracker

Story 8 Potatoes

Story 9 Milk Carton

Story 10 Ricochet

Story 11 Grandmother’s Shed

Story 12 Hold the Door

Story 13 Water-Skiing

Story 14 Egg on Their Face

Story 15 Blast Off

Story 16 Just our Luck

Story 17 Artificial Pneumonia

Story 18 Decapitation

Story 19 Whizzing Bullets

Story 20 Jacuzzi

Preface

by the Author

These are the stories from my youth that have weathered the erosion of time. Now that I have made 50 plus circuits around the sun, I feel that it is safe to put them in print. The statues of limitations have expired and the players have all grown or moved on.

Many of these stories share a singular theme, the idea that I've been really lucky. Not lucky in the sense of winning at bingo or the lottery more than the average person, but in that I am still alive after so many mishaps and misadventures where natural selection would normally have selected against a peculiar set of traits.

Perhaps there is some caution in these stories that others might find profitable. The same propensity to think abstractly rather than pragmatically that motivated a school boy to dive head first into a snow pile also propelled me through to degree in mathematics and a successful career as a computer software architect. If a child appears to particularly devoid of common sense, they might yet have a bright future. Just make sure to instill in them some sense of caution.

I want to thank the people who made this book possible. I thank my wife for proofreading the drafts as they emerged over recent years. I also thank Vanessa aka Boo who edited the book into its present form. She's already a better writer than I and yet she is barely in her teens. I truly think this collection of stories will ultimately be known as her first book instead of mine.

April 3, 2010

Cut

First Grade

In the fall of my first year of school my brother Jim and I went together to the town fair. We walked the mile and a half each way by ourselves, and spent our scant savings on rides and games. It was a great adventure.

The fair was a yearly event back then, and we looked forward to it the way one would look forward to the first flower of spring or the first snowfall. It offered up wonders the likes of which we would not see for another year. There were rides that seemed to defy gravity, agricultural and scientific exhibits, and games of chance.

There are no town fairs anymore, perhaps because of the cost of liability insurance, or perhaps because six and seven year old boys are no longer allowed to travel a mile and a half through town to squander their savings in trinkets and thrills. The world is a smaller place now.

Well, that particular year was a grand one. We dared ourselves to try the 'big kid' rides like the Hell-Diver that rotated its occupants both horizontally and vertically at the same time. The Hell-Diver had two pods each of which held up to four people. When one pod was being unloaded and loaded with for the next set of passengers, the other pod's occupants were, by design, kept suspended upside down at the height of the ride.

We also played the games of chance. Back then the laws of economics had not yet been discovered, at least not by us. We would eagerly spend 25 cents for a chance to win a 20 cent prize, but the prizes were so valuable to us then that I can still remember a few of those that I won. There was a very realistic miniature tin mailbox that occupied my imagination