A View for Dad

By Cory Lee Markert

Undead Blimny F. Markham is buried at Rolling Hills Memorial Park. The funeral goes well and many people attend. Blimny isn't happy about his new burial spot and reaches out to his son for help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cory Lee Markert
• Release date: Feb 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311220271

Cory Lee Markert

Cory Lee Markert was born in Santa Monica, California. He is the son of Louis and Diana Markert. Parts of his childhood were spent in Los Angeles while his father attended graduate school at UCLA. He also lived in Nebraska, after his father was hired as a college professor at Chadron State University. Cory recalls the fear he felt after his father told him they would need to go into the basement because a tornado was nearby. He still remembers watching his father lift the wooden doors and point to the concrete steps that led into the basement while wind howled through the trees. He also recalls peeking through a hole in the fence and seeing the body of a frozen moose in the snow.Two years later, his father moved the family to Fresno. The hot, steamy basin in Fresno was a stark contrast to the cool, open land of northern Nebraska.When Cory was ten, his parents divorced. He recalls, shortly before their divorce, a family trip to Hawaii. The warm water and tropical winds were delightsome. It quickly became his favorite place in the world. Yet he also recalls walking down a dangerous sand bank toward the ocean. The sand was steep there. Seeing the danger of testing the waves, he quickly ran up the bank just as the tide came in. The pull of the receding tide was strong, and he wisely chose not to return to that beach. When Cory was seventeen, his father disappeared for several days and returned to inform him he had become addicted to crack. In 2005, Cory’s mother remarried. In 2008, his sister, Devon, died of brain cancer, after a year and a half of chemotherapy and several brain operations. A year later, Cory received his Master's Degree in Elementary School Education, overcoming the family challenges.Cory’s father died in 2012, but not before overcoming his addiction to crack and cocaine and working in cooperation with UCLA to start a program for addicts. His father’s desire to study and overcome crack and his mother’s long career as a kindergarten teacher set a positive example for Cory.Cory attended elementary school in Clovis, California, and graduated from Buchanan High School in 1995. He wrote poetry sporadically while in high school and college. In high school he loved to read the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He has fond memories of living in Fresno. In December 1999, Cory moved to Stockton, California, and graduated from California State University, Stanislaus, in 2005 with a BA in liberal studies. While attending college, Cory worked part time delivering pizzas and helping the physically and sometimes psychologically challenged. After receiving his Master's Degree, he worked with the State of California, helping disabled people as they pursued college degrees.He was thrilled to recently be informed he is a descendant of Thomas Gourley, a Captain on the side of the 13 Colonies during the Revolutionary War.

Book preview

A VIEW FOR DAD

By

CORY LEE MARKERT

A VIEW FOR DAD

1st Edition

Copyright ©2016 by Cory L. Markert

All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book constitutes unlawful piracy and theft. You may use the material from this book for brief review purposes.

Published in the

United States of America

www.corylmarkert.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.

OTHER BOOKS BY

CORY LEE MARKERT

SandBox Karma

Dancing With an Alien and Other Poems

FOR DAD

Chapter 1

A large crowd gathered inside the chapel at Rolling Hills Memorial Park in Palos Verdes, California. They had come to remember the life of Blimny F. Markham, who had died unexpectedly in his Los Angeles home at the age of sixty-nine. There were many tears in the room as Like a Rolling Stone played over the loudspeakers. It was one of Blimny’s favorites. The crowds formed a