Way off track....

Most of the blog posts here are merely my thoughts and/or observations of things I see going on around me. I have also included some original short works of fiction, a series of  memoir style segments from the point of view of a British Solider of the Great War.

I am not a professional historian but I have studied history my entire life. Military history, American, British, Ancient and more recent history plus a great deal of biography and memoirs. The ideas for the short segments come from those sources plus I happen to live a life of a common Great War soldier in my sleep. Yep, I dream a lot of this stuff...I have always, since my earliest memories fought wars in my dreams. I have my own idea of the origin of these dreams but I choose to keep them to myself. Needless to say it was rather troubling to wake from graphic shellfire and hand to hand combat in the middle of the night when you are 8 years old. It was also difficult to explain these "nightmares" to my parents. In the end, I found it easier to keep them to myself.

After years of being haunted in this way I made a couple of journey's to France/Belgium to the Somme, Verdun, Ypres...my reactions to those battlefields, particularly certain areas of the Somme was rather startling. I felt like I'd been there before...honestly, it was almost a comforting feeling. Very strange....to this day I've chosen to not try to define or label these experiences just embrace them when they occur. And they continue to occur frequently during these winter nights in Michigan...

Whoa, did I ever get off the track there! My intention was to just briefly explain the short stories I'm writing in my blog and instead I reveal secrets of mine that will convince most readers that I've lost my mine. I could erase the whole thing and no one would know....Ach, I would know, plus that would be any fun now would it??!!