Happy Birthday Stephen King

Happy 72nd to Stephen King.

A constant in my life since 1978.

My introduction to Stephen King came while I was sitting in the cafeteria at Delta College in University Center, MI. I was 21 years old at the time. While Delta College may never be spoken with the same reverence as Yale or Princeton or Cambridge, without Delta College, I'd have been lucky to be hired and gainfully employed as the overnight assistant manager at the 24 hour self-serve Clark Station in Prudenville, MI. During registration for Delta College in 1977, I had to take a detour into the men's room. It was a sit-down moment. Reading the walls of the stall, a piece of graffiti caught my eye. It read, "Delta Offers Hope For Losers". As we learned from a story that wouldn't be published for another 5 years, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." Delta College came at a time in my life when I really needed Big Tall Wishes and magic fairy dust if I was going to survive the darkness. It was my time spent at Delta that put me on a good road. Without that school...well I hate to imagine. I was not, as family and friends from the time will confirm, a boy of goals. Large or small. Well, I had one goal. It involved women's breasts. But I digress. I was a boy whose goals were completely out of my reach. There isn't much use for a high school dropout in the world. Not even in the world I dreamed of. I was going to be in broadcasting and work in radio and that was going to be my career.

Through a simple bit of Forrest Gump luck, I was allowed to enroll at Delta College in the R/TV curriculum. For the first time, a dream triggered a goal. With the help of folks like Len Marsico and Guy Serumgard and Carolyn and Jeffrey Holmes, along with Tom Knaub and Gary Linkowskii and Jeannine Woods, I was actually learning something and wanted to learn more. To that end, when folks took 12 credit hours, I took 15. I wanted all of the classes. I worked at the college TV station. I was living my own life fantasy as a reality.

But as they say, all work...I might have been a loud and gregarious and boorishly noisy and annoying person, but my history tainted me. So, instead of dating and hanging with people, I lived in written worlds and read and lived others lives. 

On a particular day in 1978 between a morning and afternoon class, I finished reading the novel All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By written by John Farris. It wasn't a bad work by any means. Quite enjoyable. The book was done and sitting on the table in front of me. And now I had nothing to do but stare at a wall or read something in my textbook. As fate would have it, a college friend who was also a reader was sitting nearby. We yacked for a few minutes and she asked what I had been reading. I told her the story. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a hardback book and handed it to me. Read this guy. He's pretty good. What she handed to me was the short-story collection Night Shift. It was written by someone I had never heard of. Steve something would be the way I described it. I thanked her as she left.

That night at my grandparent's house where I was staying while in school, (and whose name I now use as an audiobook narrator) I read the first story. It was called Jerusalems Lot. I hated it. Bored me to tears. It was written in a style that I have never liked, and still don't. "Found Diary Entries". I put the book on my dresser, turned off the light, probably touched myself, and went to sleep. I made a mental note to return the book. This just wasn't for me.

But things happen. 

Plans change. 

During lunch the next day, which consisted of one or two hot Ham and Cheese sandwiches and the quart bottle of Pepsi, for want of anything else to read, I pulled out Night Shift and with a roll of the eyes in anticipation of reading another crappy story, I went ahead and read the second story. It was called Graveyard Shift. And to run to the punchline, it scared me to tears. Literally. I got wrapped up in that story as if I was living the story. Fear gripped me, I was paralyzed in fear, my breath was short and tears streamed. This was more like it. By the end of the day, between classes, I had finished Night Shift. Some stories were scary. Some touching. The stories The Last Rung On The Ladder and The Woman In The Room showed the other side of Steve what's his name. The tender side. Not tears of fear...tears of sadness and sorrow.

The next I read was The Shining. Bought the paperback at the Waldenbooks store in Fashion Square Mall in Saginaw, MI. Guess what. Scared me. Couldn't stop turning pages. That was followed by Stephen's telling of What If Dracula Moved To Maine Story. 'Salems Lot was that book. Between Danny Glick tapping at the window, the gravedigger screaming STOP LOOKING AT ME and a baby with chocolate pudding dribbling down its chin, I was freaking out big time. Tears of fear and paralysis. I had to put down the book more than twice just because I couldn't take it anymore. But I finally finished it. It was a worthy thrill ride.

In the meantime, I continued reading John Saul and Dean Koontz and anything that had the name Ray Bradbury attached to it.

In September of 1978 Doubleday published THE STAND. 823 pages of Bad Things Are Gonna Happen to Good People who Must Take Sides. It was by far the largest book I had ever purchased. It is also, aside from college books, the first hardcover book that I bought. It cost me $12.98 cents plus tax at the aforementioned Waldenbooks. In 1978 dollars, that's a fair amount of either weed for me or gasoline for the bright Orange Pontiac Ventura. I think I made the right choice. Took a week to read because those damned classes kept interfering. 41 years later, I still have that book. With the original cover.

In August of 1979, I was working as a cameraman at WNEM-TV5. I had been there for just over a year. Chuck and Ed made the wise or foolish choice and let me be a member of the TV5 team. I was living the dream. Working at the same TV station I dreamed of working as a boy while watching Captain Muddy and laughing at Hoss the Talking Horse. I was actually doing what I dreamed. How the hell did that happen? Also in August, The Dead Zone was published. It was slightly different. It wasn't scary as in BOO here's something jumping out of the closet. It was thoughtful and introspective. The story of a man given a curse or a gift. Who's to say. It was a one night read. The story of Johnny Smith really touched me. I felt what he was facing. It was, I believe, Stephen Kings perfect novel. Everything he had been working toward with his short stories and his first 6 novels, (I'm including RAGE and THE LONG WALK...Bachman books..in this count) gelled perfectly. Since then, he has written 63 hundred thousand and 4 more books...give or take...but none have achieved the perfection of The Dead Zone. There is no cliche on the pages...no tripping in the doorway while the story moves along. With that book, I became something that hadn't even been invented. I became a Constant Reader. When I read his salutation to "My Constant Reader", I read it as "Thank You Scott".

Since I was first introduced to Steve what's his name, I have picked up each new Stephen King novel the day it was released. Waldenbooks is no more, nor is there a B. Dalton, but there is still a Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Stephen King has been the one constant in my life. Authors I have had to read have come and gone. Many times I just lost interest in their stories. But Stephen King is still with me. This week I read The Institute. Recently, the signed limited edition of Sleeping Beauties, written with son Owen, showed up at my door. Richard Chizmar and his company do a tremendous job with the limited editions they publish. This one is a beautiful work of art.

I'll never be able to thank Stephen King for being a part of my life and creating the people and stories that he has. He's been there for my highpoints and for my dark low points when I lived in what seemed to be a depression that would never end. He's also pushed through his own monsters along the way, but he kept his stories coming.

I'll never get a phone call from Simon and Shuster, or King himself asking if I have time to narrate one of his novellas, or short stories or novels. Not gonna happen. Still, I'll remain a constant reader as long as he cares to share his work.

Both Delta College and Stephen King in the year 1978 impacted my life in ways I wouldn't have thought possible. I've come a long way since then...Still a bit of an odd duck...but, I hope, in a good way.