I Guess The Time Has Come To Write The Book...

Hey All: Friends, and countless strangers that have heard my story through the grapevine have been after me for years to share my life story in book-form or film. Some have even introduced me to biographers they knew. As we began the process, each wanted to go off on some tangent that made me uncomfortable. Either focusing on my lifelong battle with cancer, the hundreds of surgeries to keep it in check, and the recoveries - which when you total the days involved only amounts to about 6% of my life. Or they want the story to be the basis for healthcare reform, or universal healthcare push - neither of which apply to me. I have had good insurance my whole life, and I probably would not have survived this long had we been in a universal healthcare system.

And there is so much more to my life than my cancer nuisance routine, as I have always called it. In fact, the time I came closest to death, dying three times, being pronounced dead the third time, had nothing to do with my cancer. Throw in how I grew up surrounded by the finest of fine art at home - the Hudson River School painting above being just one of many paintings I saw daily. Add in an early Photography career. Now add World Travels and Business Successes and yes Failures. Then add some of the amazing people that I have met, and in some cases gotten to know, and become friends with Walter Cronkite - as a child; then Peter Jennings; Tim Russert; and Sam Bornstein, my college journalism professor, and Henry Beetle Hough - always loved that name. (Those last two names may be unknown to many, but they both had Pulitzer Prizes to their names.) Plus Elton John and Lady Di; Ronald Regan; George H.W. Bush, to name just a few. To say nothing of Viola - who had a great deal to do with raising me - including teaching me to cook. My amazing grandparents who raised me much of the time - my grandfather calling me The Senator from the time I was a young child. LOL, not exactly sure why. He and I were two of the first people on the scene at Chappaquiddick after Ted Kennedy drove off the bridge there, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. I've witnessed a lot of amazing events. My competitive sailing as part of the U.S. Olympic Team in High School. My volunteering for the U.S. Navy, as a Pilot, right out of college - and scoring the highest score ever recorded on the Navy Pilots Entrance Exam, getting my date to report for Officer Training - only to have the offer withdrawn, just before I was to report, due to my past surgical history. Possibly the most disappointing thing to ever happen to me. To my wonderful misfortune, as an old friend called it, correctly I think, of my loving and being loved by, "Some of the most amazing, brilliant, talented, funny, beautiful, pretty and sexy women in the world - the love often being lifelong." Why 'misfortune'? It has spoiled me. If I was smart, with all of my scars, having to dedicate so much time to my nuisance routine, and working around that schedule to make all the ends meet, I would have settled for just a good woman. But, these "amazing..." women spoiled me they were all Good AND "Amazing..." women, and my life would have been very different had I done it any differently. So no regrets.

A few things have told me the time has come to try to write the book. First, I am outliving more and more people - including close friends and some of these loves - than I ever expected to outlive when I was diagnosed with this very rare genetic form of cancer at 16. Secondly, and sort of symbolically, the house I just purchased is literally at the corner of Sunrise and Sunset, and I guess at 63, I am at that same corner in life too. Third, I have been talking frequently with my seventh grade sweetie, since seventh grade - with very few gaps in those weekly calls and emails along the way. She is one of those "amazing..." women. (We hope to go to our 50th High School Graduation Reunion together in 2025.) And it hit me last week that it has been 50-years since our first dance at our junior high school Teen Club Dance. My parents did not survive to their 50th Anniversary - neither did, my aunt and uncle - my uncle having quite possibly saved my life when my cancer got out of control, nor did my Godparents - who had a lot to do with raising me as well.

So, I guess there will be enough to fill a few pages. Whether anyone will be interested in publishing it, or reading it is another question. And NO, I have no interest in self/vanity publishing it. It is just my life, and has become normal to me - so it's tough to know what will interest others the most. I am tentatively calling it Fried Chicken Richard. Viola taught me to fry chicken. Each Summer, after high school graduation through college, I threw a Beer Tasting Party by my parents' pool. I would fry hundreds of pieces of chicken - as part of the fare, and whatever was leftover, Vi would take with her to her family church services in the Virginia countryside, the next day. Viola asked me to come to her extended family reunion there one Sunday - to take pictures. She introduced me to one of her 600, or so, extended family members there. The woman said, "Richard? Richard? Are You Fried Chicken Richard?" I smiled and said, "Well, no one had every given me that nickname before, but, yes, I guess I am." The woman shouted to the family crowd, "Hey Everybody, Fried Chicken Richard is here." The crowd surrounded me, Viola, and her mother - who was nearly 100 at the time. They all told me that I made the best fried chicken that they had ever had. I said, "Well, Viola taught me everything I know." Viola beamed ear-to-ear, and her mother gasped and laughed. Then said, "Richard, Viola makes good fried chicken, Good fried chicken. Her fried chicken does not compare to yours.!" Vi cried, "Mom?!?!" So the title comes from that amazing life memory.