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This work is a compilation of my events in a faith journey that began as I engaged in a so-so Catholic Church practice to a gradual embracing and immersing into daily Mass, and a total renunciation of sin. I take the reader from my early youth when nuns taught us the catechism and all the common Catholic prayers to an up-and-down relationship with God during my college years and beyond. However, I also point out that it was not until after a few years of married life that I began attending Mass daily. The catalyst was my wife's devout faith. Once I enhanced my daily spiritual actions, from attending Mass to reciting the rosary and many other prayers, I found my spiritual niche with no small credit to the Holy Spirit. I make no claim whatever to perfection, and I am no saint, but immersing myself in God's will has made me an infinitely stronger believer and person.I do not preach or ask the reader to make a stronger faith commitment, just to accept God and believe that eternal rewards lie at the end of our journey here on Earth. Further, I employ humor and even a few jokes throughout the book. After all, God has a sense of humor. My late wife told me that, saying, "God loves humor. He created you, didn't He?" Yes, and I thank him every day upon awakening for the incredible gifts of life and faith. They are irreplaceable and I am grateful to not only have them, but also to fully embrace him with immense joy and gratitude.

Honorable Mention! Novels Category in the 2023 Connecticut Press Club Communications Contest.¿¿Elle and Oz, strangers ready to restart their lives, meet by chance and flirtatiously swap stories in a dark abandoned house. They soon sense that these stories are coming from an unknown source. It's as if they are watching the stories rather than telling them. Then they become actors inside the stories, seeing and hearing as if they were the characters, affecting outcomes but still conscious of their separate contemporary selves in the dark abandoned house, their attraction heightened by this mysterious adventure. The stories transform: the two become characters from the Odyssey and Genesis, facing challenges in previous lives, challenges that they meet head-on . Finally, and they find themselves in a future where whole populations have transferred themselves to (or been absorbed into) a massive computer network. The human cycle of birth, death, and rebirth will end. They will live in that network forever. But Elle and Oz have a choice.

The year is 1944. Off the coast of Okinawa, a flight of Navy Corsairs hunts. Suddenly a swarm of Zeros jumps Lieutenants Bill Stone and Jamie McCready. The ensuing air combat results in Jamie trying to save his buddy Bill as they fight to stay alive.The mission was scrubbed from US Navy and NSA records, and McCready swore to secrecy. Nevertheless, throughout the remainder of his military career, McCready carries a load of guilt for the actions he did not take that day. But the reasons for his secret will prove even more disturbing.Following his father's footsteps, Mathew Stone puts you back in the cockpit with all its exhilaration and fear as he goes full throttle again in True Blue.Fly with Mathe as a "Blue Angel," a lifelong dream, and share his grinding determination to acquire the skills for full acceptance with the Team. However, with his sudden assignment to the Pentagon, his first mission steps almost became his last in his search for a known communist agent and an ensuing miracle that would fill him with equal measures of exhilaration and sadness.True Blue paints a provocative spy narrative of a mislabeled patriot and the distrust Mathe harbors for his command against the backdrop of war, espionage, honor, and family.This sequel is much more than a volley of intense wartime experiences. Instead, it speaks to the inseparable bond of its unforgettable characters-Mathew Stone, Finn, One Nut, Iron Ass, and Taco as they excel and survive.

In "Tales from the Wilds of New Jersey," Ted Lyons invites the reader into the "wonder years, coming of age" adventures/discoveries of a Jersey kid whom you will undoubtedly come to recognize in one form or another. Ted: "We're all here, sharing the planet for a nano second, just trying to get through it! So, of course, similar life experiences are unavoidable." In one-to-three-page chapters, Ted shares the rough and tumble life of a boy navigating his way through childhood, adolescence and finally stumbling into adulthood realizing that he's Peter Pan in a world full of responsible grownups! The stories are largely autobiographical, and true, to the extent that "memory would allow."Included in the pages of TFTWONJ are a modest scattering of original poems, jokes, and song lyrics along with "skewed" observations of life, just to "keep the reader off balance." The tales are regaled with humor and honesty, as seen through the nostalgic prism of "rose colored glasses." If you don't see yourself, or someone you know, inside "the wilds" .... look again....

Life is predictably random, and no one knows that better than the recently retired Rob Turner who spends his days watching reruns on TV, sitting on his patio deck drinking whisky, and waiting for his wife Susan to return home from work. His carefree (ok, boring) existence is shattered when his doctor delivers the devastating news that he has less than a year to live. Hoping to spare his family the pain of waiting for him to die, Rob decides to keep his diagnosis to himself.When Susan comes home from work one day and finds Rob deep in conversation with a squirrel, she suggests he get out of his rut by taking a trip. Rob jumps at the opportunity, and within days he embarks on a month-long bucket list-adventure to Scotland. Though his looming death is constantly on his mind, Rob enjoys a couple of weeks touring the distilleries, lochs, and castle ruins of the Scottish Highlands. The last stop on his tour is the Isle of Islay, and it's there that he meets two people who will change his outlook on life: Mia, an attractive British widow who brings him to the brink of temptation, and Moses, a Scottish shaman of sorts who, upon hearing of Rob's impending death, predicts a much happier ending for him.Rob boards his flight back to LA feeling renewed, refreshed, and ready to face his destiny, whatever it may be. He can't wait to see Susan and share a few surprises he has for her, not the least of which is coming clean about his diagnosis. Will it be the reunion made in heaven that he's hoping for? When life is predictably random, it's anybody's guess.

This book reflects my pondering the basic tenets of Christianity, such as the Trinity and the value of Scripture, in forming a more viable Christian faith in the 21st Century. It asks big questions about God and Jesus Christ, about the tense relationship between Christianity and Judaism, about how we better bolster and maintain our faith as well as about miracles and the many people indifferent to God at all.This book is particularly for those who have left the Church and need guidance without its structure and habits with which we are all familiar. It is for those forging your own faith and needing more than Scripture alone. It is for those interested in the divine realm of spirituality beyond what Scripture generally describes.This book is purposely designed to take you somewhere else than you have likely considered before. It may well change your life.

A Righteous Man And Family Man explores the journey of my daddy, Walter Haze Stone. His mission and objective was to provide for his family spiritually, physically, financially and emotionally. He completed his goal with godly wisdom, hard work, patience and perseverance.He is a humble and gentle leader with infectious faith. He sowed beautiful and contagious faith throughout his household to lead his wife and six most important disciples to a relationship with and dependence on God. He has served his family for 94 years and the community as a barber for 82 years. He is not infallible, but he has faith in God who made him righteous.

It seems the crushing blows struck by Storm De Wees will never end. A spectacular electrical strike inadvertently sets off some abandoned mining probes. As they are launched into the soil, the pain they cause Adelphi is felt by those bonded to her. This agony must be stopped at all costs.The council appears and demands the residents of Adelphi act immediately. Knowing they will not be able to do it on their own, the council introduces them to their neighbors. Residents of a nearby world called Didymo, Adelphi's twin. These strangers willingly offer to come and assist in stopping the mining probes destruction.This mission will bring a much greater understanding of all involved. The council will reveal its true nature, its power and its frailty. The residents of both worlds will face challenges they never expected. What will they be willing to risk to help save a planet in pain?

There are in our world mysteries that defy understanding. Once in a while there comes a gift. Not often. Not to everyone. Or perhaps in our rush we fail to see the gift or acknowledge it for what it is.Julia and Sam move in the 1880s to the developing Ortsvale hills among wildlife and pioneers where they befriend their neighbors, a family of color. Almost 140 years later on a spring afternoon Andie walks for the last time in the Ortsvale hills that tomorrow will be devastated. As she gazes into the forest she experiences a vision of its pioneer inhabitants following which her drive for answers leads her to understand her present. In seeking her city's roots she discovers the universal design of all individuals throughout the centuries. The lives of Julia and Andie touch as each in her own time faces relational issues common across the ages as times change and people do not.

This is the story of Liam FitzGerald, who as a young man in the late-1960's, more or less stumbled into the exciting and often hazardous life of an avalanche worker. His attraction to this line of work led him to Little Cottonwood Canyon, in Utah's Wasatch Mountains, the birthplace of Avalanche Control and Forecasting in North America.There he landed a job as a Ski Patroller at the soon to open super-resort of Snowbird, a new generation ski area that would soon become synonymous with deep snow and steep terrain, just as the ski industry in the U.S. was really about to take off.Following a rough start to the resort's inaugural season, Liam was abruptly elevated to the position of Snow Safety Director, the person responsible for the avalanche program at the fledging ski area, after the first few weeks of operation. He found himself in an environment notorious for large and deadly avalanches that threatened not only the skiers flocking to the resort's snow covered slopes, but also to motorists traveling along the canyon highway, guests staying at the hotels and lodges, and local residents who called the canyon home. As he would quickly come to understand, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, avalanches can often be the most important thing in everyone's life.Ready or not, he was thrown into the fray, and quickly realized he had a lot to learn in a short period of time.For nearly fifty years Liam negotiated a capricious landscape of snow and avalanches, aware of his considerable responsibility, learning as he went; in an era that not only witnessed explosive growth in the ski industry, but also in the number of people willingly putting themselves at risk with their voracious attraction to deep snow and steep terrain. But it was also an era of tremendous advancement in the field of avalanche research, avalanche forecasting and avalanche control, when the level of knowledge and understanding of snow and avalanches increased exponentially. This was an exciting time to be an "avalanche-guy" and Little Cottonwood Canyon was arguably one of the best places in the world to follow that pursuit.This is a story about learning from one's mistakes, about friendship and camaraderie, about exciting times, interspaced with moments of fear, and on occasion- sorrow. But above all, it's a story of a rather regular person who was lucky enough to have a unique job in a very special place.

When a new hematologist begins practice at St. John's, Dr. Roger Branford and the rest of the staff are happy to have him at the hospital. The new doctor has a fine reputation and is greatly admired.However, not long after the new doctor arrives, a horrifying and grotesque disease begins strike the patients. In an attempt find the cause of the infection, doctors, scientists and even the police become involved. Is this a virus? Or could it be pure evil?When the answer is finally found, it is shocking.

Because of Covid, Debbie Dawkins has been unable to stage high school plays. This summer she wants to do Shakespeare on the Beach, starting with Romeo and Juliet. No one answers the casting call, until a stranger, Liam, shows up and recites the entire play.He has no idea how he did that. She, by chance, quotes a line from Hamlet, and he starts reciting that play as well. Alarmed. she drives him to the emergency room of a local hospital. There's nothing medically wrong; but she feels responsible for having triggered this Shakespeare mania in him, and she is also beginning to realize that his uncanny ability might open opportunities.Her mother, a psychotherapist, charmed by Liam, thinks he has a rare gift, not a psychosis. There is no barrier to staging public performances, she reassures Deb.He does Julius Caesar, and the audience is entranced. Then he does Macbeth. He needs no rehearsal. A line from the play is enough to send him into his trance. Even fireworks set off by troublemakers do not distract him.They decide to do a different play every day for the rest of the summer. No one understands how he does it. Everyone enjoys it.Reporters learn that all it takes is one line to trigger Liam into reciting an entire play. At the next performance, people in the audience shout lines from many different plays and Liam recites now this one, now that one. The show becomes a farce.Next time, Liam wears noise-reducing headphones to foil hecklers. People in the audience stream his performance from their cellphones to the Web, making it a global event. Its huge success dooms the project. The town shuts them down when a hundred thousand people swarm to Eastport, disrupting traffic and causing random damage.A hundred thousand people swarm to Eastport, disrupting traffic and causing random damage, The town shuts them down. Their fifteen minutes of fame are over.Professor Jaspers, a Shakespeare expert at Yale, becomes interested in Liam and tests him with a few lines from Cardenio, a lost Shakespeare play. Liam recites the whole thing. The professor is astounded. He believes that what he just heard is the play itself. He has Liam do it again and captures it on video and has it transcribed. He wants to make it public but knows that its bizarre provenance would undermine its credibility. He decides to present it as a scholarly work of reconstruction.But a reporter tricks Liam into reciting Cardenio, uncovering the ruse. Instead of a lost masterpiece or a brilliant reconstruction, it appears to be an elaborate hoax.To save face, Jaspers has Liam perform Cardenio at the Yale Bowl, streamed globally and put into the public domain. He provides no explanation. The focus is on the work's literary merit, not how it came to be.In the media storm that follows, Liam-as-Shakespeare becomes a second Elvis, with numerous reported sightings and wild rumors explaining his capabilities and his sudden disappearance.Liam, who felt dehumanized by this mechanical process that took over his mind, comes up with a gadget that allows him to live a normal life. Years later, he starts reciting what sounds like another Shakespeare play, this one about Saint George. Caught by surprise, Deb doesn't record it, and Liam refuses to do it again.Later still, Liam realizes that he no longer needs a special device to think and act normally. But now he regrets the loss. Saint George is somewhere in his mind. He would like to release it to the world. To recover his ability and to remember this play he needs a moment of heightened awareness and anxiety. They schedule a public performance at the Yale Bowl on Shakespeare's birthday, April 23, which is also Saint George's Day.

The author examines the controversial subject of the relationship between prostitutes and their customers from a different perspective: from that of the john. This book tells of how and why explorations lead to adventures that lead to drastic changes.The telling is raw and vivid as the women conduct their business and the man ventures into their anomie world of sex, drugs, violence, and homelessness. As we dip into the lives of the women he dates, the narrator's own troubled mind and history are revealed.The buyer of the sex-for-hire service repeatedly follows his nature as he seeks to find love and romance there instead. The otherwise intelligent and resilient man recognizes the folly in that and comes to think of these encounters as fantasy adventures, separate and apart from the reality of his everyday life. But he finds it increasingly difficult to keep fantasy separate from reality while the torment that ever permeates his being remains and travels with him as he ventures from one realm to the other.The reader must always read between the lines to understand things that the narrator does not yet realize.

"Eve Redeemed-A Woman's Journey" maps a woman's life through three separate stages. The poems in the 1st section deal with significant early life trauma which shapes the woman's emotional landscape for many years. The poems here do not hold back in description of very painful events which left lasting scars. The last poem in this section deals with fear of dying.The second section contains more prosy poems which reflect growth and understanding and more awareness of the world around her. Her inner pain is no longer so visible and aids her in feeling more empathy for others and better understanding of human foibles.The third section contains more lyrical poems which add more magic/mysticism to reflect a much happier and at last an accepting place to gain inner peace. The woman's perspective and awareness of the world's physical beauty (nature) open her up emotionally to a place she hasn't been before.The writer here hopes all women can identify to some degree that early difficulties/challenges do not have to define their entire lives and real change is possible and very rewarding when you arrive there.

The O-Zone is the Oblivious Zone.That's the place where we're stuck in our heads or have our full attention focused only on what's immediately in front of us (phone screen, concert, movie, conversation we're having at a restaurant or bar) and we're giving no thought to what's going on around us. It's the "head in the clouds" attitude where one minute we can be having a very fine day and the next have our lives turned upside down . . . or worse.The O-Zone is where predators find their prey.The cool thing is, we occasionally get a nudge that lets us know something bad could be just about to happen. We spot a van with tinted windows parked next to our vehicle in the empty parking garage. A knock at our door presents a guy from the gas company who isn't wearing a uniform and has no ID but wants to inspect the furnace. That drink the sexy stranger at the club bought us tastes funny. That popping sound from down the hall.But . . . the warnings aren't always that obvious. Sometimes they're so subtle they can easily go unnoticed while we're doing something else. The local news is full of stories of folks who walk into danger, get a purse wallet or car stolen, get knocked on the head or shot and then are quoted afterward as saying "I don't know why I didn't see that coming." If they are fortunate enough to have an afterward.Our trouble alerts come from the subconscious, an on-board mini-computer that picks up and interprets all sorts of micro-data, bundling and assessing and forming it into our intuition or what some call our "sixth sense." If you practice defensive driving, you're paying attention to your intuition. Similarly, if you know your kid didn't do his homework...or brush his teeth...or is hiding something more serious from you...that's your intuition speaking.But . . . if data to that intuitive warning system is blocked because you're not paying attention to your surroundings, you may not get that alert.Escaping the O-Zone teaches tactics to help recognize trouble-in-the-making. And how to size up a situation so as to be ready to react if trouble develops.

THIRD PLACE: CT Press Club Professional Communications Contest for General Non-FictionI don't think outside the box. There is no box. The box is an illusion that limits the range of what we consider, squashing curiosity and creativity, ruling out possible solutions.Many of these short essays derive from my belief that, as individuals and as a species, self-regulating mechanisms push us toward balance and reason and compassion. Our worst experiences and dreams can help nudge us in the "right" direction as if some force were trying to navigate a huge ship down a river, with the crudest of controls.I need to know who I am and why I am and how my life might matter in the context of those who came before me and those who will come after. But the answers offered by religion feel insufficient, and scientific knowledge has advanced to the point that it is beyond the understanding of laymen. I would like to participate in the endeavor of scientific discovery and make a contribution, but the advancement of science will not end in my lifetime and will probably never end. I need answers that make sense here and now.I do not adhere to any organized religion or established set of beliefs. But I am not an agnostic. Rather I am a seeker.Life has meaning and that meaning can be found, perhaps in interconnectedness and relationships, and perhaps by intuition rather than reason, and perhaps in flashes of insight.These essays cover: Big Questions; Identity, Memory, and Communication; Understanding the World We Live In; Politics and Government; Literature, Reading, and Writing; The Double-Edged Impact of Technology; History; Business and Product Ideas; and Everyday Life - How to Live, How to Cope.