When I made my trip to Russia in 2013, I wrote a novel. Yes, that was a very stupid way to pass my time when I had traveled to St. Petersburg with a beautiful young woman, but I had to deal with a severe moral crisis, and I did it in the way I know how.

My indecision about that relationship led me to examine the first 23 years of my life, and I suppose I learned a lot about why and how I trapped myself in a terrible situation. I had an unusual life between ages 3 and 23, I would say it was completely unique (as far as I know), and I suppose all of that may explain why I am always so timid about so many things. My mom and dad are gone, and I have never shared the details of my early childhood with anyone, not my best friends, not my ex-wives, not my children, so before I wrote this novella, none of the incidents existed except in my memory. Now at least they are on the record.

I will not claim to be James Joyce, but I can spin a yarn purty fair, and I have some pretty good ones to spin. I finished the work off in this week of illness by adding an epilogue.

There’s no Uncle Scoopy material except for my customary tip o’ the hat to Romy Schneider, so don’t expect any discussions of sex and nudity. It’s really kind of a sad story. There are also some laughs and there was a lot of fun in my life, but I always ended up getting humiliated in some way – physically, sexually, financially. After a few anecdotes, you’ll get the idea that they never seem to have a happy ending. I was like the Moll Flanders of Howdy Doody fans.

Anyway, those of you who basically know me because we’ve been sharing these blogs for decades may be interested to see what I was like in my years growing up in Catholic schools, which I never wanted to go to and my parents never wanted to send me to. I think you can guess that I have few kind words for the Catholic Church or its representatives.

Here is the link. (Blaise Sparrow is me.)