James Howard – författare

Reflections on a Father and a Son is a journey that at times is gut wrenching while at other moments pause worthy. As a five year old enduring painful spinal taps in a Polio Ward to an adolescent experimenting with epic classroom disruptions, this collection of deeds maligned by misdeeds appears to have only one possible outcome: reform school.

Readers witness how growing up in the 1950s and 60s was negotiated in small towns with even smaller margins of supervision. Travel along route 9 from Stottville to Rouses Point, a micro village tucked away innocently in the northeast corner of the Lake Champlain Valley basin of New York State.

The early years in the Hudson Valley involve tales of exploration, cruelty, and friendship. After moving just south of the Canadian border, the adventures take on a downward spiral. Crawl through collapsed tunnels in a 19th century deserted fort, rummage the contents of railroad cars for cigarettes or discover how to survive multiple school suspensions.

The odyssey intensifies as consistent threads weave through a contentious relationship between father and son. Their bond is buttressed by an ever increasing repertoire of senseless acts bent on destroying all possibilities of post-high school success. Save for one prescient and observant English teacher, a fruitful future would have been squandered. Participate in the transformation of a non-compliant teenager to a tremulous college applicant; the result of one teacher believing in one outlier.