Billy Ray Chitwood's Blog, page 8

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS

 

Though it seems likely you were born in April, the date of December 25 has become the date much of the world has designated as the day we celebrate your birth. Here in the United States, most of our citizens enjoy your birthday as a paid holiday. On your birthday, many of us celebrate by gift sharing with our family and friends, participating in a special tradition of giving for which you are so very well known.

 

We do not know of every word you spoke and every deed that was rendered. Much of your living our historical experts cannot account, but from what has been recorded we know that you were unlike any other person on our earth at that time, that you spoke to the masses in parables for living an honorable and charitable life, that you spoke of God, your Father, and His Kingdom. We know that you were reviled and hated by the Roman rulers and were considered an enemy to their pagan icons and political agenda. At the end we know how you suffered from the stones and thorns of hate, how you carried the heavy cross to Golgotha, there to be fixed by nails to that cross and die a slow and painful death.

 

Some among us doubt your message of faith and the Kingdom of God, your Father. Some doubt that you died there on Calvary’s cross for the sins of humankind. Some even mock your words and arrogantly pronounce all your goodness as mere mythology. But they are few, dear Jesus, and there are a great majority of us who have read of your short time among us, believe in your message, who are not without sin but strive to grow our faith and believe in the miracle of creation – that incredible and meticulous nine months of a child’s birth, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the great order of the universe.

 

Our world today has changed not so much from the world you entered, dear Jesus. We still have those political and iconic problems throughout all parts of our planet. We have our ‘machines’ now that make our lives so easily disposed to sloth and idleness. We have our poor, our wealthy, and our in-be-tweens. We have created a bureaucratic welfare system that keeps so many of our people dependent on a government’s treasury, that makes it more sensible to stay at home and receive other people’s money than to work for it themselves. Yet, we do have those who truly need the goodness and help that comes from the heart, those teachings you passed along to us.

 

We still have famine and wars, so many prophesied in the Bible. We seem to be coming to some end-point, Jesus. We have terrorists who wish to kill us because they believe it part of their religious mandates. It appears we do not learn from the lessons of history. The world seems to be imploding while the good minds among us seek a paradigm for peace and prosperity.

 

So, in celebrating your birth, dear Jesus, I wish this long birthday card was a testimonial to how far we have come in loving our neighbor and honoring all of your Father’s ‘Ten Commandments’. Our knowledge is exploding. There are lots of new machines and toys for living, maybe even some tiny robots that go roaming around in our bodies to extend our lives, but, for good will and love, I fear we have not come so far since that awful day you were nailed on the cross near Jerusalem.  

 

For me, Jesus, I’m trying to grow my faith, endeavoring to be better than I am, wanting that eternal life in that great Kingdom by your Father’s House.

 

Billy Ray Chitwood – Christmas, 2016

 

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Love’s Reunion

Love’s Reunion

A stranger in this Balkan city of Podgorica I felt the cool but comfortable night breeze on my body. My leather jacket and heavy trousers sheltered me nicely in my walk to the Pod Volat Restaurant. Wisps of my thirty-five year old ebony hair gently waved to the people passing. A quite lovely lady with long dark flowing tresses looked me over carefully as she passed, raised her eyebrows and gave me a flirtatious smile. I smiled back not so flirtatiously but quickly diverted my blue eyes, remembering my own blonde beauty awaiting me at the restaurant.

I could see the restaurant in the distance and picked up my gait. I was anxious to see Erica and determine if the passion flame of three years past still held its magical heat. Our romantic encounter in New York had run for six months before her Montenegro family members played on her sympathies to come home. And, home she went, leaving me with an engagement ring in my suit coat pocket that she never got to see. The fact of her leaving did not break my heart but it hurt and gave me some serious tremors. She did not want to leave New York but her family’s arguments were too compelling – mother ill, father and siblings unable to cope, too much for her heart to bear. Our last night together was tearful but filled with incredible love-making. She even told me she loved me, and, yeah, I told her the same.

So, as luck would have it, my attorney work brought me to within visiting limit in Kosovo. We had stayed in touch, so our reunion was planned. Because of my arrival time, it was her idea to meet at the Pod Volat Restaurant, popular for both tourists and locals. With flight uncertainties and because I wanted our reunion to be in a much more romantic setting than an airport terminal I turned down her offer to be picked up at the airport.

My heart picked up its tempo with the Pod Volat looming bigger in the foreground. My ground steps kept pace with the heart tempo as I reached a darkened alleyway.

Movement reached my ears simultaneous to seeing two bulky men figures grab and pull me into the alley. Some light came from the neon lights some distance away but it was difficult to make out my assailants as they pulled me deeper into the alley. The men were dressed in dark clothes and they held my arms tightly and painfully, wedging me closer to their own bodies. I tried to kick up, but they had the leverage and heeled my shins with their own feet.

So, I used my head – literally! Fast and hard I whipped my head from side to side, connecting with their temples. The jolting hits almost knocked me out and I was hoping for that effect with the goons.

My head did just enough damage to loosen their grips on my arms and I bolted from the alley. Thankfully, I heard no running taps on the alley pavement.

Racing fast and hard, far enough to be in front of the restaurant I looked back and saw no one. It seemed a small miracle had canceled out a mugging or something more sinister.

Inside the Pod Volat, I took some deep breaths and leaned for a moment against a wall. The maitre d came to me and asked about my health. I told him I was just winded because of my eagerness to see Ms Erica Vukovich, and had she arrived? At that very moment I looked and saw her at a table toward the end of the big lovely room – made all the more lovely because I had made it there.

Erica rose from her seat at the table and rushed to greet me with a wonderful smile on her face, attached to that fantastic face and body I remembered so well.

We kissed unashamedly until we both felt the eyes of patrons on us. We then took our seats at our table, ordered cocktails, and gazed into the eyes of the other.

After some hand holding across the table and many endearing sentiments, she became serious.

“I made a mistake, Deke, a big mistake. I left New York and should not have. I’ve never stopped loving you. My hope was that you would propose to me, then my family would have to back off.”

“Ah, Erica, I had the engagement ring in my pocket that evening you told me you were leaving.”

We both laughed, and she asked, “Do you still have it?”

I ceremoniously reached into my left jacket pocket and pulled out the small box, left my seat and knelt by her chair: “Will you marry me, Erica? I love you with all my heart.”

With my proposal, Erica stood, tightly embraced me, and gave me one long lingering kiss – until we heard the patrons in Pod Volat applauding.

Just a tad embarrassed we reclaimed our seats at the table and talked of our plans for the immediate and distant future.

Sometime during that wonderful night, Erica apologetically spoke of her brothers. “You know, they threatened to try and scare you away from meeting me tonight. I knew they wouldn’t do it.”

My smile could never convey to her the satisfaction she had just given me.

I got a suite in the Hotel Ziya, and we stayed for three days, time to gather Erica’s belongings for our trip back to New York.

I never got to meet the brothers…well, not really…

Flash Fiction by: Billy Ray Chitwood – November 30, 2016

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Interview with prolific author Billy Chitwood

Today I’m pleased to introduce Billy Chitwood, an author with an wide range of amazing books. Hello Billy. Thank you for being my guest today. Please tell us about your writing history. When…

Source: Interview with prolific author Billy Chitwood

THE SYSTEM WAS RIGGED; EVERYONE KNEW IT

Cathy Sultan blog

In this excerpt from The Syrian Andrew recognizes that he has been, like most of his fellow Americans, complacent and  ignorant about what his government is doing around the world in his name.

Andrew sat in the chair near the window and looked up. There they were: the unchanged, unchangeable stars. Tonight they felt like his only anchor in an otherwise dangerous and complex place he was only beginning to understand. He knew he was naïve about the world in general and about his own government’s role in it. Until now, he’d lived his life as a smug, complacent American content in his profession, with the many rewards and benefits it gave him. Satisfied with what he read in newspapers and heard from politicians, he had closed his eyes to what was happening in the world around him. It was easy. None of it directly affected him. He had…

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Interview With Christoph Fischer

)Interview With Author Christoph Fischer

MY INTERVIEW OF CHRISTOPH FISCHER

Welcome to my ‘Seat of Honor’, Christoph. Though we’ve never met, I feel as if we’ve been friends for many years. 

Your writing has reached so many of us, and, with your generous support of other authors and your active role with #ASMSG (‘Authors Social Media Support Group’), many of us know of your active and hectic life… I shall let that, your life, be my starting point:

Q – You were born in Germany near the Austrian border, a Sudeten-German, if I remember correctly. Will you sketch for us your youth and your path to writing? 

A – My father was a Sudeten-German, correct. My youth was spent in Bavaria, being bored and reading plenty. I wanted more excitement than I had. I went on to become a librarian but didn’t have ambitions to write until much later in life. Working as flight attendant on long haul flights gave me a lot of time and I started writing then, more as an experiment.

Q – My ancestral history began in a hamlet in Buckinghamshire, north of London, and I’ve only visited once – quite an experience, from both an emotional and historic perspective. Care to tell us how you like living in West Wales and how you’ve come to be there?

A – Coming from a rural background in Bavaria, middle age has brought me back to that way of life, I guess. My partner is from South Wales and the choice for the exact location was influenced by the vicinity to his ailing parents.

I love living here, the people and the landscape are amazing and I have become part of the community at lightning speed thanks to the warm nature of the Welsh people.

Q – I’m delighted to have read some of your books – The Gamblers – Ludwika: A Polish Woman’s Struggle to Survive in Nazi Germany – The Luck of the Weisensteiners.  Is there a special place where you do your writing? A best atmosphere for your writing?

A I like to be secluded in the office, quiet and out of the way, preferably during the early morning hours. If inspiration is missing, a walk with my dogs does wonders. However, once I’m in the middle of writing a new story, I could work almost anywhere, then I have total tunnel vision.

Q – In Ludwika and Weissensteiners there is a certain poignancy, both heart-warming and heart-breaking, somehow personal in your rendering. Is that something on which you can comment?

A – Thank you. While researching both books I was fascinated by the effect that the larger picture had on the individual. I wanted to show how far reaching those political events were in the lives of the ‘little people’.

  Q – A ‘must ask’ question: are there authors you feel influence your writing?

A – Lionel Shriver’s sharp wit and surgical dissection of difficult topics has inspired me, as much as Patrick Gale led the way of including gay characters casually rather than as main topic in his books. 

Q – What is your favorite music and song?

A – Cheesy European Pop; Abba and the likes. “Xanadu” is one of my favourite songs, if not the…

Q – Your favorite author and book?

A – “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts

Q – Okay, the really dumb questions: what is your favorite color?

A – Red

Q – And, while I’m at it, your favorite meal and junk food?

A – Vegan Goulash

Q – Aw, well, might as well, your favorite movie?

A – Casino Royale (Woody Allen)

Q – Okay, just one more for us who need to know, your favorite actor/actress?

A – Laura Linney and Ewan McGregor

Q – You are so busy with your writing, your support of other writers, so, of what are the leisure moments made?

A – Cycling, playing football, watching Comedy TV, socialising with friends, dog walking

Q – I’m soon to read your most recent book, 

The Body In The Snow: A Bebe Bollinger Murder Mystery (Bebe Bollinger Murder Mysteries Book 1). Tell us a bit about the book and the series.

  A – “The Body In The Snow (A Bebe Bollinger Murder Mystery)” is a cozy murder mystery set in rural Wales during a snow storm. A reluctant fading singer, desperate for a comeback, gets involved in a murder investigation in her village. This all happens during the snowstorm of a century, which traps her with odd and quirky neighbours, a murdered body and a desperate detective

Q – Working on a new writing project? Tell us about it.

A – I’m currently working on the sequel to “The Healer”, my psychological thriller about a cancer patient and a faith healer. I can’t tell you too much about it without spoiling it. It is another thriller, this time set in the Caribbean and is all about trust, truth and settling scores. Characters from “The Gamblers” will also feature in it.

Q – So many writers can’t sleep. They get out of bed and write. Are you one of these insomniacs?

A – Yes

Q – Will you describe what you consider a great day?

A – A glorious morning walk with my dogs, a productive writing session, lunch with friends, a bit of gardening and playing football in the evening.

Q – Last question. I think I might know, but what is your favorite of the books you’ve written?

A – THE HEALER probably. It was my first thriller and I will always have a soft spot for it.

  Thank you, Christoph, for spending time with me today. Your wide array of books offer us Yankees and other nationalities more views of the world as seen from your perspective. While entertaining, your books give readers glimpses past and present of a world not so uncommon but sharing a unity of beliefs and cultures.

Follow Christoph Fischer on Twitter: @CFFBooks

See his Author Page on amazon: https://goo.gl/u5VmXk

Follow the Interviewer/Author (Billy Ray Chitwood) on http://Twitter.com/brchitwood @brchitwood 

Here are some of Christoph’s Book offerings:

(Just click under the image of the book for Amazon Worldwide)           

     

(L) https://goo.gl/PpJ1II     (R) https://goo.gl/cyLfSQ

 

(L) https://goo.gl/vC9wSt    (R) https://goo.gl/xGmYnZ

   

  

(L) https://goo.gl/cxxUvB       (R) https://goo.gl/qW5ZIm

Tarnished Vanity

Tarnished Vanity

It was an itch on my right cheek.

I scratched the itch.

Another itch came to my other cheek.

I scratched that itch.

Other itches came to the face near the eyes.

I scratched those itches.

I was sitting in a hotel bar with friends

The friends noticed my discomfort.

“Are you okay?” a friend asked.

“Excuse me, I must go,” I said.

I left the table and went to the Men’s Room.

I looked in the mirror.

Red blotches covered my face.

The itches started on my chest.

I was mortified!

I went to my hotel room.

The itches continued.

I became frantic.

I went to the nearest hospital emergency room.

The intern told me I had Hives!

Who knew!

I never had hives in my life.

The intern called it ‘CIU’.

‘Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria’

Fancy Medical terminology.

‘C-lasting over 6 weeks’

‘I-no one knows the cause’.

‘U-medical word for Hives’.

The intern gave me a shot.

Gave me a prescription for medication.

My CIU was gone in 3 days.

Over the next six months,

I had new breakouts of CIU.

Treatment, the same:

Emergency Room.

Medication.

Gone in three days.

Okay, I know this likely has very little interest to most of the readers. However, at the time, I was into acting: doing TV commercials, some stage and film work, plus modeling. My humility notwithstanding, the vanity did come into play. Hives (CIU) had never been a remote part of my consciousness and it scared the proverbial daylights out of me.

As a teenager I had acne issues, at the time a most serious intrusion into my young life. It was a mild intrusion but I made it much too big in my high school years. There were several young ladies I wanted to pursue, a lovely majorette and a cheerleader, and it had reached my ears that they wanted to date me… I even got up enough courage to ask the majorette out for a movie date, got ‘cold feet’ by the time the date day came around and stood her up. Going to her school locker the next Monday, she passed me with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, letting me know she hated me.

Later, while in the Navy and home on leave, I had my date with the majorette. At least, she no longer hated me.

When my Navy years were behind me, my face all clear of pimples, I became a womanizer and lotus eater of sorts…living, as they say, in the ‘fast lane’.

Somewhere along the line I grew up and became more responsible. In my life. Looking back on those teen and pre-teen years, there were a lot of emotional obstacles. I was easy prey for zit time…it was just an added default position.

If young people are reading this and going through the zit-period, try to keep your sanity. The zits will go, and that’s a promise!

Billy Ray Chitwood – October 15, 2016

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Ripples

 

Ripples 

      The lovely lady squinted as she stood on her penthouse balcony, grasped the iron railing and looked at the distant clouds hovering above the horizon.

Standing there in her long powdery blue night gown, her image portrayed a classic Princess-like profile with all the voluptuous and titillating curves that brought men to their knees. Her face was to cherish: lips full of the sweetest imaginable wine that gave kisses long lingering promises of other delights; magical blue eyes that mesmerized and projected a strange mystical sadness.

The sun she gathered from some days on the beach made her glow with some wondrous and nostalgic essence, her long silky auburn hair not bothered by the slight breeze that moved it gently across her face.

She watched the wave ripples shifting the sand and bringing ashore sea glass and ageless plant debris. Two tears appeared, spilled over the lower lids, and fell down her face. A small trembling smile came as her thoughts mixed with the sea glass and plants on the shore…

“Oh, Jessie,” she whispered as a zephyr carried her words out upon the ripples. “Why, why, why?” she implored of her Deity. “Why has the world gone crazy? Why did they send you to Afghanistan? I can’t make it without you. Here at our favorite retreat I hoped to find some semblance of sanity, but there is nowhere to go that will bring peace, a reason to go on without you.”

She sighed a small surrender.

She placed her left foot on the lower stretch of balcony iron and tightened her grip on the top railing. She looked again at the clouds on the distant horizon, at the ripples coming to shore with their cargo. She pulled her body upward on the railing and gave the horizon one more poignant gaze.

From some silent place inside the penthouse came the words: “Cut! That’s a take!”

Flash Fiction by Billy Ray Chitwood – October 1, 2016

Okay, I’m bad, but aren’t you glad she didn’t jump? ! Come on, you thought she would!  

Here I am, pleading again! Please preview my fourteen books of mystery, suspense, romance, memoir, et al, at:

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Just pick one (or, several) of the books, read it (them) on your Kindle device, or, please buy the paperback edition – you see, that way, you can read it (them) over and over again . THEN, after reading the book, or, books, (insert another please here) give it (them) a review on Amazon. After you read and review my book(s), lots of good things will happen in your lives, and you will feel very good in knowing you’ve helped out this author – a young man in an old man’s body! Just saying! (Insert Smiley Face!) 

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A World I Once Knew

 

A World I Once Knew

 An Informal Thesis

Behind those stern faces in the faded picture above, there is a stoic acknowledgement of the times in which my Mama and Papa lived. Behind their stern expressions there are compassion and love. They likely didn’t know too much about cameras and picture-taking back then.

 

How do I know about their compassion and love?

 

They’re my paternal grandparents, and I lived with them in that clapboard house behind where they sit in the picture. A great depression was hitting the country. Malaria and lack of jobs brought Appalachia to its knees, decimating the southern population. Not only the diseases were claiming lives, but the great depression was claiming families with disconnect and divorces. The men went where there were jobs, often leaving their families and traveling to other states. Many men were angered by what they perceived as a government forgetting the people they represented and took their anger out on their spouses and children.

 

My father and mother divorced. Because my mother could not provide for us, my older sister was sent to live with my maternal grandparents. I was sent to live with those sweet people in the picture above.

 

There were some families in our rural hamlet much worse off than my Mama and Papa, and I can remember vividly Papa taking sacks of potatoes to a clan living nearby and to others who needed help.

 

Mama and Papa had a cow they called Bessie and a mule called Fred. Bessie left each morning to graze in the green fields. She had a brass bell around her neck, and, in the late afternoon I would go find Bessie and bring her home for milking…she was always easy to find because of her brass bell.

 

Papa tilled his land with Fred, grew corn, potatoes, green onions, tomatoes, turnips, green beans, and slopped his hogs. Aside from those chores Papa also ran a steam engine around the mountain near us and hauled lumber back to the local sawmill. I remember Mama packing his metal lunch pail in the morning, and I ran down the old dirt and gravel road to greet him in the afternoon. He was whistling and grinning when he grabbed me, hugged me, whiskered me gently, teasingly, and gave me what was left in the metal lunch box.

 

There were two brothers and a daughter living in that small clapboard house. For a while I slept with my pre-teen aunt until a cot was set up for me in the living room. The brothers dropped out of school and were helping Papa with the planting and the hogs. The brothers tried to teach me how to hoe corn, but I was too small and couldn’t last too long.

 

Mama had her roosters and hens, collected the eggs every morning and carefully filled her apron and carried them to the house. She washed her clothes with lye soap, stirred them with a broom handle in a big black iron tub outside, and hung them on her clotheslines to dry. As another chore she took Bessie’s milk and churned it into butter in a tall porcelain container, pumping that churn rod up and down for what seemed like hours. On certain mornings I would hear the hens yacking like crazy as Mama chased them. When she caught one, she wrung its neck with long sweeping circles until its body went flying off into the grass.

 

The meals Mama cooked were to my little boy’s tummy a real taste treat…

 

Well, why am I writing about all of this?

 

To tell the truth, my memories go back there a lot, some of them really good, some, not so much.

 

What truly prompts this writing spell are some political speeches heard this year. It is election time here in 2016, and, well, it’s my belief we made a big mistake by twice electing Mr. Obama. (The previous sentence has nothing to do with Racism – in fact, the man impressed me back in 2008 and I wanted him to succeed.) However, in all my years I’ve never seen the country as fouled up as it is today…with all the ‘political correctness’ and what I consider some terrible decisions made by this president and his administration.

 

Now, we’ve got Hillary Clinton running for the Democrats and Donald Trump running for the Republicans. There are some who believe these two don’t give us much of a choice. But I’m thinking our freedom and liberty, our democracy, are in the worst trouble that I can remember, and I don’t want eight more years with this far-left leaning woman. So, I’m voting for Donald Trump. He’s got some good people in the background working with him, and he’s certainly not the same old brand.

 

Now, look, of course, you will vote the way your heart and mind tell you. I’m really not trying to sway anybody. For me, though, this Obama fellow and this Clinton woman have screwed things up about as bad as they can be screwed up. I’ve seen the USA in the good and bad times, but, for me, this is a critical election. If there is any chance of saving our republic, we have to get away from establishment politics and get a fresh face in the oval office, make many changes (including on what and how we expect our government public servants to spend our hard-earned money).

 

If Donald Trump does only a few of the things he’s promising, then I can feel our nation is back on a solid foundation – you know, how those good people who wrote the Constitution wanted it to be, how my family want it today, how Mom, Dad, Mama and Papa would have wanted it to be.

 

Back when the old picture above was taken, the country was not in its best place. But my dearly beloved Mother did eventually make a home for my sister and me through a lot of hard work.

 

My Dad served in the Navy, as did I. His brothers served in the army and Army Air Force. One of my uncles was at Hickam Air Force Base when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on an early Sunday morning in December, 1941. He lived through that awful attack but it changed him in many ways.

 

So, surely not bragging, I’ve been in that place called ‘Poverty’, seen the domestic violence that comes from no jobs and the subjugation by government of minorities and the lower class with their ‘Welfare’ programs and give-away experiments – fouling up the middle class along the way.

 

It’s been said often enough that subjects like politics and religion should be avoided by those of us of different belief and faith. Well, it just seems, if ever there was a time to share feelings and thoughts, it is during this critical year of our republic. Our democracy, our freedom and liberty, those noble ideals in our Constitution, they’re under a heavy weight right now, and a lot of our brave men and women have fought wars to protect the embodiment of that document.

 

Now, I suspect I should be apologizing for putting out into cyberspace my humble and raw thoughts, but I will because it’s my right. We need a federal government to protect our shores, keep us safe from predators through the ‘Rule of Law’, make sure there is no dominance in one sector of business over another, in short, make sure it understands at all times that it works for the people and that there are no special gratuities for the public servants who wish to serve. With all the bureaucracies set up by the government, the money of tax-paying Americans is recklessly spent and the will of the people are undermined.

 

In November, we the people must decide by voting who we want to be our next president. For me, the choice is simple because the last eight years have seen incredible decisions and ‘executive orders’ made by an administration who seems to think it knows better than its citizens where it is we want to go and what we expect. It is perhaps repetitive but we do live in a perilous world today, and we really need to inspect carefully the people who would run our country.

 

For me, I don’t want an arrogant government that tells me: ‘You didn’t build your business!’ ‘ISIS is a JV team!’ ‘If you have a doctor and plan you like, you can keep it!’

 

What I do want is a government that follows the articles and amendments of our great Constitution: NOT create a bigger welfare system; NOT interfere so actively in our Free Enterprise and let the private sector and entrepreneurs create our businesses; NOT play race, sexist, political correctness, distribution of wealth cards; NOT put off any longer securing our borders; NOT diminish our military might but make it stronger; NOT subjugate any longer our African-American brothers and sisters, our Latino brothers and sisters, set them free to be all that they can be through their own efforts – through family-unity programs, neighborhood embassies; BRING back manufacturing jobs and companies who have chosen to leave our country – create jobs; DECISIVELY defeat the radical Islamic Terrorists.

 

I really don’t care if it’s a Democrat, Independent, or a Republican who gets these jobs accomplished. However, I’m reasonably sure it will not be Hillary Clinton who has the leadership qualities, the strong will, energy, and the temperament who can do the vital and necessary work to right our tilting ship of State.

 

Why? Because of the recorded lies she told, the erasure of countless thousand e-mails, the pounding destruction of telecommunication devices, and the distrust so many in our nation have for this woman.

 

Why? Because I can remember the good people who died in Benghazi, the inaction, lies and cover-up, the Libyan operation that brought death to a dictator and chaos to a country and helped in part the creation of ISIS and other terror groups over that troubled part of the world.

 

Why? Because, try as I might, no memory comes to me of Hillary Clinton accomplishing anything of notable political significance in her lifetime. It’s my humble opinion we have so many intelligent and wise women in and out of our government ranks that have so much more to offer as the first female president.

 

So, unashamedly, and, with only my non-pundit gathering of political affairs over the years, I will be casting my vote for Donald Trump. We are at ‘critical mass’ – a change is desperately needed. Mr. Trump has some astute people behind him, exemplary politicians and military brass, to assist him. The Donald certainly has a solid record of achievements – and a beautiful family. He is indefatigable – amazing energy he expends in traveling the states and getting his message out. He can be bold and brash in his assertiveness, but under that veneer is a man of compassion, a man who wants to get things right for our country. He is not a politician, and, maybe, that’s a good thing. If I did not believe these words I’m writing, there would be no vote this November from me.

 

My hope is that Donald Trump has the chance to ‘Make America Great Again’!

 

Billy Ray Chitwood – September 27, 2016

 

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Time

Dedicated to Caleb Pirtle lll

Time

The supreme commander of life

Defying all who would alter its

Steady ticking seconds

Of existence

Oh, would it but pause to

Deny a sinister plot

Deny the wrinkles

And sagging skin

Oh, would it but pause to

Stop the reasons

For wars and

Weeping children

Oh, would it but pause to

Give me one more

Chance at becoming

More than what I am

But, no, the ceaseless and

Metronomic madness wears

Its power proudly and

Without a wisp of

Sorrow for the

Dying gasps of

Fools and lovers.

Time is now my silent place

Of memories.

 ( A poem by: Billy Ray Chitwood – September, 2016) 

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Please preview my fourteen books at: http: //www.goo.gl/nWMXm3

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About My Dedication

My dedication of this poem to Caleb Pirtle lll has sound reasoning. Caleb, with over sixty penned books in his career, just released his latest masterpiece. It just might be the best I’ve read this year. Friday Nights Don’t Last Forever is a novel that really brings to life the phenomenon that is Friday night high school football, its dominant appeal to the masses, and the behind the scenes college recruiters who offer the moon to the gridiron gladiators who become heroes to their hometown and state’s loyal followers. This thriller is about quarterback Casey Clinton and his Alabama high school  making it to the state finals. Casey has reputedly the best passing arm in the nation, and all the main stream universities want him – at whatever the cost.

Just launched, Caleb already has nearly thirty reviews, mostly 5-Stars with a few scattered 4-Stars, and I’m predicting a big-screen or  ‘made for television’ movie coming from this great book…you listening, Hollywood???

Anyhow,  I’m thinking this writing machine Pirtle knows a bit about Time…

Here’s to you, Caleb! 

BUY SITES:

       Amazon US: https://goo.gl/P5Cksy

Amazon Worldwide: http://authl.it/B01HIYE7EA 

Essence of Fate

Essence of Fate

From exotic lands across the waters she came, humbly poised, beautiful, her raven hair and blue eyes enchanting, her body statuesque and sensuous.

Some harried and rushing passenger caused her to drop a package on the airline terminal floor.

Shyly, I stooped to pick it up for her and was barely able to look into her wondrous orbs, feeling an inadequacy of self.

In her soft voice she thanked me and somehow noticed the depth of my timidity, She asked my name, gave me hers, and we managed a short clumsy conversation.

There was a transference of emotions generated by our eyes neither of us could understand.

We parted there in the terminal, she on her way to Baggage Claim, me, on my way back to the parking garage and my office after dropping off something forgotten by a colleague.

Purposely I drove from the airport parking lot past the exiting passengers from Baggage Claim.

There she was, walking out the door pulling her luggage.

On impulse, I stopped at the curb, put the gear in idle, and stepped from the car.

She felt my offer generous and accepted a drive to her hotel in downtown San Francisco. She explained her business was to complete and sign the final papers on a literary branch offices lease, tend to furniture, signage, interview some prospective employees, and meet with one of the company’s top female authors.

We became more relaxed on the drive to her hotel, and I sensed a bonding between us.

My office was in Foster City, as was my lakeside condominium, and we agreed to dinner that night at my favorite restaurant.

From that dinner, I learned she was originally from Perpignon in the south of France, educated in London, lived and worked there for the past five years as an editor and part owner of an international publishing house.

She learned from the dinner that I was a business consultant, born and raised in Virginia, having come west and opened my own consulting company.

Two people, born worlds apart, fall in love in an airline terminal, marry, have a family – all, thanks to a rude airline passenger rushing to catch a flight.

Fate, Karma, Kismet, call it what you will, but it led me to the lady of my life

Short Flash Fiction by Billy Ray Chitwood – 9/12/16

Please preview my fourteen books in the genres of mystery, suspense, romance, thriller, history at

http://www.goo.gl/nWMXm3 

My latest release is a romance/time-travel novel that will give you a feel for some of our United States history, parts of it regrettable and senseless. The novel has a most beautiful love story that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.
Please read  Cloud Dancer  and give it an Amazon Review.



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OTHER LINKS:
http://www.goo.gl/nWMXm3 (My website)
http://www/about.me/brchitwood
http://twitter.com/brchitwood
http://facebook.com/billyray.chitwood
http://amazon.com/billyraychitwood