We found these stories in a hidden partition of our father's computer as we were cleaning out his home office. Dad died in August, 2008, after a premature retirement from teaching due to Alzheimer's.
There is no way for us to know whether they are an accurate reflection of his life during the period they cover (1961-1974). Nor do we know when he wrote them or why some are written in a woman's voice.
We do know, from anecdotes he told as we were growing up, that the broad outlines of his life during this period fit with the stories' chronology, particularly the round-the-world student cruise and his happy involvement in political campaigning in New York City.
Dad had a successful teaching career in a small Ohio liberal-arts college. He met mom in 1974 in New York and they moved to Ohio in 1976 and married here. We (two daughters and a son) were born in quick succession in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He wrote two books in his field and over two dozen scholarly articles, some outside his area of academic expertise.
We have not edited these stories in any way except to change his name and his undergraduate and graduate schools, to obscure his identity. His author's name is a variation of one he delighted in using from time to time, but we have no idea where it came from.
The stories listing is in alphabetical order, but Dad organized them into three files in the following order: BEGINNING, Jenny the Midfielder, The Shot-Putter's Sister, The Girl I Snaked, Two Bennington Blind Dates, and Business School Lover; SHIPBOARD, including Christian Linda in London, Pam and My Virgin Plan, Katha, Stacy in Athens, Mary in Istanbul, Christmas Eve, Julie the Swimmer, and The Okie's Roommate; and AFTERWARD, including Laura Pigtails, Ellen in Brooklyn Heights, and JB.
Location
United States