Edited FINAL TOUCH....2

Edited FINAL TOUCH....2, a photo by roberthuffstutter on Flickr.

"As pages close in the chapters of our lives, so did this day close a chapter in my life. From that moment on, that day would serve as a time-line in my every thought, in my personal calendar and clock of all that happened prior to that date and hour and all that would happen thereafter." From one of the closing chapters in my novel, AN AMERICAN WANDERING, by Robert L.Huffstutter

She lived with her mother in a Totsuka complex. Her father had been killed in the war in Burma. World War II never mattered to us or our feeling toward the other...
It was only through a message I gave a taxi driver the night before my unexpected departure that brought her to the pier that early morning. She had no phone, thus my only hope was that a taxi driver would deliver my message to her that I had been rescheduled to leave two days earlier than planned.

I was unable to leave the base the night before departure--rules. So, would she show up to say good-bye? Did the taxi driver simply take my ten dollars and her address and do no more?

The next morning as I stood on the pier in uniform with my seabag, a taxi pulled up. She had tears in her eyes. We had an hour to talk and embrace on that last morning of our lives together. The taxi driver had done his duty and I am forever greatful for his most honorable deed
All of my experiences will be published, sooner or later, in AN AMERICAN WANDERING. I have not yet secured a publisher for this work, but as every writer who is not a celebrity will admit, publishers for personal novels are hard to find. Yes, there are lots of celebrity autobiographical works, political dialogues, political theories, and works about our role in the world, but the novels or works of the everyday American are far and few between.