In January 2019, I finished the draft of my first attempt at fiction. If you have followed me, you’ll remember that month I experienced my husband’s death. I put the writing on the shelf until the fall of 2021. With the assistance of my writing critique group, I began anew with the editing and rewriting process.

Eighteen months later, I am confident we are closer to the final version. In the hope of titillating and sparking some interest, I’m presenting a portion of a chapter from Bigoted Truths. As always, please give me your observations and suggestion in the comment area below.

Chapter Two

A friend of mine stopped smoking, drinking,

overeating and chasing women —

All at the same time.

It was a lovely funeral.

Unknown author

In high school, the coaches expected West Texas boys to play sports. Compared to Tommy Goodwin, my best friend, I wasn’t much of an athlete, but I played football and baseball. In my first two years of football, they had me playing left end of the bench. The coach put me in at least once a year, and he regretted it each time.

My senior year had me playing more, but with no more success. I played tight end, and after our second game, Tommy teased, “You’re supposed to block the defensive guys, not let them run over you. Hell, a tackling dummy would be better playing that position than you.”

“Shut up! I’m doing my best. If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t be playing this stupid game.”

Scholastically, schoolwork came easy. I’d catch hell from Mom if I came home with something lower than an ‘A’ on my report card. “If you put as much effort into paying attention at school as you do playing around, you wouldn’t get them low grades.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” My interest lay in being popular and making my classmates laugh. I rarely dated girls in high school, but when we had an event like homecoming and the prom, I’d talk Tommy Goodwin into double dating. He felt sorry for me because of my shyness around girls.

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