I didn’t graduate but I went to high school and tried to graduate. I lived in a sweet little Republican town after the Second World War.  During the war everybody had to think the same, to survive. Everybody was dedicated to sacrifice and all  followed the rations rules, knowing their fighting brothers were getting slaughtered all over the world.  But when the war ended, people kept thinking they had to still think the same. 

 If you were a poet, you were a commie. If your hair touched your ears, you were sent home from school and told not to come back until it was cropped.   

And our little Republican town did have a mission. They were building the Glen Canyon Damn, a rather challenging feat, stopping the mighty Colorado River, and turning it into wimpy little creek. And they had over forty giant steam shovels with eight-foot wheels, or tracker wheels, and  A nine-foot-high Cab with a sleeper on top. 

Pretty much all the workers were parents for the kids at Page Highschool in Northern Arizona. The only exceptions were the Indians children who didn’t care if they graduated or not. They lived in trailers. And when the river dried up their crops all died. And the Government feeling guilty, gave them food stamps and made them housing. 

. But with the farms falling apart, the houses were used to keep sheep now that their farms had wilted.. And the Indian kids dropped  out of school when the river became a little trickle So to help the Indians (They call them the Navajos native Americans now) the government gave some of thes Indians 200 dollars and told them go find work in the cities. Shipping off in buses to Chicago, New York  or Los Angeles  areas far away their  Indian Reservations. And told them to find a job in the cities.   

 So, in my senior year  there were no more Indians in school, they either were shipped off, or helping their parent tend to sheep. 

But my mother, was a bookkeeper in charge of filling out forms for federal grants for a construction company, and being an English major at U.C.L.A. it was mandatory I graduate.  

When my motherwas informed, I couldn’t graduate because I was failing English in my senior year ,she went to school in a rage and said,” Give him some assignments for extra credit so he can at least get a D and graduate. 

The teacher, Mrs. Caruthers, decided to give me a rather impossible challenge, knowing my ability.  “I want you to write a story, 3000 words long, that doesn’t have little ants scrawling across the page eradicating grammar.  And I want to sit here and watch you write it.” 

When I was seven years old I wrote a Dick and Jane story that my mother loved.  , “Could it be a Dick and Jane children’s story?”  

“I don’t know any Dick and Jane children’s stories that are 3000 words, but if you can make one, okay. But it can’t be repetitive.” 

We were there from three to five-thirty.  And I had written a lot. . I wouldn’t let her see it, ‘cause I knew I had lots of ants roving around on it. It was an extension to the story my mother love called Dick and the Steam Shovel.   The teacher  gave me an envelope, and I  put my writings inside and she sealed it with wax.  Then she put it in her desk drawer.  “We’ll continue this Monday.” I could tell she was impressed with my intensity. Maybe she was about to give me a break.  “Monday at three,” she said. 

” I nodded.  

To understand where this story came from, I have to tell you what I was going through in high school.  In 1957 the Glen Canyon Damn, (I don’t care how the rst of the world spells dam)  was completed.  The mighty Colorado River became a wimpy little creek devasting the Indian crops.  There were giant parties, beer fests for over a month, all celebrating this great accomplishment. .  So here I am two years later (1959) trying to write a non-repetitive Dick and Jane children’s story, three thousand words long.  

On Wednesday, four afternoon later,  at four thirty I turned it over to Mrs. Caruthers., the xtended version of Dick and the Steam Shovel.  She didn’t look at it. Just put in a drawer and said, “I’ll tell you if you pass English tomorrow or not.” Graduation was one week away.  

I smiled. I got a cocky attitude, as you might have noticed.  But she seemed to take offense to that. 

The next day she didn’t say a word in class. But after school I went to her.  

She said, “You wrote 3009 words with fifty-six- mistakes.” My face fell.  

She continued, “Two thousand nine hundred fifty-three words with no mistakes. I was impressed. But if this is a children’s story, it needs a moral.  Take it home and bring it back with a moral. And there is no place for the word ‘fuck ,or shit or r  bastard’ in a children’s story.” 

Remember I told you after the war, everybody, despite the war being over, still had to  think the same. Children stories need a moral. So, though she thought I was going to change the story to provide a moral for children, I got a better idea. I just wrote one more paragraph and called it: the moral of the story. 

You might wonder why I still have it in the year 2023.  My mother told me all my life I should be a writer. I thought she was being ridiculous but when she died and I I was sixty-five, in a jewel box, I found the story., Dick and the Steam Shovel.   And thereafter I started writing novels, movie scripts, as well as recently becoming a song writer. 

. Here it is,  Dick and the Steam Shovel written at age seven and expanded upon at age seventeen. In1959.   My first story.