An Author's Foreword

This is an autobiography, a memoir, a place for me to collect the stories of my recent past into something I can share with my friends and, most importantly, myself.

Sometimes we need to put our memories out into the world before we can come to terms with them. Sometimes we need the recognition of others just to believe that our memories actually happened. Sometimes we write down our memories with a more selfish goal, to force our memories to become the others' memories. That, I believe, is the goal of any memoirist, good or painfully awful.

So I bring to you my memories, as I remember them. Those of you who might remember them differently are welcome to bring what you know to the stories in the form of comments.

James Thurber once wrote his own autobiography before he had lived long enough, by the old masters' standards, to have accomplished something worth writing about. His reasoning, however comically put, is understandable - we should write about the moments we remember truthfully now, before they are overshadowed by the telling and retelling of accomplishments. These are stories of things I did and, more importantly, things that were done around me that I merely observed. Life might, and probably will, bring me fortunes and sorrows far better or worse than anything here, but before the great happens, I need to record the simple.