Learning Is Life

On September 28, 2001, I hit the 40-year mile marker and it hit me back. I was not ready to be ‘middle-aged.’ I felt like I had fallen ‘behind the chains,’ to use a football term. I had ground to make up.

So, I did. That year, I published my first book, The Preacher’s Kid, under the pen name L. A. Holly. I was a middle school teacher at the time.

Fast-forward to the same date, ten years later. I am powering through an 18-month deployment. I am riding a desk in Mobile, Alabama, away from home and celebrating 50 without my family.

I don’t feel that one so hard as I had forty. I mean, I have grown accustomed to middle-age and to southern kids (everyone under 40) calling me Mr. Gene. Cool.

The gray hairs are fooling them into thinking I am a repository of wisdom. By the time they learn different, I will be on down the road.