Introduction

Ron Walters circa 1961

In 1963 my mother, my older sister and I boarded a train that would take us away from my Dad and his five other children from a previous marriage.  Through the years I have come to accept that it was all for the best. My Dad was not a nice man.  

But I was not quite 2 years old and I'm told that I cried all the way to my Grandparent's house.  I don't believe a child of that age can know that his whole future has been changed in such a meaningful way.  Still, growing up without a father does make a difference at least that's what I've heard.

Ronald M. Walters was a working musician (Jazz Drummer) in St Louis in the late '50's and early 60's he worked classy night-clubs and in the daytime he worked at writing the Great American Novel.  His work was rejected by some notable names in the publishing world.  I have one rejection letter from McGraw Hill in 1965 rejecting his novel "Waiting for Wah Wah".  

His life is still mostly a mystery but I keep gathering fact's.  He joined the Navy when he was only 17.  He got a service connected disability and an Honorable Discharge.  I think the disability was diabetes he died from the complications when he was 42.

I went to the funeral, I wasn't even a teenager but I was beginning to think that I was grown up now.  It was one of the first times I can remember being existential.  It didn't seem like the man had anything to do with who I was.  But there was the trunk.

His current wife gave us a suitcase full of his writing which was stored and mostly forgotten these past 30 something years.  I've rediscovered it.  Clippings from the local newspapers where he worked, vignettes, short stories, and novels that he had written.  The fact that he did all this without computers speaks of a work ethic that I didn't imagine from him. 

As I go through it all I'm publishing it in this blog.  Your comments are welcome.  I hope you enjoy it.