I guess the first question to answer would be why. My initial motivation for writing was to have something relaxing to do outside in the heat of the warm summer sun. I also embarked on this adventure in the hopes of learning something about the art of putting words together. My final inspiration was a wellspring of memories screaming to get out of their dingy confines.

Unfortunately it hasn't been so simple. I have come to question with intense scrutiny these motivations, feeling as if I will not be effective in my writing or satisfied by it until I can come up with satisfactory answers. As the cord of my recently aquired PC doesn't reach down the stairs and out the door into the back yard I write in the light of a General Electric bulb. Since I rarely read anything other than a box score I have very little concept of what constitutes good writing and, my memories, under closer inspection, seem to be an endless array of pointless anecdotes which are, at best, mildly amusing in small doses.

The nagging question is; what am I trying to say? What essential truths am I uncovering? exploring? or expressing? Is this merely literary masturbation and if it is shouldn't I get a better chair?

Anyway, I continue to struggle on. I have fictionalized some stories for a change of venue but I have maintained the ground rule that essentially every word is true. Some names have been changed to protert the guilty. The Fillin' Station is my very first story written in the sunshine of my mother's backyard with ink scratching the paper of a tattered notebook.