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Physician, creative, and perpetual student of the world and human nature
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One of the first stories I’d ever written was a series of hand-drawn comic books I created in third grade. I’d written the whole thing on notebook paper, because that’s the only paper I had. I remember really not liking that there were horizontal lines across all the papers. My drawing skills were, ehhh but I thought that the story I’d come up with about a massive world war 3 would carry the day.
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I wrote and illustrated the entire comic myself and then showed it to a couple of friends. They seemed to be genuinely into it. I was excited. Shoot, maybe people would even pay for this, I thought.
There was a copy shop not too far from my house and copies ran only a few cent per page. I did a little math and figured it made sense to make a few copies and see if I could sell them. So, I asked my Dad to take me to the copy shop to make twenty-five copies.
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Every week I earned a little allowance by ironing the family's clothes after my Mom did the laundry, washing my parents' cars, and sweeping the carport. My favorite part of doing these chores was that my parents let me to back the car out of the carport, unsupervised.
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I made the copies, stapled them together with three staples on the left margin so they would open up like a book, took the cut-off bottom of packing box that that the copy shop gave you, and I was off. Honestly, I don’t remember if I was surprised or not - but I sold all twenty five copies in one day. After I sold out, people at school were asking for more. I remember being on the bus and seeing a young boy looking over another boys shoulder to read a copy!
I was like “damn!” - probably, that’s probably what I was thinking…
Immediately, I promised everyone that was asking that there would be more coming. I’d make another edition to the “series”. That day I started working on the second part of the series. From there my memory gets a little fuzzy, but I do remember doing a few more “editions” and then it sort of fizzled out as other kids started flooding the “market” with comics of their own.
As the years turned to decades, I’ve continued to write about this and that for my own delight - or at least my own amusement - and for various businesses that I’ve started or been a part of. What I noticed is that what I enjoy most about business is the writing.
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“I just keep coming back to it”
— J Keith Hall
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I’ve worn - and continue to wear - many hats… physician, entrepreneur, athlete, coach, husband, father, and comedian in my own mind. One throughline is that I love stories and I love telling stories.
Wait, can a throughline have two lines?
(google search……)
Google says that there can NOT be two throughlines. So, I guess if there’s two throughlines then there is no throughline?
Well, dang…
whisper voice - “The other throughline is that I have insatiable curiosity.”
Seriously, I haven’t found anything that I don’t like or want to learn more about.
So, I said all that to say… I’m writing books now.