http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
CHURCH 10●19●62
“It Started In Church – October 19, 1962”
A Review by the Author
Ferdinand John Reinke
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This is either a foolish joke, and / or a touching story. I’ve had in my heart and head since I was an Eight Grader at Good Shepherd School in the 1950’s. As an example of TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) fiction that I summarize as: “An alternative future history. What might have been? If Nikta hadn’t blinked. If children were allowed to ‘be all that they could be’. If adults didn’t waste their time and attention on memes and paradigms that are insanity. If I’d known. Shoulda, coulda, and woulda! The human race’s millstone — obsolete thinking. Here’s what I think might have been possible.”
The hardback is suitable as a door stop, bug killer, or fire starter, it is 750+ pages or just under a half a million words directly from the mind of a hormone ravaged fat little kid in Catholic School some fifty years ago. Any way it’s a cheap download or “reasonable priced” hardback. (Depending upon how you define “reasonable”. It’s all about the definitions; like the word “is”.) Please bear in mind, I’m just an injineer with a low index. It’s also available in a two volume paperback at a more modest price.
Obviously influenced by Heinlein and juvenile science fiction, this story is a child’s look at the world. Remember the A bomb drill that had children hide under their school desks. Like that flimsy desk would save them. Look at the pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in their history books of the time. Children would have to be pretty stupid not to know the truth. One joke about the drill was ‘Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye’. Crude, but terrifyingly accurate. The first half of the story is their time in the shelter; the second half is their trek to safety and their life afterwards. It’s one set of possibilities. So this one child at the time constructed a safe mental world. There, the good guys win and everyone lives (almost) happily ever after. Even in those days, I was a “classical liberal” and knew that government was the problem.
I hope, that should you decide to read it (It is after all just under a half a million words!), you’ll laugh, cry, and ponder. (I did! Often.)
For those foolish enough to buy it, I’d be happy to autograph it for you. Then in 15 or 20 DECADES, some great niece or great-great nephew can be surprised on the Antique Roadshow to find that they have an American Primitive Author First Edition complete with the provenance to prove it’s truly original. (I also offer Certificates of Authenticity at a modest extra fee to cover printing and mailing.) With under a 1,000 copies printed, and one being in the Manhattan College Library, how many do you think will survive? Imagine if you could have bought a First Edition Shakespeare and passed it on. How much would that be worth to you today. Enough to remember crotchety old Great Uncle Fester kindly?
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Posted by reinkefj 
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