Hawaiian ShirtBack in kindergarten, when the other boys were stealing bananas from the girls’ playhouse and pretending they were guns, I was sitting at a table in the corner, writing stories.  Not much has really changed. (Well, okay, at that point I couldn’t actually write much, but I composed them in my head and *ahem* “storyboarded” them out.)

At that point I think a lot of my characters were dinosaurs. I had this sweet pair of blue Converse with dinosaurs on them, which led to much inspiration. Sadly I don’t think any of my dinosaur stories survived, but thankfully at least one gem did, and it is solid. I mean, it involves a family of bears that live in Chicago and have a flying car. How could that be anything short of incredible?

So, for the first time outside of Mrs. Hammernick’s kindergarten class, I proudly present my earliest surviving work of fiction, “The Flying Car.” Perhaps a sequel is in order now that I’ve let it marinate for the past 25 years.

On a related note, here’s a speech I gave my senior year of college in memory of those halcyon days of youth, entitled “A Eulogy for Childhood.”