WELCOME  TO  MY  AUTHOR  PORTFOLIO

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I can remember when every single piece of fruit in America did not have a sticky piece of paper welded to its side. Some time after the 1980s, PLU (price look-up) codes began to be applied to individual pieces of fruit to assist at check out time, but also to help the grocer in stocking and inventory control.

Faye and Joe Gock. That’s who invented the fruit labels. As New Zealand horticulturalists and farmers, they developed a seedless watermelon and needed a way to identify the regular melons from the seedless ones. Hence the sticker. The Gocks were very innovative and are featured in a short film "How Mr. And Mrs. Gock saved the kumara." The kumara is a type of sweet potato native to New Zealand. But don’t let them go down the drain say the experts—the stickers, not kumaras. Or the Gocks. Actually, don’t let any of them go down the drain. They may cause a problem.

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While I’m on the subject of stickers, let’s turn to the “I voted” sticker. I personally don’t think they’re all that necessary. Is that what distinguishes us from the Chinas and North Koreas of the world? Perhaps in autocratic countries, the stickers say "I voted but it didn’t count" or "I didn’t vote, but you-know-who is still going to win." In Australia, where citizens are required to vote, do the stickers say "I voted--because they forced me to!"?

It turns out the I voted sticker may go back as far as 1950, but became popular in the 1980s when National Campaign Supply Company started producing them. Maybe, just maybe, the poll worker who hands out stickers could stay home. Maybe the 35% of registered voters who actually turn out could learn to live without a sticker on their lapel. It’ll probably just end up in a landfill or stuck to their drain pipes. Besides, what if, let’s say, I show up at the voting center, get a ballot, and then sit in the booth or at the table idly polishing my nails or checking my messages, filling in none of the ovals, and then turn in my ballot. If I get an “I voted” sticker, is that voter sticker fraud?

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It’s doubtful seeing a sticker on someone’s shirt inspires many others to go do their civic duty. And even those tiny stickers cost something. In 2012, Santa Clara County, California saved $90,000 by eliminating them. That’s some real money that could easily be wasted on something more important.

PUBLISHED  STORIES  AND  ESSAYS

AWARDS AND HONORS

 2017     Pushcart Prize nomination from Hawaii Pacific Review for The Last Hundred Days

    2018     First Honorable Mention Short Story Division AWC contest

                2018     Second Place Chattahoochee Valley Contest Short Story category

2019     First Place Flash Fiction Division AWC contest

2020    First Place Essay Streetlight Magazine 

2020  Top ten finalist for The Opossum Prize

2020  Honorable Mention Stories That Need To Be Told Anthology

2020  First place  Flash Fiction category  in Seven Hills contest

2021   Second place Streetlight Magazine's Flash fiction contest

2021   Second place Seven Hills contest for flash fiction

2021    Second place Seven Hills contest for essay/memoir

2021     Third place Seven Hills contest for non-fiction

CURRENTLY READING

...or just finished

Hard Times by Charles Dickens
The Order Of Time by Carlo Rovelli