I know a lot of people will stop reading after I mentioned my faith. They will assume that this is a story about personal redemption and how being a good Christian helped me avoid making bad decisions.
These readers can rest their minds. I am a Christian, but I am not a good one. I have always been more sinner than saint, especially during my formative Sherwood Forest years.
So I will be an interesting character, I assure you.
I grew up in Branson in a very penticostal family, but I never really believed in any of it until I watched a couple of movies that changed my outlook.
The first was "Oh, God!" This movie gave me a gentler, more forgiving version of God than what I was used to.
The second movie was "The Exorcist." This movie showed me how powerful you can be with God standing behind you.
But still I strayed.
My story has a lot of symbolic elements that I didn't intend to be symbolic. Details that sound made up, but are real.
Like our trailer park being on a cliff. Very "Catcher in the Rye".
Or a prison in Sherwood Forest, which sounds like I am copying off of "Oz". The Ozarks are even called Oz sometimes.
Even the streets Sunshine and Golden sound like I am trying to contrast a bad environment with cheerful names. But those were the real names.
But to me the most important unintentional symbolism is having a church and an adult book store at the end of my street. Because those were my two choices every day.
As a general rule, I usually chose poorly.
YOU ARE READING
Sherwood Forest
Non-FictionWe moved to Sherwood Forest in the summer of 1980, just as I was going into the seventh grade. The first friend I would make would be a girl named Candy. I have been in love three times in my life, and Candy was the first.
