The story was inspired by an event that happened to me when I was about seven years old. After WWII, housing was hard to get in Chicago. The lease on our apartment was up and the owner evicted us to make room for a relative returning from the war. We had trouble finding another apartment in our neighborhood, so in April I was taken out of school and my family rented a broken down cabin behind a grocery store in South Haven, Michigan, a resort community on the other side of Lake Michigan.

As in the story, I befriended a mentally impaired young man. What subsequently happened in the story is fiction.

I like being with my wife and our friends. I like taking long walks—in the ten to twelve mile range. Check out my website — roberthsachs.com — to see how I spend the rest of my time.

When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson Brown. It’s a story about an African-American girl growing up in a small town in Georgia. Although it’s fiction, it speaks accurately and emotionally to the difficulties—and despite all, the joys—of growing up Black in America, back then as well as now.

…allow myself to spend more than five hours on the computer.

I’m a lawyer who retired from corporate life 23 years ago. I’ve devoted much of my time since then to community service and to what is now called life-long learning. I began taking classes at the University of Louisville. When a creative writing course opened up, I took it. And then another. And another. In 2004,

I entered the Metroversity writing competition and took first place in the graduate fiction category. I entered again and again I ended up in first place. I enrolled in the Spalding University MFA program in fiction, graduating at the ripe old age of 70 in 2009.

My mother flew in to attend the graduation ceremony. She said she’d attended all of my graduations since kindergarten and this was the last one she wanted to attend. I made no promises. I’ve published 45 short stories. I’ve been nominated for a Pushcart prize.

Did I mention my website? To learn more about me than you’ve ever wanted to know, click on About and then click on Bob’s Other Worlds.