Now you're going to know part of who I am. It is impossible to cover the description of a person in 400 words, so I will try to make these 400 words as pleasant as possible. I started out by putting up a picture, but then took it down because it didn't say anything. As you all know I have been thinking of writing my autobiography now for nearly ten years, maybe even more. Hey, 10 is a nice round number, so let's go with that. Now here's the goofy part. I am still debating with myself about how to keep track of the stuff that describes me. Here's what I mean. Every project that someone undertakes has a beginning, a middle and an end. Usually, they come in an order that is readily captured by the people who avail themselves of the end product. Usually written product, like this article, have a plan that they follow. Remember, I said usually. Because I know that, and because I insist that my autobiography should be understood by the readers, it has to have a plan. That truth I have been carrying around with me since I turned 9. The nuns told me how to write stories. I followed their advice and found that it works. At least it worked for all the time that I was doing school assignments.
Then I left school. I didn't stop learning, I just stopped getting harassed about grades and discipline and little things like that. Well, the grades I can do without. The discipline though is what is getting to me. I know what I don't want to do. Now, all I have to do is to decide what it is that I want to do. I know for sure that I want the first page of the book to be in the back. Why? Because I would then be the first person to respect those people who like to read books starting from the right. Besides, that;'s how I start reading any book or magazine. So that is I, with a capital "I" and I want to celebrate that idiosyncrasy of mine. But that's not all. I know that I don't want to divide the book into a regular, straight line of events like most history books. Boooorrrring! For a few years I thought I had the answer to my perverted desire to arrange the book in a non-traditional way. I was decided that I was going to write it according to the four seasons. I decided that I would start with Winter. Go ahead, ask me, "Why Winter?" I was born in Winter, that's why.
I was so sure that I had the answer. Then, one fine day, it struck me that I had more than four seasons swirling around in my head. I had the heavy duty celebratory seasons that were full of stories that bore telling. They also demanded that they be distinct from the "astrological" reality during which they fell. You all know by now that for me Summer and Baseball season are not synonymous. Rats! Now pay attention to this. I have been carrying this dilemma around with me for several years now. I have to tell you that even though I should be embarrassed to say that, I'm not. Heck no. I'm coping pretty well. Not super happy that my creative alter ego is dragging his fanny about solving this problem, but hey, we still get along. Every now and them he throws me a bone. A small chicken bone, but hey, it's better than nothing. I confess that I have not yet had the final mental turbulence that I would like to have so that things would get clear, but I am getting somewhat optimistic that I am getting there. The free flowing, stream of consciousness exercise of the "365 Thoughts Emanating from Paul Dion, STL" is helping. I like it because it doesn't have the rigid railroad track discipline that chapters and verses have. That's OK for the Bible, but what was good for my namesake doesn't turn me on. Not in this field, anyway. [Gotta be careful here.] So now, after a few months of this exercise, I'm thinking that a clustering of related themes would be a good way to go. That way I could spend a couple more years deciding what should be clustered with whatever else. I figure that if I give it two years, I could almost get half-way through. then my sons could look at it and be convinced that what their mother always maintained is perfectly true: "He started a lot of things but never finished anything." So there ya go, "Manifest Destiny" is what it is. It won't be on paper, but it will exist. It won't be distilled, but it will take up space, electronic or otherwise.
Every now and then I read some of the stuff that I have written. There's a lot, believe me. Some of it is pretty neat. All I can hope for is that my progeny will realize that this is the record of my hegemony. If they live long enough, they'll get to know who their old man really was. There's nothing there to make any of you cry at my funeral. For 50 years now that has been the title of my autobiography. That, I tell you straight up, will never change.
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