Chapter One

Do you remember when I mentioned the power of my grandfather's extraordinary chair? The following indelible memory, concerning its influence on my life, grips me to this day. Everything began in late fall, on what I expected to be just another predictable Sunday. Other than dreary and gusty weather, nothing special about the beginning of the day alerted me how that afternoon will turn out to be anything but predictable.

I recall my mother tacking a huge Thanksgiving poster over the entire front door. The thick paper obscured the usual hallway light, streaming into the entrance foyer, from the triangular window in the center of this wooden door. As I left that morning, I held the railing on the steep porch steps extra-tight—fearing the danger of going down them backwards.

I didn't want to waste a single second taking my eyes off the pockets of wind, puffing out the flamboyant turkey in the colorful poster. The proud strutting bird appeared cheerful and very naive about trading its home at the entrance, for Mom's huge cornucopia themed platter in the kitchen, three short days later.

As usual, for this season of the year, piles of slimy, golden-colored leaves blew around in swirls—right before landing in heaps to suffocate the ground. I still feel myself slipping on them. My knees throbbed from the scrapes. I remember pulling a bunch of the wet and spiky things out of my boots. This happened to me lots of times before. I never could resist the ultimate challenge of skating on them.

Sunday school offered the same old routine, except our