The book is fiction. The book has four characters. Benjamin, Roni (Veronica), Gale, and Ben. The story involves conventional and unconventional life situations. It is a story of childhood happiness, adult happiness, adult hopelessness, and adult tragedy. The journey is worth the read.
ISBN978-1-00620646-7
The book is fiction. The book has four characters. Benjamin, Roni (Veronica), Gale, and Ben. The story involves conventional and unconventional life situations. It is a story of childhood happiness, adult happiness, adult hopelessness, and adult tragedy. The journey is worth the read.
ISBN978-1-00620646-7
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Being six and the last summer before Roni and I (Benjamin) started school, I was ready for some young child's fun in the sun. Golly, I loved the summer. It is 1956, and living on a dairy having 100 milk cows and 200 acres gives Roni and me plenty of room to roam and discover our small two-brain worlds. My dad is a research chemist for a chemical company, and Roni's dad is a pharmacist. Roni is my best friend. We made forts in the seany beans weeds in certain parts of the grazing pastures for the cows, but somehow the wasps seemed to find them, and the next day when we returned, we were at war with yellow jackets.
Sometimes it was bumblebees, and they were worse because their sting lasted longer.
I cannot count the number of times we got stung. Dirt clods and 'Puppy,' my border collie cow dog, were our weapons. We would eventually win because we would attack then retreat.
Still, we always came back because we made the fort. Puppy died about ten years later of foot root that she got when she cut her right front paw, and I did not notice. Before I could get her to the vet, she died of blood poisoning.
Losing her was like losing a brother. I had three brothers. The oldest was Danny, then Tony and Ted. Roni and I cried for days with me. The animals were always fun because milk cows are generally docile except when they have a calf. Dad consistently named all the cows, and my older brother, Danny, and I could remember all their names. One of the cows named was 'Messy Bessie' because she had cut her utter teat on a barbed-wire fence. That mangled teat in the back had a large opening which caused Mr. Thorten and Mr. Johnson to be careful when milking her.
After you washed her utter, she would immediately start squirting milk. Most of her milk would be lost from that utters teat if she did not have the pneumatic milker on her. The milk then traveled through sanitized stainless-steel piping and glass piping that was sterilized after each milking. It was fun watching the milk go through the glass, and it ended up in a stainless-steel vat that had a paddle in it to keep the milk circulating all the time. The vat was refrigerated. Roni and I were always in the pit where Mr. Thorten and Mr. Johnson were and getting in their way, but it was fun and exciting to be down there. Once, I got too close to one of the meaner cows being milked, and she knocked me out from a back leg front kick. I woke up in the house with mom worried frantically about me. She worried because she had had a half-brother die of 'lock-jaw' after being gored by a bull on my grandmothers' dairy. Roni was there also. Roni smiled when I opened my eyes.
It was raining now, so Roni and I played cards at her house. Mr. Mathews had immigrated to the U.S. in 1950. After all the paperwork had been finished, the family followed from India. They still had to do more stuff, but I did not know what they talked about, so I listened. Roni was born a month after me in July of 1950. This rain was a gully washer. We listened to the thunder and shook when the lightning flashed, and the loud noise shattered the silence. We did not care much be we had plans for when it quit. I spent the night at Roni's house after Roni had asked the parents if I could stay.
I called and asked if I could. We were rural neighbors, so we all had a party phone line, and I called my parents, and they said it was OK. The following day after eating breakfast, we walked and ran to the gully on my dad's cow pasture to catch crawfish. These things were funny-looking. They looked like insects but lived in the water and mud.
Sometimes we would catch a mother with a whole bunch of eggs beneath her tail. I had to ask my parents about this. I just did not understand these crawfish. They had pinchers, too, just like scorpions, but they did not have stingers. The rain brought out all kinds of living things like what is mentioned in the bible. The ones that bothered Roni were snakes, but spiders bothered me more. I was taller and always seemed to get their webs caught in the hair on my head with those ugly banana spiders crawling around on my head. The snakes were flushed out of their homes because of the rain were copperheads, coral snakes, and cottonmouth water moccasins.
We had rattlesnakes too, but they only showed up around when it got really dry, or we went further inland to desert areas.
This was the last summer we were free to do whatever we wanted until school started. I had to go to vacation bible school. I never could figure out why they called it a 'vacation.' It was studying what was in the bible. I did not read yet…well, not very good. I did not understand what the stories were about other than the word Jesus. Jesus' name was used many times. My mother took my brothers and me to a neighboring town because that was the only Lutheran church in our area. The parents of Roni would not allow Roni to come because they believed in a different religion. This was all very confusing to both of us. We just did not understand. I shared some of what I learned with Roni, but this caused problems with the parents, so I stopped.
Roni and Me, written by q. Brian L Nolen is an example of how a good story can go to waste in the absence of proper editing and correct grammar. It took me really long to complete this rather small book due to the poor editing and grammar.
The story revolves around two friends Veronica (Roni) and Benjamin. They are together since childhood and are best friends. There are some hints about the skin color of Roni which means that she has Asian lineage since she is picked up and bullied for being different than other kids. The casual way in which the author brought up this issue seemed callous. Ben and Roni grow up, with Ben developing feelings for Roni which she does not reciprocate.
The unrequited love takes a toll on Ben and sinks deep into alcohol. Being a chemical engineer Ben lands a job in the Air force but he suffers there also due to his alcohol addiction. In the meanwhile, Roni keeps making entries and exits in his life. In one such entry, she reveals that she has a son through him which she conceived taking advantage of his drunken state. This put me off the book for a while and was highly unbelievable. What ensues is a high-level drama with Roni coming out and telling that she is a lesbian married to another woman. Rest makes up for a good plot destroyed by poor writing skills accompanied by a lack of editing.
The author himself seems confused as many a time he takes names both Veronica and Roni together as if they were two persons. This confusion is jarring for the reader and creates several halts in the story. I would recommend that the author re-write the story with proper edits and grammar as well as ensure there is no character mixup.
The plot is good and can develop into a full-fledge novel given it is written with more attention and a good editor a=by the side. I would like to thank Reedsy and the author for giving me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.