Substack Assessment Week 1.

Don’t worry, I won’t be doing this every week.

THANK YOU for subscribing to

RECOLLECTIONS, REFLECTIONS, FANTASIES, FICTIONS: SCENES OF A LIFE I THINK WAS MINE

It’s only been a little over a week, but Substack tells me that 100 have subscribed already. I still have much to learn about how to make it entertaining, enjoyable, informative and effective, but if you hadn’t joined the effort, none of it would be possible or even matter. So, THANK YOU!

You are coming at this from different aspects of my world.

Some of you know me through HETAG: Houston Earlier Texas Art Group – as that old man who won’t stop talking about Emma Richardson Cherry and Gene Charlton – the one you’ve learned to run from when you see him coming. (Yes, I’ve seen you – at least the backs of you – and for some, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time you’ve run in years, so You’re Welcome, for helping you get some exercise!)

For some, I’m that Facebook addict who really seems to think anyone cares what he cooks and eats, and where he travels.

Or the compulsive needlepointer who’s never managed an original design, and shows you each project almost stitch by stitch.

Or that guy who seems to see GAY everywhere.

Or somebody you met on a trip somewhere, maybe you can’t even remember where, and who you now can’t seem to shake. Or maybe you just moved in next door and had no idea what you were getting into when you waved Hi that day.

But however you got here, I’m grateful, and I hope you’re happy you did. You may already have figured out that there won’t be a single focus for what I post. I plan to post – already have posted – different kinds of pieces on a range of topics. I hope you’ll find at least some of them appealing, even though some of them may not be to your taste at all.

I thought about setting up different silos for different topics – apparently you can do that with Substack – but I decided not to. I’m tired of compartmentalizing life. My memory isn’t sharp enough to keep it all in line anymore anyway. So here it is, all together.

Several of you have told me that you responded to the recent post on Myrtle, and the one on Forrest Bess – so I may be posting more than I’d originally anticipated about Houston art history. Sorry for those with no interest (yet) in that topic, but you may find your interest growing.

Some may not be thrilled by all the gay-themed St. Louis in the 1970s pieces – the ones “he’s embarrassing himself by posting.” But I’m old. We old people are supposed to embarrass ourselves, aren’t we? It gives young people something to shake their heads about.  Though all these pieces are in the first person, some are fact, and some, fiction. I won’t spoil the suspense by saying which. You’ll know which pieces they are – the artsy-fartsy ones (some might say, airy-fairy) – and you can just skip them if you’d rather.

And then there are all my witty(?), perceptive(?), wisdom-of-age(?) pieces, and the poignant lost-people-and-times pieces, and the hard-hitting memoir pieces, which some of you were so kind in encouraging me about with your likes and comments when I began posting them on Facebook back last winter. They’re all here now, in case you missed them the first time. And there will be more. The scope of my wisdom amazes even me!

And those Facebook comments bring me to another point (though probably not a final one, knowing how I do go on). How gratifying it was that you read the pieces and expressed your support by liking and commenting. You gave me more direct feedback with your responses than I’d experienced from all the things I’d written and published in 50 years of writing and sometimes publishing, before. It was GREAT! I hope that interactive aspect can continue on Substack, through comments, and direct emails, and Chat (once I figure out how to get it going). It may not be quite as easy as on FB, but it’s just as important to me – and I hope, to you. We’re in this together for the time we’re in it at all.

So already we’re a community of 100 – and we’re just at the beginning. Thank you for subscribing and for reading the posts. Let me know the ones you like, and the ones you don’t (gently, please). And we’ll both have some fun! And if you’d like, even invite your friends to join us by sharing this post. The more the merrier, as they say.

Best, Randy