The Beard Makes the Man

Yesterday, Lisa had me pull out a few boxes of family photos stashed in the garage. She had promised to find childhood photos of our son Mark for our beloved DIL, Sara,

who recently blessed our branch of the McCaffrey Clan family tree with our lovely and newest girl gran Delilah.

Lisa fished out a couple of photos of me. The top was from around the time we first started dating.

This next one was from shortly after we were married, when she sent me back to Lehman college so I could become the writer she knew was lurking inside me.

and for a while there, it looked like I had a shot right out of the gate. I wrote a play and won an award ($100.00 was a lot of money back then),

Sibling Secrets – The Wise Novelist

But then Lisa got pregnant with Luke,

who, as one of life’s ironies, wrote a novel before I did.

That was before he published these two other novels.

https://www.instagram.com/luke.mccaffrey.author

Please check out his novels.

Amazon.com: Luke Mccaffrey: books, biography, latest update

He remains a talented fucker.

And life got in the way. I had to become responsible and make a living to support my family. Law School became the most viable option.

And we settled into becoming a respectable couple. That’s me and Lee shortly after I started working for Cahill Gordon and Reindel – Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP

(Yeah, I often wonder how I landed her as well).

That is about as respectable as I ever looked. I went beardless for the next four decades.

Side note, that is about the time I first met Pete Sheridan, my lawyer-friend-officemate-religious resource, who many years later became one of the central characters in Where The Ley Lines Meet, along with another CG&R lawyer-friend, John Bricker, who became a brilliant scientist in that same novel.

Pete had made an earlier cameo as a US Attorney in The Wise Ass, long before we had reconnected forty years later. Bricker makes another appearance as a lawyer in the soon to be published Free R.A.D.I.C.A.L.

But I still had the writing itch, which I again scratched when a NYC theatre producer/director, Pat Francis (glasses, far right), decided to stage my play Revelations at The Village Gate in Manhattan.

And again, for a couple of weeks run at the American Theatre of Actors on the upper west side.

This is also around the same time as the Reverend John White of the NYS Lilydale Community, predicted I would not find success as a writer until I found my mystical spiritual voice.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16MZgRnoDUT/

But for most of those four decades as a lawyer, I tried to put the creative Tommy on the shelf and conform to the lawyer archetype. The talent was there but the passion was not.

Except that brief period when I used to ride a motorcycle to work at Gold Farrell & Marks.

It wasn’t until 2017, when I finally left New York, and ultimately my legal practice, behind me, grew my beard back, and met Claire the Mule,

and with Lisa’s support, and Claire’s inspiration, began writing again.

and I haven’t looked back.

So, what conclusions can I draw from this trip down memory lane?

The beard makes the man, and the man makes the writer.

Just ask Hem –

Well, that was fun.

What’s even more fun, my fine, five readers, is that today is another magical Friday.

You know the drill. In one door at work, drop off whatever project you are responsible for completing this week and then slip out another door for a weekend long coffee break.

And no matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.