Second Chance Book Jacket

Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Charles Dickens,
Great Expectations

December 1968
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We look back over our lives, regardless of our age, and zero in on an incident that, for better or for worse, changed our lives dramatically. We realize that without this event we would be in a different situation or perhaps another place.

Tony Conigliaro of the Boston Red Sox, destined for greatness, hit 24 home runs his rookie year. His career was halted when an inside fastball shattered his cheekbone, dislocated his jaw, and damaged his retina. He fought back and hit 36 HR in 1970, but his career faltered. Tony C.'s physical health slipped in the 1980's and he died of a heart attack in 1990. Would that I could go back and prevent him from going to Fenway Park that night.

Tony Conigliaro

In Second Chance, Greg Provost never recovers emotionally after smashing his skull into the Paul Revere High School gym backboard in Reedsville, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1968.

High school heroes sometimes have difficulty adjusting to the real world. Even professional athletes wonder where the attention went once the talent has diminished. The Detroit Tigers and Denny McClain are indirectly, important elements to Ben Thatcher in Second Chance. McClain found life after baseball was painful.

Denny McClain
Won 31 games in 1968 for the Tigers

George Reeves was type cast as Superman and when the TV series ended, he waited around the set, playing cards and hoping for the glory days. In 1959, they said he killed himself.

George Reeves as Clark Kent

Richard Nixon lost the 1960 election, the 1962 governor's race in California and then bounced back to be elected the 37th president in November, 1968. Less than six years later he was booted out of office after a landslide victory. Cut adrift, Nixon again rose from the ashes again: this time as an elder statesman. Knowledge of the Nixon victory in 1968 is valuable to the crafty Ben in Second Chance.

Richard Milhous Nixon
37th President of the United States

How people respond to adversity and tragedy is probably of greater importance than total victory. After writing Second Chance I saw Greg as a pathetic character at in the opening restaurant scene. I was torn. One part of me wanted him to get over his accident, but I also wanted the guy to have his dream. Thus, the book ...

Ever look at funny at someone and invoke their wrath? Marco St. Germaine is a combination of many people, living and dead, I have known. Marco was born with an attitude. He wants trouble to come his way. (and it usually does)

Marco's association with Greg and the devotion and love shown by Caroline, convinces us Greg needs a second chance. People make a difference in each other's lives even when pitted against tragedies.

Pennsylvania Turnpike

I traveled the Penn Pike with my family when I was a boy. Where is Reedsville? I see it vividly in my mind, trapped in rural Pennsylvania, between the winding river and the forested hills. Binghampton's department store layout replicates a store where I once worked. Canterbury Street is a city street near my grandmother's apartment. And I did drive a 1965 red Chevy super sport with four on the floor and mags wheels.

The Reedsville High school is similar to a computer's exaggerated image of my own junior high school. The park is real.

The park near the river
Reedsville, PA

But the hills, streets, Mickey Muldoon's Bar, and the river are part of that imaginary writer's world. Characters may have been a body shell of people I have known, combined with traits and situations of other individuals. For Greg, Caroline, however, made a difference

Second Chance Book Jacket

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