Once More From the Beginning

About the Book

We are a great chain! Each of us is forged into shape by the things we do in life. Yet, we remain, connected to the previous link. We arrive, as a spot of hot molten metal, pliable and ready to be crafted, as if by the blacksmiths of old. Following the time of childhood we gain mastery over our life working so feverishly to form it and shape it, an exciting new link! Albeit, we are inextricably tied to the previous link who has by now, become solid and hard with age. As time passes, each of us will issue new links, our children. Later, we too, will, in time, become hardened and set in our ways as we slowly slip into the pages of history with our ancestors. Interestingly, this is a chain that cannot be broken; but it will be tried, twisted and stretched during our times of trouble. A link can be weak or strong. We will manifest both our strengths and our weakness to all who follow us. Our responsibility is to bring something good to the chain and not to shame, defile or weaken it!

About the Author

Don Brooks…has for most of his life, considered himself inferior to most of the rest of his community and the world. He viewed himself with distain, shame and guilt. In the late years of his time, he came to discover he had special gifts that he had failed to see or develop. Like many, he was blinded by the limitations that his ancestry placed upon him. As all who have twists and turns in life, he was stretched, bent and broken along the way, continually re- shaped. As a rebel, maverick and loner, he realized almost too late, how he had resisted conforming to “fit in”. He insisted on doing it “his own way”. He did just that; “he found his own success”, albeit late, - but in his own way!” His story starts with the family’s roots in 1710, in New Jersey. The clan arrives in Indiana in the late 1850’s, surviving two generations of alcoholism and debilitating confusion. Now he looks back to see how it all “measures up”.