The Girl and the Cat

About the Book

This little Collection of Poems and Songs represents 50 years of the writer's work and "reflective style of living" from age 15 to 65, all but one previously unpublished. The partial product of a small-town childhood and a Midwest education during the post-war 40's, the politically apathetic but musically revolutionary Rock-n-Roll 50's, and the Socially Revolutionary 60's, with influences as diverse as Mother Goose, Ayn Rand, Buddy Holly, Robert Heinlein, A.A. Milne, Woody Guthrie, Robert Frost, Thoreau, Poe, Bob Dylan, Lewis Carroll, and Walt Kelly's "POGO", among others, known or not,  this work covers a wide range of styles from "doggerel" to blank verse to lullabies, and a range of subjects and ideas from observations of nature and people to love-poems, homages, satirical parodies, and meditations on life and death and beyond. Herein you may find silliness and satire, grief and grievances, political commentary, or retrospectives of crossed paths with girls, animals, lakes and mountains, presidents, children, friends and strangers, even ants--not all of them, perhaps, what they first seem to appear, but all special and memorable enough to stand out, or as they do here, stand alone.

By the author's own admission, "Certainly there have been ideas, moments, even people missed or forgotten along the way and no doubt much remains to be noted and commented on, but the places I go and the people I 'meet' just continue to 'sing' to me. Many "grab" me immediately, while some "sneak up on me" and surprise me later."

Will Rogers was famous for saying, "I never met a man I didn't like!" For Paul, the "operative word" there is "MET": that is: "Discovered"--or came to know and understand--or "saw through" to the "Song" within. "That", he says, "Is how people "sing" to Me--every time I stop to listen--and to Care--as if each were truly unique and each one genuinely mattered!." Meanwhile, "the beat goes on" and the Music never stops.

And so, He says, " I'll just keep listening and learning, and sharing --- and trying to "keep in tune" --- perhaps the best is yet to come! ---- One can Always Hope ! "

About the Author

     Paul L. Shriver was born in Mattoon, Illinois, January, 1941.  His Mother once told him, "You were born and then WWII started!" She also once said, "When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Lion Tamer -- and I finally got my wish !" Mattoon was listed in a college Sociology book as : "The most gossipy little town in the Midwest!" Dad was an office worker and later a company president in the Trucking Industry which finally killed him:---but Mattoon was a Railroad town, the Intersection of the NYCentral and Illinois Central, the tracks of which ran through the backyard of their second home. Grandad's little retirement farm and the town pool, park and bandstand were places for the "extended family" (rapidly vanishing even then) to gather. You walked to grade school and chased ice wagons.

     After moving to a Lake setting south of Springfield Illinois at age 12 Paul finished grade school in a 2-room building and Jr High and High Schools when schools were first "consolidating". He played in the band, on the basketball teams, and began the Yearbook work which would lead him to Edit his Bradley University yearbook, the "ANAGA" (place on the hilltop) his senior year in 1963. He wrote his first poem in High School at age 15 and has never stopped for the last 50 years, and only had one previously published: "THE LOAFER". His Master's and Doctor's Degrees--from Bradley and Indiana University--were in Clinical and Counseling Psychology, the Profession he has pursued since 1964. He was Principle Psychologist of the Indiana Women's Prison from 1977--2003 and currently has a part-time "retirement" practice in Bloomington, IN.When not writing or counseling he likes to spend time playing and singing music--mostly traditional and folk, including his own, and in learning to play new instruments and in clogging and square dancing.

     He enjoys fishing, astronomy, photography, ice skating, flying, and wood carving and so far has not began to run out of Hobbies. If you enjoy this book as much as he enjoyed writing it, he may write another if he can find the time.