I'm Still a Young Man

This novel reflects Tom Burrough’s travels through the real world of adversities in search of love and the meaning of life. The story progresses from depicting Tom’s early childhood years during the late 1950’s and the early 1960’s in the small rural town of Medley, West Virginia to his adult years in metropolitan, Washington, D.C.

Sometimes you find it and sometimes you never do. It could make you laugh and it could make cry. It could give you birth or it could cause you to die...

Whatever it was, as a young man, Tom Burrough was in search of it. He found out that it would permeate his entire life. He searched for it at home with his Mother; at school with his teachers and friends; on the football field with his teammates; at Bible school during the summer; at the local movie house with his childhood sweetheart, Pamela; in college when he met Sarah; on the police force with his fellow officers; with his best friend, J.C.; and with other acquaintances that he would meet in his life (Terry, Beverly, Fran, Cris, et al).

This book may be viewed as an unraveling of Tom’s life which can be compared to that of many adventurous and confused young men. It unfolds to reveal the changes, problems and successes accompanied by any young man developing from a `country boy’ to a big `city fellow.

By reading this book, one learns that success in life is often so close, but yet so far. As Tom found, failure is something that is ever present and compound by such things as losing a close friend, impregnating a young girl out of wedlock, flunking out of college, having to leave a cherished job on the police force after being shot, and falling in and out of `true love’. Tom finds that after all the heart aches, he is still a young man.

“Hey Tom, you take good care of Pamela wile I’m gone.” I replied, “you want me to take care of Pamela?” He then said; “take her out now and then, but none of that funny stuff because I really love her.” Duane was a good friend of mine; he had just graduated that year. He was a good athlete and was the captain of both the football and baseball teams. He weighed about. 210 pounds; he was a hard running halfback and had batted about 400 his last year. Duane had offers to several big universities but didn’t take them because he felt he couldn’t make it academically.

So he decided to go into the army for four years. As a result of recruits that had been coming around the school, he signed up for the military during the spring of his senior year in school. The army was his choice.

The night before he left to go into the service, his mother gave him a big party. She invited a lot of his friends. Everybody was dancing, talking, lying, and shooting the crap to each other. Duane came by me while I was standing and talking to a girl named Sharon and he hollered, “I’m kool as I want to be, ain’t I? Don’t tell me I ain’t kool!” I said yeah Duane, you’re kool, you’re as kool as a cucumber.” Later on that night I danced with Pamela. We danced from the record You Better Go Now, by Derrick Martin. She was holding me tight and saying “Tom, you are supposed to look after me and take care of me while Duane is away.” I responded to her and said that I will do the best I can. Duane asked me that night if Pamela and I didn’t want to take him to the train station the next morning because he had to report to Houston for boot camp. So the next morning, I got up early. I had been used to waking up early because where I lived; we had to take the bus to school early each morning. The phone rang about eight o’clock; any mother answered it and handed it to me. When I answered it, the voice on the other end was loud and strong; I knew then who it was. “You ready boy, he said?” “As soon as I finish dressing, I’ll be there.” When I got to Duane’s house, he was dressed in a three piece pink suit with a black necktie. He said “now ain’t I pretty, now lookey, lookey:” I told him he looked like a movie star. He always did think he was handsome; he would stare into the mirror at himself constantly and do a little dance step say, “now ain’t I pretty:” And if you didn’t agree with him he would turn around and punch you. I would always tell him that he wasn’t pretty, but handsome. Then he could look back into the mirror and say out loud, “You know, I believe you’re right.” He wasn’t really that good looking. He had a big head, he had red lips, big pop eyes, he had kinky hair that he used to comb out every five minutes and he had big feet. He was a big man but he did have pretty white teeth and he would let everybody know it by his smile. He would push his lips far back, open his gums way up and keep his mouth shut and while exposing his gums he’d keep his teeth shut tight forcing the laugh from deep within himself.