I was attending my local writing seminar and was shocked. As the group read their submissions almost all of the writers, who chose to share something, were writing their memoirs. I never thought of that. Sure, we have all had some interesting experiences, but none of us have ever been president or eaten five-hundred chicken wings in a single sitting or anything important like that. One lady stood up and said she was doing it for her great grandchildren, so they could know how China, and Cuba used to be. I thought she might be a little crazy. But then I began to wonder what the world could learn from Mr. Ohh!’s past. I know my observations have astounded many of you, so I’m sure you are all more than eager to hear about my past. But where to begin?

I suppose the best place to start is with this. I’m aware many of you read biographies for the dirty laundry. Well you won’t get any of that here. I took a shower, shaved, combed my hair, and even changed my underwear before I started writing so I am only wearing clean laundry. I think that’s a lot better, don’t you? I mean if I were wearing dirty laundry, I would be sweaty and stinky and I’d probably have that horrible little itch right around my…   Never mind. Anyway, it wouldn’t be very nice even though you couldn’t smell me, because technology hasn’t achieved the ability to send odors through the written page as yet.

This brings up an interesting point. I’m allergic to many perfumes and I wonder if I could continue to read the Bronte sisters if their strong perfumes came through the page. Then there’s Hemmingway. He drank a lot. Would you smell the alcohol on his breath and call the temperance league? Another biggie is Jack Kerouac. I’m given to believe he smoked a whole bunch of weed. Think about it, all of a sudden, teenagers around the country would look forward to their summer reading lists. “Be cooool maaa. I’m reading On The Road again. It’s really great. Like wow man. By the way do we have any more of those Doritos.” But I think I’ve gotten away from the point.

 So, to recap only clean laundry in this post. Now there is a bit of sad news. Many of you are going to be looking for the stories of my slide into addiction, the subsequent loss of everything, and my final recovery. So many celebrity books are like that. Well I’m not going to say too much about that except to proclaim that I’m not the only person who’s read the Harry Potter series two-hundred-thirty-seven times. Oh, and I must say thank you for whoever thought up Goat Yoga. I mean you just have to see one of those silly videos on YouTube and you forget all about Hogwarts. I’m proud to say I’ve been Potter-Free for almost a year now. However, on a sadder note I might have something else now.

Well that’s all out of the way, and now we can start this thing. First, I should mention my uncle Ralph. Okay he’s mentioned. Next on the list is my mother. Always the quiet lady she wouldn’t even use the exclamation point after her name. Just simply Mrs. Ohh. She was a woman of meticulous habits and schedules. As the mother of six she was constantly busy. My most prominent memory of her is that she ran around the house like Speedy Gonzales after he drank fourteen triple mochas. That woman could move. I remember trying out for the track team in high school one year. When she came to pick me up, she was in so much of a hurry, that she ran past the coach and all his assistants to beat the school’s best milers who had started three minutes before she got there. I didn’t make the team. The coach wouldn’t let me run if mom wouldn’t compete as well, and she had too many conflicts.

The only thing that could stop that woman was the TV set at eight pm. It was time for someone to die! No, not one of my siblings. Although there were quite a few of us. If one turned up missing, I’m sure she and dad knew how to replace them. What I’m talking about is Murder She Wrote, or Columbo, or whatever crime show was on that night. Yep, my mom was a huge fan of televised homicide, and consequently since we only had one TV in the house, we all had to be.

The thing is crime dramas weren’t the same as they are now. Nowadays, crime shows have a more dramatic format. A lady gets killed, and a police officer comes in to investigate, then a lawyer gets involved. About then we find out that the police chief has a drinking problem, the lawyer is sleeping with the district attorney, the district attorney’s wife is secretly an exotic dancer, and Lassie still hasn’t come home. Everybody’s life is totally messed up and you have to wait six weeks to find out the lady committed suicide by stabbing herself twenty-six times.

Now when mom watched crime shows, the format was more like this. A lady gets killed, and a police officer comes in to investigate, then a lawyer gets involved. The police are either totally baffled or absolutely sure and totally wrong about who did it. Then the star shows up. Now the star doesn’t have to be a police person, they could be a writer, a doctor, a private detective, or a kid with a newspaper route. Either way they think for a minute, then suddenly make the connection between the box of raisin cookies, the baseball bat, and the flimsy red negligée. They confront the killer who is then arrested and everyone is all smiles. The show is finished in only one hour, including time for three commercial breaks.

The amazing thing about the old way, is it has an odd influence on children. Now I am a world class under achiever but after day after day after day of seeing murders being solved, I have learned all the mistakes those thinking murderers have made. For example; Columbo once found a killer because he changed the radio station in the victim’s car, Dr. Sloan found the perpetrator because of how she threw out her gloves differently. But I have seen all these mistakes. If I was to murder someone, I would get it right. I almost can’t wait until I hate somebody enough, or learn of a few million dollars I could embezzle. I would know the details and never reset the lights and everything would be as the victim left it. And if there were any amateur murder solvers in town, I would wait until they were on vacation. The police would be baffled, because as we all have seen on TV and read in our books; the police don’t solve any of the city’s major crime waves. Batman does.