A Great Review of My Novel

From the US Review of Books-

Paddy Colman
by John Bruce Boyce
Trafford Publishing

reviewed by Mihir Shah

"It is not a natural thing for the people here, born here and destined to die here, to be governed by magistrates thousands of miles away."

Patrick "Paddy" Colman, a seaman in the English navy and writer at the Montevideo Star, first spots Tereza Ferrando in a Montevideo cathedral. Overwhelmed by her angelic beauty, a seemingly innocent relationship ensues, and later blossoms into love. Despite the tensions between England and colonial Montevideo, Paddy is immediately embraced by Tereza's friends and family.

Set at the onset of the 19th century, Boyce's novel fuses a complex love story with political tensions, revolution, and the desire for the Banda Oriental to be free of any and all rulers. While the star-crossed lovers enjoy their first parillada, a social gathering of music and dance, the English ship, Vigilance, orders all members to board immediately. Paddy's efforts to meet his mates in Maldonado are in vain; he is marooned—left behind. Though he risks being labeled a deserter by his mother country, Paddy marries Tereza and fathers two children: Katy and Luisito.

A storm is on the horizon, however, as Paddy's peaceful life is interrupted by revolution against tyrannical leaders. Tereza's brother, Luis, and Juan Lavalleja, the boyfriend of Tereza's best friend Ana are swept into the powerful words of Captain Jose Artigas and the waves of revolution. In reality, what sense is there in having your government be run by a country thousands of miles away—be it Spain, England, or Portugal? Interestingly, Artigas, Lavalleja, and the patriots face a critical dilemma: Even if they free themselves from Spanish domination, they will be oppressed by a new dictator—Buenos Aires.

Boyce's Paddy Colman is a unique, must-read testament to the perseverance of love in the harshest of adversities. This love, however, is not confined to man and woman; on the contrary, the love for one's motherland is portrayed with utmost romanticism, sincerity, passion, and heart.

Zollie Hill

Zollie today

I swear, I would have recognized her on the street

           Right around thanksgiving of 1962 I started dating Zollie Hill. Zollie was one of the first girls that really showed me what the kind of girl was that I should have been looking for. She was cute to be sure, but she was also wholesome and funny and fun to be with. 

          We went to a few school dances together and we went to a few Aardvark dances together. One of my favorite times with her was when we had a costume ball at Westbury High School. I went as a gangster and Zollie went as my moll. My outfit was pretty lame because it was made up of what ever I could find in the house. Fortunately I did have a dark shirt and a white tie AND A HAT, so I could have looked a lot worse.

          But Zollie looked super. Wherever she got that dress, it was perfect. It was white with tassels and fringe all over it and with the white feathered hat she wore she looked just like a flapper.

          If they had given away prizes that night I know we would have won first place - mostly thanks to Zollie.
 
          I really liked Zollie a lot, a whole lot, but that was my problem. At seventeen I was always afraid I would mess up with the girls I really liked, so I never got very amorous with them. I suppose that doesn’t say very much for the ones I really made out with, but that really is the way it was.

Silvia Margarita Geigley~

 

One afternoon while I was working as a soda jerk at K/G Drugs, Lester and Linda Acker came in with a new friend. When I first saw them at the end of the counter I was awestruck. Sitting beside Linda was just about the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was the Ackers' new neighbor and her family had just moved in from Arizona.

 I asked them what they wanted and I was surprised at how gracious the new girl was and how comfortable I was when we talked. Usually when I was introduced to someone of such beauty I would become a babbling fool. 

Before they all left I asked her to go out with me that Friday. That too was unusual. The only time I ever did anything like that at the drugstore before was when I asked a girl to go with me to a church social on Lake Houston some years before. But that girl did not affect me anything like this girl was affecting me now. She said her name was Silvia and it would be sometime before I realized that she did not spell her name the English way but rather the Spanish way. The reason was she was born in Argentina to Mennonite missionaries and had been given a Spanish name -- Silvia Margarita.

That Sunday Bruce Voorhies and I, as Mormon priests, sat at the sacrament table, Silvia walked in with the Ellises (Linda and Lester and their mom and stepfather). Right away Bruce nudged me and told me he was going to find out who this new girl was. It was an immediate cause for alarm. I told him not to worry, that I had already met her and we were already going out.

The next several months were wonderful. Silvia and her younger brother and sister lived with her mother and her new husband, Jim Lee. Jim was a strange fellow, tall and dark, and I believe her mother might have married him so that she might have a place and some security for her children. Her older sister Karin and her brother Hank, who was just below her in order, were with her father in Pennsylvania. Her younger brother and sister, Robbie and Donnie, lived with Silvia, her mother, and Jim. I did not ask and never found out what circumstances brought her mother and father the point of separation.

I took Silvia to a drive-in theater on our first date and a few times after that. I really can't say much more about those dates to the drive-in because I can't remember much of the particulars. What I do remember is a date I had with her where I took her to a baseball game. 

 It was a doubleheader at old Colt stadium between the Houston Colt 45’s in the Milwaukee Braves. The game started early, around 5:30, so they could both be finished before midnight. Silvia wore a light blue sleeveless dress and she looked delightful in it. I was very excited about the game and I thought she might be too since one of the pitchers for Milwaukee was Warren Spahn. Not only that, Hank Aaron would be playing.

The afternoon was miserable. The temperature was in the high 90s and the humidity was awful. Through all this Silvia never complained. When it cooled down and things became more bearable, I think we both enjoyed our time together. A baseball game is a great place to hold a conversation. I believe it was here where Silvia told me her family was taking lessons from the missionaries. I was overawed. Things seemed to be falling right into place.

Only a few weeks later the missionaries came by our house and told me that Silvia and her family were going to be baptized. They asked the family which of the two missionaries they would prefer to baptize them. Someone asked (I like to think it was Silvia) if priests were allowed to baptize and the missionaries said yes. She said she would like for me to baptize her. They checked with Bishop Hardy and got his approval they were at my house to ask me if I wanted to do that. Of course I said yes.

The baptism took place on a Saturday afternoon over in the Broadway meetinghouse. We all went with the Ellis's in their 1963 Ford convertible. The Lees went in their car except for Silvia who rode with us. It was a special night for me and it appeared that my life was unfolding now just as it should.

The next thing I remember was taking Silvia to the Spring Fling, Alpha Phi Omega's spring banquet that was equivalent to Founders Day in the fall semester. Except this time I needed to wear a tuxedo. I seem to remember that Silvia was little distressed because her family could not afford for her to go rent a formal dress but I told her not to worry. Only the guys would be wearing tuxedos. She could wear whatever dress she wore to church. Once again when the time came she looked beautiful and I hoped it might just be possible to stay with her for the rest of my life.

-----

Bruce was driving a Triumph TR-3 now, a gift from his mom and dad after his Henry J gave up the ghost. One Saturday when Silvia’s sister Karin had come to town we spent the afternoon touring the city in his car. His back seat was very small and cramped, hardly meant for kids, much less for Silvia and me. I liked it.

Bruce took us out to Rice and we toured the campus. It was beautiful and seemed much more serene than the University of Houston. We took some pictures that I cherished until they were "somehow" lost sometime during my first marriage.

Accompanying my call to a Mormon mission to Uruguay was a form letter from President James Barton and instructions from the Murdock travel agency in Salt Lake City on what I needed to do to prepare. It said that while the church would pay for the transit to and from my mission but it would not pay for the costs to come to Salt Lake City. So when school ended I took the time to get my passport and get the required shots that the instructions said I needed.

That very same day I went with Silvia and her family on a picnic but because of the shots I was very sick. Silvia and I went off alone and spent most of the afternoon under the shade of a tree talking. I was so sick I lay down with my head in her lap. As sick as I was, it was wonderful. I gave her a missionary journal and asked her to keep it for me. I would write about my exploits in letters to her and she could transcribe them. She said she would.

There was a purpose behind this. I did not want to get any “Dear John” from her so I thought if I kept her involved in what I was doing I might possibly avoid it. I already had plans about some of the things we could do when the summer began just before I left but Silvia said it would be impossible. She would be leaving to see her father in Gettysburg the day after school let out. I was sick already and that really upset me.

Then all of a sudden she was gone and I was empty. I continued to work toward my mission but the fire I should have had was not there. Mom said I should end my days in Houston dating and I really did not want to do that.

Remembering Kathy Ward~

When I was in high school I thought Kathy Ward was very pretty so I asked her out and she said she would go.

Saturday came and as luck would have it, I was having trouble with my car. I worked on it almost all day in frustration trying to get ready for my date. I thought I had it fixed, but the battery was so dead I had to push start it. 1950 was the last year Ford made cars with glass tail lights and that seemingly insignificant fact would have dire consequences for me.

I was pushing my car in the rain down Brookmeade Street, trying to get up enough speed for me to run to the driver's seat and pop the clutch. All of a sudden my hand slipped down the rear fender and I cut it on the taillight. I cut it deeply, all the way to the joint, but I was very lucky. While I laid the meat of the palm on my thumb wide open, I did not cut into the membrane covering my thumb joint. I cut my hand all the way from the tip of my thumb to the wrist. That was bad enough, but in the rain it looked worse. There was blood everywhere. I ran to the house and the front door was locked.

Mom didn't like it too much when we went in and out of the house too often, so to prevent this, she would simply lock us out. This time was even more important to her that we didn't come and go too often as she had some company. If we wanted in, we had to knock... and then we had better have a good reason for coming in (being too hot or too cold, or wanting a drink, was not considered a good reason.)

I knocked and got no answer. Usually when that happened, if it were not too important (like having to go to the bathroom) we would just give up and try again later. This time, however, I wasn't going to stop bleeding any time soon and I was agitated, so when I knocked again I banged on the door.

"What do you want?", Mom yelled when she came to the door. Then her eyes widened when she saw all the blood. 

"Don't come in," she shouted. "You'll get blood on the carpet."

So I waited a little longer, feeling a little less important than the new carpet (we got it as part of the insurance settlement when Hurricane Carla damaged the house. We also got a new roof and sheetrock too.) Mom came back with a towel and told me to wrap it around my hand.

I had been a Boy Scout for over five years and I thought I knew enough to know that just covering up a major gash on an appendage wasn't the thing to do. Hiding the wound with a towel wasn't going to make it go away or make it better. To my surprise, however, it did. I wrapped my hand tightly with the towel and we went to the emergency room.

All the time I was there I kept looking at my watch. I still didn't have my car running and this injury was wasting precious time. Mom finally asked me why I was so anxious about the time and I told her I needed to get ready for my date.

"You’re not going on a date with your hand like that!" Mom said. I told her I was and I wasn't going to let my hand bother me. She asked me how I could drive and I explained I never used my right hand for driving when I was dating anyway.

Finally we reached a compromise. Mom said I could go if she would drive us. At first I objected. I didn't want to be chauffeured like I was in junior high school, but Mom suggested that Kathy and I go to the Village. That way we could eat and take in a movie, and when we were done, Mom would come and get us. That sounded okay to me (as bad as all else seemed to be going). I sure didn't want to miss my date with Kathy, so I was willing to put up with this. I just hoped Kathy didn't think it was too weird.

We (Mom and I) picked Kathy up at twilight and Mom and Kathy both made my situation as pleasant as it could possibly be under the circumstances. Mom dropped us off and we had time to walk around and talk a little before the movie started. This was turning out well.

I can't remember what we saw, but after the movie we went to the One's-A-Meal just down University Blvd. All the buildings that housed those places are gone now as time marches on. I guess we had hamburgers but I all I remember is I was enjoying the company. Kathy looked great and was very pleasant to talk to. We sat and talked long after we finished eating but too soon it was getting time to get her home.

The problem was that there were four guys in the back booth by the telephone. I waited for a while, hoping they would leave, but the hour was getting desperately late and it was becoming obvious that these guys weren't leaving soon. So I had to make the call in the midst of them. It wasn't pleasant.

"Mom, you can come get us now," I said as softly as I could, but it wasn't soft enough.

"Mom, you can come get us now!” one of them mocked, and the rest broke out in exaggerated laughter. It was as bad as I imagined it might be - for a couple of seconds.

Then Kathy rose from the booth and came back to the phone, took me by the arm, and looked at me admiringly. I walked back to our booth feeling like a king! Yep, these guys could laugh all they wanted, but they were alone on a Saturday night and I had a class act at my side. I will always appreciate Kathy for what she did. She turned what could have been one of life's more embarrassing moments into one of my most memorable.