Nineteen eighty nine was a year of hope and great enthusiasm; I was approached by a young man who said, “You should make a board game!” So, one year later, I had a completed a finished prototype of the Master Realm, a game of knights in armor fighting evil skeletons and the winner gets a treasure in the castle they have to reach on the board game in order to win. So after I completed this prototype I then traveled on a bus in the middle of a bus strike, and had people I didn’t know sitting on my lap, and I was standing or laying in the aisles to get 3,000 miles and three days of great joy to show my design to a top manufacturer and spent a bundle to go to “SIN CITY,” Las Vegas! Thirty seconds after the presentation all I got was, “no thanks no interest,” and then, two years later the product is on the shelves and selling like crazy. Not the “Masters Realm,” but “Blank-Masters” And I won’t give the exact name because I don’t want a hassle, but yes, they even took part of the name.
So, now depressed I am back home. I was walking downtown and saw a familiar face from my school days “Sandra Allen,” she lived around the corner from me on Burton Ave, crossing Maple Ave which is the street I lived on and grew up at. Get this, in Ripley, New York’s “Believe it or Not.” I saw Sandra go into our local restaurant, and the only one in town I should say. One traffic light for the whole town. (Big place, huh.) I approached her and said: How would you like to help me with a new invention? “!^ ! / !* !” She was like most people a bit hesitant, and then she said with a smile, “okay, let me take a look at what you have. Why don’t we meet tomorrow?” I suggested to meet at my parents house.
The next day she came to the house and I met her at the front door of an old Victorian style house, and yes, I was still in the nest at that time after leaving it years before and had to go back after losing a job. They acted like I was sixteen again. “You will be in the house before 11:00!” (Gee!) Okay got off track, I’m back, everyone called the house “the ginger bread house” because I had painted it few years before to look just like one it was yellow and brown and white, it was just like a story book. Sorry, got in the moment again, well—Sandra who I now call “Sand” asked me where I wanted to sit. So with drawings in hand she followed me to the back of the house to an old red “picnic table.”
