Who Am I?
My Search For the Answers
by
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When things get difficult, one of the tricks is to return to a place where you were happy and things made sense. Today I was in a place like that. I visited my old high school band teacher. Things are almost as confusing now as they were in high school. Confusion never goes away, it just changes. In high school the confusion stemmed from puberty and how the hell to pay for college. Now it stems around finding a job, keeping a roof over my head and where my next meal is coming from.
Being back in that band room and having a chance to remember the good things that happened, it helped me remember something important. Those years were hard. Some days I thought I would never survive high school. How did I do that? I showed up and kept putting one foot in front of the other. If you do that, you will get somewhere and you will learn.
What did I learn from three hours a day and four years in that room? I learned many things. The most important being a work ethic. You must do things until you have them right. In music as in life, you seldom get things right the first time. I remember then, just as I saw today, doing a measure or phrase of music many times before the group got it right. Seldom does a person hear that perfect music. But, that’s what life’s all about, the search for that sound, your sound. The sound that does not ring in our ears all the time, but the sound we must learn to recognize, capture and use when it is heard.
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About the Book
I though it important to tell the readers of this book how it came to be. It is called Who Am I? It was written at a very difficult time. At a time when I had no job, very little money and lived at my parent’s home because mine was in foreclosure.
The book began this way because while I was losing so many things I realized I was gaining something too. I started to have a lot of free time. I filled some of the time with mind numbing activities; TV, video games, and the internet.
Then, I said to myself, “what you are doing is killing time, but it’s not constructive. How can I use this free time to make forward progress in this messy, confusing life?” What I came up with was WRITE! So, I did, and the result are the pages you are about to read. The title is the question I chose to ponder. WHO AM I? That is a big question. It will take more than these pages of short stories and poems here to answer but this is a good start for me.
Writing is a risk, because you expose and open yourself up for people to see. People comment on what you write; they love it, hate it, they don’t understand, or they understand it completely. It hits both ends of the spectrum. But, by letting people read what you write, you gain insight and knowledge, and hopefully they do also. Knowledge and insight equals forward progress, and forward progress equals positive change which is good for everyone.
About the Author
Mr. Hines was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 23, 1976. He spent his early and teen years in nearby Ypsilanti, Michigan. After graduating from Ypsilanti High School in 1995, he returned to Ann Arbor where he attended college. He received an Associate’s degree from Washtenaw Community College in 1997, then a Bachelor’s degree in Social Studies from Concordia University Ann Arbor in 2000.
After college, Mr. Hines worked as an administrative assistant for the Ann Arbor Police Department from 2000-2007. After leaving his career in law enforcement, he worked for St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan from 2007-2009.
Mr. Hines’ greatest influences have been; his parents Tom and Sandy, his younger brother Sam, his sister in law Jen, his niece Delaney, his nephew Sullivan, his cousin Nicholas and his high school band teacher David Leach. His literary influences are; Tim Obrien, Barbara Kingsolver, S.E. Hinton and Ernest Hemingway. Musically he enjoys; James Taylor, John Mayer, Eddie Vedder and Aaron “cash” Clay. His influences in cinema consist of; Robert DiNero, Al Pacino, Robert Redford and writer/director Kevin Smith of New Jersey.
He currently lives with his family in the community of Brooklyn, Michigan where he enjoys movies, music, hunting, fishing, and playing with Chocolate Labrador retriever Boomer. Who Am I is Mr. Hines’ first published work.