I was at the house for 2½ years. I ran out of money and started looking for a job again. I had run up my line of credit home equity loan, and was having to pay it back.

I got a temporary job with IBM, but one of my former managers saw me in the cafeteria and the contract was canceled. Looking into how that could have happened, I found out the conditions I left under.

I had just finished writing a book about working at IBM. I ended it with myself leaving under amicable terms, I thought.

When I found out what had happened I added a new section on the end telling what I had learned, and how that changed the way I saw the events of the book in the face of that new information.

MIGHTY BOOK.

To write a mighty book, you must choose a might theme.

I sent the manuscript to David Crowbar Nestle, Popular Reality, and asked him to publish it.

He said he would, if I wanted him to, but he'd rather publish FORTY. It seemed more typical of my work.

MIGHTY BOOK was more like a conventional novel. FORTY was open and free.

In fact, the reason I sent him FORTY was I had sheets of blurbs in there from people who had commented on Evil Genius and Open Book for me, and he had written a blurb for each of them.

I said FORTY was fine.

I talked to Brenda about what to do about finding out IBM was giving me a bad reference.

We decided to move to Panama City, where we wanted to live, and find the best jobs we could find in Panama City, rather than living in a place we no longer liked living, because that was where our jobs were.

Or her job was.

So I moved into the trailer behind Granny Brown and Uncle Wayne and found a job as a technical writer doing contract work for the Navy base.

Owen moved up and joined me at Christmas. Balder stayed in Delray Beach with Brenda.

Owen lived with Janice and Donny. He'd come visit me on the weekends and we would cook a steak and watch a movie together, in the trailer.

If him and Janice and Donny went to a bluegrass festival, I would go by myself, and see them there.

At the end of the school year, Owen went to stay with Potter and Suzette. He worked as a deckhand with Potter and Slim, on the New Florida Girl out of East Pass Marina, in Destin.

On the weekends he'd pick with Potter.

I remember him going to a Fiddler's Convention in Atmore, Alabama, with Potter backing him up, on guitar. They played "Back Up and Push" and "Texas Crapshooter."

I think Owen finished third.

I remember the knuckles on his chording hand were swollen up with infected fish-spine wounds.

Balder came up in the summer and stayed with me. In the fall, he entered the 7th grade and rented a trumpet to play in the Rosenwald Middle School band. By now, he played the mandolin fairly well.

Brenda stayed in Delray Beach to sell the house. When the house sold, she moved to Panama City and we bought a house on Martin Lake.

She took a job as a technical writer.

It was a temporary job, and paid $28,000 a year. She'd been making $43,000 a year in Delray Beach.

We were reunited as a family in a lovely home. Our home had 119 live oak, pine, magnolia, and dogwood trees. You could see the lake from most of the rooms.

We had both taken pay cuts, to move, but were making good wages, for Panama City, and the cost of living was lower in Panama City than it was in Delray Beach.

The house in Delray Beach had appreciated enough to pay off all our loans and make the down payment on the new house.
Our major asset was the house. But it was the only bill we had, except for utilities and such.

Maybe one car payment.

We had a Subaru station wagon and a Ford Ranger pickup truck.

Our home had two outbuildings. I fixed one up for a writing studio.

Potter called it the Slave Quarters.

Brenda took Owen and Balder to a lot of bluegrass festivals. They would take food and cook. Sleep in tents. They'd see Potter and Suzette there, and Janice and Donny.

Sometimes I went, sometimes I stayed at home and wrote, and took care of the dog, and the chickens.

We were prosperous.