I Was Here

This novel attempts to present a complete, unvarnished, and rounded portrait of the young manhood and education of a white American male, RICK STEVENS, in a mid-western state. It depicts his good qualities as well as his bad ones-his "warts." The span of his life covered is from infancy to twenty-nine years of age. The years are from 1928 until 1957.

Parts of his life included are: his early childhood and boyhood growing up on a farm and in a small town in northeastern Ohio; persecution and verbal abuse by his stepfather; constant moral support by his mother; his extreme shyness and inability to socialize during his high school years, his lack of a father-figure and its effect upon his personality, his dubious sexual education; his voluntary service in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps (the peacetime Army from 1946 - 1949); his clerical and stenographic training and jobs in the Army; his achievement of the rank of Corporal and then Sergeant; his friendships with Army buddies; his long automobile trip with friends through the Western states; his college education (with help of the GI Bill) at the University of Virginia and Ohio State University; his friendship and romance with a southern lady; his college friendships; his failures and his successes; his college summer jobs on Great Lakes iron ore freighters; his education courses and preparation for a science teaching career (Glasgow College, Pa.); his love life and his sex life; his European trip with his best friend-a fellow sailor and college chum.
Moreover, the novel deals with the nearly complete transmutation of a shy young man into a gregarious man. Rick Stevens was determined to overcome his shyness, break out of his shell, and find friends first in the Army and later in college. This novel depicts Rick becoming more of an actor than just a spectator. He was able to eliminate his laid-back passive behavior, and become a much more aggressive man-active, outgoing, generous, caring and fun-lo