Robert Gillcrist

Sailing to Pago Pago: and Other Stories Robert Gillcrist

The reader deserves some explanation for this diverse collection of short stories. The collection is of groups of stories in rough chronological order. The first group is about family and oral history. Other groups are of the Service, Alaska, Cuba, the construction business, Hospice work, and old friends. I have fictionalized many of the pieces in the collection. Thus, Seamus is a fictional character, but the family knows who played the part. This device may seem odd, but too much can be revealed when standing and reading before writing workshops. Another source of concern is accuracy. In a recent conversation, I was corrected by a friend who I had portrayed in a story. His explanation stunned me. Indeed, I had inadvertently transferred Colyer into a story of a practical joke played fifty years ago. Any such inaccuracies are not intentional. However, my memory is clear on some events. It was not Dickie Bates, who shot me in the leg, and it was definitely an ice truck, not a UPS truck, that featured in another piece. Sometimes I think of life as Rashomon. After all the years, does it really matter who played which part?