Cabbage Requiem

George Konert's once rich life is ending on a bitter note. He is estranged from his friends and neighbors, his wife is dead and his two daughters are distant and have not produced the grandchildren he longs for. A glut of cabbage from his garden becomes the catalyst that transforms him from an aging curmudgeon who has given up on life into an engaging and often hilarious man. Cabbage Requiem is the story of George's resurrection.

Raymond L. Paul was born in St. Louis, Missouri on February 25, 1936, and has been a resident of Rockford, Illinois since he was four. At West Rockford High School he was a top student, three-sport star and an All-State football player. He attended the University of Wisconsin on a football scholarship, majored in insurance and finance and graduated after four years with a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree.

Immediately following graduation in 1958, he passed up an opportunity to play minor league baseball in the Dodger farm system choosing instead to marry his college sweetheart and begin a career with Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. Forty-six years later, he is still smitten with Jo Marie and proud of his ongoing relationship with Mass Mutual.

Ray's writing career had its genesis in college, where he eschewed his business electives for creative writing classes. Though this period primed his heart for creative writing, fighting for a toehold in the financial services industry and being a good father to three daughters precluded any serious involvement. His hiatus from fiction writing lasted almost forty years.

Nine years ago Ray finally reached a comfortable stage where the demands on his time and energy were diminished. Their older daughters had moved away and started families of their own, and he and Jo Marie had weathered the crisis of losing their youngest daughter to meningitis. With his golf scores soaring and time on his hands, he needed a new challenge. Two college writing classes and a couple of workshops later, he had found a new avocation. With the first click of the keyboard, he began writing himself toward retirement.

In the past five years, Ray has written Cabbage Requiem and approximately forty short stories. Twenty-two of his short fiction pieces have been published in a variety of literary and commercial magazines, such as Potpouuri, AIM Magazine, and The Acorn. He has finished a second novel.