It's All Straw

This is a story of a dedicated couple who, while in retirement, are out of touch with the current events of the world. Daniel, a former scholar of political theory, has withdrawn from reality because his tired, old memory has failed. Judith's care for him goes beyond obligation. It is the result of an unfailing love of many decades. The president calls for Daniel visit to New York City to discuss his earlier writings on political theory. While there, Daniel is given an experimental drug called Memrestor. When his mental acuity is restored, he finds that the United States has become a dystopia. He is torn between his desire to return to the shadowy, fanciful world he came from while in retirement or stay in the real world and help restore the American heritage he believed in. In his earlier writings, Daniel had foresaw what he was now experiencing and had proposed constitutional changes to avoid the calamitous results. Although the drug, Memrestor, restored Daniel's memory, it had side effects. The hallucinations he had while retired intensified. His vivid dreams give him insight of how the American political world degenerated. The archangel Raphael shows him allegorical views of the dystopia and finally brings Daniel to a sublime level.

Richard R. Sooley was born in Milford, Massachusetts. During World War II he enlisted in the United States Army Air Force and served overseas in the Marshall Islands. He was recalled during the Korean War with the Strategic Air Command as a Crewmember on a B-36 Bomber. He received a Bachelor's degree from Boston University and a Master's degree from Northeastern University. On New Year's Eve 1948 he met Miriam Wiggins. They soon fell in love and were married in July. 1950. While employed by the United States Government he served overseas. He liked to say that he spent a January in the sub-arctic (Labrador) and summers in the Arabian Desert, that he had travelled from the Mid- East to the Far East and from the tropical Islands of the Caribbean to the atolls of the central Pacific. He retired in 1991and he and Miriam moved to Florida. While in Florida he did part time teaching. In 1999 he and Miriam moved to Georgia where he taught at the Reinhardt College. In 2006 he accepted his favorite job teaching elementary school children to play chess. Presently he remains at home and writes.