MISSING PIECES

"And that night over the checkerboard, I began to see how radically my world had changed. When I had played checkers with my father [before the war] at age eight or nine, I had felt that from time to time he held back and let me win, but now I saw clearly that our positions were almost totally reversed. He was the one who missed clear opportunities for moves and I was the one who held back until he found them or I pointed them out so that he could win. We ended up playing more than one game, and gradually it seemed that some of his powers of concentration returned. But I think that it was during those games that I discovered the paradox that, at least in some of life’s situations, one can win far more by losing than by winning."
An excerpt from "Missing Pieces" By James Pendleton

An inspirational look into the past, Jim Pendleton’s new work of creative non-fiction transports readers to a Southern army town during the Great Depression and World War II. Beginning with his early childhood, Pendleton tells his own coming of age story in this touching personal history. Beginning with his birth in 1931 and early childhood, he paints a vivid picture of life in a small Southern army town and how it is changed by the Great Depression and World War II.

His father a military pilot, young Pendleton spends his boyhood at Fort Bragg and Fayetteville in North Carolina. As he grows up in this turbulent time, Jim is forced to face his feelings about war, racism, and Southern values. He also deals with a confusing family life and does his best to nurture sick and shell-shocked parents back to health in the darkest days of the war.

A beautifully written reminder that strength, honor, love, confidence, and a little encouragement from family and close friends are the essentials to overcoming any obstacle, "Missing Pieces" is an inspirational serving of the proverbial chicken soup for the soul.

James Pendleton’s plays have been produced in various theaters across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and his writing has appeared in publications as diverse as the Army Combat Forces Journal and the New Virginia Review. He was born at Fort Bragg and grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Mr. Pendleton holds degrees from Davidson College and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During the Korean War, he served as a military officer in the U.S. Army. He is today an emeritus member of the creative writing faculty of Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in the country near Richmond, Virginia.