INTRODUCTION:
As I look into the mirror of my life, I see the child I was and wonder how I became the woman I am. Every aspect of my life reflects back to my childhood as it trails behind me. Everything that happened to me as a child has affected many different attitudes and aptitudes of my being. My heart cannot comprehend how every vein that extends from that pulsing mass of muscle leads back to the same heartless act, the violation of my innocence.
I have always had a hard time remembering anything from my childhood, especially the years before my ninth birthday. Those fragments are only triggered as memories by looking through old photographs or listening to others tell of their memories, but when I was sixteen, some of those memories took the form of a mass of blurred and soiled shapes in a disoriented picture.
I had no allowable control to stop anything that happened to me, just as I have no allowable control now, to stop any of the heart-wrenching pictures of reality that flash through my mind. I know the human brain, with all its intricacies, has a safety defense to keep me from going insane, and isn't that line between sanity and insanity so delicately thin? Haven't we all walked that tightrope, precariously balancing somewhere in the middle, ready to fall off the wrong side at any given moment?
This book is for anyone who has lived with the pain of child abuse. For anyone who has lived with the pain of domestic abuse, either physical or emotional, for anyone who has survived or will survive from the pain of remembering and for the memory of those who haven't survived.
For me, to try and recapture it all by attempting to understand is painfully senseless. To try and put the pictures together and have to see myself in those pictures, is painfully senseless. It is all painfully senseless, but in order to make any sense at all, I must get past the pain.
I was an invisible child - seldom seen, never heard. As an adult, I can either make the invisible child visible, or send her entity into the realm of nonexistence forever. The little girl that haunts my life, by wandering aimlessly through my thoughts, is wearily searching for her own peaceful niche. She will continue to haunt me, unless I make an adult decision to reveal the secrets I promised not to tell - and live with the memories that have been silently waiting for justification.
My story is truth, to the best of my collective memory. It is written with a touch of relish, a lot of mustard, and names have been changed to protect the innocent, and not so innocent. If you recognize yourself, it might not be you. You can ask me if it's you, but I promise not to tell.
CHAPTER TITLES FOR I PROMISE NOT TO TELL
Don't Touch / Home Sweet Home / School Dazed / Dear Mama / Life After Death / New Mom / Child's Play / Spare the Rod / Pursuit / Popping the Cherry / Wild Child / Pandora's Box / Claustrophobia / Red Flags / Near Death / Seesaw / Only the Beginning / Knowing Gregory / Skeleton in My Closet / And Then There Were Four / Another Innocent Child / Broken Promises / Unforgiven / Battle Grounds / Almost Over / The Stalker / Third Time is the Charm / A Touch of Heather / Bad to Worse / A Secret Exhumed / Warning Signs / Make it Stop / Cataclysm / A Message From Hell / A Significant Explanation / In the System / Strike Three / The Parallel
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JOHN HORN - Legend of a Lumberjack
Samantha Mitchell, formerly of Manistique graces the cover. Again, the author took the photo. This one was taken at the Big Springs, Kitchitikipi in Manistique.
Deep in the forest along Lake Michigan's Manistique River, a simple wooden grave marker reads, John Horn - April 1897. Why is it there? Who was John Horn? More than 100 years ago, Manistique was a booming lumber town owned by the Chicago Lumbering Company. Thousands of immigrants worked there, some living in company homes, some in the logging camps. Steamers docked daily at the busy Manistique Harbor, met by a local Indian chief, Ossawinamakee. Into this town came John Horn.
Step back in time to the late 1800's where you will meet John Horn and the woman he loves, Lily, the preacher's daughter, the girl with the moon in her eyes. You'll also meet Moonwater, John's sister and owner of Ravenwood, a boarding house shunned by the townspeople.
Meet their nemesis, a fur trader with a mangled hand and surprising identity. Come take a walk through the streets of a logging town and the deep Michigan forests where you'll meet Bittenear, and where you will want to visit time and again. This is one adventurous historical love story you will not want to miss.
INTRODUCTION:
About the only thing anyone knows about John Horn is that he was buried along a branch of the Manistique River. He sleeps silently in the ground, deep in the forest of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He has never spoken from the grave to tell his story so I offer you my version of who John Horn was and how he came to be buried in a shalow grave of four feet.
John Horn was a real man who probably walked the streets of Manistique and through the forests where virgin white pine was king. He lived his life as a lumberjack over a hundred years ago. He may have been an immigrant or just a drifter. He may have been well liked or hated. He may have been a socialite or a loner who stuck to his own ways. He may have loved a girl or just dedicated his life to the forest. No on will ever know.
Some years ago a ballad was written about John Horn, another rendition of who he was. Ballads are sentimental narratives while legends are unauthenticated stories from earlier times, preserved by tradition and thought to be historical. Either way, John Horn deserves to be recognized, even though recognition can only be assumed.
If John Horn could speak from the grave I think he'd be happy with my rendition of him. I think he'd be flattered to be thought of as a legend, to know that people still speak of him and visit his grave year after year. John Horn will never truly die as long as people keep him alive by speaking of him and honoring his spirit.
Living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is an adventure all in itself. People from the cities visit us here, and comment on the serene lifestyle, fresh air, the solitude and sense of being in God's country. We natives are aware of the beauty and appreciate our simple lifestyles. We take nothing for granted and are thankful for the gifts bestowed upon us by the natural beauty that surrounds us.
Many stories are told and re-told of our historical Upper Peninsula. We hear stories of fur trappers and traders, gangsters as famous as Al Capone and lumberjacks such as Paul Bunyan who walked our lands. This is the story of another lumberjack who left behind nothing more than a name on a wooden cross and a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere.
You are going on a journey, my friend, of both present and past and you will come to know and love the legend and the man John Horn.
CHAPTER TITLES FOR JOHN HORN
Grave Marker / Cemetary Visits / Poetry Contest / Meeting Emma / Eerie Photographs / Moonwater's Story / Star Gazer's World / Life With Mrs. Roxbury / John's Heritage Revealed / Grief Stricken / Three Seperate Journeys / John and Semo / Preacher Tom and Lily / Jake / Pleas for Help / Manistique / Welcome Home / To the Rescue / Finding Lily / Not So Fond Farewell / Becoming a Lumberjack / Ravenwood's Addition / Kitchitikipi Dream / Midnight Delivery / The Gift of Life / Bittenear and Lost Acres / Korina's Legacy / Summer of 1893 / Bittersweet 1895 / Rendezvous at Weber's Spring / The Bittersweet Tomorrows / A Love Story / Spring of 1897 / Spring of a New Dawn / The Women / Cry of the Wood Lily / Dreaming and Family History / Emma Simms, 2003
Autographed copies available in Manistique at The Booktique and Putvin's HealthMart Drugstore
Both books are available through Publish America and online at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other online book sellers.
2005 Book of the Year Award/1st Runner-up/Jada Press/Nonfiction Category 
