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Can You Read Between The Lines?
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f you're about to hire me for a project you need to know a bit more about me... beyond the words I've written for others.
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We begin with my father, Charles Densa, nee Chaim Dzienciarski, born June 21st, 1908, in Radomsk, Poland, and died March 3rd, 2003, at the age of 94, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
At the onset of World War II my father was living in Paris.
When France fell to the Nazis he promptly joined the French Underground, and served as an undercover operative (a euphemism for "hit-man") until the Gestapo began knocking on doors in his apartment complex. Apparently, they wanted to ask him a few questions.
Escaping on-foot across the Pyrenees Mountains he eventually landed in a Spanish prison.
And there he sat, until he was "volunteered" for the French Foreign Legion (I've got great movie poster style pictures of him and his horse, Hector, in the North African Desert.)
When the Allies invaded Italy he fought with the Free French Army attached to U.S. General Mark Clark's Fifth Army (I've got pictures of that, too.)
His military exploits earned him a dozen medals and commendations, including the Croix de Guerre, France's version of the American Congressional Medal of Honor, for risking his life - running through a hail of German machine gun fire - to save the life of a wounded Arab soldier under his command.
As a side note, he was also court-martialed with impressive regularity for conduct uniquely and defiantly his own.
Eventually, I'll write a novel based on his life.
My Mother was born in the Bronx, New York, February 22, 1915; and she's still with us, kicking, laughing... and forever complaining of, among other things, anti-Semitic conspiracies, Republican conspiracies, and how cold (sic) it is in Florida.
Her life may have been less thrilling than my father's, but it's certainly no less loved or dear... or odd.
It's just not motion-picture material.
And she'll be in the book, too.
As for me, I once had aspirations to be an actor.
I attended the High School Of Performing Arts (remember the TV show Fame?) And then I majored in theater at Carnegie-Mellon University - until it dawned on both the faculty and myself (though I'm not sure who arrived at the conclusion first) that Carnegie wasn't where I belonged.
So I drove a taxi in Manhattan while trying to break into showbiz.
City College of New York and a B.A. in Political Science (and a minor in Pre-Law) came next.
Graduate studies in International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem followed, followed by three years on a kibbutz herding cattle, and two years as a sergeant in the Israeli Army.
Boy, was my father livid.
Returning home, I moved to southern California, worked in construction, donned spurs, rode horses, played polo, and tended bar.
I met my future wife, Mendy, who twisted my arm until I moved with her to Maui... where I rode horses, played polo and managed the hottest nightclub on the island.
Seven years later we left paradise and landed in Florida with our 3-year-old daughter, Kaiya Ariel.
Then, for three years I worked as a real estate agent, and grew cut flowers on five acres of land (everyone said growing cut flowers in the heat of Florida would be impossible - it wasn't, we just couldn't make a living at it.)
Then, for six years I worked as a stockbroker (first with Morgan Stanley, then Merrill Lynch... and then "the bubble" burst.)
... And always I wrote.
As for the rest of my story... well, go back and read between the lines.
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Barry@WritingWithPersonality.com
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