Oh damn, now the kid is on a roll, he just finished one book and now he is writing a second one. I promise you, this will be the last book I write about my life and my family. But let’s be honest, you must have had a sneaking suspicion that there would be a second book, just by the title of the first one alone. To make this book as complete as possible and able to stand alone on its own merit, I will include a summary chapter of my life. This will help to bring all those new to my blog and to my life’s story, up to speed. I will also include Chapter 16 in this book. I will include a historical chapter of my mother’s family, the Lappiere’s, so it only makes sense to include the history of the Landry family as well. By including these two chapters in the first section of this book, it will now be more complete. Far be it for me to force my readers to read my first book. But let us be reasonable I am not going to give all my secrets away in this new book. If you want to get the whole story you will still have to read the first book. I have, however, made it fairly easy to read my memoirs without spending any money. To do so, all you have to do is to go to my blog Common-sense-in-america.com and check out the section, entitled The Bloggist. The complete book is right there, at no extra charge. The new book will also be there in real time as I complete each chapter, it will be posted on the blog. You are probably asking yourselves why should I buy his book, if it is free on the blog? Well, how many people like to read from a computer, phone or tablet? Most of us who are avid readers like the feel of a book in our hands when we read. I am old school, and that is how I feel when I read a book. Also the hardback edition is over-sized and makes a nice coffee table book.

Well that concludes my advertising portion of this book. So on to the reason for not only this book, but the first one as well. The main reason that I am writing these books is to preserve the history of my family and my life. I frankly don’t want “to go quietly into the night”. I am going to raise hell before I die, I also want to leave behind something that I will be remembered for. I have three webpages and will have soon have two published books, that will hopefully ensure my immortality as well as my clan’s immortality. While I am not independently wealthy, I do not need the royalties from these books to live, either. I make a reasonable income as an ICU registered nurse. My wife an I are able to travel some and we live in a cozy one story home with a backyard garden and a place to grill a hamburger or two. We are also able to pursue our enjoyment of photography. What more could one ask for, you say? This brings us to the second reason I am writing these books and my blog, I want to make this world a better place. I also want to help people, that is the main reason I became a nurse after all. If I became a nurse solely for monetary gain, I would not still be one after twenty years. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the burnout rate for nurses has been astounding. I almost became one of its burn out victims. I also, thanks to the incredible number of fatalities from this viral scourge have a case of PTSD from the events that transpired in these last two years. In my first book, I included five chapters on my nursing career, in this companion volume, I will also include more chapters on my nursing career and my struggle with PTSD. I hope this book helps to inspire those that are less fortunate and are suffering from mental collapse that there is always a reason for continuing the fight, you just can’t give up hope. I have found myself in dark places on more than a few occasions. This book will serve as forum to discuss them more in depth than I was able to in the first book. So, yes I am sorry this second book won’t be quite as light an airy as the first one, but I hope, as a result it will serve a higher purpose than simply one of entertainment and thus be more impactful on the reader’s lives and their families as well.

Another thing that I fell short on in my first book was the discussion about my blog. Due to the sheer amount of information that I tried to purvey I only was able to devote one chapter to it. I promise to do better in this volume, where I will devote an entire section to it. The blog after all gave me the initial forum to publish my book. It has also given me the opportunity to provide accurate information to the world about what is happening in today’s society and also to place in context historical events and how they affect our lives today. The blog and these books are also my answer to the shadow banning that I have been fighting for the last two years. They give me more options than just your basic Twitter, Facebook and Instagram social media sites do. On Facebook alone, I have 5,000 friends, but I only get a couple of comments on my postings, no matter what the subject matter. So to ensure that my postings get the time of day, I have a section on my blog where I post all of my internet postings. I also pay out of my own pocket for my blog and its domain, so their is not advertising and nobody can block or ban the material I post. At the time of writing this chapter, my blog has reached readers from 142 different countries. Considering that there is just shy of 200 countries in this world, I think that is pretty cool. Thank you to all my readers out there.

So while I am not a gifted athlete or world famous actor or TV or Radio personality, I am still trying to make my mark in the world. If I can do it so too can you. On that note, I will end this section. I hope it has piqued your interest enough that you will want to continue on with my narrative.