Chuck Fair

Being What I Am Not Chuck Fair

Rounding life's last corner a voyager with only his imagination to keep him from collapsing under life's toil, traces ancestors to discover why he turned out like he did. He becomes a time traveler in Merry Ol' England. There, he spots a mom-look-alike lifting her skirts in alleys for tuppence and a grand mom look-alike accused of witchy and the King's superstitious, black attired witch hunters ready to place both into a public purging. For London's masses, a good time is watching a burning of witches, black cats included, or seeing a prostitute's ears nailed to the public post. On a slow day they can attend a bear baiting pit and watch pit bulls tear apart their prey. What's an old codger with nothing to lose do about his look-alike ancestors' dilemma? Rescue them of course. Elizabeth I is dead, James I is on the English throne. England is steeped in ignorance, superstition and debauchery. Twenty-first century knowledge offers only happenstance advantage to a fantasizing old gent who after saving mom and grand mom look-alikes finds himself being chased across the channel by royal assassins to acrimonious Ireland. Ireland holds no sanctuary for a prostitute, witch and wily old codger as they flee into James I's Irish land grab and the bloody backlash. Irish warlords lead disgruntled masses and English generals put down rebellions and the old gent is caught between clashing swords. To make matters worse, imagination does not always guide the time-traveling fantasy man to the right locale, placing him in embarrassing contemporary situations. Using guile, soothsaying and a touch of history and humor the time traveler once battered by contemporary life batters Elizabethan life--at least until the next turn of the page.