Brown and White and My Poem

Mice come into the house from cold fall air
and haunt my kitchen until I set traps for them.
My neighbor tells me they must make a home
out in the old pile of logs where the rabbits go.


But there's something spiritual in my wood pile
it holds relics of my old apple tree
and I can't bring myself to get rid of the logs
summer home of mice and hiding place for rabbits.

But like all dead things I hold onto,  it brings trouble,
memories of mistakes I have made that sneak up
and cry out on these cloudy winter days
scolding me for what I failed to do in summer.

So on these cold mornings when nothing is warm
and even the squirrels won't come out of their nests,
I sometimes battle ghosts stuck in my head
like mice that come in from the cold, haunting my kitchen.

Copyright 2017, Sporting Chance Press

Norris is the author of the Brown and White, a fictionalized memoir published by Sporting Chance Press that is available through Amazon. The book is book about a young man's freshman year at the late 1960s in Chicago. It's about changing neighborhoods and challenges, but it is most of all a humorous and positive book.

50 of The Brown and White

The Brown and White

Just a quick post to tell you that I have sold 50 of The Brown and White in my first month. That's pretty good in that I was so busy with another book, I had little time to promote the Brown and White in the first month. Let's hope its 500 in the second!

The Brown and White takes you back in a literary time-capsule. You're exposed to changes in many areas of life while the boys in the book carry out on their daily activity. These Catholic boys are carried back and forth on the Brown and White bus with its free spirited captain, Willie. Much changes, but hope prevails. In fact, faith prevails. 

McCaskey Speaks at Long Island Chapter of Legatus

McCaskey's Sports and Faith

Sporting Chance Press author and Chicago Bears Vice President Patrick McCaskey is schedule to speak at the Long Island Legatus Chapter on May 4, 2017. 

Founded in March 2004, the Long Island (N.Y.) Chapter  meets on the first Thursday of every month. Speakers have included author George Weigel, Sisters of Life Prioress Mother Agnes Donovan, America magazine editor Rev. Drew Christianson, Catholic University president emeritus Most Reverend David O’Connell, and the late Bowie Kuhn, former Major League Baseball commissioner. 

Legatus includes over 4,000 Catholic business leaders and spouses. 

Lessons and Humor in The Brown and White

I once got a school jacket from a neighbor that was old and worn out after it was "advertised" as practically brand new. My mother, although certainly doing her best, added insult to injury by knitting some clothes to go with it.  This is a funny lesson in my book The Brown and White. I have a number of episodes in the book that are funny, but a little painful as well. My life, and I suppose many other people, could be described as funny and painful. 

More than anything else, my book is funny! But when you write humor, it gets a little tricky at times.  I wrote The Brown and White over 40 years and sometimes I looked at things and made changes. My sensibilities changed.

I often think of humor as having no conscience. Things can be funny and cruel; funny and racist; and funny and just wrong. Hitler thought Roosevelt's letter suggesting he leave the rest of Europe alone (after he started his expansionism) as funny. To Hitler and thousands in the audience, Hitler's response was funny. To Roosevelt and most people concerned with Hitler's threats, it was something different all together. 

It occurred to me this morning that several of the incidents I have written about in The Brown and White are not only humorous, but on some level instructive. The instructive stuff is good, but I certainly didn't write the book for its lessons. I wanted people to know the way it was for us back in 1967-1968. And I wanted to give everyone in my past a kind of hug. The book is written for adults, although I do hope it gets a lot of play with young adults.

My book, The Brown and White, examines the life of a Catholic High School freshman who goes through some funny and scary times.  It's a good quick read that is based on fact. I've been working with books by other people for a long time and this is my first book. Maybe I will end up like Carole King, behind the scenes for years and break out into super stardom! Well, I can hope.

Our Ad for the Brown and White

Lawrence Norris

The Brown and White

Pub. Sept. 2016

Forty plus years in the making, The Brown and White is a fictionalized memoir that tells the story of Collin Callaghan's freshman year at a Chicago Catholic High School. Collin is a white boy who is living in turbulent times in a changing city. He clings to his neighborhood and his family as he heads out each day with his classmates on the Brown and White, the ancient school bus driven by free-spirited Willie. Memorable characters abound as this story unfolds. Collin's loveable family, especially his Irish Catholic policeman father and his Irish immigrant mother face life together. Collin and classmates blaze their own humorous and passionate trail through the late 1960s. A unique cast of terrific teachers are there to see the boys through. Laughs and life meet readers head on as they travel on the Brown and White.

 

The Brown and White is published by Sporting Chance Press and is available from Amazon and select stores.

·        Paperback: 190 pages

·        Publisher: Sporting Chance Press, Inc.; 1st edition (September 16, 2016)

·        Language: English

·        ISBN-10: 0981934277

·        ISBN-13: 978-0981934273

·        Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches

·        Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces

See and buy book here at Amazon.

Lawrence Norris is an author, an editor, and a publisher. He started working with books as a teenager at the legendary Kroch's and Brentano's Bookstores and he worked for decades for a major international publishing firm. He has written several books, edited a couple dozen, and published books as well under his own company, Sporting Chance Press. Norris surrounds himself with books and he especially loves the simple stories of people who try to make a difference. His heroes are policemen, firemen, janitors, librarians, teachers, moms, dads, grandparents, nuns, ex-nuns, and humble priests.  Sporting Chance Press, 1074 Butler Drive, Crystal Lake, IL 60014. www.sportingchancepress.com

BROWN AND WHITE IN PRINT

BROWN AND WHITE

NOW IN PRINT NOW IN PRINT NOW IN PRINT NOW IN PRINT NOW IN PRINT

Forty plus years in the making, The Brown and White is a fictionalized memoir that tells the story of Collin Callaghan's freshman year at a Chicago Catholic High School. Collin is a white boy who is living in turbulent times in a changing city. He clings to his neighborhood and his family as he heads out each day with his classmates on the Brown and White, the ancient school bus driven by free-spirited Willie. Memorable characters abound as this story unfolds. Collin's loveable family, especially his Irish Catholic policeman father and his Irish immigrant mother face life together. Collin and classmates blaze their own humorous and passionate trail through the late 1960s. A unique cast of terrific teachers are there to see the boys through. Laughs and life meet readers head on as they travel on the Brown and White.

The Brown and White Finally Goes to Print

The Brown and White

I sent The Brown and White to print yesterday.  I will have the book up on my site at sportingchancepress.com after I know the schedule a little better.  I am selling it at $12.50 a copy and it works best for me when you order copies from my web site although it is also on CreateSpace and on Amazon itself.  On my website, I get your order and ship same day usually. I use PayPal that can take an order via credit card or funds from your PayPal account and I never see your credit card info--it goes right to PayPal. If you have any problems at all or you want to order a bunch of books, write me at lmj.norris@gmail.com and I will take care of things myself right away. 

When you produce a book through Createspace, you pay them for the printing and you pay them 20% for any orders they take on their store. If the order goes to Amazon, again you pay for the book and then you pay Amazon a 40% commission for sales on their store. It cost me a few thousand dollars to get my web site up and a few hundred dollars a year, but when you order it on my web site, I get a fair return. When you order it through my website using PayPal, it is secure and I benefit the most. 

I have had The Brown and White in many different versions over the 40 plus years I have been writing it. In some ways, I thought time had passed me up as I continued to write the book, but now it seems more on point than ever before. The Brown and White covers the times from for the perspective of a white boy going to school in trouble times. A few times over the years, I found myself talking briefly about the black perspective and I thought that was really a mistake so I was careful not to go there. As a school boy we read a half dozen books on the experience of blacks during the time, but our assigned reading was never anything on ourselves. I loved the John Powers books and wanted to do something that spoke to people who loved John's stuff only a decade or so later in a more turbulent times. 

Despite the troubled times, The Brown and White is about in large part my teachers, classmates, and home life rather than the social circumstances of the day--although those times loomed over the story.  It is a book of humor, innocence, faith, and I think love. 

Despite how difficult it is today in many areas, we really cannot go back regardless of what people are saying, because there is real connection these days between the races and it is called "family." Many of our families are intertwined. In the 1960s, it was more likely you knew people from other races from school or work.  Today, you may have a grandson of mixed race and that gives you a whole different perspective on things regardless of your own race. You love that boy with all your heart and have a close personal reason to see that his future is the best it can be.