Michael Scott Clifton's Blog

You see them every day, yet you rarely know they exist���faceless people leading quietly desperate lives. Unremarkable, they merge with the background camouflaged by their own colorless existence. They come and go, unnoticed by society at large.

As a public educator for 38 years, I saw a number of students who fit this description. Often lonely and friendless, they find it hard to fit in. Such students drift from grade to grade, campus to campus, simply going with the flow like driftwood

Bestselling Author Ann Everett interviewed me on her blog today as a Five on Friday feature. Come on over and say hello! You may learn a thing or two about me that you didn't know.

YOU'RE INVITED: Please��join me on a book tour

My new book, The Janus Witch, will be featured on the Lone Star Book Blog Tour from Tuesday, December 4th, until Thursday, December 13th. Kristine Hall will be hosting the tour. Here's��her Facebook link:��https://kristinehallways.blogspot.com....��

Please follow along...and be sure to leave comments as you go. THREE WINNERS will be drawn from the tour. One of them could be YOU!

The premise of The Janus Witch revolves around the age-old question of environment or genetics. Which one truly drives who we are, or more importantly, what we will become?

Does good parenting, a stable and loving home life, guarantee children who themselves will become productive citizens and good parents? What about the children of felons, or worse, murderers or other violent offenders? Are they ���bent��� from birth to engage in abnormal or criminal activity?

If my thirty-eight-year career

Have you ever come across a story which chronicles the lives of people who suddenly become rich? For example, someone who wins the lottery and becomes a millionaire overnight? Or how about someone who suddenly comes into a large inheritance? What happens to these people once they are wealthy beyond their wildest dreams? In our society, we often associate happiness with material possessions, yet time and again, how many times do we read of the misery, the unhappiness, and the downright bizarre

Have you ever come across a story which chronicles the lives of people who suddenly become rich? For example, someone who wins the lottery and becomes a millionaire overnight? Or how about someone who suddenly comes into a large inheritance? What happens to these people once they are wealthy beyond their wildest dreams? In our society, we often associate happiness with material possessions, yet time and again, how many times do we read of the misery, the unhappiness, and the downright bizarre which happens to those who come into sudden wealth.

Lottery winners are perhaps the best examples of individuals who become overnight millionaires.  While many have benefited from their sudden wealth and gone on to live solid, productive lives, there are some glaring exceptions.  Reflect if you will on the following unfortunate lottery winners:

Consider Andrew Jackson Whittaker.  Until 2012, Whittaker was the single largest lottery winner in US history when in December, 2002, he won a $314.9 million dollar jackpot.   Robbed several times, including once for over $500,000, Whittaker started drinking heavily, wrote hot checks to Atlantic City casinos, and even had a granddaughter (whom he supported with a weekly $2,000 stipend) die of a drug overdose.  Hardly the circumstances Whittaker could have imagined when he won his huge jackpot.

Other examples include:

(1) William “Bud” Post who won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania Lottery in 1988.  His own brother tried to hire a hit man to kill him for his inheritance, a former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings, and ultimately, he was forced to file for bankruptcy.  Today he lives off food stamps and Social Security.

(2) Winning the $31 million Texas Lottery in 1997, Billie Bob Harrell Jr. committed suicide two years later.

(3) Evelyn Adams won the New Jersey Lottery not once but twice in 1985 and 1986.  Gambling and high living caused her to spend all of her winnings, and today, she lives in a trailer.

(4) Jeffery Dampier won $20 million in the Illinois Lottery in 1996.  Seven years later, he was kidnapped by his sister-in-law and her boyfriend who demanded money from him.  He was found in the back of a van dead after being shot through the head, and his sister-in-law and her boyfriend were charged with his murder.

Now these are extreme examples, but you cannot pass a magazine rack in the supermarket or a newspaper stand that doesn’t chronicle the dysfunctional and often, sad lives of numerous movie stars, celebrities, or otherwise famous and successful people.  By all accounts, they should be happy; they have wealth, fame, and success.  So why are they often so desperately unhappy?

These dichotomies are explored in my novel, The Treasure Hunt Club.  You see, I believe many times, our values are misplaced, and what we ought to place a high value on, we often take for granted.  Thomas Paine once said, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly”.  Those intangibles which make life worth living such as family, friends, love and acceptance ought to take precedence in our lives.  But money, fame, and material possessions are routinely how we measure happiness and success.  So this begs the question; what value would you place on such things?

As the saying goes…be careful what you ask for.

 

So excited to announceThe Treasure Hunt Club has been selected as one of the 100 Indie Books You Should Read Before You Die!

Five of the 100 Indie Books You Should Read Before You Die

[image error]The Whistler by John Grisham


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The Whistler is the first Grisham book I have read in quite some time. I enjoyed it and felt it deserving of a 4 star rating.
In The Whistler, two lawyers from an obscure state judicial conduct agency begin an investigation of a corrupt judge. Tipped off by a disbarred lawyer who spent time in prison before regaining his license, the lawyer claims to have information that will lead to the conviction of the corrupt state judge. Money, of course, is the source of motivation, with the lawyer representing a client who hopes to gain a windfall under the state’s whistleblower statute. The lawyer, Greg Meyers, claims a murky underworld organization, dubbed “The Coast Mafia”, controls a casino operated by a small tribe near Florida’s Gold Coast. With fingers in condo’s, golf courses, bars and restaurants, the Coast Mafia skim millions from the casino, paying off the judge and officials of the tribe to keep the illegal profits flowing and below the radar of state officials. Murder and intimidation are used when money is not a sufficient inducement to keep things quiet.
The Whistler is a fast-moving and straight-forward novel. If you are looking for plot twists and unexpected developments, you will be disappointed as there are none. Nonetheless, it is a good, solid story. It kept me reading, always a good thing regarding a book. Four solid stars!





View all my reviews

I am working on a series which will be sequels to “The Treasure Hunt Club”. Hank Harper, the eccentric and mysterious owner of the antique shop in The Treasure Hunt Club, will reprise his role in the sequels. Hank, although dwarf-sized, is a larger-than-life figure who gifts certain visitors to his shop with special objects or artifacts. Often, these objects have otherworldly or magical properties. As with The Treasure Hunt Club, these “gifts” don’t always work out the way the gifted person wants. Stay tuned!!!

 

Regi Vitam Short Story