Hi everyone. I am the author of this little blog, series of stories or whatever it is morphing into. I wanted to take a moment and thank you for reading this; if you’ve made it this far I guess by now you know I love these little characters.

I got the idea for Uncle Mudwink, Cactus Pete and Shady etc. right about 29 years ago. I was stationed at Keesler AFB, MS with the Air National Guard. I had just exited a brief, but bad marriage after losing what little of everything I had.

I was really down, and desperately seeking someone, anyone to talk to. I managed to hear about a church service in Woolmarket, so I decided to visit on a Wednesday night. I drove down after my radar maintenance class (I went to Air Traffic Radar Maintenance School) to this storefront-style church and just sat there.

No one was there and I was on time for service. Either I got my wires crossed as to the time and location, or something else was at play because I just sat there in my car. I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life that I felt that down. I remembered trying to pray, but not having much luck. Suddenly, while I was sitting there in that little secondhand Ford Tempo, the idea for these characters hit me right out of the blue.

I got so excited I scribbled down the three names, Uncle Mudwink, Shady and Cactus Pete on an envelope and made a little diagram of two children trying to sell a broken pair of binoculars from a little stand on the median of an interstate highway.

Over the years, I thought about these characters but didn’t develop them until around 2011. My wife now, to whom I am happily married encouraged me to do something with them and I wrote two books, and a screenplay. Those works are rudimentary and need a lot of edits, but I am working on them steadily.

I started this blog because my dad died roughly three weeks ago. I got to spend some time with him last year and this year before he died. I didn’t think it was going to be this hard, but its lonely without him and mother. Mother passed roughly eight years ago. So this is probably my self-healing blog, if nothing else.

A lot of stories he told me, and some I made up are included as composites in these characters. Some of these things happened in my childhood. For example, the story about a welder named Nasty is mostly true. Anyway I just wanted to share this with you. Hopefully I can brighten your day with a little yarn here and there.

Ray Gressett