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by Donald Thomsen (Author)
ALMOST is about a young lad reared on a farm outside a small town (population 200) in rural Nebraska. He is the last of six children, his closest sibling nine years his senior. He's blessed with a fertile imagination and the influence of his older brother's extensive comic book collection, and action-packed radio programs. These stimuli were his only link to the outside world. What he discovered piqued his curiosity. Much to his delight, his mother, trying to help elevate their financial status, got a job at the local dry-goods store in town. This arrangement made it possible for Donnie to have a lot of free time (during the summer and after school) to visit most all the town's businesses and discover the inner-workings of their prospective operations. This led to his realizing at an early age that he didn't want to follow in the footsteps of his farmer parents. He decided to become a businessman. The book is a compilation of his trials and tribulations, his many jobs, and entrepreneurial attempts to amass his fortune. His naivety combined with dogged determination get him into some hilarious situations. Revealed are the self-contrived solutions to his many problems, applying comic book logic and ingenuity-and almost succeeding! Donnie decides his future is not in Nebraska and convinces his parents to let him join the Navy while a junior in high school. Thus he schedules his four-year induction immediately after graduation, only two months into his seventeenth year of age. He is leaving: his elderly parents, the only girl he ever dated, and a naive lifestyle, (his moral compass). His security is his lifesavings of $145.00 stockpiled in the bank. Donnie is entering a strange world he's completely unfamiliar with, and totally unprepared for, and he's doing this. . . alone.
