Favorite Literary Character by Ricky

At my age it is not surprising that I have a lifetime of literary characters to choose from to become my favorite. I have never before thought of which character was my favorite so the mental process of searching memories and titles should have taken quite a while. Fortunately, it did not take too long at all.

In my writings for this our Telling Your Story (TYS) group and in conversations with group members, I have often mentioned that my personality, psychological makeup, and emotions, are those of a 12-year old but with an adult body. That is to say, I feel and act not like a grown up but a not matured adolescent. Those of you who know me well enough through personal interaction or through my writings posted on my blog or the TYS blog could be presuming that my favorite literary character is -- Peter Pan. I most likely contributed to that impression by my behavior and speech. In that presumption or educated guess, you would be wrong.

While the fantasy fictional character in the Disney animated version of the story Peter Pan has truly influenced, and even impacted my life to a very large extent, Peter is not my favorite character. Yes, he does have adventures with pirates, has fun with other boys, sparked my imagination as well as millions of other children, but in the end he is pure fantasy—no boy can stop growing up or fly with pixie dust in our world. Besides, I like the original version of Peter as written by the author, James Barrie. The original Peter was more realistic; he had undesirable character traits, even a “dark” side. He was more like me than the angle face portrayed by the Disney animated feature. Believe it or not, I can tell the difference between fantasy and reality or more to the point, between fantasy and a character who actually could have or does exist in some form or another.

My favorite literary character is a free spirited, quick-thinking, rapscallion prone to adventures, loyal to his friends, struggling with the morality of laws that enslave people, and willing to risk everything to do what he believes is right. In many respects he and I are quite similar but unlike Peter Pan, he actually could have lived in the time period specified and done the things attributed to him. It is easy for me to identify with his personality and almost become him as the story progresses. His name? Huckleberry Finn.

© 16 March 2014

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com