Born in 1951, I was, as they say, born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. We lived on the south side until I was six years old, and then we moved to the east side, in what was then a newly annexed section of the city close to an area that was known as Handley. There was just a large field for miles behind my house, and a grove of trees behind our next door neighbor. It was literally the edge of the country at the time. I went to Eastern Hills High School and graduated in 1970. I started writing poetry in my last year of high school to try to impress the girls. It didnat always work. Some of these poems reflect my feelings at the time, for the girls and women that shared their love, and a portion of their lives with me, if only for a short time. And even the ones that didnat.