ken@kenneththomassr.net

My momma and the angel in the wheelchair

When I was about 10 years old, a strange man who could not walk across the street asked my mother to help him off the railroad tracks to a wheelchair across the street near where we were standing. We were in a hurry trying to catch a bus that was already waiting for us. My mother told him she was in a hurry and was much too small to get him across the street safely. After paying the bus fees for her four sons and herself, she started feeling bad and asked, “How was he going to get around after he was across the street?” I told her there was a wheelchair on the other side. She pulled the bus...

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Ladies, you are more than a gateway to life

Ladies, you are more than a gateway to life. I am truly honored to share this world with you. For me, the word "special" is an understatement when it comes to describing women. I love what you ladies do. I love who you are. I'm sitting here, taking a break from writing drafts of the next novel, smiling, reminiscing about the first time I fell in love, and the time after that...and the time after that. Let me share. I had to be somewhere around the age of three. I can remember always running up to her saying, "Momma, I got to go pee." With the softest voice, I can remember her urging me, "Don't wet your pants." My dry...

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Veteran, longshoreman pens next best seller

An Army veteran and his imaginary friends share a center table in the E-bar at Nordstrom. This is a regular spot where they meet to release emotions, adventures, and conflicts that become the best literary works of Jacksonville author Kenneth Thomas Sr. Thomas, who is a longshoreman, said those friends just show up and tell him what they are doing, how, and “sometimes they’ll tell me why. Then, I just write.” “They aren’t all friendly,” he chuckles. “Some of them are downright evil and cruel.” But most of them become characters within his manuscripts or short stories. To someone listening in, Thomas sounds a little “off”. Here’s a fifty-something grandfather of three laughing with the voices and plots swooning through...

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‘One day, you’ll make books talk’

Kenneth Thomas, Sr. welcomed‎ his first grandson and second namesake to the world last month. We caught up with him in Jacksonville, Florida, to see what he told K3 on Father’s Day. Here's his response. “I’d tell him, ‘Grandson, I know you have only been on this earth for two days, but I will tell you this story until you can tell it back to me. It was December 30,1865. To label this day with the oxymoron bittersweet could only be the perfect description. You see, the night before, Jeremiah sat on the ground directly under Miss Lucy’s window. His eyes were swollen, releasing a steady flow of tears. It did not look like he would stop any time soon....

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