The Box Circle

I was born to Al and Edna Follmar in Oceanside, California in December of 1943. There, I was able to spend precious moments with my Marine Corps father before he was dispatched to the World War II Pacific Theater. In his absence, my mother and I moved back to my grandparents’ home in Roanoke, Virginia, where we lived until my father’s return in 1945. Then, as a young family, we moved to Salem where I lived for the next seventeen years. In 1962, I left Salem to attend Bridgewater College. In 1964, my uncle invited me along with his daughter to attend the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Because my uncle was a national committeeman, he was able to get credentials for my cousin and me to be seated on the convention floor. For me, the experience was an awakening. There I met freedom riders and listened to their stories. I heard speeches delivered by Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy, and on the last night of the convention, my cousin and I gave up our credentials so that the Mississippi Freedom Delegation, rejected by the credentials committee, could be rightfully seated. The highlight of my experience there occurred on the steps of the convention center where I shook hands with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Over the next four decades, I taught school, raised a family, and became a volunteer EMT on Lake of the Woods Fire and Rescue in Wilderness, Virginia. It was there that I wrote and had published my fi rst two books, EMT: BEYOND THE LIGHTS AND SIRENS (a portion of which was printed in Reader’s Digest) and EMT: RESCUE, based on my experiences serving as a medic and an EMT Instructor in my community. I received several community awards and was the recipient of the 2001 Outstanding Virginia Prehospital Care Provider. It was in 1996, while in Salem assisting in the care of my ailing father, that I took evening courses at Hollins College, and it was in my creative writing classroom that Coralee Jordan took her fi rst breath. But following my return to Wilderness, Coralee’s story was put on hold. I became a “grammy,” and began working in an emergency department in a local hospital. Then Coralee called to me. And so for the past four years, between the duties and the joys of life, I have written. My oldest grandchild is the age of Coralee. THE BOX CIRCLE is for her and her sister and cousins. It is for all God’s children. It is written with the hope that people everywhere will one day truly be seen “not for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.” Coralee has belonged only to me for too long. Now, she belongs to the world. I hope you love her as I do.