Jo JewellI call myself a mountain woman. In truth, I was born on the flatlands of Indiana on May 20th, 1955. World population was 2.780 billion, Eisenhower was President, unemployment was 5.5%, Cher was nine years old on that day, and you could mail a letter or .03 cents. Luckily, the dinosaurs were gone, and fire had been invented by then. I moved to Tennessee to the foot of The Great Smoky Mountains in 1998. I have been writing since the age of six. I won my first regional poetry contest in second grade. For the past 52 years I have written for myself and only a chosen few. Writing to me, is as life sustaining as breathing, as a beating heart. I have written for newspapers, had my own local column in the Blount County Voice, shared stories of my life for my friends to make them laugh, sigh, cry, or more importantly, to think. I wrote puppet shows for our mentally handicapped facility, inspirational short stories for church services, and a series of articles that led to a testimony before the Maryland State Senate and the creation of the bill: Maryland Task Force for Abused, Abandoned, and Neglected Children. As long as it meant I could write, I wrote. I can't tell you where this passion came from, I can't tell you one incident that caused me to start writing and not stop. I have no memory of starting to write, I just did, and at a very early age. In the summer of 2013, I received a call on my cell phone from an unfamiliar number. I have always feared that someone might be calling for help, so I returned the call to explain they dialed my number by mistake. An older gentleman on the other end was somewhat suspicious at first, but three hours later, we hung up as friends. A very close friendship was born from that wrong number. After hanging up, I asked, What if? The Old Man and The Watch was conceived. I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as the characters enjoyed telling their story. Read More Read Less