Steppingstones to a Brighter Future (Paperback) | Released: 27 Nov 2023

Anyone who knows me by now, is aware that I am not just known as Paul Volkmann, but various names based on my initials. For instance, people have called me "Pee Vee," "Mr. Pee Vee," or just plain "Peev." I have taken my name and come up with sayings or my own descriptions of words and called them "PeeVeeisms. Upon departing from the presence of a friend, I'll usually state, I'll see you next time I'm looking at you unless you see me first!" Another is, "You've never know what smooth is until you've been through the potholes of Pittsburgh." And third, "Weather is weather, whether you like it or not!"I am very conservative in my PeeVeeistic patterns of thinking. For example, I am 100% against abortion whether it is medicinal or by slaughtering children right out of the mother's womb. Abortion is murder in the first degree. Anyone who think it is the right of others to do so because it is impractical to have children will have to stand beford God and tell Him He was wrong in creating that gift for all mankind.My wife had a hard time getting pregnant. She even miscarried at work and worked through it. Three times she lost children. We were blessed to have Aaron and Kelsey.

From a very young age all the way to the late 70's, some type of illness was always knocking at my door. When I was born, the doctor was half asleep when he delivered me and as a result, I did not get enough oxygen to the brain. I ended up falling victim to epilepsy which I've had all my life. Through my childhood, I'd find myself being operated for tonsillectomy, appendectomy, a ruptured spleen and two hernias. All through my life I was in the hospital for something. Even in my late 70's, I was admitted to Latrobe Area Hospital any number of times, Greensburg Care Center for a month, and Oak Hill Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, also for a month. After I was discharged from there I was under the care of Bethlen Communities for approximately one year. In the last ten years or so, I had some bad falls resulting in 21 concussions.

Even though my life was filled with a lot of bumps ad bruises, I can't say my life was all that bad. I fell in love with my first girlfriend while working one summer at Bayside Lodge, Harborside, Maine. It was one of those summer romances that didn't last long. We made the best of each evening, laying on the sands of the Penobscot Bay, hugging, kissing, and gazing at the Northern Lights far out in the heavens above. My brother and I both worth there all summer long, not only doing maintenance work but serving lobster on shores every Saturday night. He wasn't as girl crazy as I was. Even after my wife died in 2018, I've still been on the search for someone who would be willing to date me, but to no avail.

In between my times of recuperating, the Lord showed me how to do pencil drawings which I made notecards out of Latrobe landmarks as well as photographic notecards displaying some of the pictures I've taken throughout the United States. The Holy Spirit also showed me how to make fishing lure jewelry. I sold all my merchandise either at the Latrobe Art Center and the Latrobe Farmers' Market. In addition, He also help me write six books, this the last of six. The first one I published was called Off the Wall Favorites, which told of one hundred favorite opinionated newspaper columns, Peeveeitry in Form of Versity, from the Sublime to the Ridiculous, my favorite poems, With Me Always, A Talk with Delbert, where i go into the woods and talk with ten animals about how they bring up their young, their animal friends, and the threats to their environment. The fifth book I wrote was one I polished that my mother wrote of her biography as she traveled with her father, a physician, between the Bronx in New York and a small town in Germany where he also had an office. My mother, wanted to learn to sing opera found herself being given lessons by Nazis. And this book, Steppingstones to a Brighter Future, Is my biography.