As a child of the '50's I grew up loving books. I still do! The feel of the open covers held in my hands, of leather, cloth, paper, flimsy, fluttery, hard, rough, smooth, satiny; all of it encasing a billion words that mean all...or nothing. That feeling was power to me while growing up. 

Early on I found a love of reading. I am foremost a dreamer, living life in my head. A mental wanderlust born of always feeling I'd rather be somewhere else. My sandbox was only the first of many places I lived out the fantasies I constructed in my head; from roads, mountains, and pits in the sandbox, to elaborate sandcastles and encroaching dragons at the beach, was only a start. 

I wandered with wonder the many worlds described in books; beginning with the colored SRA Reading Labs, snippets ,to Readers Digest monthly and quarterly Reader's Digest Condensed Books. There too was Sunday School and bible stories along with National Geographic, and LIFE magazine. Then, Science Fiction, and eventually The Lord of the Rings. I sucked it all in, like our old Compact "pig" vacuum after Mother sternly said, "Your room looks like a tornado ran through it!" 

But just like our trusty vacuum (ours was less stylishly industrial gray), it all ended up in a jumbled dusty mess to be rooted through, looking for lost change, tie-pins, nuts, and bolts before it went in the garbage pail and thrown out back. To express myself I'd resort to telling stories (often "whoppers") or drawing crude pictures. I once filled a new ream of Mother's typing paper with a progression of cars, racecars, tanks, planes, jets, rockets, spacecraft--all shooting at each other! 

Until computers! Beginning with an Apple IIGS "Wozzer," my life changed!

Then my expression turned outward...at least in production! Before computers writing with a typewriter was excruciating and production and distribution were impossible! A lack of readership has always bothered me. With the advent of the computer, I was finally able to create! I had the tools I needed to get my thoughts on paper. 

Yet, my head, being in the clouds, has little connection with the mundane aspects of production and, (excuse me while my gag reflex kicks in), Marketing & Sales! Just because I had product, I still lacked the organization and stick-to-it-ness needed to be published. 

Just as in this, Ray's Sandbox I expect little, if any, public consumption. But boy, do I enjoy producing it! Perhaps I am more like a chef who enjoys cooking everything at hand with no regard that the dining room is empty...and having it all thrown out to the pigs.

So I hope you enjoy looking through the detritus of the Pig's innards and hope you find a bauble, gewgaw, (or delicacy) amongst the dust and lint (or pig's droppings) of my life!

Bonne Chance!