In The Can’t Monster, the young protagonist (Will) embarks on his ill-fated quest on “the fourteenth of May.” Objectively speaking, Will’s misadventure could’ve taken place on pretty much any day of the year. In my mind, though, it simply must take place on this specific day. You see, May 14, 2005, was the day I set out to climb what was perhaps the most daunting mountain of my life. Absent that experience, it’s difficult for me to imagine how The Can’t Monster would’ve ever come to pass. Read on to learn why.
My first foray into the world of children’s literature was inspired by various life experiences, some of which I’ve written about already. For instance, I first used the term “can’t monster” in an email to my wife, following a workplace meeting that went off the rails in May 2016. This led me to start brainstorming ideas for how to best capitalize on what I thought was a can’t-miss title.
My mind went in several different directions over the next few years before settling where it did. I first put pen to paper on what would become The Can’t Monster in early 2021, drawing inspiration from the rugged hills that surrounded my wife’s childhood home in southern West Virginia. I refined the story while staring out at the very hill I envisioned Will attempting to climb, which overlooked Corinne Bottom and the Guyandotte River.
Two sources of inspiration I have yet to expand on are those stemming from my time as a high school teacher and my subsequent experiences in the U.S. Army. The “fourteenth of May” provides a bridge between these two stages in my life, for it was on that day that I committed to leaving the former for the latter.
By abandoning, or at least suspending, my career in public education to join the Army, I was retreating from one Can’t Monster in order to confront another. The decision itself was life-altering, for sure, but it was neither heroic nor foolhardy. Still, The Can’t Monster would almost certainly not exist had I not chosen the path I did.
As a teacher, I became my school’s character education guru for a few years in the early 2000s (quite unintentionally, I should add). The upshot of this was that it impressed on me the educational value of character-building stories, something very much on my mind as I wrote about Will and his encounter with the Can’t Monster. I wanted the story to be simple enough for young readers to understand, while having enough depth that readers of any age could take something away from it. I even imagined how I would’ve used it in my Citizenship & Responsibility classes to teach about perseverance, courage, and personal accountability.
For better or worse, by the spring of 2005, I felt like I’d hit a wall as a high school teacher. The reasons for this for this are best explained elsewhere, if at all. That said, hindsight allowed me to see that my shortcomings as a teacher wore on me more than I wanted to admit (which is why I tended to blame external factors for my unhappiness). Moreover, I wasn’t really sure what, if anything, I could do address these weaknesses. Put simply, I lacked both optimism and resilience, enabling the Can’t Monster in my head to convince me that I was powerless to improve my situation.
It was this sense of powerlessness that led me to explore the option of joining the Army. Military service had long fascination of mine, and this had only intensified following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. I’d fought back the urge to join the military in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, reasoning that my place was in the classroom, not on some faraway battlefield. However, my growing discontent with teaching led me to establish contact with the local recruitment office in April 2005. By early May, I’d made a decision.
On Friday, May 13, 2005, my recruiter and I made the two-hour trip from Mount Airy, North Carolina, to the Military Entrance and Processing Station (MEPS) in Charlotte. Once there, I took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test and then settled into a hotel for the night. The following morning, I underwent my initial physical exam and met with a career counselor to select my job (i.e., military occupational specialty). After signing a four-year enlistment contract, I was ushered into a nondescript room with perhaps a dozen other recruits, where we all raised our right hands and took the Oath of Enlistment. By day’s end, I was back in Mount Airy, left to ponder what I’d just done, and how to break it to those I loved. The fourteenth of May had been busy day.
I didn’t ship out for another couple of months – months that were spent informing family, friends, and coworkers of my decision. They greeted my announcement with varying degrees of shock, disbelief, and concern. I also had to sell my house, reasoning that I no longer needed it, and probably couldn’t afford to keep it anyway. After saying my final goodbyes to my family and closest friends in early July, I made another trip to the Charlotte MEPS, and from there to Fort Benning, Georgia, knowing that it was entirely possible that I’d be going to war.
And go to war I did, a year and a half later. I spent the intervening nineteen months training for combat, jumping from airplanes, studying Arabic, learning job-specific skills, and generally preparing for deployment. It remained to be seen if I’d made a disastrously short-sighted decision, as some believed was the case.
Had something bad happened to me in Iraq, or at any point while I was in uniform, it would’ve confirmed their worst fears. Instead, the military proved to be a very rewarding experience, and later opened doors for me to get my master’s degree in history cost-free, to enter the civil service, and to become a professional historian for the Army, which is what I do now. Whatever my win-loss record is when it comes to confronting the Can’t Monster, I can safely chalk my miliary experience up as a win.
There you have it. Will, the main character in The Can’t Monster, stepped off on his great adventure on the fourteenth of May because that’s when I embarked on my own great adventure. Fortunately, both of us emerged on the other side, better off for taking the chance.
***Order your copy of The Can’t Monster today at Amazon or other fine retailers. ***
The Can't Monster 