This is the story of how Emery Walters became whom he was supposed to be.<br><br>I knew I was male at an early age, something that was a societal no-no in the 1950s and still is in parts of the country today. Burying my male identity, I strove to be the best woman possible. But after raising my four wonderful children from two debilitating marriages, I found myself alone and nearly penniless. That was when Emery asserted his identity.<br><br>Life became better with the shift from female to male, a third marriage, and a wife who, herself, transitioned from male to female.

Some Fine Day

It’s like walking down a tunnel of time, Emery thinks, like each step takes a day, a month, or a year off his age. As he leaves the new forest behind and walks deeper into the shadows of the old growth trees, not only does the leafy canopy over his head get higher above him, but he feels himself shrinking as well.


He could shrink until he is twelve or ten or eight years old, or maybe even younger, or shrink until he’s the size of one of the frogs he hears singing a twilight song in the pond nearby.


If he became that frog, Emery thinks, he could have been here at the time when Indians strode this very trail.


Emery reached the pond and climbed out the old downed log to his special place, a large rock. He smiled to see his alter ego, Mr. Frog himself, leap unhurriedly off the rock and disappear from view with only a small circle of ripples in the water to mark his passing.


Chapter 52