Schrock's Short Stories

By Denice Rovira Hazlett
August 17, 2011
322

Summary: After a lifetime of reading and cultivating a love of short stories, Holmes County native Edward Schrock finds himself on the other side of the page having just released his first collection of short stories, Everybody Was Happy, set around the quiet valley in Berlin where he grew up. Story: Edward Schrock was eight years old when his uncle toted a mysterious trunk to the Amish farm where Schrock lived with his widowed mother and three younger sisters in a picturesque valley along Berlin Township Road 172. The uncle stashed the trunk under the porch where the boy spent each morning waiting for the big yellow bus to carry him off to school. Before long, curiosity got the best of little Ed. "Covers of trunks are for opening," said Schrock, "so I lifted that lid and looked inside." What Schrock found was a priceless treasure, a discovery that would forever change his life--a passel of books. One of them deeply fed the young Amish boy's active imagination. "The book was worn out, and you couldn't see what was on the spine. I cracked open that book, read the first lines and I was hooked." Those first lines, where a woman repeatedly calls for her errant nephew Tom, were Ed Schrock's introduction to American literature. The book was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and once Schrock began reading, he just couldn't stop. "I thought this guy lived inside my head. How did he know that this was how my mother called me?" Young Schrock took the book to school and replaced it in the trunk later that night, only to remove it again and keep it for good. From there, his love of literature and his passion for the written word continued to grow. Through the encouragement of his mother, who introduced him to his first library card at age 5, and a natural love of learning, Schrock has spent his years devouring all kinds of literature. He doesn't remember a time when he didn't know how to read. "When I was three or four, my grandfather would sit me on the floor of his sun porch with The Budget. All those little letters, he would tell me, were exactly the same as the ones on my toy blocks. He told me to just put the blocks together to form the words. That's how I learned to read." It just seemed natural, Schrock said, for reading to be paired with writing, and while he has filled personal journals and created one-page pieces of fiction, he never pursued writing for anything aside from his own amusement. Schrock is 65 now, and, for the first time in his life, he has found himself on the other side of the page, as the author of a new collection of fictional short stories set in the valley where he first discovered that trunk of books and the magic of the written word. His work, Everybody Was Happy, was born in a sunroom at his cousin's Florida home during a three-week vacation thanks to a seed of inspiration, the blessing of his wife, and a daily pot of morning coffee. Schrock's childhood friend and Gospel Bookstore owner Eli Hochstetler offered to publish the piece upon completion. With the help of Schrock's daughter, Jennifer Schrock, who designed the striking cover and created the clean, attractive layout of the book, the finished product soon found its way to the printer and currently graces the shelves of The Gospel Bookstore in Berlin. "These stories just flew out of the sky and landed on me. I didn't have any choice but to write them," joked Schrock about the relative ease of the project. "I've never submitted a manuscript, and I've never received a rejection slip," he laughed, fully aware of how fortunate he has been compared to other writers. The style of Schrock's stories reflects the type of literature the author cut his teeth on, with pieces reminiscent of southern short-story writer Flannery O'Connor, literary great John Steinbeck, and contemporary writers like Barbara Kingsolver and short story genius Stephen King. But unlike many of King's, Schrock's works are not graphic or violent. While there are elements of suspense and mystery, there are, as Schrock explained, no grotesque villains or dashing heroes. Instead, between the pages of Schrock's books can be found decent people who go about their quiet lives, experiencing the challenges and triumphs that come with living on earth. In Schrock's written world, antagonists take the form of things like weather, jealousy, greed and misunderstanding. "They're about ordinary people, how they live, how they survive," said Schrock, "what disgusts them, what angers them. These are various stories that tickled my fancy, and they are characters I like." And, indeed, Schrock's characters, from Monie Freda and her competitive flower garden, to Sam Raber, a reluctant farmer discontent with his lot in life, come alive thanks to Schrock's imagination and way with words. "The charge is that these are feel-good, fluff stories. This is true, and I'm quite proud of it," said Schrock, who is currently working on another collection of shorts, Value Added Stories, which he described as fewer in number but longer and meatier in content. As for Everybody Was Happy, Schrock said he's content with the project and will be satisfied regardless of whether the book becomes wildly successful or completely falls off the radar. "Publishing was on my bucket list," laughed Schrock, "I'm very pleased with the results." Should Schrock fill a trunk now with books to be left under the porch of a curious eight-year-old boy's home in todays world, there is no question what he would include. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, asserted Schrock. Those are the staff of life. And maybe, someday, Schrock's own books will find their way into a such a trunk to spark the imagination of another generation of writers. Schrock invites comments and can be reached at edschrock@gmail.com.

Schrock's Short Stories

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