Grandfather's Conspiracy by Cole Parker

[Mihangel]

What a wonderful little tale! Sensitive, heart-warming, well-crafted.

Do read it if you haven't:

http://www.awesomedude.com/coleparker/Short_Stories/grandfathers_conspiracy.htm

[alandwight]

A charming story full of warmth and caring and with a wonderful outcome. Do read it!

[FreeThinker]

Excellent story with a great plot twist. Cole reminds me of O. Henry when he surprises you. Another great Cole Parker story. I love the way he gets into the heads of his young characters and how all his characters are such good and decent people. I think they probably reflect the character of the author.

[Cole Parker]

Hah, if you only knew!

Thanks, guys. I'm just finishing a longer story. I'm sure it'll be weeks before all the editing and tinkering is done, but I do have one on the way.

C

[Jeff Ellis]

The link Mihangel provided didn't work for me. So, here is an alternative route to it

http://www.awesomedude.com/coleparker/Short_Stories/grandfathers_conspiracy.htm

I lifted it from the url, but having posted I get a 404 from both the links. The original link on the Stories homepage works fine. I'll bring it to Mike's attention

[Nick Deverill]

Agreed, excellent story. Interesting people, interesting plot and no filler. It also has the feeling of completeness, and not just the first chapter of a longer story that so many so called short stories suffer from.

Link is duff for both above posts though, I can sort of see why the browser goes there, as it says it will and the display is not what the browser instruction is. This works though as Firefox replaced the inverted comma with %27 for me and thus reminded me of the various codes for special characters in HTML. It's always a bad idea to use punctuation in file names with HTML, even if it is good English. I wonder if Merkin and Jeff are using IE?

http://awesomedude.c..._conspiracy.htm

[dude]

Nick is correct. I think everyone got from the AD Homepage link to the story OK. even with the apostrophe (not comma) in the title. It's when you try to copy and pste the link into another system (the AD Board) that the link gets miscopied depending on the browser you use. I have made a copy of the Grandfather's Conspiracy file and saved it sans the apostrophe in the file name so both Nick's link above and the AD Homepage links will work, I'll be adding the link to Cole's Author Page today, providing I can find room!.

Mike

P.S. The Hand of God has gone in and modified all the above links so that they all work... wouldn't want anyone to miss this great story!

[Chris James]

Thanks, guys. I'm just finishing a longer story. I'm sure it'll be weeks before all the editing and tinkering is done, but I do have one on the way.

C

The length of your stories is never a consideration for the readers who enjoy good work, but tinker away, we'll be waiting. Your Grandfather story is a warm and welcoming story about the love in a family relationship. Music was not the focus of the story but everything revolves around it, a good choice to bolster the plot. The only thing you left out was a puppy. Bravo.

[Camy]

Warm and heartening , as always.

[DesDownunder]

I grew up with an old 78 record called Sparky's Magic Piano. It was a story about a piano that could play anything, permitting Sparky to appear to be a child prodigy. Cole's story brought Sparky back to mind, because my grandfather gave it to me, and solidified my love of music. Here's a link to

on YouTube.

But my reminiscences detract from my praise of Cole's story which is charming beyond words, and filled with the dreams and experiences of being 14.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that my grandfather liked the story, too.

[Jeff Ellis]

Thanks for fixing the links Dude... it's a story where there should be no risk of someone missing out on reading it.

It's a story of total positive intent. The joy of the story is in the wholehearted niceness of people. Being 14 should be joyful so should being a musician and so should... being gay! Cole's story combines all those elements in a story so chock-full of positive role-models that it pleases... even me.

Well done Cole... I enjoyed it immensely.

[Merkin]

Thanks be to the Hand of God. Now, if only the Foot of God could be persuaded to stomp on certain politicians...

[DesDownunder]

...and the priests, don't forget the troublesome priests...

[Merkin]

Let's save that task for the Bladder of God.

[DesDownunder]

Holy water?

[Bruin Fisher]

I love this story. I've e-mailed Cole about it because it resonates for me on many levels. If you've read through the posts here thus far I can't imagine that you haven't read it, but if you haven't GO READ!