I was stunned when I looked in my mailbox to find a postcard from my high school classmate, Rick Uhlig. He had written a book, Last Dance at the Frosty Queen, about coming of age in a small town in Kansas in the 1980's. My first reaction, obviously, was hoping that he had written nothing incriminating about me. I got ahold of the book as quickly as possible and gobbled it down. There was nothing incriminating about me. This reminded me that my high school lifestyle really was not the stuff of novels.
It was an entertaining dark comedy about being different, figuring out the opposite sex, dealing with your family, and the realities of small town life. It was well written, if a little over-the-top.
What was fascinating to me was seeing glimpses of people I did know. None of them matched exactly and no real names were mentioned, so it was still in the realm of fiction, but some were clear and not always flattering. This made me wonder: how fictional is any fiction? There must be little nuggets of true stories everywhere. How do people feel when their story is written down and saved for the ages?
Best of luck to Rick. When I forgot about this being the town I spent my last years of high school in, it was a good story.
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