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DATELINE SMILEYVILLE - You'll want to know what conditions I laid down before agreeing to be the presidential candidate of the Conservative Democratic Party, and here you go:

1) For the 2012 election, I will not appear on the ballot anywhere. What's that you say, Americans? If I am not on the ballot, I cannot win? Precisely so. As mentioned in the last chapter, I do not want to actually be your president. And I know, from experience, that when you place your name on a ballot, even when no one believes you will win, God might just go ahead and have you win anyway. So, just to play it safe, my name shall appear on no ballots in 2012. If it cannot be avoided (and I aim to see that it can be avoided), I guess I might go ahead and appear on the ballot in 2016. We'll see. But for this election, at least, I can serve the immediate interests of America and the CDP just fine, without appearing on any ballot, anywhere.

2) I personally get to pick my own running mate for the 2012 election, at a time of my own choosing. Ditto for 2016. If I know me, I'll probably announce the 'honorary' vice presidential pick (he or she won't have to appear on the ballot anywhere, either - it's only fair) in the second of the two ebooks that constitute my 2012 presidential campaign.

3) My entire 2012 presidential campaign will be conducted via two ebooks, of which you are reading the first. I figure that if all goes well and according to plan, these ebooks can launch not only the Conservative Democratic Party, but the Bright White Light Entertainment Engine as well, and all in one fell swoop! We'll begin moving the CDP along the path toward all sorts of good things in 2014, and in 2016. That will, of course, be a very fine thing for you Americans.

4) I am allowed to share with you Americans the true story of what happened when I conducted my disastrous 'positive thinking' experiment and the ghosts came to live with me - and anything else I feel like sharing with you. I retain total control over the ebooks that constitute my presidential campaign.

The only real controversy was over this last condition, although the first and third also raised some eyebrows. But all four conditions were ultimately agreed to, and without further ado I share with you now the story of how it is that four ghosts, spirits, spooks, haunts, shades, call them what you will, came to live with me:

Each of us goes through rough patches in life and, during one such season in my own, Chester 'Snook' Williams exposed me to the writings of various 'positive thinking' authors. Snook Williams is the oldest resident of Smileyville; he's one hundred and three years old. He looks to be about seventy - a hardy and virile seventy - and I put nothing past him. I've no compunction whatsoever about considering him a rival for the affections of Ellie Belle O'Dell, the woman I love and aim to marry. Sure, go ahead and laugh, Americans, but if you'd ever seen Snook Williams jitterbugging and gallivanting around with Ellie under moon and stars during Ojibwa Creek Days, our summer festival - well.

So anyway, after I'd been living in the village a couple years and had started Smileyville Cab and Courier, I found myself in the doldrums (a chronic symptom of my Premature Curmudgeon Syndrome) and Chester Williams started sharing these positive thinking books with me. He started me off with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and ended with Napoleon Hill, with all kinds of stuff in between. After what happened when I was reading Napoleon Hill, I stopped reading those books for quite a few years. Too potent. Heh. The first thing I read of Napoleon Hill was a little book called 'Think and Grow Rich.' I was encouraged by the title, seeing as I had the battle half won before I even opened the book. Inspired (I am not the first, Americans, nor the last) by Think and Grow Rich, I threw caution to the wind and read a two-volume reprint of Hill's 'The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons,' which was loads of fun, too.

For those of you Americans out there who have never experienced the writings of 'positive thinking' authors, let me inform you that while they may all have the same general theme, each comes at it in their own unique way. Reading Napoleon Hill was where I first became acquainted with the concept of the 'Master Mind.' The Master Mind is a group of individuals (the numbers may vary) who come together in a spirit of cooperation toward the attainment of a specific goal. Well, Americans, that was all good and well, and the things Napoleon Hill had to say regarding 'master minds' made perfect sense to me. But then came the place where I first read what Hill had to say about something other: the 'Imaginary Master Mind!' Suppose there is someone, or a number of someones, whom you would love to have in a Master Mind, but you are hampered by the circumstance that they are, well... dead. No problem! And what Hill suggested doing, I did that very night. It was summertime, daughter Mell had gone camping with the family of a friend, and I lay down with the lights out, closed my eyes and got all relaxed and 'blank' and stuff. And then I began, one by one, to invite people into my Imaginary Master Mind (IMM).

I told each of them what I was attempting, and why, and what, specifically, I hoped each might bring to the table toward the attainment of my several goals. Now, there is no limit to how many people one may invite to join an IMM. One person might have half a dozen, another a dozen or more. To this day I thank God for the conservative sensibilities that led me to stop my invitations at three, although later I did invite a fourth. After my invitations were delivered, I waited a few moments and then commenced the first meeting of my Imaginary Master Mind. I spoke, in my mind, my eyes still closed. I spoke, and I listened. This went on for about twenty minutes. Then I thanked them for their time, adjourned the meeting, listened for a few more minutes (just in case), rolled over and went to sleep.

It was along toward four in the morning when the explosion awakened me. I sat up and heard whispered voices in urgent conversation; the voices sounded like they were coming from the kitchen. I didn't know what the explosion had been. I did know intruders were in my home. In a kind of panicked daze I looked around for a weapon. All I noticed was a pretty dream catcher, a gift given to me by my hippie next-door neighbors, Leaf and Rosehips and Bear and Doe, a few months after I'd moved to Smileyville. Rosehips had made it herself, and said it would help unfurrow my brow. She said it might even help me to separate it back into two distinct brows, and maybe even unfurrowed ones, if I had faith and utilized her relaxation techniques. No luck so far. In any event, armed with my dream catcher, I peeped from my bedroom doorway into the hall. It was dark and empty; I still couldn't make out any words; I heard whispers, a soft laugh, a warning shushing noise, the clatter of a metal pan being placed in a stainless steel sink, more shushing and another quiet laugh. Definitely the kitchen. I slowly made my way down the hall, gathering my courage as I went.

Being outnumbered, and deciding that the element of surprise represented my best hope of securing anything approaching a positive outcome, I did something, Americans, that I'd never done in my life, something I did not even know I possessed the ability to do. Leaping into the kitchen and brandishing my dream catcher, I let out the wildest, craziest 'rebel yell' anyone would ever want to hear. Even John Lennon, in the throes of primal scream passion, would have stopped to admire my own performance. Yes, I was ululating to beat the band (part of the enjoyment I take in sharing this story is that it allows me to use words such as 'ululating'), as my dream catcher sliced through the air like a drawn saber, alarming the three gentlemen in my kitchen and quite disconcerting my own self, if the truth be told. And then I suddenly stopped in mid-ululation, and slowly lowered my 'weapon.' There they were - the three gentlemen I'd invited, several hours earlier, to join my Imaginary Master Mind. There they were, as big and bold as life. Abraham Lincoln. Mark Twain. Charles Dickens. The explosion that had awakened me had been caused by Twain, who had taken a metal pan of meatloaf from the refrigerator and attempted to nuke it in my microwave oven. Yes, Americans, there they were, and there they have been ever since. They do not visit every day, but very nearly.

Thinking back on that day, and reading again the words of Napoleon Hill regarding the Imaginary Master Mind, I see that he was saying, between the lines, 'They can come to you! The members of your Imaginary Master Mind can really come to you!' Would that he had spelled it right out, so a fellow could decide beforehand if he was up to dealing with an Imaginary Master Mind come to life, or not. Especially when all the people you invite are special and brilliant people while you are only, well... you. Not always such a picnic, Americans.

There is, of course, a plus side. You'll recall my saying that, when I invited them to join my IMM, I told each in turn the specific help I sought; the assistance I asked of Lincoln differed from that requested of Twain, and what I sought from Dickens involved yet another aspect of my 'projects.' When each accepted my invitation, he agreed to do all he could to assist me as requested. And each has been as good as gold, Americans, and then some. Not speedy, necessarily, but very, very good.

__________

I mentioned that I did, at a later date, invite a fourth person to join my IMM. He should have been the first person I invited, but I was too ashamed to do so. It all goes back to September of 1964, when I had just turned six and started first grade. On this particular day I was home sick; allergies and other things regularly got the better of me when I was a young whippersnapper. I was in the living room, I remember, and I was 'channel wading.' We only had three television channels in those olden days, plus public broadcasting (but PBS did not even have Big Bird yet, and so did not really count), so there was no such thing yet as channel surfing - only channel wading. One of the channels had a weekday morning movie, and I watched the movie playing on that particular morning, but it was unlike any I'd seen before. As I grew older I realized that what I'd actually seen was a documentary, and the subject of the documentary was Harry S Truman. I had only been six years old for a few weeks but, as unlikely as it seems, I was enthralled. By the time noon rolled around and I sat in the kitchen eating lunch, I'd determined three things: I was a member of the Democratic Party; I'd be the President of the United States of America someday, and a great one; and Harry S Truman was my hero.

__________

My earliest memories are of my mom at night, in the bedroom I shared with my older brother, Waycoololderbro, and my younger brother, Thorninside, reading to us from a 'Children's Bible.' This was in the little three-bedroom ranch house on Crescent Drive that my dad had built a year or two before I was born. My sister, Mouse, is the oldest of us kids, eight years older than myself. She is developmentally disabled yet sharp as a tack, as is true of many if not to say most developmentally disabled people I have had the pleasure to have known. Mouse has blessed us in a thousand ways, and having her as our older sister provided valuable life lessons for her younger brothers, when we were growing up. Waycoololderbro - we'll just call him Waycool - is four years older than I, while Thorninside - let's go ahead and call him Thorn - is only 411 days, two hours and sixteen minutes younger.

Waycool, being older, had a later bedtime, but Mom would read to me and Thorn before 'lights out' every night, from various things; books of nursery rhymes and a marvelous collection of illustrated fairy tales, 'Curious George' books and, God save me from the 'zorbonites' (I already promised more on them later, Americans, but 'later' isn't here just yet), but yes - my mother read us 'Little Black Sambo.' And we loved it. It fired Thorn's and my imagination and we could readily identify with Sambo, which somehow, I think, is not a bad thing. We thought him clever. Anyway, that book was one of our favorites - we used to run around trees in the yard, trying to turn ourselves into butter. And there were picture books about animals, and about the various peoples of the world. And sooner or later, most nights, she'd read us something from that Children's Bible, with its illustrations of a decidedly fantastical bent. So you can see, Americans, that our mom was quietly going about the business of educating us and exercising our young minds, from as far back as I can remember. She raised early and avid readers; all Thorn and I thought we were doing was having great fun.

Naturally I'd long since been reading for myself, by the time Harry Truman came along and grabbed my attention. Mom started loading me up with all sorts of books about the presidency, to go with my regular diet of Dr. Seuss. Within a month of seeing that Truman documentary, I had the presidents memorized, thirty-six of them at that time. And by the following summer, the summer of 1965 and at the ripe old age of not quite seven, I'd made my first run for elected office. I ran for President of the Neighborhood. I won. I made few promises. I kept them. Later on, I found the discarded red plastic frames from a pair of sunglasses; there were no lenses, but they happened to be shaped like Harry Truman's glasses. I wore them on the campaign trail. Somewhere there is a photo still kicking around of my cub scout den - Den Seven - in a group photo, in which I am sporting my 'Harry Truman glasses.' By then I was seven years old. I must've been running for reelection. From first through fourth grades, I'd say I ran for President of the Neighborhood ten or twelve times, usually in the summer, and won 'em all. And I never did make many promises, but always kept the ones I made.

The year I discovered Harry Truman is the year we moved into the house on High Street, which Dad built in a lovely Colonial style, in a wooded area with a very big yard to play in. There are some people in their early fifties today who were kids growing up in that High Street neighborhood back then, who no doubt well remember those campaigns, and my conduct once elected. And so they should - they were the beneficiaries of a presidential administration that successfully pursued its policies: of more and better treats and snacks for the hardworking children of the neighborhood, the Boys and Girls of Summer; of later curfews and bedtimes; of 'special events,' most notably neighborhood cookouts, which were simply a blast.

Of course, as with any president who is not attempting to be a dictator instead of a president, I had to deal with a Congress. There was a House, made up of the moms of the neighborhood. There was a Senate, too; being a more deliberative body, it was made up of the dads. While it was rare that I was able to get everything I wanted for my constituents, I am not so modest as to deny that I tended to have splendid results with the House; if my legislation hit a snag, it was usually to be found in the Senate. But most times the House and Senate would work out some kind of a compromise in 'conference committee' - and my constituents, the Children of Summer, would benefit. And in politics, Americans, half a pie is better than no pie whatsoever.

Mom and Dad were always encouraging me to write a letter to Harry Truman. I never did so, and to this day I do not know why not. I was fourteen when he passed away, and spent many years regretting my failure to write and tell him what he'd meant to me. But this failure did lead me, in an effort not to repeat the offense, to write such a letter to Ray Bradbury. And I am very glad I did so. And yes, there is a moral here for you, Americans. Hmm. While I am thinking about it:

Hey! Al Kaline! Thank you for being my childhood baseball hero and my overall sports hero. There was you, Mr. Kaline - and then there was everybody else. Grace, consistency and quiet class while striving for excellence. For twenty-two years you were a gem in a baseball uniform that sported an Olde English 'D.' It was in later years, while you were telecasting Detroit Tigers games with good ol' George Kell, that I realized you were a gem, period. When I was a boy, Al Kaline, you were one of my several heroes. You still are a hero of mine. It seems I had quite a knack for picking well when it came to picking heroes as a boy. Each of you has stood the test of time. Thank you, Mr. Kaline, for the things you taught me about the importance of teamwork in the striving for excellence. Thank you, sir, for being a hero and not an idol, and for being eminently worthy of emulation.

__________

I suppose you Americans are wondering why it is that, when I was contemplating my great positive thinking experiment and the creation of my very own Imaginary Master Mind, I failed to invite Harry S Truman. The answer is twofold: partly, of course, I'd spent decades feeling guilty for not sending him a letter similar to the one I just wrote to Al Kaline. Harry Truman had done so much for me, I'd had years to tell him so, and hadn't. And now I was going to ask him to join my IMM and help me out? What if, now that he was, you know - on the other side - he gained a sort of awareness somehow, and had learned of my utter disregard of common courtesy toward him while he yet lived? Worse, what if he'd discovered that instead of passing away on December 26, 1972, he'd have lived until, say, July 27, 1980, if only I'd written that first letter to him but that, since I hadn't done so, the resultant delightful pen pal relationship that would have restored Harry's zest for life failed to occur? What about that, Americans?

The other part of the answer is that, unlike Abe Lincoln, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, Harry had been alive and had mattered to me as a living being in my own life. The same holds for the other heroes of my youth, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Somehow it was easier to invite the three I invited, not having known them 'personally,' so to speak. But Harry was the first person I thought of for my Imaginary Master Mind, and he knows it, too. And it turns out that, had I written him, we would have become famous pen pals, it would have renewed his zest for life and he'd have lived another seven and a half years or so, before dying peacefully in his sleep on July 27, 1980. Woulda/coulda/shoulda, Americans. Woulda/coulda/shoulda.

Harry, I am happy to say, harbored no ill feeling toward me for shortening his life by not becoming pen pals. "You were just a kid. We all cut you some slack for being a kid, Markus." I got the distinct feeling that the second time he called me 'kid,' he meant it in the present tense.

After Lincoln, Dickens and Twain entered my life, I knew there was nothing for it but to invite Harry, too. Even so, it took about two years for me to work up the courage to do so. When I finally did conduct Imaginary Master Mind experiment number two, I followed the same simple process as before, and - nothing. No Harry. I tried 'dialing his number' on several other occasions, too, in case I'd gotten a 'wrong number' or something, but nope. Nobody home. Either that, or Harry just wasn't answering.

And then came a day nearly a year later, early the following summer; I was walking the Smileyville Cab and Courier mascot, Pie, on the trails that run through Greening alongside the Ojibwa River. Pie (as in 'She's as sweet as pumpkin...') is a 'black lab,' very gentle, very smart. I was multitasking, Pie's leash in one hand and a book in the other, and - hmm? What's that? My, you Americans certainly are inquisitive. I was reading Mark Helprin's 'Winter's Tale.' Anyway, we came around a curve and I nearly collided with an elderly but dapper gentleman coming the other direction - and it was Harry! He later confided that he'd have gotten to me sooner, but that he was "taking a 'morning constitutional' and lost track of the time. It happens, Markus, 'time' being what it is on this side of things."

Dickens was the one who, months later, finally told me the truth: that Harry had been pulling my leg about having taken a year-long stroll and that he'd actually "been busy helping out another fellow, a chap even more befuddled than you, Markus." Charles Dickens often says things such as this to me, with a singular sincerity that convinces me he means no disrespect whatsoever. Then, when I am alone, the doubts come creeping in. Well, anyway, the four of them got a big laugh out of the 'morning constitutional.' They still do, all these years later, whenever it comes up in conversation. And it does so all too often to suit me, I can assure you Americans of that.

__________

On the morning when my IMM was created, and when I'd cleaned up their meatloaf disaster and made the three spirits a proper breakfast (any person who tells you that spirits possess no appetite or that, if they do, it doesn't matter because they cannot eat even if they want to, is a person whose experience of spirits is sorely lacking), Lincoln made a quip that I'd "be able to run for president, now that you've got yourself a proper 'kitchen cabinet.'" I looked Abe in the eye and replied that I was no longer interested in running for president, not ever, and reminded him that I'd asked for his help in building and launching the Conservative Democratic Party. I remember him smiling at me, shrugging and saying that that was what he thought he was doing.

And now here I am. Running for president. I've shared the story of the creation of my IMM with you Americans not merely because it happens to be true, but also because I am running for president as the nominee of a brand new political party, and I don't want you thinking I lack the means to wage an effective campaign. I have a 'kitchen cabinet' consisting of Abe Lincoln, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens and Harry S Truman. And that, Americans, ain't small taters.

I consider my opponents in the November election; the political parties they must and do represent; the political 'experts' they choose to pay, and to heed. Then I look at the state of our Union, and of the citizenry of the 'several States' of which it is comprised. And then I look at my own campaign on behalf of the political party I represent, the Conservative Democratic Party. I examine the basic tenets of the philosophy of the CDP. And finally I contemplate the members of my kitchen cabinet, and I arrive at a moment of sublime and crystal clear revelation: these other guys don't stand a chance. Heh. And what's more, the members of my kitchen cabinet are in unanimous agreement with that assessment. Double heh.

Hey! You young Americans out there! Did you read the Dedication at the start of this book? Did you read the part about where I dedicated it to you, and told you that I love you much? And did it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Good, then; we've had our moment. So now let's get to work. I charged the bare minimum of ninety-nine cents for this ebook, just so you kids would be able to afford to pay attention. If you've not been doing so already, then now would be a good moment for you to begin.