My stepfather, Paul Dutcher, passed the day after Christmas in 2018. He lived and died in beauty. My family held a peaceful “celebration of life” ceremony for him on Navarre Beach in Florida. His death happened while I was writing this book and I want my readers to know how much of an impact this amazing man had on my life.
My sister Angie and I were very young when my mother fled from Chicago and divorced my biological father. We had a tough early childhood after moving back to my mother’s hometown in Florida. Paul had just graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a history degree. He was a smart man and was part of the state’s anti-war protests.
After graduation, he traveled all over the country, including New England during the fall, and settled in Florida after having a spiritual moment out in the ocean. He told me, when he saw how the moon reflected on the ocean at night, he knew he was home.
He met my mother when they both were employees at one of Pensacola’s most haunted locations, Seville Quarter. He was a bartender and she was a waitress. According to my father, it was a love at first sight.
I remember moving in with him at his apartment. I loved that he had a pool and I remember his book collection. The first novel I remember seeing him read was Shogun. He loved music, specifically jazz and many of the folk singers from the 1960s. He had an affinity for female vocalists like Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez.
For me, he will always be associated with Christmas because that first one we had together in the 1970s was the best one ever. We went to the movie theater to watch the first Star Wars movie. He married my mother on October 14, 1979. Their wedding song was “Clair de Lune.” His loved ones from Michigan accepted my sister and me with opened arms. He came from a family of extremely intelligent, progressive, and loving people.
Paul loved playing the piano and taught me and my sister how to play when we were young. As I got older, he supported my creativity. In fact, he typed and edited my first submission to a magazine. I got a rejection from Highlights in the third grade. But I will never forget his help with that story.
My mother had three more children and times were tough for us. He bought an old haunted bar called the “Porthole” that ended up catching on fire. We lost everything. However, our livelihood eventually got better and my younger brothers and sisters didn’t see the struggles we had when they were very little.
Paul was a substitute teacher at one point and I believe my love for history came from him. He also had a voice that was made for radio and did a lot of voice-over work for a local radio station later on. His baritone voice was one of the best in the business. He was a bartender during my teens and I remember him telling me that he enjoyed being a “barstool psychologist” when he tended bar. He drove a blue hippie van and was always trying to keep the “love van” running.
There was one moment when I was younger that he and I had a heart to heart. I asked him why he married my mother. He paused and, for the first time ever, I noticed a tear roll down his cheek. He said, “Your mother is the most honest woman I have ever known.”
We had a house of sensitive souls. He was quiet and laid-back and would always play his jazz music in the background. However, when he spoke, it meant something. His words were powerful. When I asked him where he would go if he could visit any place again based on his days as a hippie who roamed America in his Volkswagen Squareback, he told me he loved Vermont in the fall. I’m dedicating Ghost Writers to the man who was my father most of my life and introduced me to the works of many of the authors featured in this book.