The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time by Samuel Ben White

were almost ten years older than me.
    It has been said that man only fears the unknown. If so, that is why I feared girls. They were (are?) an unknown quantity to me. From a distance, they seem soft and warm...but mysterious most of all. What do girls talk about when boys are not around? Are they really as soft as they seem? Without even sisters or girl cousins, I had no frame of reference for these questions.
    While I may have been "the model Soviet" in all other elements, I certainly suffered from arrested development in the area of women (and most other social contexts, if the truth be known). So, at the age of twenty-nine, I have not yet had twenty dates in my life—and most of the ones I have had have been of the variety where I, as a celebrity, escorted another celebrity. We smiled for the cameras and often held hands, but there has been no opportunity—and in some cases no desire—to actually converse.
    Realistically, I have to admit that I didn't get along that well with other guys, either. I missed out on much of "growing up": back-yard football, tree houses, and rough-housing. As I got to be an adult—or maybe even before then—it just became easier to involve myself with experiments than with other people. Even my teammates when I played football on the world circuit were just that: teammates. I was uncomfortable with the off-field fraternization because I was so inexperienced at such things and was usually the first back to the hotel or dorm at night, where I spent the evening alone. I probably came off as a snob, which I truly regret.
    So here I sit, thinking about the young woman I met today. That doesn't even adequately cover what's going through my mind. I can't stop thinking about the girl I met. Sarah. But what could I say or do to get to know her better? I know from my past pattern that what I'll most likely do when next I see her is stutter and stammer and never actually say anything—other than to maybe order a meal from the tavern.
    Ironic, isn't it, that someone who has made a successful of life of quantum physics is afraid of people because they present too many variables?
     
     
     
     
    Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes
    As Darius stood looking at the wide Mississippi, perhaps watching the sun set as it dipped below the horizon on the other side, he finally acknowledged something he had probably known ever since he left the Cherokee village: he couldn't go on without White Fawn. Even his service and duty to General Washington paled in the face of love. And everything took on a sickly pallor with the prospect of facing the world without White Fawn by his side.
    When dawn broke, Darius started back to the Cherokee village. The trip back was actually much quicker than the trip to the river had been for he was taking no time to stop, survey, or meet the locals. He had a singular purpose in mind and let nothing slow him down from his pursuit.
     
     
    Chapter Eight
    Garison soon proved himself a more than able smithy and, true to his word, a quick learner. From the start he began to notice elements of the process which could be made more efficient and even ways in which the metals they worked with could be improved. He kept his ideas to himself, for fear of being too presumptuous, but knew that—over time—he could make Finneas Franklyn's smithy the talk of the colonies. Some of his knowledge came from the advantage of being from the future, but much of it came simply from the fact that he always tried to improve anything he worked on.
    He held back for another reason, as well, though. The thought kept coming to Garison that, if he really had traveled backward in time—and every indication he could find corroborated the assumption—then any move he made could have dilatory effects on the future he knew. The wrong move—however innocent—might have dire consequences on his own family tree and, thus, his very life.
    On the other hand, he reasoned, it was entirely