“Sophie” is the second piece of fiction I ever sold. I wrote it thirty years ago, and it appeared in a magazine (now defunct) called Lynx Eye, Summer 1997, Vol. IV, No. 3.

In the story, a college student learns a lot at his first job. I set it in what was then the Plankinton Mall in downtown Milwaukee. I worked there at an ice cream shop one summer in the mid-1970s when I was a college student like the protagonist. At the time, I was living in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee — and, with nostalgia, I still love Bay View Beach.

You can read “Sophie,” 2000 words, here.

(The first story I sold was “Poet for Hire,” which you can read here.)