BACK TO THE ONE
A life of exploration, awakening, and coming home. It starts off Kings Creek in Weirton, West Virginia: eight kids in a house in the hills, a creek out back, a steel mill humming down along the Ohio, and the things that happened there that a grown man is supposed to outgrow, and never did.
The stories are mine. The possibility is yours.
Inside, You'll Find
Not a sermon and not a self-help book. True stories, told straight: funny, hard, tender, and now and then hard to believe.
- Gnomes on the stairs. A three-year-old who can't sleep for the racket tells them to leave, and they go. The first of the things he never outgrew.
- The creek and the mill. Barefoot crawdad fishing in cold, clear water thirty feet from all that iron, with the hum of the mill that never quit.
- Sent back. The summer the twins came home, and what nobody said standing over the bed: a few days before, on the table at the hospital, his mother had died.
- Man and His World. 1967, three brothers, one father, and the long drive north to Niagara Falls and the World's Fair in Montreal.
- Called it. A Sunday, a station wagon full of kids, and a boy who says out loud that the brakes will fail on North 12th. Then they do.
- The giant sleeping. The thing that lives inside a seventy-five-pound boy and comes out the day somebody hurts his little brother.
- Norman Rockwell with the lid on. An almost idyllic little town, the sulfur haze on still days, and the summer of the riots.
- Girls and other hazards. First crushes, the track behind the school, a blue Mustang on 12th Street, and the honest pitch to Ricky Israel.
"Before I knew what a stock chart was, I knew how to read a creek."From Chapter Two, Kings Creek
Inside The Book
The journey starts at the beginning: Kings Creek and growing up in Weirton, told in order, the way it happened. More chapters are on the way.
The Early Years
A big family, a small house, and the first strange things a boy keeps to himself.
- 1. Before I Knew BetterGnomes on the stairs.
- 2. Kings CreekBefore the charts, there was the creek.
- 3. The Sound of NothingFirst grade, and a tongue turned to wood.
- 4. Man and His World1967: Niagara Falls and the World's Fair.
- 5. The Grand FinaleThe twins come home.
The Hills
Where the streets quit being flat, the woods began, and nobody came looking until dark.
- 6. What the Hills WoreWhere the town ended and the wild began.
- 7. SummersBasement rock and roll and everything else.
- 8. Whatever the Hill KeptTrusting the bottom to be there.
Growing Up
Premonitions, fights, girls, and the town at the bottom of the hill coming into focus.
- 9. Called ItThe brakes on North 12th.
- 10. The Giant SleepingThe thing that comes out when it's needed.
- 11. Norman Rockwell with the Lid OnThe idyll and the riots.
- 12. Girls and Other HazardsJunior high and the track.
- 13. Already in the CarA blue Mustang on 12th Street.
- 14. Golden BoysThe honest pitch.
Still Being Written
The road out of Weirton runs through a near-fatal health crisis in his twenties, years involved with a monastery, the highs and lows of the markets, and the quiet clarity found in nature. Those chapters are being written now.
This Book Is For You If…
You want the real story, not the version dressed down to make it easier to believe.
- You grew up in a mill town, a small town, or a house full of kids.
- You remember leaving after breakfast and coming home at dark.
- Something has happened to you that you've never told anyone.
- You've wondered whether there's more going on than what you can see.
- You love a good story, told straight.
About Paul Lemal
Paul Lemal grew up off Kings Creek at the north end of Weirton, West Virginia, one of eight kids in a steel town that ran on the mill. He went on to work in real estate, financial markets, integrative healthcare, psychology, and personal development, and today he teaches traders around the world a cycle-based approach to the markets.
Along the way he collected stories, some his own and some handed to him by people who swore they'd never tell anyone. Back to the One is where he finally tells them.
Come Down to the Creek.
This book isn't meant to convince you of anything.
It's meant to crack a door open.