Category: <span>Featured Authors</span>

Published July 12, 2024 by

Moving To Charlotte

Moving Away From Virginia
Moving Away

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

We’ve moved. Over the past several months Winnie and I have made the complex transition from living in Northern Virginia to living in Charlotte, North Carolina. This transition involved buying a house, selling our house, moving our extensive collection of household goods, and reorganizing my ongoing professional life. Not to mention shifting all our necessary professional support services we developed during the eighteen years we lived in Virginia.

But we now live in Charlotte. In the great scheme of life adventures that’s happened to Winnie and me, this was just another speed bump.

Continue…Moving To Charlotte

Family Stories Ron Charest

Charlotte Moving Out North Carolina

Published December 31, 2023 by

The Monsters Living Among Us

Dealing with monsters among us. Photo by Luis Quintero: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-a-person-1799904/
Dealing With Monsters Among Us

Estimated reading time: 19 minutes

Between my former Navy career and present consulting career I’ve met, worked with, even lived with, a lot of different people. New people constantly cycle into my world, then cycle back out due to forces and decisions not under my control.

On the positive, I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting people whom I never would have known through social activities. On the negative, I’ve been forced to deal with some truly horrible people.

More than horrible, I’ve been thrown into dealing with actual monsters living among us. People who from the outside seemed like normally decent human beings, but scratching their skin revealed a creature totally devoid of soul. One of these monsters was a seemingly decent family-man with a wife and three lovely daughters. Dealing with him threw me into one of the ugliest situations I’ve ever been involved in.

Continue…The Monsters Living Among Us

In the Navy Ron Charest

Family Navy Story

Black Storm Over the CaspianBlack Storm Over the Caspians - Armand Charest. Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay
Published September 25, 2023 by

Black Storm Over the Caspian

When a major oil company needs to expand their operations, they set their sights on the Caspian Sea. Plague and the possibility of nuclear terrorism follows. This is an unfinished novel.

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Armand Charest

Armand Charest Fiction

Published July 8, 2023 by

My Submariner’s View on Loss of The Oceangate Submersible

The OCeanGate Submersible "Cyclops I." Predecessor to the "Titan" Lost on June 18, 2023. Attribution: Isabeljohnson25 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44018722
The OCeanGate Submersible “Cyclops I.” Predecessor to the “Titan” Lost on June 18, 2023

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

This is my commentary as a former US Navy submarine sailor, and former member of the Navy’s deep submergence community, on last month’s event when five people died on a rickety submersible while diving to the wreck of Titanic. 

I qualified in submarines on the nuclear fast attack submarine USS Scamp (SSN 588) all the way back in 1976. Although my qualification board was forty-seven years ago, I retain membership in the highly exclusive community of submarine veterans.

Continue…My Submariner’s View on Loss of The Oceangate Submersible

Ron Charest Rons Archives

Deep Submersible OceanGate submarines

An Incident in IndiaPhoto by Jeswin Thomas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-cathedral-1007427/
Published June 10, 2023 by

An Incident in India

                                                                                                              

Armand Charest, 1998
Armand Charest

         Matthew Bainbridge stomped to the poolside chaise longue, sat down clumsily and with a deep, exasperated, silent roar laid the crutches aside. He hoisted his plaster-sculptured leg and placed it, cautiously, onto the end of the recliner. The attentive waiter brought a cool drink and, sitting back, Bainbridge relaxed with a sigh of rejuvenation. All was well in the world once again, he reflected. The happy sounds of the frolickers floated around him as his mind drifted back to recent events in his life. He shifted his leg, very gingerly, to relieve the pain. Drowsing a bit as the sun beamed down, radiating peace and serenity, he mused, “Summer, did you really exist? Where did you disappear?”

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Armand Charest

Armand Charest Fiction

Published March 28, 2022 by

This Old House

This Old House
Our Second House Restoration Project

In 2008 Winnie and I purchased a second house as investment property. We had settled into our new community of Woodbridge, Virginia, and purchased a home to live in the year prior.

Through a friend, Winnie learned of a house for sale “at a good price.” This turned out to be true. The house, a 1954-vintage masonry-construction house was for sale at an amazingly low price – because it was a total fixer-upper.

So we bought it. This is our old house home improvement story.

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Ron Charest

home improvement renovation

A Gala AffairSecret Agent Man
Published February 19, 2022 by

A Gala Affair

When Scott Emerson received a call from his former colleague, now-turned CIA agent Dave Miller his first instinct was to hang up. Next thing he knew, he was heading a mission to rescue hostages in Southern Sudan, right in the middle of a civil war.

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Armand Charest

Short Story

Published February 18, 2022 by

Three Stories

This longing to live in a world
Where everything makes perfect sense;
The way a dream makes perfect sense;
And it does, when awake enough to see it.
In the Alameda park, between two pines, their roots…

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Jeff Charest Short Stories

Prose Short Story

Published January 31, 2022 by

The Most Unfortunate Mouse

This one day a mouse covered in platinum sheeting went for a
ride on his toady-steed. Nothing was intended to be gay about
this for the mouse was in a furious mood…someone had stolen
his innards in the night! Mouse was sure he knew who had
them: it was

Continue…The Most Unfortunate Mouse

Arabic Saj’ Jeff Charest

Arabic Saj’

Published January 4, 2022 by

Dream of Cockayne

Last night I dreamt about a theater,
And a king and queen adorned in splendor
In ermine robes, trimmed with snow leopard,
Who ruled a kingdom in grim estate.
The ripe wheat shriveled from drought,
Families sold their children as slaves,
Dog packs prowled the littered streets,
Not even bandits conducted trade.

Continue…Dream of Cockayne

Jeff Charest Short Stories

Prose