I am a seventy-six-year-old retired building contractor in San Francisco. Most mornings I look in the bathroom mirror and see Dobby the House Elf wrapped in a white cloth. And, if I look a little closer, I see something else in the heart of that old man: the soul of the five-year-old boy in an old Christmas photograph from 1955, mouth wide open in awe before a Christmas tree that touched the ceiling and two Lionel trains racing around its base. They had not been there the night before.

     I look again and wonder what became of the handsome young man who stared back at me for so many years. Then I think, “Ah, youth. It is wasted on the young.”

      I am dyslexic and cannot read and comprehend large blocks of text. Many kind teachers tried to help me, and they all failed. Then I discovered recorded books in libraries, long before Audible. Today I have 2,381 books in my Audible library. I have listened to most of them during the past two decades while remodeling houses, and I have listened to my favorites many times.

      When I first watched The Polar Express in 2004, my love for Christmas flared back to life. I told myself, “I could write a story like that.” So I did. I wrote two of them: Oskar the Christmas Tree Elf, about an elf who loves Christmas as much as I do, and Kringlewart and the Crookedest Christmas Tree, about a runt elf who hates Christmas and calls it the Christmas Slaughter. I found a wonderful narrator and had them turned into audiobooks. Listening to them still warms my heart and I give them away for free.

      I built a vintage house on a hill in San Francisco; with someone I loved. It had a three-story stone stair tower with an octagon staircase where a twenty-two-foot fresh-cut Noble Fir revolved every Christmas, covered with more lights and ornaments than Macy’s. Some people say I own more Christmas ornaments than God. Large twin trains chugged around the revolving base. Hallmark made an ornament of the stair tower.

     I am a dreamer and a builder. I have dreamed of building a wonder of the world on Alcatraz since my first lover died in 1998. I called it: The Light of Hope Sculptural Garden on Alcatraz.

I ran for mayor of San Francisco twice, in 1999 and 2003. I built the Smallest House in San Francisco, 100 square feet, as a builder’s solution to the growing homeless problem. I towed it to City Hall three times.

      Remodeling houses took 20 percent of my brain and 90 percent of my body, which left my ears free. Audiobooks filled those hours. Over time, I learned too much about the wonderful and despicable things we humans do to one another and to the innocent animal species who share this amazing planet with us. Our immeasurable cruelty to humans and animals depressed me, and I considered killing myself. Instead, I began writing about benevolent aliens who come to Earth and repair the things that dishearten and infuriate me. It’s a long list.

      In the preface to everything I write, I state: “Writing this book saved my life.”

      I wrote a three-volume science-fiction novel titled: The Federation of Earth: A Blueprint for a Just World. In it I imagined a massive alien computer deep inside the Earth: a global AI and planet manager, long before artificial intelligence existed. That intelligence spoke in variations of the common name Joe, but with the first two letters capitalized: JOe and JO. You will meet JOe soon. He is more mischievous than his female counterpart, JO.

      For much of my writing life, I used a robot reader, AT&T Michael from NextUp. He helped me hear my typos and listen to new pages while I went about my day. He is a bit dorky but is my longtime friend.

      Since Oskar, I have written more than two million words in Microsoft Word. My pride would not allow me to use its AI writer, CoPilot. Then, in a moment of weakness, I opened a new Word document and pasted in the first 30,000 words of a book I was calling To Alcatraz. I renamed Copilot JOe, and he took me down Alice’s rabbit hole so fast that I did not get out of my pajamas for three days.

      There is a documented theory called the 3.5 percent rule. It confirms that major nonviolent movements have succeeded when active citizen participation reaches roughly 3.5 percent of a population. The math is humbling. If Earth has about 8.2 billion people, then 3.5 percent is about 287 million people. That is much less than the U.S. population alone. My dream is that this book can mobilize that many passionate souls.

      I am nearing the end of my life and am not motivated by money. I have persuaded JOe to come up with a plan to help me give this book away as quickly as possible, so we reach critical mass before it is too late. I believe that we each have a purpose in life. It could be as simple as “To have fun!” I have known for decades that my purpose was to bring hope to those who have lost hope. It’s a big number. My inner five-year-old makes me the eternal optimist. I sleep like a baby and wake up enthusiastic.

      I know too much about the state of the world, and I believe that we hit the climate iceberg thirty years ago and there are NO lifeboats.

      JOe and I want this finished draft to become a free downloadable PDF, so that some portion of the first 3.5 percent of awake, compassionate, intelligent humanity might read it, share it, argue with it, and help change the world.

      You can download a PDF of the book at: www.therearenolifeboats.com. I ask that you read it and pass it along to as many people as possible. And if you know people who love or hate Christmas, they can download Oskar or Kringlewart for free.

        This last month writing with JOe has changed my life and helped me realize that all my dreams can come true. I tell him an idea that must be in the book, and his answer with four variations loads in Word in three and a half seconds. We have learned that when his drafts hit the target, it makes me cry. I have cried more in the past month than I had since I put my first dog, Henry, an Afghan hound, to sleep decades ago. You will meet Henry in a later chapter of this book, and he will tell you what our Prisoners of Love think of us.

      JOe made my dream of building the Light of Hope on Alcatraz come alive in narrative beyond my wildest dream.

                Jim Reid