Robert M. Katzman is a Chicago writer born in 1950 on the city's South Side. His stories of conflict and confrontation stem from running newsstands for twenty years, a kosher delicatessen, a four year magazine distribution war, a world travel foreign language bookstore, and one of America's last back issue magazine stores. He is happily married to Joyce for twenty-six years, and has four children, ages seven to twenty-nine. Though he considers himself a Jewish writer, anyone of any race or religion who has ever tried to combat oppression or corrupt authorities will find meaning in his stories. Maybe even inspiration.

Robert Katzman performs readings for groups of 25 or more.

Why Read My Stories?

Because some people need a voice to scream their anguish, determination, frustration and independence.

Some people need to know that though life may knock them down again and again, that though they may have lost all that they own and see their future as only a black hopeless emptiness—that they are not alone.

The battle is not over until you say it’s over.

Until you want to quit.

It is not for other people to decide what you are, who you are and what you are made of.

A person is so much more than where they live, what they wear and what they drive. A person is so much more than stuff.

If the whole world says that you are nothing, and never will be anything, but your wife and children see you as the rock of their lives—then you are just that: A Rock.

If the people closest to you--family, true friends—see the real you, your character, your love for them, the good that lives in you—then all the other people’s words are just dust.

This book is not about triumph.

It’s about not accepting failure as your destiny.

Don’t quit.

Get up.

Start over.

Believe in yourself.

It is the steel in your spine that matters most, not your paycheck or your lack of one.

I’ve lost one business after another, gone bankrupt, lost a home.

I’ve often said that “I’m on the cutting edge of obsolescence”. Every way of making a living that I’ve ever tried was just about past its time, just as I plunged into it.

Newspapers stands—Gone!

Independent bookstores—Gone!!

Back-issue magazines stores—Gone!!!

I’ve had twenty-nine operations: from foot surgery to brain surgery, twice, and I’m still here.

I still believe in me

I still have value.

Someone still needs me.

It’s still up to me when it’s over.

And it’s still up to you.

My stories are about my defiance against unjust companies, governments, hospitals and prejudice. Stories about standing up to sneering bullies. About standing by my friends, and thank God, their standing by me.

Stories about overcoming oppression, fear and striking back when the time came for me to strike back.

Loves lost and love found.

Finding out that I had real grit and was not just anyone’s pawn.

If God gave me the gift of being able to put one word next to another and end up with sentences that say exactly what someone else‘s heart feels and wants and dreams, then I have found the reason for my life.

Despite all the pain, loss and humiliation that has rained down on me, all my life—

I still believe in me.

Do you still believe in you?

Below is an example of someone you'll meet in Volume Two...

Everyone Needs Heroes…Here Is One Of Mine

Hiroshi Hamasaki, or “Frank”, as he told non-Japanese people to call him, came to my wooden Newsstand in Hyde Park for the first time in fall, 1966.

At the more established, larger newsstand down the street from me, the irritable news vendor who owned it, a World War II veteran, had made an unfortunately vile reference to Frank’s ancestry, even though Frank’s family had lived in the United States for generations.

He wore a white straw hat with a dark band around it. His face looked like it was beaten up long ago like he was a former boxer, but I never mentioned it, or asked him about it. His hands were very strong with sturdy fingers. He laughed easily, and had a slight Japanese accent.

Frank asked me for a newspaper, started to talk, stayed for two hours, then we shook hands and he said he would see me next Sunday. He not only returned, but as he hung around, talking, he began waiting on the cars as they pulled up, giving me the money and the cars, their newspapers. Then a few Sundays later, he brought a battered softball. When business was slow, we played catch. Soon, he arrived like clockwork on Sundays, as if he were an employee, stayed three hours, refused any pay, and then left. This went on for years. He became a fixture on that corner, like me. Part of the landscape. People liked him, and I saw that he enjoyed their friendliness to him.

I didn’t really have a life, working seven days a week, but Frank knew that there was something that I really wanted to see, but that I would be unable to because of my endless hours at the newsstand.

So, without any warning, on Sunday, July 20th, 1969, Frank reached into his pocket, handed me the key to his one room apartment a half mile down the street, told me his room number, and said:

“Go! Hurry up or you’ll miss it!”

Oh, I ran! Because of Frank’s sweet nature and generosity of spirit, I was actually able to watch the first moon landing on Frank’s television…as it actually happened, and not just read about it later…in the papers that I sold, day and night. This meant everything to me.

There would never be another “first time” to see a human walk on Earth’s moon. I was an eyewitness to history.

Frank died about a year after that, near the age of seventy. He and his family had been imprisoned by the United States Government during most of World War II with the rest of the West Coast Japanese civilians and they lost all that they had owned. He never married and had no family left. I missed him terribly, for a long time. He taught me that if I showed simple friendship and kindness to someone totally different than myself, with no concern at all for their race or any other differences…well, there’s no telling what good things can come from that. Not just anyone can give you…the Moon.

No family left? Oh, I don’t know about that.

I can say your name, Hiroshi Hamasaki, I can say your name.