The Picker By Terry L. White         Paul Bowen must have been born to the wrong parents. Neither Emily nor Charlie had the slightest idea where all his talent for music came from, but while Charlie was slightly bemused and halfway proud of his talented offspring, Emily couldn't have been more mystified than if the boy had been born with two heads. Some folks are like that.         Maybe Paul got his dream from the Gates boys who lived over by the underwear factory. They got along fine with no women whatsoever around and could make music whenever they wished. Paul, on the other hand, had his mother to contend with, and it got so it was a real battle, him wanting to play that guitar, her wanting to turn him into a good little boy. Some folks never recognize a game they shouldn't ought to play.          There were those who thought Paul would straighten out and get some sense once he grew up, but Paul didn't see it that way. He wanted to make music, and that was that. Teachers couldn't do a thing with him, and neither could his folks or the U.S. Army. He just had this thing for drifting around, playing music and trying to figure out how to be a star. You couldn't have beat it out of him with a stick, but that's the way it is with a picker.          Paul went places, you could say that for him. He saw most of the country from behind six steel strings and an alcoholic haze. He had him some fine gigs and wrote some tolerable good country songs, too, if you want to know the truth. Trouble is, he never did get so he could pay his bills when they came in - let alone anything like professional dues, which aren't so much tendered in cold cash, but in handling the next guy in an honorable way.         It took a good woman to get him straightened around, and Sarah Shaw was that, too bad her constitution wasn't strong enough for the strain of following Paul around. Shine!, the band they cooked up with the guy named Cowboy had more than a couple of hits, it even got Paul put up for Entertainer of the Year, just before his dues were called in, and Sarah had the spell that took her.          A lot of folks would have considered Paul a loser, the way he drank after that, but then they never saw the whole picture. The world like this needs song singers same as it needs carpenters and doctors. In Paul's case, he got around enough to influence some up and coming kids and make them want to be country stars.          You could say he left his mark on the world. Author TERRY L. WHITE         Terry L. White, author of MYSTICK MOON, was raised in the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania. The eldest of eight children, she dreamed of being a writer and made up stories to amuse herself and her siblings. Of European and Native American descent, she grew up with the family legends of being Abraham Lincoln's relative; of ancestors arriving in the New World as indentured servants, and of abandoned coal mines that burned forever underground on the mountain overlooking her childhood home. Terry's fascination with history, folk art and ways, and New Age philosophy provide her with much of the material she incorporates in her work. She has published hundreds of short stories, articles, poems and songs. Terry is a long-time member of the International Women's Writing Guild and teaches a workshop at their summer conference at Skidmore College each year. Coming soon from Terry L. White will be HANG YOUR HEAD OVER; HELL OR HIGH WATER and THE LAST PRIESTESS. She can be reached at:www.sunweaver.com/stonesoup/.