Born & raised just outside Chicago, Mike Proko grew up in an atmosphere that would make a seasoned writer jealous. What a list of characters Priests. Politicians. Mobsters. Union bosses. Actors. Poets. Drunks. The high-lifes and the low-lifes. Strangers that would give you the shirt off their backs. Relatives that would take your last nickel. He would learn at a very young age that the people that you were supposed to look up to were the very ones that you should look out for and that the bad guys were sometimes the good guys. Included is a collection of stories and short-stories by MLProko (Rising from The Ashes, Vol.1 &2, Some Things My Grandparents Taught Me). Stories ranging from a love story to a political thriller; from a soldier who kills for an underworld boss to a sardonic look to a town that time seems to have forgotten;from a story about the love between a father and his daughter to a golfer who seems to have put his dreams on hold. Proko's attention to character detail is precious and each story will have the feeling of a small movie.