[stylist] Past Tense Usage Question

[loristay]

On second review, the past perfect is indicated here in more than one sentence:  Billy Boy and I were watching--is one.  Another is I still had a hard time ...  And the third is he'd always seemed, where he'd is an abbreviation for he had.  But I do maintain that usually one will indicate via the past perfect that the scene is in the past (i.e. not in the present action), and that after that, it isn't as necessary to use the word "had."
Lori
On Jun 8, 2010, at 3:20:39 PM, loristay <loristay at aol.com> wrote:


I had glimpsed the stilt dancers only once. Billy Boy and I were watching them through a gap in the big top when the shaman caught us. He ran me off; he
allowed Billy Boy to stay. I still had a hard time picturing Billy Boy as one of them. To me he'd always seemed like a clown wannabe.