The other night after being asleep about an
hour, the phone rang. Immediate thoughts of injured or dying family came to
mind. Do you know what kind of words I said when I learned it was a
telemarketer? It was a computer controlled telemarketer for Seniors no less, and
I could not even rant at a living being! Calling Seniors in the middle of the
night to warm them of the dangers of falling? Get real.
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This has been an odd summer
in that we have had some cool days and long for rain too. There have been some excruciatingly
hot days, but they have not gone on for weeks and weeks. You can often expect
that in the Midwest in July! Now we are getting ready to jump into August…the
back to school month. Our phone popped today from family and friends needing
help in the coming weeks. I hope we can keep up energy in these old bodies,
that things go well for all those we care about.
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I have my autumn
writing contest submissions mailed off! Six entries and I hope something does
well. I am waiting on a couple of submissions from magazines too. I have
exchanged several emails with an editor over a nostalgia piece and sent several
pictures. He wants to use but no date for publication given. I need to be
forming new ideas but with a busy August looming I probably won’t even be able
to THINK much let begin to write. Meanwhile, I hope to keep reading because
reading good writers is one way I think I hone up my own writing—by studying
their examples.
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DH loves toting in
the tomatoes right now. He is getting a few every day. Since we were paying $5
a pound for nice slicers, these are handy in the kitchen. Love tomatoes! Love
corn too, but we can not eat much here at this house. One nice pan of roasting
ears was pure Heaven last week. It seems that the summer eating has gone as
fast as the summer days. Already people are beginning to think of fall crops,
of fall produce. Only a month away from the hummingbird migration…and we notice
that the birds are still here but in less numbers. We have not heard our wrens
in a couple of days…wonder…?
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Last week while it
was so hot, I could enjoy early mornings on the deck, but by noon it was
uncomfortable. That meant long reading times inside. Nothing wrong with
reading! While I ran across a couple of books I just could not continue
reading, I found two good reads. I no longer punish myself to finish a bad
book. I was never a quitter, taught always to finish what I started, I now
give myself permission to put down a bad book!
I read John Grisham’s
The Innocent Man that he wrote in
2006, a work of non-fiction. He follows the investigation and trial of men
after a murder, am extremely brutal and sadistic one, in Ada, Oklahoma. The police and prosecutor made a
mess of the situation and sent two innocent men to jail for twelve years. One
was five days from being put to death before a stay arrived that saved him long
enough to be found innocent. It is scary this book…how close any one of us are
to being misunderstood, pushed aside, falsely accused, and denied a fair
treatment.
The other good book
was a piece of fiction but full of researched details. Wildwood Boys by James Carlos Blake is about Bloody Bill Anderson
and William Quantrill. Blake makes the history of the Border Wars and Bleeding
Kansas come alive, although I will admit it is a rather ugly read not for the
faint of heart. While I knew of Order 11…of Burnt Mill…of the burning of Lawrence,Kansas, of the 90 plus Union soldiers massacred over at Baxter Springs, Kansas,
Blake put the events in order and let me see them on a type of timeline through
story.
I grew up in Kansas
and to be honest, I did not really hear that much about the Missouri side of the
story. I do remember hearing in grade school that the Jayhawks were “just an
imaginary bird”. No one along the way explained to me the meaning of those red
legs, those blue jacket feathers. Nor did I ever understand the meaning of a
Rebel Yell! Frankly, Union and Rebels were neck in neck with the horrors they
committed. Blake’s writing is good, the book a page turner, but be warned it is
a gruesome tale!
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And so, August is coming like it or not...I believe I'm ready.