Friends and Storm Country Reading

The Storm Country readings and book sales were last Sunday evening in St. Louis. I would have had hard time doing an eight hour drive round trip for two hours of readings, but the night worked perfectly for me because we were in route back home from Kentucky. It was tight since we got in at 4:00, were cleaned up although not refreshed, and were at our friends’ house by 5:30. DH stayed with our friend who is recovering from surgery while his wife came with me to the readings. It was a nice evening for all four of us.


We have been friends with these people for 41 years after living next to them in an apartment in Hazelwood, Missouri as newlyweds. We have worked to stay in touch through tragedies and triumphs. All my friends mean everything to me. Like my grandma always said, “You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.” I am one lucky person to be able to cross paths with so many people worth the “picking” for friends.


While the Storm Country evening was nice, the best part was meeting some of my Blogger Buddies in the flesh. They are just as charming and delightful as the words they write. How odd it felt to walk up to someone you have never laid eyes on before, yet you knew them in your heart. I never meant to blog, didn’t want any part of it. But then it became a little lifesaver to me, opening doors to some fun and meaningful things.


Donna at http://donnasbookpub.blogspot.com was the first blog I ever read. I think because she reminded me of my teaching friend I began to follow her. Her kindness and sharing of writing tips kept me coming back so that I met Linda (http://lindaoconnell.blogspot.com) and Becky (http://beckypovich.blogspot.com) and Lynn (http://lynnobermoeller.blogspot.com). You should check into these blogs if you want some laughter, some talk about writing, or sometimes a life reflection. I check at many blogs but can’t follow them all or I would get nothing else done. So I do limit who I follow, but highly recommend these St. Louis gals who feel like they are right across the fence to me since I live in Missouri with them.


These busy days make friendships harder to hold. Days are hectic and everyone is reduced to twitters, email, and dashed off lines that are incomplete. Gone are the days of long letters and beautiful words penned with care and affection. We have to work so much harder to stay in touch at all. Right now I have a list of letters waiting to be written. When I look at the names each day I hear that song “Tomorrow, Tomorrow…” because I keep moving the letter writing to tomorrow! But at least I do still plan to write, even if it is an email on colored “paper” that sails through the air. I do appreciate people, friends, and want to keep in touch with them. They are valuable to my life!

              Donna, Lynn, and Linda as they read their work at the Storm Country event.

Kentucky Days

I find the landscape of Illinois and Indiana tedious after several hours. The corn becomes monotonous. However, I found Indiana interesting to watch on this last trip. For one thing both states were no longer under that horrid dark water of spring flooding! But this time, the trees had lost their leaves in Indiana and while it looked wintry, it was more open and less claustraphobic feeling. It was fairly cold, wind was a terror, and the sky dark and heavy like snow. We actually saw snowflakes briefly once we hit Kentucky. Fields had been harvested and some fields still had standing corn, the stalks as dry as parchment. It all left me with a feeling that soon after the trip we would be hunkering down in a "long winter's nap" mode.

We took back roads when we could find them, passed through French Lick area, came out in the quaint town of Madison. We stopped there for a delightful lunch in a little gift and coffee shop. I had a turkey pesto grilled panini with apricot tea...so good. We passed on going shopping, heading straight for grandbabies.

While visiting, one of our trips was to the Cincinnati Union Station that now houses three museums and an Omni Max. Duke energy sponsors a seasonal train display which was the draw for all of us that day. It was fantastic but for me, the best thing was this gorgeous structure. Can't you just picture the trains and passengers that arrived in this building in its heyday?

Our trip through displays were fast and furious because we had a not quite three-year-old, a baby of ten months, their parents, and two old people. Everyone tired out pretty fast; Papaw lost baby Simon's coat and Gramme lost her own coat! We were all glad to get back to the house in Kentucky.

Since we believe strongly in Ben Franklin's adage that fish and company both smell in three days, it was time to head back to Missouri.

                                                                   MEN AT WORK?

Home Again, Jiggety Jig

After a week driving across middle America getting to Kentucky, we arrived back home this afternoon. Now we face the crush of holidays coming and staying home for a while waiting on winter to come and go. Laundry fills the utility room and my mind is mush but just had to write a few lines here hoping to return to some kind of normal...whatever that is!

We left here last Wednesday in a frigid wind, making it to Lebanon, Illionis about 1:00. We were just in time to catch a late lunch in this quaint town we have visited before. Remembering the wonderful pie in the Tapestry Room, we drove the mile off the highway to sample it again. Pie isn't good for us, but we put sense and caution on the back burner for the trip. We ate lunch and then ordered cream pies. You can see we had to snatch the first bites even before the camera came out!

Lebanon is only about 20 miles east from St. Louis, so if you are ever in the area be sure and check the town out.

Christmas Cactus

 

I have been so busy getting ready to travel to see grand babies and the gear is about loaded. It has rained for two days (and earthquaked!) along with feeling chilly. It is seasonal weather but...still my few deck flowers left are holding up to it all. Leaves clutter the boards and flower pots. Autumn is here.

Inside things are in the pink! A friend brought me this Christmas cactus this summer. I know nothing about them , and it seemed to break easily all summer. When the temp started dropping to frost range and there were tiny buds all over the plant, I moved it inside. It has burst into flower! I hope they last a long time, that there are buds on our return.

On such a dark, damp, and dreay day this is the only sunshine I found. I thought it worth sharing with you....before you have to look at all those baby pictures I will posting!!!!

Today (Nov. 5) Roy Rogers Would Have Been 100!

Today would have been Roy Rogers 100th birthday. He and fellow singing cowboy Gene Autry had a big impact on my life. Both reinforced the values that my parents were teaching me at home. Nothing like coming through the front door after school and settling in for some bang bang gunfire (without much blood or death reality), hearing a good song about tumbleweeds or little doggies, and seeing the good guys win! Gosh, it was so much simpler then.



I will admit that liking Dale Evans took more work for me. Oh, she was a good gal in reel life and real life, but I was always a little jealous of her getting my guy. When I would watch scenes where Dale was snippy to Roy, I wanted to punch her myself. Of course in the end, the guy always got the girl and I never wanted her to be standing in what I considered MY place either.


I was lucky enough to visit the Roy Rogers Museum in Branson shortly before it closed for good. Oh, I had such a good time walking down memory lane. I saw Nellybelle, holstered guns, lunchboxes from my childhood, and Dale’s flouncy gingham skirts loaded with rick rack much like the skirts I wore too in those days. After tootling around the memorabilia, we went in to hear the musical program. When I heard Roy’s son Dusty sing those old favorites full of a cowboy’s longing under a star-filled western sky, tears trickled down my old cheeks remembering the “good ole days”.


There was the Roy Rogers Riders Club in the 1950's with rules that encouraged kids to live a life that exhibited a code of goodness. Being clean, polite, obedient to parents, kind to animals and not wasting anything was high on the list. The guidelines also encouraged attendance of church, respecting our country and flag, and to love God. Who could argue with any of these doctrines for growing up to be a decent adult? Then when you heard Roy and Dale sing "Happy Trails", well life was just plain old good. I wish there were such decent role models for kids today.


So happy birthday, Roy. I miss you but appreciate all you left behind in me. Now, I think I’ll go listen to the Sons of the Pioneers sing "Cool Water".

Table Rock and Miss M

November 1 and a feel of shorter days makes us push to squeeze in any bit of activity before the winter darkness descends to stay. Due to the wildly strange summer weather, there was next to no fishing and the bass boat never left the yard this year. With rain in the forecast for tomorrow and a sunny 72 on tap for today, we went to Table Rock Lake. Late fall makes for good times because the lake is nearly deserted and the quiet is heavenly. Today the gusting breeze was a factor but we tolerated it, watching the leaves sail down and hit the brilliance of wind-blown water. The trees were hues of sienna, tobacco, and ochre with occasional dashes of tangerine. Shortened sun rays were warm but not piercing. I felt like a bear at a honey tree stoking up for hibernation, only my substance was sun and fresh air.

It was a perfect day to start re-reading Two-Part Intervention (by Madeleine L'Engle) while DH caught and released. It had been years since I had been between the book’s covers, and the story read like it was next to new. The parts I knew were like meeting an old friend for conversation and a picnic lunch at the lake. I saw I had underlined passages, and I found they were ones I would want to mark again. The years might put a different touch on them for me in some cases though.

The first favorite lines were describing reading in her childhood. “…that interior dream world has stood me in good stead many times when the outer world has seemed to be collapsing around me.” Miss M captured my own feeling to a T! I grew up in a village-sized town where sports was the end all, but I had Sydenham’s Chorea as a child and was not allowed to run, jump, and cavort. My recesses were spent with a thermometer in my mouth followed by sitting for a rousing game of jacks. Once I could run…well, I was NO runner. I found a world in books where I could do and be all I wanted.

Childhood followed by adolescence…Miss M’s take: “…no adolescence is lived through without pain.” Again true words. I was thinking about such things this weekend because I was digging deep into the past while cleaning trunks and closets. I have been thinking about such work here, but earlier in the week as we began the horrendous job of tearing down of the in-laws family farm, I knew I had to do this at home for my own children’s sake. One thing that got tossed was school letters; no one wanted them. Yet, years ago for all of us, those letters and the gold bars on them meant achievement, success, recognition. Wow, they were so important then, and sometimes there were both physical and emotional pain in getting or not getting those gold bars. Now they were tossed away, meaningless.

Miss M felt one important thing she learned was “…the artist is not separate from the work and therefore cannot judge it.” This resonated more with me now as I have been writing and publishing more. I see it in the critiquing groups at guild meetings too. All of us, write what we think it good, is working, is our best. We cannot separate ourselves from the work and see it objectively.

I can see that without the wind in my face and sun reflecting off the water, this book will read fast. I got through more than three chapters which included a lot of thinking. Like Miss M, I too was very naïve as a young girl…ah, make that most of my entire life. I, too, put myself in some risky situations out of ignorance. I guess there really must be some Guardian Angels for people like Miss M and me. I think I can hear mine groan!

One new phrase I underlined today was “part of my deepening” when Miss M referred to her piano and visits to a favorite church just to sit as a young woman. I like this phrase and will think about it for a few days. I hate losing the naïve person I was because she was sweet and good after all. I don’t want to let cynical thoughts and actions take over…to be a cranky old lady…in fact, I think I want not to age but to “deepen” in my life!

What about you?

Two Midwestern Authors to Read

The first two evenings of the Visiting Writers Series at PSU have been fantastic. Last year was first-class, and I think most were poets. So far fiction has been the genre this autumn. First up was Thomas Fox Averill, a Kansas boy. I had read of his short stories over the years, and I had heard respectable comments about his work. I was eager to hear him read and was not disappointed.


Averill was a spell-binding reader and speaker. He was also a humble writer, being frank about the difficulty of getting published these days. (If he has trouble, how can I ever make it?). He was honest to say he had about given up when a university press in New Mexico picked up his novel. This has been new life for his work.

His novel rode is based on the bluegrass song "Tennessee Stud". The song has been recorded by many country artists, and Averill sang it as a lullaby to his kids. While singing it, his mind began to ask questions, create scenarios. So he traveled to all the places the song sings of from Tennessee to Arkansas to Texas to New Mexico. I thought it would be an average western-styled story, but bought it anyway.

It turned out to be a very good story. Averill’s work is strong and fast-moving. The novel has a definite old western type voice. The author creates great descriptive language to hold the reader. For example, early on he describes early day Memphis as a fledging, but one only half feathered. Later he says people swirled on the streets there like water down the end of a funnel. Good images!

In October we went to hear Jo McDougall read from her memoir Daddy’s Money. The author had taught at PSU for about ten years during the 1990’s after growing up on a rice farm in Arkansas. Her work has been largely poetry, some of which I have read. Her poems lines are as sparse as a skeleton, the thoughts rattling like loose bones to haunt you in some cases.

McDougall was an outstanding reader; her pleasant demeanor and frank observations made listeners feel she was talking directly to them and individually. Her memoir recalls days of a WWII era of growing up in rice-growing areas of the Delta land, and it also is candid about the severed relationship that developed with her only sibling after her parents’ death.

I hesitated on buying the book because I still had not read rode from the month before and had many books waiting in my “to read” pile. However, knowing the PSU writers’ programs would benefit, I bought one, and I am mighty glad I did. The read was an exceptionally informative work about rice farming, something I knew nothing about. I enjoyed the era as a time of simpler and slower living. I was also moved by the poignant descriptions of the unraveling relationship she had with her only sister. As so often in families, two people drifted apart to the point of non-resolution over issues that were beyond both of them. While a disturbing part of the memoir, many readers will be able to relate to the angst the author reveals.

Both authors now live in northeastern Kansas, and their books are worth a reader’s time to investigate, despite their titles not being on the NY Times Bestseller List—yet that is!