Extra
Special Holiday Edition
Innings
The newsletter for writers, their enablers, and those who love the magic they make.
Number 82
Madison, WI
November-December, 2016
CARMA SMIDT
A tribute to veterans
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It
means a strong desire to live taking the form of a
readiness to die. – G.K. Chesterton
On November 11, our country honors the epitome
of courage—our military veterans. President
Wilson proclaimed November 11, 1919 as the first
commemoration of Armistice Day by stating, “To
us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day
will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of
those who died in the country’s service and with
gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing
from which it has freed us and because of the
opportunity it has given America to show her
sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of
the nations.”
On May 13, 1938, Armistice Day became a
legal holiday, observed annually on November 11.
However, on June 1, 1954, the holiday was
renamed Veterans Day. Armistice Day had been
primarily dedicated to remembering and honoring
the men and women of World War One; Veterans
Day honors and remembers the men and women
of all wars.
I could go on with more history, and
great detail about the various ceremonies
around the country, but I don’t believe
facts and traditions truly capture the core
of Veterans Day. The core is found among
the thousands of white crosses at Arlington
National Cemetery; it’s found in a tight
hug to a returning or leaving soldier; it’s
seen in the choked back tears at the sound
of the national anthem.
To honor veterans, I will share something I
received from a fellow writer in Florida. In a
scrapbook of newspaper clippings from World
War II, she found a poem composed in September
1944 by a soldier from Sibley, Iowa (her and my
hometown). The author is unknown, but the
clipping stated that the poem was written shortly
before the soldier was captured and sent to a
German prison camp.
My Only Plea
Still laugh, said I, when I'm away,
And gather all the flowers of May;
Still keep my room, the pictures all,
That I have loved upon the wall;
For I shall want them every one,
The moment that the war is won.
Still play the records, dance and sing;
And spread no fears of sorrowing,
Be happy every time you can,
For victory, work and pray and plan;
For I shall want you looking well
When we have fired the final shell.
Still bake the pies as it might be
That I were coming home to tea;
Still plant the garden, roundabout,
Still grub the sturdy thistles out;
And stake the blue delphinium,
As if this war had never come.
For if this struggle shall be long,
At home there must be mirth, and song.
Since these are what we fight to keep,
So hide away when you must weep,
And be as brave at home, as we,
Who fight in sky, on land and sea.
— Continued, next page
2
When I wrote this article in 2011, I was on the
staff of my local paper, the Osceola County
Gazette Tribune. I asked readers to notify me if
they knew the poem’s author. No one replied. He
remains The Unknown Soldier Poet.
Carma Smidt is an online Affiliate Professor of
creative writing for Ohio Christian University.
Diagnosed at seven months with Spinal Muscular
Atrophy, she began using voice-activated
computer software in high school and later
earned a BA in English/Literature/Writing from
Dordt College and her MA in English/Writing
from the University of South Dakota. Today, fully
immobilized except vocally, she communicates,
writes, and teaches via computer.
Our contributing editor, Madonna Dries
Christensen (another Sibley native), submitted the
article and obtained Carma’s permission to
reprint it.
See Madonna’s column on Christmas in a
WWII POW camp on page 11, this issue.
"From things that have happened and
from things as they exist and from all
things that you know and all those you
cannot know, you make something
through your invention that is not a
representation but a whole new thing
truer than anything true and alive, and
you make it alive, and if you make it
well enough, you give it immortality.”
Ernest Hemingway
IN MEMORY
Edward Franklin Albee III
Playwright
March 12, 1928 - Sept 16, 2016
He is survived by:
The Zoo Story
The Death of Bessie Smith
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
(adopted from the novella by Carson McCullers)
A Delicate Balance
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
(adopted from the novel by Truman Capote)
Seascape
Listening
and more
William Patrick Kinsella
Novelist, short story writer
May 25, 1935 - Sept 16, 2016
He is survived by:
Shoeless Joe
(made into the movie Field of Dreams)
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
If Wishes Were Horses
Butterfly Winter
Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa
Moccasin Telegraph
The Alligator Report
The Dixie Cornbelt League and Other
Baseball Stories
Brother Frank’s Gospel Hour
and more
3
SANDY RAFTER
A poem written
after the conventions
Lingering wisps of cannons
in the sky, a Confederate soldier drags
along the ground
across the fields
trailing his bones
through the clover
and a century,
still heading
toward the stream
by his cabin
to bathe away
the dying dust
and blood,
The woman,
ninety-two,
frail with cancer
in her breast sees him
in the mist of her dream reaching
a bony hand
she is not afraid
to grasp,
Church bells
toll soundlessly
through the graveyards
with their cold stone names
and soldier’s flags
over the hidden dead,
She curls her fingers
round her first born’s medals earned for
his bleeding death.
A bluejay soars
brightly over them
to the country seed,
perhaps, a sign
for the homeless pair
listening to hear
a unique call,
the rusty gate,
opening to peace.
Yet, in the halls,
silence gathers like
scattered flat balloons
as thousands cheer
and the vultures wings beat the air
waiting to tear and snag tendons, guts,
and eyes daring visions
beyond the guns and greed.
Needed words rot
like sawn off limbs
thrown in the grass.
A child almost rolls
down a hill over
the soldier
as his path
dries into drought
remembering the battles
and men he has killed.
He wonders if God
will ever finally lead him home. Mother
wets ribbons in her hand to moisten him
with dew.
SANDY RAFTER
Grandma
was round and stern
with cookies for good deeds.
She was the head of household, wage earner,
keeper of the stash
of dollar bills with wrinkled edges
she gripped and smoothed flat
with her palm over and over
to be laid in the Christmas tie box
on the top kitchen shelf.
Grandpa smoked a pipe
on the corner bench
with old mates
harboring Ireland’s sorrows.
He coughed and choked
but no one yet knew of the tb
in his lungs on its march of death before I was
eight years old.
I listened as they shook their heads but
couldn’t quite bring themselves
to say the names of O’Donnell, Rafferty,
O’Keefe,
and all the brave boys,
so short a time as men,
who stepped down the dirt road
with their guns and pitchforks
to disappear into the dust.
The old mates tipped heads
to listen, could not escape the sound, the
keening of the wives,
forever on the wind,
so shrill and sad.
Grandma liked to sit
on the porch until her neighbor,
Mrs. Place, came outside
and spotted Grandpa
down the street.
She always whispered
loudly to no one
that my Grandpa
4
was a lazy, no good man. Grandma never said
a word. Once, I stuck out my tongue. Their
house was silent
as my tiptoes
when one or other fell asleep
in a favorite chair.
Grandma spoke
through thuds of bowl
and plates set on the table
with her freckled hands.
Grandpa answered
with a stab of fork,
a chunk of sopping gravy
bread, a wipe of hand
across his face,
and grunts.
I played with Grandma’s
tiny porcelain dogs
on the whatnot shelf
so carefully that
I never picked them up.
Grandpa read the paper
and stopped sometimes
to tell me a funny horse’s name until I
laughed so much
I couldn’t stop.
Grandma and I played
our game looking across the street to the A &
P and guessing
what each person carried
in their grocery bag.
I always said a fish
with cold eyes I’d seen
in the meat case
and a carton of ice cream. Grandma always
guessed
carrots and beets and corn
and then would say,
“Let’s go get us
5
a dish of that fish.”
I napped on the sofa
with Grandma’s afghan
spread over me
and awoke when Grandpa
kissed my eyelids.
I liked him to bounce me up and down on his
legs stretched out
on the hassock
and croon,
“Go horsey,
off to town,
up and down,
up and down.”
At bedtime, Grandma kneeled
by my side in the dark little room
with no space to walk around.
She said the prayers
and kissed me
and shut the door
with the tiniest crack of light
so I would not be afraid.
It shown on the crucifix
on the wall
and I would fall asleep
humming and singing
“Jesus loves me.”
I rode my pony
through the green valleys
with yellow daffodils
until my mother
came to wake me up
and take me home.
I cried good-by
with smiling tears
and told my Grandma
I didn’t want to go,
let me stay.
She soothed her hand
across my forehead
before my Mother carried me out the door.
I yelled back to her, “You’re mean.”
IN MEMORY
John D. Loudermilk
Singer, songwriter
March 31, 1934 - Sept 21, 2016
He is survived by:
“Tobacco Road”
“Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye”
“Indian Reservation”
“Norman”
“Ebony Eyes”
“A Rose and a Baby Ruth”
“Sittin’ in the Balcony”
“Language of Love”
“Sad movies (make me cry)”
“Paper Tiger”
“Talk Back Trembling Lips”
and more.
Where do writers get their ideas?
“I talk to drunks at the bus station, browse
through kiddie books at the public library, get
phrases from college kids and our babysitter.
You’ve got to be looking all the time.”
John D. Loudermilk
JAN KENT IS
THE WORD WHISPERER
Two words saved
from oblivion
There are those who worry about real words
threatened with chronic underuse, or oblivion.
One is afterwit: knowledge gained too late to be
of any use. Another is zemblanity: the inevitable
discovery of what we would rather not know.
Happens all the time.
6
KATHIE GIORGIO
Clocks in prison
For me to learn patience and passion and
dedication and a skill at the same time is a miricle
by it’s self.
- Inmate at the Eastern Oregon Correctional
Institute
Many writers have gone into prisons with the
intention of teaching a writing workshop. But
what drew me into a circle of blue-shirted inmates
at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute on
July 14, 2016, wasn’t the urge to teach them to
write poetry or stories. It was to bring them words
in the form of my main character, James, from the
novel The Home For Wayward Clocks, and it was
the clocks and clock-makers within the prison
walls that drew me in as well. The love for
timepieces. The fascination with the history that
clock faces have witnessed and lived through. The
clocks, like the prisoners, locked into the EOCI,
behind two layers of tall chain-link fences topped
with barbed and razor wire, behind door after
clanging door, behind cell after cell.
Two years ago, a “Clocks” reader told the director
of the EOCI about my book. The EOCI is the
home of the last clock-making and clock-repair
school in the United States. Inmates at this prison
can become a part of this class and learn how to
repair clocks, all the way down to reproducing
ancient parts long since lost in the passage of
time, and how to build new clocks from scratch. I
was contacted by the prison and asked to come
speak to the inmates. It took two years to get my
schedule to accommodate a visit, but it was so
worth waiting for. My students at AllWriters’
Workplace & Workshop purchased 25 copies of
The Home For Wayward Clocks and had them
sent ahead of me to the prison. The inmates, after
meeting me, are now reading the book.
Now I see myself wanting to help others, every
clock I touch is like the first one. Its saying help
and I can help, and others want to learn, I see
that.
- Inmate at EOCI, a graduate of the program, now
teaching others
Thanksgiving
While I was going to read from my book to the
inmates, and while I planned on leading them
through a writing exercise, I wasn’t going into the
prison to lead a workshop. I wanted to talk to the
inmates about clocks. I wanted them to show me
what they were doing.
Getting into the prison was more than
intimidating. I had to be vetted first, a process that
included an extensive background check and took
weeks. The day of my visit, I was only allowed to
bring the pages I was reading from, my driver’s
license, and my car keys. I needed a doctor’s note
to be allowed to keep my emergency asthma
inhaler in my pocket during the visit. In the lobby
of the prison, I had to go through an x-ray
machine, just like in the airport. As I waited my
turn, I watched an older woman, dependent upon
a walker, have to give up that walker to stagger
off-balance through the machine. The guard
caught her on the other side, before she fell.
Everyone had to go through it; no exceptions.
Unlike the other visitors, I wasn’t going to
the visiting room. I was going into the
prison itself, a place few visitors ever see.
The doors I went through were like cage
doors, large, metal, barred, heavy and
impenetrable. They clanged behind me
with a sound as damning as a judge’s
gavel.
After the first door, I had to turn over my keys
and license to a woman behind a window. The
window was situated above my head. Nothing
was easy here. The woman and the escort the
prison assigned me conferred and decided I
needed to wear a shirt like the other prisoners –
my own shirt that day was a turtleneck, but it was
sleeveless, and my shoulders were bare. I hadn’t
been told this wasn’t allowed. I was put into a
shirt made right there on prison grounds – EOCI
also runs a garment school, and the prison
produces the “prison blues” worn in many
institutions throughout our country.
7
As soon as I put on that shirt, I felt like I
lost myself. I was now identified by the
color of my shirt, just like any of the other
inmates.
I was led through a second cage door – clang –
and then down an outdoor staircase similar to a
fire escape. The prison was originally an insane
asylum, built in the 1800s. There are no elevators,
despite the building rising to three and four stories
in different places. Most of the inmates move
around the grounds from one building or area to
another, through these outdoor metal and caged
staircases. When I stepped away from the
staircase, I was in a black-topped yard, spotted
here and there with basketball hoops. Men paced
or played in a variety of colored shirts. I was told
the colors told guards the level of risk the inmates
presented.
I wondered how risky I was. I didn’t ask. It’s
amazing how quickly cowed you feel in this
environment.
Third door – clang – and into a building which
housed the garment and clock schools. On one
side of a row of cabinets, men worked on sewing
machines. On the other...there were clocks.
Everywhere.
Clocks on the walls. Clocks on the tables. Clocks
filled every single one of the specially built
cabinets. And not just any clocks, but amazing
antique timepieces. Mantel clocks, grandfather,
grandmother, anniversary, cuckoo...they were all
here, in various states of repair. Every now and
then, a clock sang softly.
The inmates in blue shirts sat politely at tables. I
told them who I was, about my book, and why I
was there. There was some shifting when I started
to read, but as a scene where James rescues and
repairs a broken 400-day clock (an anniversary
clock) unfolded, the room grew quiet. When I
finished, they applauded. From the garment side, I
heard applause as well.
“Did you know,” one of the inmates said, “that
every time a clock chimed while you read, you
smiled?”
“I hear their voices,” I said. “You’ve given them
back their voices.”
They cheered.
“Show me what you do,” I said.
And with that, the room lit up with energy and
enthusiasm. The guards stepped back.
Every cupboard door was opened. Clock
movements spilled onto the tables and the men
showed me how they worked, the parts that were
needed, the parts that they made. Partway through
the afternoon, I realized I’d forgotten that I was in
prison, that I was surrounded by prisoners who
had many reasons to be there. I also realized, as I
was in the center of a group of 25 inmates who
towered over me, that I likely couldn’t be seen by
my escort or the guards anymore.
But I also realized I didn’t feel in any
danger. I didn’t feel scared. I was just a
woman talking to a bunch of men who
loved clocks. And I loved clocks too.
This will be what I’m going to do ones I’m out. It
would be nice to keep helping others in prison
and out of prison. I have alot of confidence in my
self and my abilities to help others, but
some people can’t believe most prisoners can
change or want you to.
- Inmate at EOCI
I asked each of the men how they connected to
clocks. They all told stories of clocks they knew
from before their time in prison. One spoke of
how he, his mother and sister ran to get away
from his abusive father. They toured a house they
ended up renting. The house was empty except for
a grandmother clock that didn’t work. As a boy,
this inmate hoped the clock would stay – and it
did. “It was like a lighthouse in an empty home,”
he said. Now, he had his mother send him photos
of that clock’s movement, and he hopes to restore
her voice when he is released.
We both noticed he said “when.” We both smiled.
We also both noticed he referred to the clock as
“she.”
The men, all of them, referred to clocks as “who”
and “he” or “she.” As if the clocks were alive. As
if their pendulums were hearts. Just like my
character James did. Just like I do.
They were so proud of their work. And they were
so happy that someone from the outside world
appreciated what they did.
I was able to walk out that day. The
inmates couldn’t. After I said goodbye,
each man sat down at a table, a clock or a
clock movement in front of him, and the
room fell into timely silence – only ticking,
only an occasional chime. But by each
man’s elbow, there was a copy of my book.
And each man was smiling. A part of me
was staying behind bars with them.
As my escort led me out, one of the guards came
up to me and said, “This meant so much to them.
These guys are pretty institutionalized. They don’t
see too many people from outside. Thank you so
much.”
I clanged through the doors, pulled off my inmate
shirt. When I walked outside, I burst into tears.
Not because I was free, not because oppression
was just lifted from my shoulders. But because
the men I just spent two amazing hours with were
still inside. I didn’t know for how long.
Later, out of curiosity, I googled one of the men’s
names. I found out his parental rights were
terminated first, then he murdered his wife. He’d
already been in the prison for a long time; he
would be there for a long time more. He was one
of the men who delightedly opened cupboard door
after cupboard door, showing me all of the clocks.
“Look at this woodwork,” he said. “Touch this
patina.”
All afternoon, I’d stood next to a murderer.
Probably more than one.
I waited to feel horrified.
I didn’t.
I just can’t get enuff of working on clocks or
bringing them back to life. Making pices that you
just can’t find any more makes me feel like there is
a place for me in this world.
- Inmate at EOCI
Kathie Giorgio
8
Founder and Director, AllWriters' Workplace &
Workshop LLC
Author of the novels, The Home For Wayward
Clocks, Learning To Tell (A Life)Time, and Rise
From The River, the short story collection
Enlarged Hearts, and in 2016, Oddities And
Endings; The Collected Stories of Kathie Giorgio
and True Light Falls In Many Forms, a poetry
chapbook
Author site: www.kathiegiorgio.org
Studio site: www.allwritersworkshop.com
You can "like" author Kathie Giorgio on
Facebook and follow KathieGiorgio on Twitter!
"Language is the element of definition,
the defining and descriptive
incantation. It puts the coin between
our teeth. It whistles the boat up. It
shows us the city of light across the
water. Without language there is no
poetry, without poetry there's just talk.
Talk is cheap and proves nothing.
Poetry is dear and difficult to come by.
But it poles us across the river and puts
music in our ears."
Charles Wright
9
Old Eddie
submitted by Pat Laux, from the Internet
It happened every Friday evening, almost without
fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and
was starting to dip into the blue ocean.
Old Ed comes strolling along the beach to his
favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand is a
bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the
pier, where it seems he almost has the world to
himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze
now.
Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the
beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is
alone with his thoughts— and his bucket of
shrimp. Before long, however, he is no longer
alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come
screeching and squawking, winging their way
toward that lanky frame standing there on the end
of the pier.
Before long, dozens of seagulls have
enveloped him, their wings fluttering and
flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing
shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if
you listen closely, you can hear him say
with a smile, “Thank you. Thank you.”
In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But
Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought,
as though transported to another time and place.
When he finally turns around and begins to walk
back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop
along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs,
and then they, too, fly away.
And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the
end of the beach and on home.
If you were sitting there on the pier with your
fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like “a
funny old duck,” as my dad used to say. Or, to
onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his
own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a
bucket full of shrimp.
To the onlooker, rituals can look either
very strange or very empty, altogether
unimportant, maybe even a lot of nonsense.
Old folks often do strange things, at least
in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most
of them would probably write Old Ed off,
down there in Florida. That's too bad.
They'd do well to know him better.
His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a hero
in World War I, and then he was in WWII. On one
of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and
his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously,
all of the men survived, crawled out of their
plane, and climbed into a life raft.
Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for
days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They
fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all,
they fought hunger and thirst. By the eighth day
their rations ran out. No food. No water. They
were hundreds of miles from land and no one
knew where they were or even if they were alive.
Every day across America millions wondered and
prayed that Eddie Rickenbacker might somehow
be found alive.
The men adrift needed a miracle. That afternoon
they had a simple devotional service and prayed
for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned
back and pulled his military cap over his nose.
Time dragged on. All he could hear was the slap
of the waves against the raft. Suddenly Eddie felt
something land on the top of his cap. It was a
seagull!
Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly
still, planning his next move. With a flash of his
hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to
grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off,
and he and his starving crew made a meal of it - a
very slight meal for eight men. Then they used the
intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which
gave them food and more bait... and the cycle
continued. With that simple survival technique,
they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until
they were found and rescued after 24 days at sea.
10
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years
beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the
sacrifice of that first life- saving seagull...
And he never stopped saying, “Thank
you.” That's why almost every Friday
night he would walk to the end of the pier
with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart
full of gratitude.
From Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp...
221, 225-226)
Postscript
Eddie Rickenbacker was the founder of Eastern
Airlines. Before WWI he was race car driver. In
WWI he was a pilot and became America’s first
ace. In WWII he was an instructor and military
adviser, and he flew missions with the combat
pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker is a true American
hero. And now you know another story about the
trials and sacrifices that brave men have endured
for your freedom.
As you can see, I chose to pass it on. It is a great
story that many don't know... You've got to be
careful with old guys; you just never know what
they have done during their lifetime.
IN MEMORY
Agnes Nixon
Dec 10, 1922 - Sept 28, 2016
Writer for television
They were all her children, but alas,
she had but one life to live.
SILLY SIGNS OF THE TIMES
MADONNA DRIES CHRISTENSEN’S
CHRISTMAS
11
MEANDERING WITH MADONNA
Christmas in a WWII POW camp
When World War II ended, I was only nine. I’d
been unaware of much of what went on, including
our government’s internment camps for
Americans of Japanese descent, an experience
that had a negative outcome on countless innocent
people. Nor did I know there were German POW
camps in our midst, one near my Iowa hometown.
Had I known, we kids would probably have
created a horrifying scenario: During a blackout
drill, a prisoner escapes and takes us hostage. An
American guard rescues us.
Adults knew about the camps; the one in
Northwest Iowa, visible from the road, was
marked: Algona P.W. Camp. Overall,
approximately 700 camps across the country
housed 400,000 prisoners, some Italians but
mostly Germans. Many were not Hitler loyalists
but simply draftees who, as it turned out,
preferred camp life over the battlefield.
One Florida prisoner said his incarceration near
the Everglades was a cakewalk compared to his
stint in Germany’s Afrika Korp. For the most part,
camaraderie was good between prisoners and
guards, but tragedy occurred at a few locations.
Two months after the war ended, Private Clarence
Bertucci,used a machine gun to kill nine and
injure 20 German soldiers as they slept in their
tents at Salina, Utah. Bertucci was one of three
Americans prosecuted for killing Axis prisoners
during the war.
Under Geneva Convention rules, prisoners were
given positive encouragement and recreation.
Letters were censored, but the men were provided
reading material, art supplies, woodworking tools,
musical instruments, and educational courses at
nearby schools. Although there was some antiGerman sentiment from local folks, others worked
among the prisoners, visited them in camp, and
spoke German with them.
Camp Algona registered approximately 10,000
inmates from April 1944 to February 1946. They
worked within a four state area, in satellite camps,
doing jobs that America’s young men and women
had vacated to serve in our military.
The prisoners worked mainly on farms, some in
hemp fields, which our government paid farmers
to grow (for rope). The prisoner’s pay was a
pittance, but this labor arrangement had a
significant economic impact. The estimated value
of their work exceeded three million dollars.
Among the Algona prisoners was Eduard Kaib, an
officer who was not required to work in the fields
or at other jobs. With time on his hands, Kaib
devised a plan for celebrating Christmas. With the
help of Horst Wendlandt and four other prisoners,
the men constructed a nativity crèche with 65
figures, each about half the size of a human (or
animal). The project took six months and cost the
men approximately eight thousand dollars. Each
piece consisted of a wooden frame covered with
cement, and then plaster from which to sculpt the
facial and clothing details. Kaib is credited for
this elaborate artwork.
When the war ended, Kaib donated the nativity to
the town, with stipulations that it never be sold or
moved from Algona and that it be open for public
viewing. No admission could be charged but
donations for upkeep could be accepted. The
nativity is now tended by First United Methodist
Church. When you visit the scene, along with a
narration about how the crèche was created,
you’ll hear a recording of Stille Nacht (Silent
Night), sung in German as it would have been 70
years ago. This gift came from captured enemies,
most of whom believed the same Christmas story
as did the local Christian community.
Other pieces of art, woodworking, theater
productions, and writings are displayed at Camp
Algona POW Museum. These artifacts attest to
the spirit and creative expression of human beings
in captivity and remind us of unintended
consequences in any endeavor—even a world
war.
12
RICHARD MALLARD
The 11th Christmas
"The line waiting to see Santa Claus stretched all
the way back to Terre Haute. And I was at the end
of it."
For 10 years between 1945 and 1955, Christmas
came in capital letters. In post- World War II
America the bounty of victory translated into
ultimate holiday consumption fueled by new
television advertising. Christmas began after
Thanksgiving, unlike today, where Christmas
faire can be seen on the shelves before
Halloween. In those days the celebrations were
separate, distinct, and not mixable.
It would have been sacrilege to see Santa before
he landed by helicopter at Bullock’s Department
Store in December. It was also curious how he
could move so quickly ahead of us from store to
store. Any questions of that nature were answered
with “He’s magic.” They weren’t telling; and we
weren’t asking.
Our ritual Christmas began with the lights on the
deodar tree in front. Before we were old enough
to participate, Dad would have his helper come
over with a safety belt. The lights were full sized,
just like a 40-watt bulb used for the house lamps,
except they were green, red, yellow and blue. The
cord was heavy-duty gauge, and the first job was
to get them from storage in the garage to the front
yard. The cord was wrapped in large reels and
made for a considerable amount of work just to
untangle the line from the year before. Each light
had to be screwed in, in random order. Once the
lights were in, Dad plugged them in. Our job was
light inspection. Burned out bulbs were replaced,
and then the wooden pentagram star was checked.
It had all white lights. The star went to the top of
the tree, so bulb operation here was quite
important.
Below the star, the lights were arrayed in three
lines. Two were the length from the top of the tree
30-feet down to the lower boughs. These outlined
the right and center of the tree and the third leg
was longer. It outlined the remaining side and
draped along the bottom to complete the colorful
outline of the tree.
The operation required a tree climber, with the
safety belt, the ground crew to receive the rope
thrown by the climber. The rope allowed for the
ascension of the star and light string. The ground
crew maneuvered the lights in place, and when it
was all over the tree was a sight to see. Well, that
is if you saw it before you went up the street to
the Balian’s.
If anyone was there to look, the 3-acre Balian’s
house could be seen from space at Christmas
time. It sucked half of the electricity from Hoover
Dam and irritated neighbors for blocks as the
onlookers congested the streets in the surrounding
area just to get a look at the place. It was
Disneyland before Disney. And to top it off they
served Balian Ice Cream to visitors.
So with the exception of Balian and
Christmas Tree Lane on the other side of
Altadena, the Deodar Tree on Midlothian
was worth the slow drive by and a source
of great pride for our family.
After completing the Deodar Tree we moved into
the house. The great living room provided ideal
space for a large Christmas Tree. The ritual of
decorating took an entire evening. When we were
done it sat at the end of the room framed in the
large draped window. From that point the days of
December were counted off an advent calendar
designed to increase the anticipation of the
glorious event.
Each year, my brother and I would awake around
4:00 a.m. and tiptoe down the hall to the grated
opening overlooking the great living room. Had
Santa come? If so, presents would be strewn
around the tree unopened. We strained to see.
“Get back to bed, kids,” the order would come.
We knew that meant THEY were awake, and we
had to wait back in our room until Dad could get
the lights and the 16 mm movie camera set up. It
would not be long now.
And, so the ritual went on each Christmas. On the
eleventh Christmas, as I strained to see the
presents from the top floor grate, I made out the
faint outline of an airplane. Now, if there was one
thing in life my Dad wanted to be, besides a
doctor, it was a pilot.
13
One of my early memories of my father dealt with
aviation. We sat at the approach end of the Orange
County Airport and watched a little yellow piper
cub make touch and go landings. In the late 40’s
early 50’s Orange County was a small landing
strip out in the country. We had pulled off to
watch on the way to his parent’s in Costa Mesa.
Dad wanted to fly in the worst way. He had
actually been trained to solo when he married my
mother. She was afraid of flying and put a stop to
his airborne ambitions immediately. He would
regret it openly, and it is probably one of the
reasons, years later, I learned to fly and eventually
became a flight instructor.
But while we sat at the end of the runway
watching that little plane land, he was the
expert. He explained why the engine noise
stopped just before it crossed the fence line
and what the flare was as the plane
touched down. He judged each landing and
explained his aerodynamic reasoning. He
knew everything about flying.
Doctors have one of the worst pilot-error accident
records of any profession. My mother knew
intuitively that he should not pursue his dream, so
my father stayed on the ground and only wished
he could have fulfilled his vision of flight.
So when I looked out on the Christmas bounty
and saw an airplane, I knew this was going to be a
very special day.
After the lights and camera were ready our
parents called us downstairs, and the moment we
had been waiting for years in the past few weeks
became reality.
November Seven Seven Bravo had a wingspan of
15 inches. Under its gas powered single piston
engine, wire legged gear stood the craft upright to
clear a four inch propeller. Its wing design and
fuselage spoke of aerobatic configuration. The
1955 Tether Control Line Model Airplane was a
Racer. And, it was Yellow! Yellow with Red
stripes! One look and you saw yourself making it
perform to the amazement of those stuck to the
ground by gravity. You would awe your friends;
everyone would want to see your piloting skills.
Thank you, Santa. Thank you. Thank you.
I could sense my father’s pride as he watched me
handle the small airplane. Outside we had only
one place to create an aerodrome—the badminton
court, a rectangular asphalt pad. At one time we
actually strung a net between the light poles and
played badminton—a few times. Then the net was
put away and the court stood unused except for a
basketball hoop attached to a wooden backstop on
one side of the court. Now the court would
become useful once again, as an airport.
Sometime late in the morning, after all of the
presents were open and the clutter cleaned, Dad
marched us boys out to the badminton court for
our first lesson in aviation.
He left the instructions in the box and dismissed
my mother’s question of the need for the
operator’s handbook with something like, “How
hard can this be.” After all, he could perform
complex abdominal surgery and deliver babies.
He had learned physics years ago and knew about
centrifugal force. It was simply a matter of
attaching the control line and starting the engine.
Besides, he had almost soloed a plane for real.
Those whom the gods would destroy, they
first make mad.
The first clue should have been our inability to get
the little gas engine started. The control line was
snapped on and the radius to the center of the
badminton court calculated, but the engine
wouldn’t start. Fuel for these little tethered
engines poured from a half-pint can resembling a
lighter fluid container. Dad struck the little
propeller over and over. It wouldn’t start. The
seriousness of the situation was signaled by his
direction to us to go in the house and retrieve the
instruction book. And bring the box.
Then we needed a small screw driver to adjust the
air-fuel mixture. That was somewhere in the
garage. Dad read the directions as Mom wandered
down the path to the badminton court. She was
probably the last person he wanted to see. The
crowd grew as some of our neighborhood friends
came by. Gas, Air, Whap, Whap, Whap—Burrrf,
Pop, Pop. The engine wouldn’t start. It was
flooded, Dad declared— whatever that meant.
We waited. Our disappointment grew. Gas, Air,
Whap, Whap, Whap—Burrrf, Pop, Pop.
14
My bother, who never shrank from a mechanical
problem in his life, tried. I tried. Everyone wanted
to try. Gas, Air, Whap, Whap, Whap—Burrrf,
Pop, Pop. It would not start. Dad was not happy.
Now Christmas that year fell on Sunday. So the
hobby shop where Santa purchased the airplane
was closed. Dad was convinced the engine was
defective. Sadly we boxed up the little airplane
and took it back into the house. Dad had patients
to see the next morning, so not until afternoon did
we take up the quest again for aviation glory.
When he finally got home we packed it all into
the car and headed for North Lake Avenue and the
hobby shop.
My friend Bobbie McKeever lived on Pepper
Drive behind our house and up the street. His dad
worked the counter at the hobby store. Mr.
McKeever was on some kind of disability, and
Dad didn’t care for him very much. Above the
McKeever’s garage Bobbie’s dad was in the
process of building a large HO model train
complex. Mr. McKeever was interested in models
and toys. He had the perfect job.
As Dad took us boys into the hobby shop, there
was Mr. McKeever at the counter. Dad explained
that we had a defective engine and wanted the
plane replaced. Mr. McKeever asked to see the
plane first and opened the box. He set the plane
on the counter and grabbed the fuel can. Squirt
the fuel went in. Soon, the store smelled of
gasoline and Mr. McKeever reached down to spin
the prop. Gas, Air, Whap, Whap, Whap—Burrrf,
Pop, Pop. My Dad smiled in satisfaction. Mr.
McKeever took a small screwdriver and tweaked
the mixture screw. Whap, Rurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The engine came to life. It worked! The smile
came off Dad’s face as we watched the blur of the
propeller for over a minute.
“Well, it seems to work just fine. You just needed
to open the mixture screw a little.”
Dad wanted to protest that he had screwed that
thing in and out all afternoon and nothing
happened; but he swallowed his pride, thanked
Mr. McKeever, and shuttled us out of the store
with the fully functional and proven airplane. We
were going to fly.
At home, Dad got the little plane out to the
badminton court. He strung the control line again
and attached it to the wing. I held the tail while
Dad primed the engine with fuel. My brother
stood back out of the way. Gas, Air, Whap, Whap,
Whap—Burrrf, Pop, Pop.
Once again the engine wouldn’t start. Then Whap,
Rurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It worked!
I could feel the wind from the propeller.
The plane pulled. It wanted to fly. My Dad
walk the walk of success over to the control
handle at the end of the line. We were
ready to launch. Rurrrrrrrrrrrrrr, the
engine screamed.
With an experienced pilot nod my father indicated
he was ready and I could release. The little yellow
plane with red stripes lurched forward. I jumped
back away from the circle of flight, and moments
later the lift under the little wings carried the
plane airborne. It flew. My Dad spun like a
whirling dervish with the circling plane. It
strained to be free of the tether as my Dad’s feet
danced around. He focused on the plane, and the
world beyond blurred in equal and opposite
reaction. He did not sense that he and the tiny
airplane were inching closer to the light pole on
each revolution.
Finally, the plane left the confines of the
badminton court. My Dad, dizzy from spinning,
had not seen the approaching pole. In the second
that I realized something bad was going to
happen, the control line hit the pole, and the plane
wrapped itself in a crashing instant into the light
standard.
All in all it was a great Christmas. My mother
never mentioned the plane, and my brother and I
quickly found other things to occupy our time.
Alone, my father cleaned up the wreckage,
gathered the box and left the plane for the garbage
men to pick up. Perhaps my mother had dreamed
that he would crash a plane on his first flight, and
that is why she put a stop to his aviation career. If
so, the premonition came true. After all, he was a
great doctor, and that was plenty to be for a
lifetime.
15
PERNETTA DEEMER
The Innkeeper’s Wife
Naomi stood just behind her husband, Thomas, at
the door of the inn, while he told the young
couple that he had no more room. They were
welcome to sleep in the shed for the night, but,
and here he sighed, he really was full.
“Three to a bed as usual,” he added as he eyed
the expectant mother.
The young woman on the donkey bent a bit.
She appeared to be in pain.
Naomi, a small and wiry woman with a
wizened face, moved forward. “Are you all
right?” she asked.
“Oh,” the young woman gasped. “I think
the baby will come tonight!”
“Thomas!” Naomi spoke sharply. “You
can’t just turn them away like that!”
“Now, Naomi, they’ll be fine in the stable,
maybe better off than upstairs with those drunks
whoopin’ and hollerin’. Now go get some
blankets. I’ll send Annie with some porridge.”
Naomi turned to the young couple, saying, “I’ll
help you get settled in a moment. I’ll get some
blankets and be right with you.”
The young mother-to-be gasped as a spasm
overcame her. Her eyes got big and her face
scrunched up as the pain ran its course. Finally
the moment eased, and she slumped in the saddle.
The man shifted his weight, not sure what to do
next. He spoke softly to reassure her. “Mary, the
woman will help us, and all will be well.”
“Yes, Joseph, I know. I’m just so tired of
riding.”
Naomi returned with blankets and swaddling
cloths. She directed the couple toward the stable.
As she led the way, Joseph whispered to
Naomi, “May I tell you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“She was told she’s having the Son of
God,” he said softly.
“Who told her?”
“It was an angel, she said.”
“And do you believe that, too?” Naomi was
perplexed. She’d had a dream like that but had
decided it was just a fanciful notion.
Joseph scratched his head in puzzlement.
“Well, I did see it in a dream,” he said, “but
wouldn’t you think we would have found a place
with a room? I’m not complaining, but I just...”
“Now Joseph, if it is...” She reached up to grasp
his shoulders and looked at him intently. “God
will take care of you. And if it isn’t, we’ll just do
the best we can anyway. Any babe born is a gift
from God. You know that.”
Joseph nodded.
Naomi sighed and turned to Mary. “My name is
Naomi, and my helper Annie is coming with a
bowl of porridge for you. You must be tired.”
Mary smiled at Naomi to thank her, saying,
“You are very kind. I was hoping the babe would
come soon, and I guess this is the time.”
Naomi spread out the blankets on the straw for
Mary, who got off the donkey awkwardly. Naomi
laid another smaller blanker on the manger where
a baby could lie and be safe. Mary lay down on
the blanket, smiling in contentment, at least for
the moment, until another contraction came.
“Naomi, would you perhaps be a
midwife? Your manner is so comforting.”
“I am, but I didn’t want to put myself
forward.”
“If you could help me, I’d be ever so
grateful.”
“Of course. This is your first child?”
Mary nodded.
“So we’ll talk of other things. Annie will bring
the porridge, and perhaps you may nap. How far
did you come today?”
“I don’t know, but we were traveling since sunup. We should have been her earlier, but I was so
uncomfortable that we couldn’t go very fast.”
“It’s been a long day for you then. Ah, here is
Annie with the porridge. Now I have a few things
to do, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. If things
move faster than I think, tie that rope to the post
and put a couple of knots toward the end. Pulling
on it will help later on. I’ve been a midwife for 15
years. We’ll do alright.”
Naomi went back to the inn. Joseph tended to
the donkey and had some porridge.
“Are you alright, Mary?”
When she murmured sleepily, he lay down
beside her to rest and wait.
“Joseph, do you believe we are having the Son
of God?”
“Mary, I like that Naomi said, that if the babe is
the Son of God, God will take care of us. And if
he isn’t, we’ll still do the best we can. And I think
He’ll still take care of us. She also said that any
babe born is a gift of God.”
“I like that, too. Thank you, Joseph.”
16
Lying on the straw was very pleasant. Joseph
blew out the lantern, and they were soon sound
asleep. But not for long.
It was full dark when Mary suddenly
came wide awake. “Joseph, I think the
baby is coming! Please call Naomi! Run!”
He’d never heard her speak like that. He lit the
lantern for her and took off, meeting Naomi just
as she was coming to check on them.
“Mary asked me to call you,” Joseph said.
“Yes, I had a dream that it’s time!” Her eyes
were dancing. “Thomas had a long day, so he’s
gone to bed, but go in the front room, where
young James is waiting for you. We’ll call you
when we have something to show you.”
Joseph nodded and smiled at Naomi. “God has
put many good people in my path today,” he said.
“Bless you, good woman.”
“If this is as you say, I could not be more
honored. Bless you, sir, as well.”
As Joseph entered the room, James offered him
a cup of ale.
“If I drink that, I won’t be able to keep my eyes
open.” But he took the cup and sipped.
“If I may, sire, that is perhaps the best thing for
now? The hours may be long, you know. You can
rest on the bench there. It’ll be quiet the rest of
the night.”
Joseph saw the wisdom of that, finished his
drink, stretched out on the bench, and was snoring
in moments.
Naomi found Mary resting. “Are you awake?” she
asked softly.
“Yes, just resting. Earlier the pains were more
frequent, but now they seem more spaced out. I
doze off for a bit between times.”
“If I may, I’d like to be sure the baby is
positioned right.” Naomi felt Mary’s abdomen
gently and suddenly giggled. “I just felt him kick!
He seems to be in the right place.”
“We had a goat one time, and the man who
helped us with the birthing always wanted to
know that, too. Once he had to right a kid before
it was born. I was very young then, so I don’t
remember much about it. Aaah!” she gasped as a
spasm overtook her.
Naomi grasped Mary’s hands. “Now I think we
have a little while to go yet, so why don’t you tell
me about yourself, your family, anything else
you’d like to mention.”
Mary thought. “I have a cousin I’m very fond
of. Her name is Elizabeth, and she just had her
little boy in the summer. She named him John.
He’s very special, with beautiful, big dark eyes.
He’s so sweet, holds my little finger and then
wants to chew on it.” She laughed at the happy
memory. “Now will you tell me something about
you, Naomi?”
Naomi had lots of stories and shared quite a
few. But after a particularly strong contraction,
Naomi said, “Now I think the rope tied to the pole
will be of help to you. It doesn’t seem possible
that pulling will help with pushing, but I think
you’ll find that it can.”
Naomi fixed the rope to the pole and tied
several knots toward the end so that Mary could
grasp them. As the next contraction came, she
found it good to pull on the rope. It took only a
couple more good tries and the baby was born.
Naomi caught it in one of the birthing cloths she
had brought, cleaned it up, and handed it to Mary,
whispering, “He’s beautiful.” Then she added,
“One more.”
Mary looked at her quizzically.
“It’s called the afterbirth. I’ll take care of it.”
“Naomi, do you think He is the Son of
God?”
“Did the angels tell you this?”
Mary nodded.
“If you believe, I do, too. I’ll go get
Joseph.”
“Let him sleep.”
“You’re a kindly little sprite, but he’ll do better
to come back here with you.”
Mary nodded wearily. “Yes, I’d like that. Thank
you for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t
know how I can thank you enough.”
“It was my delight. And if He truly is who you
say He is, I am deeply honored. Now rest.”
Naomi wondered at the possibility. She was
beginning to feel amazed.
As Naomi came up to the house, she saw a group
of scruffy men, actually boys, mostly, standing at
the door.
“What are you wanting at this hour?” She
thought perhaps they wanted more drink, but they
seemed sober enough.
“Where’s the babe? We’ve come to see the
babe,” one said.
17
“What do you mean, ‘come to see the babe’?
Your wives aren’t giving you children? What is
this about?”
An older fellow stepped forward.
“Maybe you will not believe me, but we
saw angels,” he said. “They came to tell us
about the Son of God being born in a
manger and then led us here.
We left our sheep with just the three younger
lads. Can we see the babe? Can you tell us where
he might be?”
“Wait. Angels? Angels told you this? And you
believe in them?
“There was not much choice about believing,
they were that bright in the sky!”
Naomi’s eyes got big in wonderment. “Were
you smoking something?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. We don’t smoke. Smoke
makes the sheep restless. The angels kind of lit up
the sky- and now that I think of it, it was like they
put a gentle touch to the sheep, and the sheep
didn’t seem to mind.” His voice was full of
amazement. “So can we see the babe?” he added.
“Yes, but now you wait right here one moment,
and I will find the husband. You might frighten
the young mother. Now shake the dust off of you.
He will be out in a minute.”
As Joseph came out the door with Naomi, he
saw the shepherds. They made him nervous. He
was not used to seeing so many strangers. This
city was so much bigger than Nazareth, where he
knew everyone. But the old one spoke to him.
“Sir, the angels came to us to say the babe
would be born in a manger and we should go and
find him. I know this sounds strange, but here we
are. Can we please see him?”
Joseph looked at them in a bewildered way.
Close behind him, Naomi was drinking in the
words of the shepherds.
“I guess,” Joseph said, “but let me go in first.
You might frighten her.”
He led the way to the stable. The shepherds
wanted to crowd in close, but Joseph gestured for
them to slow down a bit. Naomi handed Mary a
mug she had brought with her.
“Mary!” Joseph exclaimed.
“Joseph, come see! We have a beautiful babe,
and he looks so like little John!”
Joseph peered at him in the folds of the
blanket.
“I don’t see John so much as maybe your
brother, Adam,” he said.
“Adam.” She laughed. “Adam is trying to grow
a beard now, and I can’t see him in the babe at
all.” She paused. “Are we calling him Jesus, like
in my dream?”
“Yes, Mary. We will call him Jesus.”
Then Joseph remembered the shepherds.
“These lads say angels came to them and told
them about our babe and said they should come
and see him.”
“I think we have to welcome them. God is at
work in all of this, and I trust in His care for us.”
Joseph waved to the shepherds, who
were peering in at the opening to the
stable. “Come and see the babe. His name
is Jesus.”
The shepherds came and knelt close by,
admiring the baby. One of the younger ones
nudged their leader and asked, “Can I touch him?
The angels said he is the Son of God. I want him
to fix where the thorn pierced my foot. It has not
healed for a month.”
The older shepherd shook his head, but the
younger one reached out and barely touched the
blanker before the older one slapped his hand
away. He bowed his head, but then he looked up
in wonderment.
“The pain is gone!” he whispered.
Mary smiled at him and said softly, “You must
tell no one. His time is not yet. You will hear of
him when it is his time. Please, tell no one now.”
If was as though the others, lost in awe, had not
heard this exchange. The young shepherd was so
thrilled that he could barely stand it. He saw
Naomi standing by Mary and felt he simply had to
tell her about his amazing luck. Naomi had been
slowly understanding the astonishing events of
this night. When the young shepherd shared his
experience with her. she was fully convinced of
the truth of Mary’s story.
Later, when a friend observed that the
shepherd’s foot seemed better, he merely said,
“Oh, it healed.” The young shepherd never
mentioned it to anyone else until well after the
resurrection. People thought perhaps he might
have made it up.
Quotes for the (Football) Season— I
Thanks to Steve Born
"Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble the
football" - John Heisman
"I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want
him to quit in practice, not in a game." – Bear Bryant / Alabama
"It isn't necessary to see a good tackle, you can hear it!” - Knute
Rockne / Notre Dame
"At Georgia Southern, we don't cheat. That costs money, and we
don't have any." – Erik Russell / Georgia Southern
"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to
be the one who dropped it." - Lou Holtz / Arkansas - Notre Dame
"When you win, nothing hurts." - Joe Namath / Alabama
"A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval
study hall." - Frank Leahy / Notre Dame
19
60’6” FROM HOME
MARSHALL J. COOK
Sometimes a boy just has to climb a tree
If I ever succeed in writing a memoir or
autobiography, I might start with my deodar tree.
Yes, I, too, have a deodar story, and mine, too,
involves Altadena, Christmas, and my father. (If
you haven’t read Dick Mallard’s great piece “The
11th Christmas,” pages 12-14, go back and do so
right now. I’ll wait.)
All done? Okay, then.
Back in September, I did a show all about trees
for my Tuesday morning Writers and Their Words
Radio Program on WLSP The Sun. I included a
piece about my favorite deodar tree written for the
show and asked listeners to send in their pieces
about a favorite tree or a tree that had special
significance in their lives.
I even wrote a (very) little poem to go with my
story. Here it is, in its entirety:
I was never sure
if it were pine or fir.
I later learned that my deodar was neither. The
deodar tree is a cedar. Sure looks like a pine
though.
Here’s how Altadena, California, the little town
Dick and I grew up in and where we grew to be
friends for life, became famous for deodar cedars.
In 1885 real estate magnate John P. Woodbury
(his family founded the town) planted 134
deodars along what was to be a mile-long
driveway to the mansion he planned to build. The
mansion never happened, and the driveway
became Santa Rosa Avenue.
In 1920, Altadena resident and
department store owner Frederick C. Nash
originated a tree-lighting spectacle to
attract folks to his store. His workers
strung 10,000 lights along that mile-long
stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue, and a
Christmas tradition was born.
The Christmas Tree Lane Association now
sponsors the event. Workers put the lights up
between October and early December and take
them down from February to April. The
ceremonial lighting always takes place on the
second Saturday in December.
My deodar tree stood in the front yard of our
home. When I was big enough, I held the low,
drooping branches up so Dad could mow the lawn
underneath them. I claimed the base of the trunk
as my clubhouse, secluded by the long, drooping
branches.
A little older and I started climbing my
deodar tree, and one day I resolved to
climb to the very top. The idea terrified
me, my fear of heights further whipped up
by the blast furnace of a wind, called a
Santa Ana, that was swooping down over
the mountains from the desert beyond and
searing everything in its path with
blowtorch intensity.
Perfect weather for climbing the
beanstalk, huh? What can I say? I was
young and not the brightest bulb on the
tree.
The lower branches were of course quite
familiar, and the climbing was easy. Toward the
middle it got tougher and the trunk became
smaller and smaller. A little higher and the wind
was swaying me and the tree like a cat batting a
dangling string.
I was sure enough scared.
I kept climbing anyway.
And I made it all the way to the top.
I felt that I had to.
I had somehow already intuited— four decades
before I would get an official diagnosis of
obsessive compulsive disorder— that all my life I
would have to force myself to do things that
terrified me— things like calling a girl on the
telephone or being a draft resister and protestor
during the Vietnam War— or else I’d wind up in a
closet, clipping my toe nails and keeping the
clippings in a jar.
Climbing my deodar was one of those things I
had to do.
20
I could tell you I was as high as the television
relay towers atop nearby Mt. Wilson as I clutched
that skinny little stick of a trunk at the very top of
the deodar. I could tell you I spied Catalina Island,
26 miles off the California shore, which was itself
about 30 miles from my home. But I of course
wasn’t and I didn’t. I didn’t stay there long
enough to see much of anything, as I was rather
anxious to get back down.
It was slow and uncertain going, and I hugged
the broad, sturdy base of the trunk of my tree
when my feet finally hit the ground.
Now for the father and Christmas part.
Every year my father climbed to the top of that
deodar, coils of thick cable over his right
shoulder, the pull tie on a large bag of big,
colorful outdoor lightbulbs in his left hand. He
then worked his way back down the tree, stringing
the lights as far out on the branches as he could
get them. He’d have to go back down to reload on
cable and bulbs twice.
It was a super-human effort, but then, I
thought my dad was Superman and didn’t
even think about how hard it must have
been, even after I’d climbed all the way to
the top myself.
It was a magnificent sight, that stately deodar in
its Christmas gown. The neighbors said it wasn’t
really the holiday season until that tree lit up.
After I read a shorter version of this story on the
air, I got several stories from listeners, including
“The 11th Christmas” from Dick, my Friend of
Longest Duration and a regular listener 2,000+
miles away back in California.
I’ve used that climb to the top of my deodar tree
in at least two novels that I can remember, but I
doubt you’ll ever see it in any memoir of mine.
I’ve tried writing my life story twice now, and
both times I started making stuff up within the
first five page, even inventing an older sister for
myself in one version.
Hey, it would have made a better story!
So I guess that’s why I write fiction. I’m just a
natural born, uh, embellisher. But I’m not
exaggerating when I say that I still love that
deodar tree, which exists now only in my
memory.
On the next page, I offer another tree story, this
one, too, prompted by my request on the radio,
and this one, too, is from a dear friend.
Advice to a young novelist
I forgot to say a couple of things when
I sent you the critique (which I hope is
proving helpful). The first is, to write a
novel, the struggle, the doubt, the
fatigue, is a tremendous achievement.
It’s a marathon full of sprints and slow
trots and even complete stops. Many
who have felt the urge or even the need
to write a novel have failed to finish or
even to start. It takes courage and
tremendous dedication and good old
perseverance.
The second is, keep writing. There's a
reason you feel called, even compelled
to write. It's part of why you're here. As
you continue to write, you continue to
grow in self knowledge, in skill, and in
empathy. I long ago realized that, even
if nobody ever read a word of what I
write, it would still be the good and
right thing for me to do. For whatever
reason, it's a calling, not just a hobby.
(Even seen as a hobby, it's a very good
one, don't you think? It makes a lot
more sense to me that chasing a golf
ball around, messing up a perfectly
good walk.)
21
CARRIE T. GRUMAN-TRINKNER
Keeper of dreams
It stands far above the other trees in the woods, a
towering Eastern White Pine with thick branches
stretching outward. Heavy limbs curve and hook
making it the best climbing tree in the forest
beyond the meadow. One such branch reaches
downward forming a rough hammock perfect for
seers and artists.
I was a wisp of a child, all arms and legs and
big dreams. More than anything else in the world,
I wanted to be a writer. I lived in my own mind
much of the time, giving birth to notions and
wishes and ideas.
Every day I would climb out of the school bus
and, free of the confines of structure and enforced
will, grab a notebook, a guitar, and my best friend,
Jill, a motley basset hound with ears far too large
for her head and soulful eyes that adored me. We
would add a snack to our stash and disappear
across the meadow to be swallowed by the forest
near our farmhouse.
Jill would follow me along aged cow paths that
hadn’t felt a hoof in decades, her long ears
flapping. From time to time, her stocky legs
wouldn’t carry her over a deadfall or her ears
would catch in a bramble. I would pause, set
down my guitar and help her out while accepting
her grateful kisses on my cheek. Inevitably, Jill
would step on an ear and tumble into the soft
mulch of leaves and pine needles. I would right
her, give her a pat, and we would continue on our
way.
The woods became darker and thicker as we
traveled onward into their depths. Jill would cease
her explorations and stick to the path, her solid
form close to my legs.
Finally, we would see her, the ancient tree
towering over all others. I would climb the rock
piles left by the glaciers that crawled through
years before, helping Jill to follow. I would lift Jill
onto the low hammock branch and climb after her.
Jill would curl against me with a sigh, and I
would write page after page of poetry, lyrics, and
short stories. Taking a break, I would strum my
guitar and allow my mind to expand.
My training ground as a writer was a huge
pine. In its branches, with Jill snoring contentedly
beside me, I wrote what would be my first
published piece.
I named the tree Heaven.
My family moved away when I was in high
school, and I built another life. I raised five
children and taught thousands more. And I wrote.
I published stories and articles and poetry. I
watched several of my plays as they were
produced onstage. I wrote my first novels and
published books. I taught hundreds of young
people in creative writing classes and workshops.
But the insidious darkness of depression
crept in, stilling my voice and the precious
words of my passion. Days passed without
writing or singing, then weeks, months,
years. Unfinished work lay untouched. Life
became a struggle. The darkness
smothered my creativity.
More than 30 years later I found myself on that
country road that rambled past the farmhouse,
meadow, and forest where my writing had been
birthed. I pulled the car over and reached over to
ruffle the fur of Bob, my pug-poodle mix.
“Bob,” I whispered, “let’s go find Heaven.”
He followed me through a rusted fence of
barbed wire, sniffing and darting through the
heavy grasses as we approached the woods.
Someone had carved out a bit of cornfield on the
backside of the meadow. I ducked behind the tall
corn, hidden from the road.
The woods swallowed us, the earthy scents
awakening my memories of days with Jill and
music and words. Bob and I made our way
through bush and bramble, the cow paths long
overgrown with fern and jack-in-the-pulpits,
erased by the green forest floor. Dappled light
played across us as we moved deeper into the
woodland. I climbed the familiar pile of stones,
helping little Bob to follow.
She was there. As she always had been. As
majestic as I remembered.
Time fell away and my dreams came once
more, as clearly as they had in my childhood. I
determined to take time for myself and the life I
had always wanted.
She stood before me, towering into the sky
above, this tree, this keeper of my dreams. Her
branches swung low to hold me and refresh my
aching soul.
I pulled myself into her familiar embrace, onto
the branch that had awaited my return for
decades. Tears stung my eyes at the memories and
dreams still caught in the musky needles. I lifted
Bob up to snuggle beside me.
“This,” I whispered, “this is Heaven.”
Hope
Phyllis Babrove
Melanie, my youngest grandchild, is nine years
old. With her dark blonde hair and hazel eyes, she
bears no resemblance to me. But as I watch her
from across the room, I see my past and have
hope for the future.
Melanie’s father is my oldest child. He was
born two months after my grandfather died. He
had been such an important part of my life. My
grief at his death was somewhat softened when I
named my son after him. I can remember, as
though it were yesterday, the way it felt holding
my baby in my arms. Looking into his eyes, I
wondered what kind of a man he would become
and what kind of world awaited him.
The years passed quickly and my son grew into
the man I envisioned him to be when I held him
all of those years ago. He has a wonderful wife
and three beautiful daughters, Melanie being the
youngest. A devoted husband, father, and son, he
is also a dedicated firefighter-paramedic who has
saved countless lives. The dreams that I had for
him 45 years ago have become reality because he
has achieved them. As his mother, I am proud of
the kind of man he has become and his effort to
make the world a better place.
The world has definitely changed in the past 45
years. The safety that we were accustomed to in
our neighborhoods and cities has vanished; values
and morals aren’t what they were back then; and,
for the most part, humanitarianism as we knew it
has disappeared from society. A lot of the
problems that we saw years ago have been put to
rest only to be replaced by new concerns. People
continue to fight for their civil rights; illegal drug
use, an epidemic in a majority of our cities, has
destroyed people who had promising futures; in
many areas of the country, our children are not
being educated in the manner they deserve to be.
However, in spite of the problems, the world
that I envisioned for all of my children and
grandchildren has not totally disappeared; it is
different, but not gone.
As grandmother to Melanie, her sisters, and her
cousins, I have hope that they, like their parents,
will help to make the world a better place. This
would be the legacy that I would want to pass on
to future generations.
21
Note to our writers
Submissions for the January-February
edition of Extra Innings are due Friday,
December 2, 2016. Please put your copy in
the body of an email message rather than
as an attachment.
Please leave a single space after a period
and indent four spaces for a new paragraph.
Otherwise, you don’t have to worry about
formatting, typeface of size.
If you haven’t been published in E.I.
before, it’s best if you send an email query
first letting me know what you’d like to write
about.
If you aren’t a regular reader, you can
access back copies at our archives:
www.continuingstudies.wisc.edu/writing/
extra-innings.
If you have any questions, just email the
Coach at [email protected].
Thanks so much to all of you who make
this such a great newsletter. It’s nothing
without you.
IN MEMORY
Richard Trentlage
Jingle writer
Dec 28, 1927 - Sept 30, 2016
Oh, how he wished he were an Oscar
Mayer wiener.
“From the start, words were more real
to me than real life and certainly more
interesting.”
Robert Gottlieb, editor
22
WRITING: CRAFT AND COMMERCE DEPARTMENTS
CHERYL HONIGFORD
The magic of coincidence (or avoiding jail time in Rome)
I was riding a bus on my way back to the hotel
after a long day of sightseeing in Rome one New
Year’s Eve a few years ago. My feet hurt, my
head ached, and I didn't have a ticket.* After all,
my friend and I had been riding buses legally all
week and had never seen anyone check for
tickets. Why not risk it this once?
*Cue ominous music
Shortly before reaching our destination, the
polizia boarded and yes, their sole purpose was to
check passenger tickets. Since the last thing my
friend and I wanted to do was spend our New
Year's Eve in a Roman jail, we deftly hopped off
at the next stop (along with several other panicked
tourists in the same predicament). With guts
churning, we realized that it was dark and we had
no idea where we were.
Then we turned around and noticed that we were
standing in front of a lovely old church and a sign
advertising an opera performance being held there
the very next evening. I'd never seen an opera
performed live.
And then I realized that not only was this
not a tragedy that I'd been forced off the
bus at night in a city I didn't know, but it
was instead a happy accident that I was
forced off at the exact spot where I could
right then buy tickets to do something I'd
always wanted to do.
Needless to say, we bought the tickets, an
experience I never would have had but for that
abrupt bus departure. It was also an experience I'll
never forget.
Since then I've noticed that life is full of these
serendipitous events--especially in my writing.
Once I have an idea for a story, I get tiny and
sometimes not so tiny messages about it
everywhere.
Recently, the idea that one of my characters had a
backstory involving the Spanish Civil War took
hold, and then I found that the very specific book
I needed (that I wasn't sure even existed) had
actually been published only a few months before.
I admit it's all a bit woo-woo and likely just my
subconscious at work, but it's also wonderful to
think that the universe is rooting for me in some
small way. Believe me, it makes the average day a
bit more interesting if you expect that good things
might be around every corner--even with the
polizia on your tail.
Please Note: I have since learned my lesson and
always pay for my public transportation.
Reprinted with author’s kind permission from
DearReader, www.dearreader.com
MONETTE BEBOW-REINHARD’S ARTY-FACTS
Don’t sign that contract-- yet!
You've got a book done, you've been submitting
awhile, and finally someone sends you a
contract! Are you excited? Of course! Before you
sign on that web generated line, however, read
that contract. I never read instructions, either. But
make no mistake here—not all contracts are
created equal. Know what you’re signing. Be sure
you’re getting what you want.
I’ve rejected a lot of contracts, especially
for my vrykolakas novel, before I found
one I could live with. One had a clause that
said they could make substantial changes
and the author would have no recourse if
they decided to publish the novel with the
changes. Can you do that to characters you
breathed into life?
They’ll take your rough gem and make changes
to make the book publishable. If you disagree,
they will publish it anyway. I can’t have some
stranger meddling in my vision that way.
I had another contract offer that stated if I
wanted out of the contract after seeing the editing,
I would have to pay them up to $1,000 or they
would publish it anyway. When I asked the
reasoning for this, they said that often authors will
take the book they edited, reject the publishing
contract, and go on to self-publish this newly
professionally-edited book.
What writer would do that? I mean, seriously?
Sorry, but if I say self-publishing is ruining it for
the rest of us, this is what I mean.
A contract I once signed noted that if they
failed to produce the book in six months, without
reasonable excuse, the contract would in effect be
canceled. It was. In one that I didn’t sign, they
asked for 18 months to publish the book.
The royalties as stated in the contract should be
reasonable for the market. Another contract I
rejected wanted to give me 10% for ebooks,
where most publishers offer 30% to 70%.
Don’t allow them to take all rights—unless
there’s a clause that tells you that after a certain
amount of time, if they’ve not been able to
produce anything with your project, they return
the rights to you. A clause like this is often used to
option a book or screenplay to be made into a
movie, for instance.
23
When you’re optioned, you’re given anywhere
from $1,000 to $100,000 to give them exclusive
and often complete rights, but make sure those
rights are returned to you if they fail to produce
the movie.
Be careful, too, of your right to approve your
cover. The contract I signed for my vrykolakas
made it sound as if I’d have approval rights; I had
to ask to see it, after making a suggestion for
what I wanted. And by then, I was stuck with it.
The cover is of extreme importance to the sale of
a book. Look at the covers of the books the
publisher puts out. If you’re not impressed, don’t
even query them.
Know your genre. Some novels can be
hard to place. If you struggle with what
category your novel belongs in, call it
literary.
My vrykolakas book is what I call a nonmarket book, a vampire novel for people who
don’t read vampires. Try to platform that! So the
publisher ended up being the wrong one, but at
the time they felt right.
I did end up self-publishing a novel I coauthored. We signed a contract on it once, with a
new historical publisher who had one book that
was being released. I liked the looks of the cover,
and Dicho said “hell, yeah.” After we signed I got
a copy of their newly released novel. Not only did
I NOT know it was a two-parter, it was poorly
formatted and too pricey for a Kindle book. When
they attempted to put out a poorly formatted copy
of our book I refused to accept it until it was
fixed. THEY finally cancelled the contract.
There’s a good discussion here on transferring
copyright to the publisher.
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2008/09/victoriastrauss-publishing-contract.html.
For further reading:
http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/
final.three.html
http://www.authorsguild.org/services/
legal_services/books.html
24
SANDY RAFTER’S SIX MILES ABOVE EARTH
Good or bad, does the writing have the power to move us?
I am tired of reading and thinking about being a
writer, yet here I am at it again. I turn out poems
and stories, but lately, even though I don’t want to
stop writing, it is a chore like sweeping away the
crabapples from my sidewalk. I do it, but I don’t
find any coins or even a pretty blossom blown
into my path.
Yesterday, I watched a WWII movie,
Adventure, with stars Clark Gable (Harry) and
Thomas Mitchell (Mudgin). Harry and Mudgin’s
merchant marine ship is torpedoed by a Japanese
submarine. Hoping for rescue, Mudgin makes a
pact with God that if help arrives, he will avoid
women, fighting, and liquor and give his money
to the church. A rescue plane appears, and the
men are flown to San Francisco for leave. Mudgin
soon resorts to his old ways, but he isn’t happy.
He feels that he has lost his soul.
Soul, spark, heart, intensity, depth,
purity — these are the words writers say
are important. But like Mudgin, we
know when our writing is a muddled mess
of promise without proof.
When I think of these words, I ask myself
certain questions: Do writers have a moral
responsibility to move readers toward a certain
way of thinking, to expose readers to the
problems of others, to attempt to change their
lives, to inspire them to greater deeds? William
Faulkner wrote that a writer’s life is “the agony
and sweat of the human spirit.” What of the
writers who produce a sellable quick read serving
the purpose of a vacation novel, an escape from
life instead of a questioning of it? Is that writing
to be disparaged when readers will laugh or cry or
forget themselves? Truthfully, would you rather
settle lakeside with a romance or mystery or with
the History of Common Law and Imprisonment in
Wales? Is purity humorless, soul without sin,
depth without measure, or romances all sex? How
do we writers respond?
I know writers who have made vows to no one
but say they write because they must write and
their lives are incomplete without writing. I think
those of us who call ourselves writers but haven’t
written in months or even years may not fit
easily into this category.
There is a certain yearning by writers and such
non-writers akin to Mudgin’s promise to live
beyond the vices of the world. In our hearts and
minds, we feel that we are writers, and there is
good in that feeling of being able to reach beyond
ourselves.
The reclusive J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher
in the Rye, concluded that there was “marvelous
peace in not publishing” and in writing for one’s
own pleasure. As a writer who struggles, I wonder
what’s involved in Salinger’s statement: too much
success and publicity, lack of success and dryness,
fear, need for isolation, waning of ambition, or
realizing life may hold more spiritual rewards
than a finished novel? Answers are so personal;
still, most of us preen ourselves with praise and
recognition.
When I try to reflect upon writing, I can
never ignore my emotional ups and downs.
Writers usually are vociferous readers,
which often leads to comparisons with
other writers. I’ve slashed a pencil through
lines of many of my poems, wondering if I
should bother to revise or ditch them. I
struggle with trying to define my own style,
my own voice, and with those poems think
they just are not good enough. Good
enough for….? — readers, critics, myself?
At times I say,” so what,” but I also wonder
what is a poet supposed to think when publishers
reject our thoughts and skills and hard work?
Don’t we submit good writing? For me, waves of
depression result in a writing group where a poem
is politely ignored rather than discussed or
criticized. I don’t want the plane to rescue me; I
want to die. I also realize I waver in defining my
standards. That ignored or rejected poem is me.
In the movie, I admired Mudgin for lamenting
the loss of his soul and finally reclaiming it by
trying to help his friend, Harry. However, as in
most good drama, there were tears and regrets and
even a shooting star from Heaven as Mudgin
died for his friend.
—writing power continues next page
25
The reviews of the film were lukewarm,
two stars out of four, but I sat there crying
my eyes out, deeply moved. The script
wasn’t Faulkner, Hemingway, or
Steinbeck, but it had power — a quality I
think we writers often forget when we
judge writing.
I was most thankful for a verse in a Hallmark
card when my Mother died. It wouldn’t win a
Pulitzer Prize, but it gave me moments of peace. I
haul out beloved books from my childhood. The
words and stories are simple, written for a child. I
opened a book and pointed my finger at each
word I said. I could read! Each morning I read
cereal boxes (I still do) and intently noted the
rings, 3D glasses, bubble wands, or Lone Ranger
mask I could find inside or send to get, and what a
thrill to have mail addressed to me. I read Louis
L’Amour westerns because my Father read them,
and I wasn’t close to him but wanted to be. Each
story was special in that way, and I didn’t need to
know if L’Amour had won any writing awards.
Four screenwriters worked on Adventure,
because the film director was dissatisfied with the
script. I loved it, and the tears it brought released
pent-up emotions from a problem in my life not at
all related to the movie. All these writings were
powerful in their own way. Power.
I don’t know whether these reflections will
help with my writing. I do want more from my
writing and from myself. Yet, I go back and forth
and reach no set conclusions. I remain stuck on a
poem. Hemingway wrote in his Nobel award
speech: “For a true writer each book should be a
new beginning where he tries for something that
is beyond attainment. He should always try for
something that has never been done or that others
have tried and failed. Then, sometimes, with great
luck, he will succeed.”
You may note that I have quoted famous writers
and Noble Prize winners. They do give me hope,
and I confess that even as an oldster with fewer
days left to write, I do aspire to be in their
company. I could call that a silly ambition, but
even with my misgivings, the more I reflect, I
begin to think that the soul of any writing is
constantly being defined each time a line is
thought or written, and when the writer is eager or
discouraged. I think Mudgin had it wrong. He
didn’t need to despair but to realize he could
renew the pact and live up to his promise — the
same as we writers do day after day.
IN MEMORY
Oscar Brand
Feb 7, 1920 - Sept 30, 2016
He hosted Folksong Festival— the longest
radio show in history with a single host, for
New York public radio station WNYC for
over 70 years. (His last broadcast was six
days before his death.)
During the run of his show, he interviewed
Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Lead Belly, Joan
Collins, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Phil
Ochs, Harry Chapin, Emmylou Harris, B.B.
King, and even Woody Guthrie’s son, Arlo,
who gave one of the earliest performances of
his classic “Alice’s Restaurant” on his show.
And in all those years, he never asked for—
nor did he receive— one penny of
compensation.
He wrote hundreds of songs, including a #1
hit, “A Guy is a Guy,” for Doris Day.
He scored ballets for Agnes DeMille and
commercials for Log Cabin syrup and
Cheerios. He wrote music for documentaries,
published songbooks (including one called
How to Play the Guitar Better Than Me), and
hosted children’s television shows and Let’s
Sing Out on Canadian television.
He co-wrote music and lyrics for two
Broadway musicals.
He was curator of the Songwriters Hall of
Fame.
He was on the advisory panel that helped
develop Sesame Street.
And during all those years and all those
adventures, he kept hosting his amazing radio
show.
Seasonal quotes - 2
"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
- Woody Hayes / Ohio State
"I don't expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I just want to
win enough to warrant an investigation." - Bob Devaney / Nebraska
"In Alabama , an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in Bear Bryant." Wally Butts / Georgia
"I never graduated from Iowa. But I was only there for two terms - Truman's
and Eisenhower's." – Alex Karras / Iowa
"My advice to defensive players is to take the shortest route to the ball, and arrive
in a bad humor.” - Bowden Wyatt / Tennessee
"I could have been a Rhodes Scholar except for my grades." - Duffy
Daugherty / Michigan State
"Always remember Goliath was a 40 point favorite over David." - Shug Jordan /
Auburn
VANTAGE POINTS
27
GLORIA WHEELER’S GROWING UP ON WHEELS
Home sweet trailer
Our home was always the same, a trailer.
We left Iowa towing one measuring 30' x 8'
behind the family car. In El Paso that was traded
for a 28' x 8' trailer and an International truck. Six
months later, when it was obvious that we could
not co-exist in such a small space, Dad traded that
one in for one that was 36' x 8' and that was the
trailer he moved to the farm in Upstate New York.
It was Dad's thinking that while our
location would constantly be changing, my
brother and I would have the stability of
having our "own home" wherever we
lived. That was the advantage of living in a
trailer.
We moved so much that from the time Dad
announced we were moving, it took one hour until
our family of four piled into the truck and we
were on our way.
Living in a trailer home is not that much different
from any home, only ours moves with us. I say
trailer home because many so called mobile
homes are permanently parked and not intended
for travel. As a matter of fact, the trailer homes of
yesteryear were more like travel trailers seen at
campgrounds today. In my childhood, however,
they were much more rustic.
Unlike the single bathroom available in many
homes built during my childhood, we shared a
communal bathhouse housing the women and
men’s facilities as well as a laundry room. In
many cases we were blessed with up to eight
toilets and showers divided equally between men
and women, and it was rare to wait in line
Once a day, detergent mixed with bleach was
sprayed on the walls and floor of the facility and
toilets and sinks were sanitized. A hose was used
to rinse the rooms clean; doors and windows were
propped open to allow drying.
Somehow nature had uncanny timing and always
called at the very time the restrooms were closed
for cleaning.
The communal laundry room and
clotheslines served as a place where park
gossip was exchanged. It would be years
before dryers were provided. I always
found it strange that adults didn’t consider
the fact that children could hear.— And
boy— what we heard!
Unlike the adults, children were not allowed to
share gossip from the clotheslines, and if they did,
punishment was swift. What was said under the
clothesline stayed under the clothesline!
In Alamogordo, New Mexico, the water filtered
through the “white sands” and picked up an
alkaline like powder. We had to purchase water
for the washing machine and rinsing tubs if
clothes were to be powder free and not itchy.
Our water for bathing, cooking and drinking came
from the fresh water springs ten miles up the
mountains above the desert floor. While we could
use the desert water for baths, it left the same
powdery residual as that left on clothes. We
always made sure to take our coats when going to
the mountains because the sweltering heat of the
desert soon changed to bone chilling cold once we
reached the springs just outside the Mescalero
Indian Reservation in Cloudcroft. At a time when
air conditioners were rare in trailers, these trips
into the mountains were a welcomed treat.
Coach’s note: If you missed Gloria’s introductory
column last issue, you can find it in the E.I.
archives. More trailer tales next issue.
28
LISA PARTEE’S WRITE TO LIVE
The elephant in the room
Yeah? No? Hmmm.... (thinking, rubs eyes real
hard) Well...I see it. And I've discovered that my
eyes don't lie, even if my mouth persists in trying
to say my eyes are "crazy." (looks again) Yup. It's
STILL there. It has been sitting in your churches
for years!
I saw one once that actually would walk around to
the choir stand during the service, sit down behind
the pulpit real comfortable-like, then amble past
deacons and the "Mother's Board," first lady—
and I know I couldn't hear anything that may have
being taught for watching this HUGE
ELEPHANT lumber around the sanctuary until I
got "hershed" (admonished) by the usher, who
sternly told me to "turn around and stop staring
and pointing" in God's house" AND demanded
my gum in a manner which compelled me to
promptly spit it into the waiting tissue.
~*~
One time, I walked into someone's house
and TRIPPED over one that they had
thrown a rug over! Bout kilt myself. When
I looked up, nobody would even
acknowledge it!
I look over at the 3 year old who didn't know how
to lie and "act" blind, and he said, "My momma
said 'we don't talk 'bout some stuff-ever!" Then he
leaned in close and whispered, "I bus' my head
every day fallin' over this thang-We ALL do! But
we don't say nuthin..."
I looked at him for a long time and wondered
when he would lose his ability to see what he saw.
I knew that bright gleam of honesty and discovery
wouldn't be there much longer. I whispered back,
"But my leg is hurt real bad from falling over it.
Who would try to cover up something this big
anyway??" He looked at me and then at my hurt
leg and shrugged his little shoulders and said,
"You be alright. Jesus'll fix it.."
~*~
Are you SURE you don't see this? Continued
denial "is detestable, disobedient, and unfit to do
anything good." (Titus 1:16)
~*~
I'm tired of ducking and tripping over and quickly
sidestepping it, looking over it around it through it
— and the myriad thinking errors, dysfunctional
behaviors, even addictions to ANYTHING that
numbs our responses to what our inner (wo)man
KNOWS is true and correct but is TAUGHT
pointedly, "We don't speak of such things..Ever!”
I see it. I can't "un-see" it. And I know the
responsibility that comes quickly behind
revelation.
~•~
Are you SURE you don't see this?
29
ESTHER M. LEIPER-ESTABROOKS’ FOR THE LOVE OF WORDS
Artificial intelligence–eloquence?
My best friend Bobby Gordon and his siblings got
a two-foot-tall robot for Christmas 65 years ago.
It walked, beeped, spoke phrases, plus eyes
glowed. We were wowed. Currently Artificial
Intelligence (A.I.) is steadily improving. Ray
Kurzweil has studied A.I. over decades. When I
first heard of him I was impressed, yet skeptical.
Frankly, I’m a Luddite. My knowledge of A.I. is
scant, while Kurzweil is a brilliant author,
scientist, inventor, and futurist. But could a
machine really produce poetry? What could such
verse be but gobbledygook? Could an ageless
monkey with a typewriter ever duplicate
Shakespeare? My guess was never!
Human poetry follows forms we invent, including
illogical (but often humorous) word couplings in
nonsense poems, Poetry balances mundane and
surreal aspects, the familiar with the outré.
Humans report sensory observation and wordcaptured images in individual ways. Can a
computer be fed words and-- lacking our five
senses--truly create poetry?
A.I., Kurzweil’s synthetic poet, dubbed Aaron,
emerged from a program created by feeding
myriad words and phrases into his computer plus,
I suppose, certain grammar rules. Here’s a threeliner the cybernetic Aaron “wrote.”
sashay down the page
through the lioness nestled in my soul
Does Kurzweil’s computer spit words forth as
readily as cash registers print receipts? I sweat my
output; word-tinkering till I can’t do better. While
intriguing, the machine’s haiku-like examples
don’t follow rules I was taught: That haiku has
three unrhymed lines containing 5/7/5 syllables,
plus a seasonal image. If a human appears, the
poem is called a senyru. However, rules are made
to be broken, and poetry evolves. Japanese
language and mind-set are quite different from
our American outlook. Here are three more
examples of cybernetic haiku.
imagine now and sing
creating myths forming jewels from the falling snow
Scattered sandals
A call back to myself So hollow I would ache
You broke my soul
The juice of eternity The spirit of my lips
Would punctuation enhance or complicate? Does
the machine leave it out, and if so, should the
programmer insert some to enhance clarity?
Might computers ever think independently or
discern what proves an evocative line, as opposed
to one heavy as lead? Is computer-generated
poetry good by luck or solely by what we humans
program in? Might a computer ever learn to think
and evaluate? Who can answer to what might
happen if A.I. develops not just a “mind of its
own” but multiple minds hooked together?
Kurzweil showed poems to 16 humans, both
adults and kids, asking which were written by
people and which by computer. Adults guessed
correctly 63% of the time, children 43 %.
Do computers understand the nuances of words
and their collective power? Would they comprehend the difference between “tender aged beef”
and “long-dead cow?” Can a machine give more
than lip service to a belief in God? (Or are we
humans their God? Who dares say?)
Whether Kurzweil’s explorations thrill --or chill
you--he intends, as the Star Trek intro declares,
“To boldly go where no man has gone before.” As
poets, we absorb fresh concepts, evaluating our
writing plus that of others, discovering what
works best for us and striving to improve. May it
always be so! I’m not holding my breath to see if
A.I. can create prize winning poetry, at least not in
my lifetime!
30
RON HEVEY’S LIFE REFLECTIONS
A tale of two races
In the spring of 2016 two prestigious motorsport
events ended with incredible and surprising
outcomes, one a win at the Indy 500 and the other
a loss at the 24 Hours of LeMans. These outcomes
will impact the refinement of cars we drive.
controlled. TV commentators focused on
the many details of Toyota’s upcoming victory
with call-ins, interviews, photos of expectant
Toyota execs, and explanations of technology
involving partners worldwide. I was awed by their
new phraseology: This machine optimizes
harvested heat from braking energy back to
storage cells. Sounded complicated but new and
wonderful with implications we would enjoy soon
with a visit to a “showroom near you.”
The 100th running of the Indy 500, with 350,00
attendees, continued as the largest sporting event,
midwestern-to-the-core, with mere millionaires
fielding machinery made to same specifications,
cars that use the same chassis and equivalent
engines from Chevrolet or Honda.
What a victory Toyota would enjoy after
disappointing tries at LeMans. And then,
the unthinkable: Toyota driver Kazuki
Nakajima radioed the Toyota team, “I have
lost power.”
Seventeen Indy 500 contestants in the field of 33
had a chance to win as the race wound down.
Andretti team strategy to win was to coach rookie
driver Andrew Rossi to use less gas, a move that
would require one less pit stop for service and
keep the Andretti car on the track.
How incredible that a machine would run full
bore for 1,435 minutes, 99.65% of the race, and
have the gall to quit, to turn the thrill of victory
into agony, with five minutes to go. Rather than
“push in the clutch” or coast, Toyota’s only option
was to park the car and begin an engine restart
sequence. The only way when digital abstractions
intervened— they rebooted their computer! The
Toyota race car restarted and limped along while
the Porsche race car passed it for the surprise win.
The less gas/go fast strategy worked
flawlessly until Rossi ran out of gas on the
last lap, a mile and a mere 20 seconds from
the checkered flag.
What would the Andretti team do? ”Clutch it,
clutch it” was the command to the driver.
“Clutching it” is what drivers have done as far
back as when grandpa ran out of gas. Many of us
have had our own running-out-of-gas experiences;
one of mine ended well when I ran out on a hill,
pushed in the clutch and coasted downhill for
blocks to a handy gas station.
Andretti driver Rossi “clutched it,” the race car
slowing to 179 mph, compared with his race pace
of 225 mph, and coasted home for the win. Old
school, the stuff car guys remember, especially
car guys at car companies with “Keep it Simple”
plaques on their desks.
In contrast, at the grueling 24 Hours of LeMans,
Toyota held a lead over their Porsche rival with
five minutes to go, the race all but decided.
Billionaires had competed with the latest in
hybrid technology, designer biofuel engines
combined with electric motors, all computer
At Indianapolis the Andretti race driver had
intervened with the oldest of techniques; he
pushed in the clutch to allow the race car to keep
moving. At LeMans the Toyota driver was
helpless when he “lost power.”
We ‘car guys,’ who appreciate the mechanics and
marvel at the electronics, enjoy these rare
moments. For those in the auto industry who
know that Sunday’s winners sell cars on Monday,
the balance of technology is ever at odds with
“Keep it Simple.”
And for those of us who keep the new cars we
buy much longer than our dads kept their cars, we
must think ahead. We count on cars that work in
all driving circumstances when we drive our cars
and, someday, when the cars will drive
themselves. When our cars have run the race,
when they become older, complicated gadgets in
our cars could give out, leave us abandoned on
the roadside, and cost us a bundle. Unless we
make careful choices.
Seasonal quotes - 3
"Son, you've got a good engine, but your hands aren't on the steering wheel." Bobby Bowden / Florida State
"Football is NOT a contact sport, it is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact
sport." - Duffy Daugherty / Michigan State
After USC lost 51-0 to Notre Dame, his post-game message to his team
was, "All those who need showers, take them." - John McKay / USC
"If lessons are learned in defeat, our team is getting a great education.” Murray Warmath / Minnesota
"We didn't tackle well today, but we made up for it by not blocking." - John
McKay / USC
"I've found that prayers work best when you have big players." - Knute
Rockne / Notre Dame
Ohio State 's Urban Meyer on one of his players:"He doesn't know the
meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades, and he doesn't know
the meaning of a lot of words.”
Add-Verse Effects
The Old Man and the Sea
Marshall J. Cook
I encountered a man in the doorway
he coming in, I going out
I in my suit and tie and wingtips
mind spinning wildly
he in bathing suit and sand, the sun,
and the sea
a single strand of kelp wrapped round
his bony ankle.
He could have been four score in years
but a boy of five in his eyes.
My God, you’ve been in the sea, says I.
By my God I have, says he.
Forgetting myself in the moment,
I dropped to my knees
and unwrapped the strand
to set his ankle free.
and in that moment I swear to you
I would have traded all
with that gnarly old man,
so much more free than me.
John Kelly
Marshall J. Cook
A small man, slight
hands in pockets of baggy pants
Soft-spoken
An intense listener, leaning in.
But see his face in repose
the frown, the clenched jaw
the clouded eyes
and you begin to realize
what this quiet little man
is capable of.
Wee Wisdom
Norma J. Sundberg
They learned a new word,
“Infinity”
If souls so small
can comprehend
Infinity-“It's on an on and on,”
they said,
“It's wider and deeper
than anyone know,”
they said,
“It's endless,”
they said.
Then my young son asked,
“Mama, How old is God?”
Denouement
Norma J. Sundberg
I was impressed, verily,
With the children’s discussion of
Infinity
But no big deal, alack and alas,
They learned of INFINITY
in Arithmetic Class.
32
33
If the Name Fits...
John Manses
It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you
answer to. —W.C. Fields
I overheard a guy who was into sports
explain to his girl friend the other day,
“Wally Pipp is buried here—
he played first base for the Yankees.
The manager benched him in June of
1925, supposedly for just one game.
Lou Gehrig replaced him and played
so well Pipp never got back in the
lineup.”
Last week, a fella by my grave
was talking to someone and made it
sound like I got hit by a car or walked
in front of a train when he said—
“Don’t ever get yourself Pipped—
that’s what happened to this guy.”
A month ago, two old gals
who said they drank too much
at their reunion started laughing, then
belted out a song—
“Pip, pip, hurray, pip, pip, hurray!”
I recognized the voice of Mrs. Tight,
our English teacher in high school. She
was able to find my headstone and
started talking to herself—
“Is Pipp an adjective, a verb or a
noun, can it be either the subject or the
object?”
A woman who taught an acting class
at Michigan State University brought
a group of students here and lectured
them, “I want you all to know this man
was not related to Charles Dickens,
nor did he
star in the movie, Great Expectations.”
A month ago an older couple paused
as they were walking by.
He told his lady I died of the Pipps—
that made it sound like I had
a bad case of the clap or else
some kind of awful cancer.
In the best one so far, three gals started
arguing about Top Ten hits
in the 1970s—one of them was
positive I was a black guy who sang
with Gladys Knight and the Pips.
She stopped talking long enough
to notice how I spelled my name
and finally changed her mind.
I don’t like to get too worked up about
some of the things I’ve heard and try to
remember that if Gehrig hadn’t played
in 2130 straight games, nobody would
remember my name.
A teammate used to tell me,
“Wally, you got a bad case of rabbit
ears. Don’t listen to all those bench
jockeys on other clubs who always get
your goat by calling you a pipsqueak.”
34
SMALL BALL
Tom Crawford
That’s me. An unexceptional life
with nothing for the grand kids to point to
No back story of spectacular effort at bat.
I did learn to say, “Put it in here,” and smack
the center of my glove.
Today, suddenly there they were,
nine bushtits, little, thumb size gray birds
hanging from the feeder.
When I was seven years old in Michigan,
I was center fielder in the pee wee league.
I loved my uniform. But after two months
our family moved to another state,
not on the road to Damascus,
but when poetry did take me over,
I won some prizes. On a radio talk show
I was asked about my life as a poet.
I stumbled along with an answer when my host said,
“Okay, we’ll have to leave it there.”
I slowly begin to understand
that I really didn’t want to catch the ball,
I only wanted to watch it fly.
I had to learn again what I already knew young
about birds, we needed each other
to grow the feathers, the skin.
Small ball means your game
probably won’t be remembered.
It relies mostly on the bunt
and the sacrifice.
35
After this moment
THE JELLY MAKER
Gary Busha
Bonny Conway
Purple grapes sweeten
under honeyed autumn skies
in country orchards
at harvest time
the jelly maker envisions
ancient grapevines
in the gardens of Babylon
wonders if fruit tastes exotic
grown near soil of pomegranate,
fig, and quince
watered by the River Tigris
writes on his jars;
“SPOON WITH CARE
DREAMS INSIDE"
Autumn winds
blow leaves on stairways
flip torn magazine pages
wobble upturned helmets
after this moment
autumn sounds end in empty
cathedrals
voices become mumbles
hear silence
after this moment when you
turn from me
your eyes blinded your tongue
silent
our mute throats sing silent psalms
after that moment
after this moment
from The Skeptic, by Gary Busha
Wolfsong Pubs, 2015
reprinted with poet’s permission
[email protected]
CRAIG W. STEELE,
THE WRITER’S POET
Procrastination doesn’t work
I’ve tried to write, without success,
and now I wait expectantly
for inspiration’s deft caress
to send my Muse upon a spree.
But desperation’s growing worse;
soon Muse and I are both berserk.
For mastering creative verse,
procrastination doesn’t work.
36
COACH’S BULLPEN BRIEFS
John issues diner challenge
to all E.I. readers
!
Our book critic, John Swift, reports on a recent
visit to the Delta Diner, Delta, Wisconsin—
directions which generally don’t help the seeker
that much without a GPS or detailed map. (It’s
about 24 miles southwest of Ashland.)
“We waited one hour outside under the tent for
a table,” John writes. “I can tell you that there is
no McDonalds nearby, as the owner’s wife, Jen,
once explained to me, for who would wait one
hour for breakfast across the street from a
McDonalds?
“One nice thing about the wait is that you meet
such fascinating people, a surgeon from Mayo in
Rochester, a delightful couple from the Twin
Cities who planned to buy my latest book, an 80
year old fighter pilot, and a large man from Yale
heading up the “Remember Mike Pyle” club.
Then it was time for breakfast, and what a
breakfast! I had the Pedro Max Benny with a side
order of hash browns, and I was in heaven for
about a half hour.”
John included a photo of the diner and this
suggestion: how about we each write a brief
description of our favorite diner or cafe for
publication in the January-February issue of
Extra-Innings. I’m all in on that— although
narrowing it down to one will be a tough job.
How about it? Are you a diner diver? Got an all
time favorite place for pie and coffee or maybe
the plate special, meatloaf with the green beans
and the mashed potatoes and gravy? If so, get
your brief profile to the Coach by the end of
November for inclusion in the New Year’s
edition. [email protected].
Jake sees favorite band
for one last time
Our Pop Culture critic, Jacob McLaughlin, files
this report:
This past May, my favorite band, The Tragically
Hip, announced that they were going on one last
tour. The reason for this was because the
frontman, Gord Downie, was diagnosed with
glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. I was lucky
enough to see them one last time in Winnipeg and
also was one of the many people who watched
their final show broadcast. I decided that I wanted
to tell my story about being a fan of them for the
past nine years and my experiences with their
music. I started writing this piece on August 19th
and finished it exactly a month later. I've never
put this much time and effort into something I've
written. I'm very proud of this article and I hope
you all enjoy reading it.
You can use the live link, below, or go to your
search engine and type in
www.seekerofschlock.blogspot.com for Jake’s
tribute.
Long Time Running: An American's Story
About His Love For The Tragically Hip
Coach’s Books Worth a Look
The Fly on the Wall,
Tony Hillerman, 1971
Before there were Leaphorn and Chee and the
Navajo Tribal Police mysteries, there was John
Cotton and a political thriller / journalism
procedural that keeps surprising until the last
sentence.
Drawing on his 14 years of experience as a
journalist (he also taught journalism at the
University of New Mexico for 21 years) ,
Hillerman creates a convincing protagonist in
veteran statehouse reporter John Cotton of the
Minneapolis Journal. Cotton stumbles onto frontpage worthy corruption involving two murders—
and finds himself being stalked as potential victim
#3! We follow Cotton on a winding trail of clues
as his stalks his story while becoming the prey in
two memorable chase sequences. (Hillerman may
also be putting his combat experience during
World War II to use here.)
—Picks continue, next page
37
At the philosophical heart of the novel,
Hillerman pits the public’s right and need to know
the truth against the potential harm a story might
do to good people as Cotton learns whether it’s
really possible for a man with a conscience to be a
truly objective “fly on the wall.”
His struggle to hang onto the idealistic belief
that, given the facts, the majority of citizens in a
democracy will make good, sound decisions
seems particularly relevant in this election season.
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin, 2009
A naive, rather passive girl from a small town in
Ireland emigrates to Brooklyn, New York in the
early 1950s, setting into motion this stranger-in-astrange land romance. Ellis Lucey must finally
choose between two suitors, an ardent ItalianAmerican in Brooklyn and a kind, loving, and
successful Irishman back home. Toibin's a patient
storyteller with a fine ear for language and a fine
eye for detail. Critical acclaim for the novel seems
quite justified.
Coming attractions
I’ve only just started Louise Erdrich latest novel,
La Rose, and Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography,
Born to Run, but I can already tell you that I’m
loving both of them and will be reporting on them
in the January-February edition of E.I.
Headline signaling
the coming apocalypse
Wisconsin State Journal, September 28, 2016
Man charged with choking
women, 94, at Bible study
No, he didn’t use a rosary. It was a phone cord,
whatever that is.
Yet another headline warning
that the end is near:
from wire services, published in the Wisconsin
State Journal, October 10, 2016
Turkeys dropped
from plane, 1 dies
Didn’t those idiots ever watch WKRP??????
Patty does not enjoy
introduction to Social Security
Patty Suzuki Mallard, one of the official nonresident geniuses of The Writers and Their Words
Radio Program, had her first experience at the
Social Security Office recently. According to
husband Dick (another genius), she described it as
putting the Russian DMV, entering a prison for a
visit, and a trip to the Post Office at Christmas
time all in a blender and flushing it down Alice in
Wonderland’s rabbit hole.
Esther will soon publish
in The Lyric
Our For the Love of Words bard, Esther M.
Leiper-Estabrooks, is working on another
illustration for poet Barbara Hantman. Also,
The Lyric has accepted two of Esther’s poems for
inclusion in coming editions. Founded in 1921,
The Lyric is the oldest magazine in North America
in continuous publication devoted to traditional
poetry.
Rosemary publishes
in The Light Within
Rosemary Hovey Everson has had a poem
featured with other poets at Spiritual Writers
Network in a book titled The Light Within: A
Collection of Peace and Prose.The book was
released on August 31, 2016.
38
COACH’S E-MAIL QUEUE
Coach apologizes
for offensive joke
Born’s first item should not have been included.
Rape is rape. It’s not funny.
Chris DeSmet
Coach responds: Chris is referring to a series of
jokes I ran in the September-October issue titled
“Questions without answers.” The first item
referred to rape. I hesitated to run it, then decided
it was innocuous. I was wrong. I regret running
the item, and I apologize.
Please don't blame Steve Born. He merely
passed along material he found on the Internet. I
decided which items to run, and I take full
responsibility.
Chris Desmet directs the writing programs for
the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies
and is a published and award-winning author. She
is also my friend and former colleague..
Thanks, friend, for holding me accountable.
Dear Coach,
Thank you for publishing my reflection. It is very
exciting for me to see it in print and gives me the
motivation to keep writing.Take care.
Phyllis Babrove
Hi Coach,
I like your poem about walking to church and the
opening piece about O.J. and Mr. Goldman. I
understand Goldman's mission but, as you
indicate, a lifetime of hate and seeking revenge
may not have been the best channel. But none of
us can say for certain what we'd do if put in the
same situation.
Best regards,
Madonna Dries Christensen
Marsh,
Besides the wonders of Extra Innings in general,
I'm touched and pleased that you included the
memoriam for James McPherson. I worked in the
office while he was faculty at the Iowa Writers'
Workshop, and he was my mentor for my MFA.
Such a wise, fascinating, funny, and gentle
person, an exceptional writer, teacher, and friend.
I was blessed to know him.
How are you? If you're surveying, I vote for
Lily's new pool.
Go Cubs!
Nancy Obermueller
ED PAHNKE’S
JUST FOR THE PUN OF IT
Otto Mobile
Kay Frazer smiled, ready to enjoy an evening out
with her big brother, Freddie. He’d picked the
Oasis in Ridgewood, 20 miles west of them, a
place renowned for its great food and decor.
One drawback: she’d have to ride in Freddie’s
o-l-d car. She shook her head in wonder. He loved
that 1955 Studebaker Speedster. Freddie talked to
that car, had a name for it, too – Otto Mobile.
When he got new tires for the car, he said, “It
feels good for this ol’ car to be re-tired.”
She sighed. Where was Freddie? She was
hungry and eager to be entertained. She glanced
out the window of her condo. A shiny lemon/lime
colored Studebaker glowed in the evening
shadows. Her bell sounded. Freddie had come.
Clutching her purse, Kay hurried out.
Greeted with a hug by big brother Freddie, she
walked to Otto. Every time she saw Otto’s chrome
front bumper with its ends turned up, she
remembered what Freddie had said, “Otto is
smiling.”
“Jump in and we’ll get going. I got great
reservations at the Oasis,” Freddie said, holding
the door for her.
As they rolled along out of Wooddale and
across the rural landscape, they drew close to
another car, a Taurus. Eager to show off his car’s
speed, Freddie pressed the gas pedal and swerved
around the Taurus. He patted the dashboard and
said, “I just put my car before the Taurus.”
Kay sighed. “How much farther, Freddie?”
“A way, Sis.”
“I wish you’d get a newer car. I know you love
Otto, but it’s an old relic and belongs…”
”Not now, Sis, Otto’s feelings get hurt. Talk
like that might be a car denial sin.”
“Oh, Freddie, come now.”
Moments later, bright lights loomed ahead of
them. “Oasis on the right. Would you like a
champagne cocktail before supper, Sis?”
“Oh, yes, and thanks for inviting me tonight.”
Smiling, she shook her finger. “But no more talk
about Otto. I’m car pun sated.”
39
THE LAST WORD
SUZANNE BEECHER’S DEAR READER
The look in a stranger’s eyes
Something was troubling her. I could tell she was holding back tears,
but we were strangers. So I only looked her way and smiled--but the
look in her eyes--I wish I would have asked if everything was all right.
The look in her eyes.
I'd seen that look before. It was the look in my Grandma Hale’s eyes.
We'd just returned home from Grandpa's funeral, and the strong
woman, the grandma who I'd never seen cry until today, looked at me
from across the living room, and her eyes were begging for an answer,
"Oh, how am I going to go on?"
The look in her eyes.
It reminded me of the look in Leona's eyes. Leona was sitting in a
lawn chair on a hill, away from the commotion, but close enough to
hear the auctioneer selling her possessions one-by-one. She had to
leave behind her pink house on the corner and move into a nursing
home, and the frightened look in her eyes was searching for an answer,
"Oh, how am I going to go on?"
The look in her eyes.
Yes, something was troubling the stranger. I could tell she was
holding back tears, and I wish I would have asked, because I'll always
remember the look in her eyes.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Published with the author’s permission from DearReader.com
Suzanne Beecher [email protected]
blog: http://dearreader.typepad.com/
www.emailbookclub.com
Holiday
! ! Extra
! ! ! ! Innings
“Ars gratia pecuniae”
Number 82
Madison, Wisconsin
Veterans’ Day
Carma Smidt (essay), Sandy Rafter
(poems)
THANKSGIVING
Pat Laux, Kathy Giorgio
CHRISTMAS
Madonna Dries Christensen,
Pernetta Deemer, Dick Mallard,
Marshall J. Cook, Phyllis Babrove,
Carrie Gruman-Trinkner
WRITING: CRAFT AND COMMERCE
Cheryl Honigford, Sandy Rafter,
Monette Bebow-Reinhard
VIEWPOINTS
Gloria Wheeler, Lisa Partee, Esther
M. Leiper-Estabrooks, Ron Hevey,
Jan Kent, Ed Pahnke
AD VERSE EFFECTS
Marshall J. Cook, Norma Sundberg,
John Maneses, Tom Crawford,
Bonny Conway, Craig W. Steele,
Gary Busha
THE LAST WORD
Suzanne Beecher
Staff Statistician
Jack “Warning Track” Walsh
November-December, 2016
Internet Gleaner
Steve Born
Web Weaver
Kerrie Jean-Louis Osborne
Stuntman
Yakima Canutt
Director of Creative Ideation
S. Dardanelles
Contributing editor
Madonna Dries Christenson
Coach-in-Chief:
Marshall J. Cook
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41
And now, at LAST!
Lily goes apple picking in the fall