Month: April 2019

Z Is for Zoo & Zither: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

The Tale of Mervin and Leroy

A Nap Time Story

by Crystal Barrow Waller

as recalled and recorded by her daughter

 

Once upon a time, there were two little moose named Mervin and Leroy. They lived high up in the Teton Mountains.

One day, Mervin called out, “Merrrrrrrrrrrr-vinnnnnnnnnnnnn.”

Leroy heard and called out his window, “Whaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”

Mervin said, “Can you come out to plaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaay?”

Leroy and said, “I’ll ask my mo-therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”

Both of their mothers said, “Yes, you may,” and bundled them up in long underwear and wool sweaters and mufflers and toboggan caps. Then both mothers said, “You may play on the mountain, but do not go down to the lake and go swimming. It’s too cold to go swimming.”

Mervin and Leroy said they wouldn’t.

Teton Mountains, Jon Sullivan, PD Photo. [Public domain], via Wikipedia
So they met at their playground halfway between their houses, and they played and played and played.

Then Mervin said, “I’m bored. Let’s go down to the lake.”

“We can’t,” said Leroy. “Our mothers said not to go there.”

“I know,” said Mervin. “Let’s go down to the lake.”

So they trotted down the path. When they got to the lake, Mervin said, “Let’s go swimming.”

“But our mothers said not to,” said Leroy.

“It’s okay,” said Mervin. “We won’t tell them.”

“Moose calf” by Michael Gabler, licensed under CC BY-3.0, via Wikipedia

“But we didn’t bring our bathing suits,” said Leroy.”

“C’mon,” said Mervin.

They took off their clothes and hung them on a bush and ran into the water.

They played and played and played. Then Mervin said, “I’m cold. And it’s time for supper. We’d better go home.”

They got out of the lake and ran to the bush where they’d left their clothes. But their clothes weren’t there.

“This is the wrong bush,” said Mervin. So they ran to the next bush, but their clothes weren’t there. They ran to another bush. Their clothes weren’t there either. They ran to bush after bush but couldn’t find their clothes anywhere.

That’s because while they were swimming, a great big bear came by and stole their clothes!

“I’m freezing,” said Leroy. His teeth were chattering so fast he could hardly talk.

Mervin said his feet were like blocks of ice.

“Cow moose” by Veronika Ronkos, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikipedia 

Then they heard their mothers calling. “Merrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-vinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. Leeeeeee-royyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.”

“I think we’re in trouble,” Mervin. “Hide.”

They scuttled behind a bush. But their mothers were very smart and found them right off.

Mervin and Leroy were shivering and shaking. They were so cold they were turning blue.

Their mothers took them home and put them in their beds and stacked blankets and quilts on top of them, and put hot bricks in the beds to warm their feet.

But Mervin and Leroy had gotten so cold they caught pea-neumonia, and the doctor came and give them penicillin shots.

They had to stay in bed for a whole month before they got well.

And after they got well, they always did as their mothers told them, and never went to the lake when they weren’t supposed to, and never, ever hung their clothes on a bush where a bear might steal them.

*

Morals

Z Moral: Little moose who engage in risky behavior might end up being caught by a bear and sold to greedy animal hunters and sold to a zoo.

Mother Moral: You can probably figure this one out for yourself.

© M. K. Waller

**

Afterword

My parents, Crystal Barrow Waller & Billie Waller. He made up stories, but in an altogether different style.

“The Story of Mervin and Leroy” is one of the tales my mother told me at nap time. I didn’t want to take naps but she did, so, once she got me on the bed, Scheherazade-like, she roped me in with plots–what happened next? – what happened next? – what happened next?–to keep me there till I fell asleep. She made things up as she went. Other impromptu offerings were “Rob and Nell Bluebird” and “Frances and Henry Redbird”–some readers will recognize the inspirations–but “Mervin and Leroy” was my favorite.

You can imagine my emotions when, in my teens, I was watching the afternoon movie and saw on the screen the words, “Directed by Mervyn LeRoy.”

“Motherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” I said.

She said, “Uh-huh.”

I have never quite gotten over it.

***

Zither: from James Thurber’s “The Night the Ghost Got In”:

A young James Thurber hears noises downstairs, but when he investigates and sees nothing, he decided there’s a ghost. His mother throws a shoe through the neighbor’s window and shouts to him to call the police. The police come.

“Police were all over the place; doors were yanked open, drawers were yanked open, windows were shot up and pulled down, furniture fell with dull thumps. A half-dozen policemen emerged out of the darkness of the front hallway upstairs. They began to ransack the floor: pulled beds away from walls, tore clothes off hooks in the closets, pulled suitcases and boxes off shelves. One of them found an old zither that Roy had won in a pool tournament. “Looky here, Joe,” he said, strumming it with a big paw. The cop named Joe took it and turned it over. “What is it?” he asked me. “It’s an old zither our guinea pig used to sleep on,” I said. It was true that a pet guinea pig we once had would never sleep anywhere except on the zither, but I should never have said so. Joe and the other cop looked at me a long time. They put the zither back on a shelf.”

~ James Thurber, “The Night the Ghost Got In,” from My Life and Hard Times

Y Is for Y’all–Dictionary +: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

 

Note: I wrote the following early on Saturday, April 27, Y-Day, but left posting until I returned from hearing La Boheme at Austin Opera. I got home later than expected, however, and forgot to post. When I remembered, it was already the 28th. I could have beaten myself up for fouling out of the challenge with only Y and Z to go. Instead, I said to myself, “Somewhere in this world it’s still Saturday.” So here’s my Saturday post

***.

 

Today’s AtoZ post, unlike previous posts, is informational. It’s also intended to be educational and to help people not in the know to avoid egregious errors.

The topic is Y’all.

First, is y’all a word? Yes. It appears in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a contraction used informally to mean “You-all.”

The OED, because it has Oxford in the title and is published by Oxford University Press is, of course, like the New York Times, the King James Bible, and Shakespeare,  the authority.

(I didn’t really need to consult the OED, because I already knew it’s a word.)

Unfortunately, that’s all the OED says about y’all, but other dictionaries offer more information. Dictionary.com (DC) points out that it’s a pronoun, “U.S. dialect abbreviation of you all.”  Merriam Webster_ (MW) says, “variant of YOU-ALL, chiefly Southern: : YOU —usually used in addressing two or more persons.” The Urban Dictionary (UB) says it’s  “Southern 2nd person plural pronoun. “

This takes us to the second question, which is where the egregious errors come in: Is y’all a singular pronoun or a plural pronoun?

As noted above, both MW and the UB  point out that it’s plural. It is properly used when addressing one person, or one person who represents a family, organization, etc.” (MW)

Script writers would do well to take note of that fact.

For more on number, read on.

Question three: Does the use of y’all demonstrate the speaker’s poor education, ignorance, or general hickiness?

Yawl, not y’all

Y’all speakers might refrain from saying the word when in formal situations, such as job interviews, discussions with English professors or waiters at extra-nice restaurants, or conversations with English-speaking residents of non-American continents.

More on this a few paragraphs down.

Now, I can hardly believe this, and I’m not sure it’s wise on their parts, but both MW and UB allow people to comment. Comments don’t see proper in a dictionary, but there you have it.

I’m afraid quoting them here will lower the level of discourse and will possibly render the blog family unfriendly. But we’ve seen a lot of that kind of thing lately. Many formerly unprintable words, as well as formerly unprintable insults, are now flung about with abandon.

So what the heck.

Warning: The following content hints at emotions that non-y’all users may consider offensive, but THEY ARE NOT INTENDED AS INSULTS–THEY’RE TONGUE IN CHEEK–TO LAUGH AT, NOT TO OFFEND–Y’ALL SPEAKERS DO LAUGH THEMSELVES OURSELVES.

Regarding, “Is it a word?”

“It is acceptable proper English. It is even in the Oxford dictionary and has been used for over 200 years. It’s used in other countries where English is present as well. ” (MW)

“I lived it.
Texas to Georgia and back again.” (MW)

“Because if Outlook tells me one more time it isn’t in the dictionary, and thus, isn’t a word, I am throwing my computer. Y’all just don’t know!) (MW)

“Y’all damn right it’s proper English” (MW)

Yawl, not y’all

Then, “Is y’all singular or plural?”

“Despite the assurance of some emails that have been passing around, “y’all” is plural. Only an absolute idiot would use it as a singular pronoun.” (UB)

And finally, “Does the use of y’all demonstrate the speaker’s poor education, ignorance, or hickiness?”

“Despite what some think, it is not only used by hicks and the uneducated. People from all walks of life, traditionally the southern states use it.” (UB)

“And mind you, that we southerners get very offended when stupid people think anyone who says it is a hick. Shut the hell up.” (UB)

“The best way to address two or more people. . . . Better than: you guys, youse guys, and you all! Yes, I live in Southern Alabama, and yes, I attended Harvard!” (UB)

“Only an absolute idiot would use it as a singular pronoun.” (UB)

I hope this post about y’all has been enlightening. Most non-y’all speakers, upon hearing the word, are taken aback and respond by teasing the speaker. No one in his right mind could be offended by a little teasing. As I said, y’all users recognize their own peculiarities and can, and do, laugh along with the teaser.

Some non-y’all speakers, however, seem to have no consideration for the y’all speaker’s feelings. One such remark appears among the comments in the Merriam Webster:

“Heard some dumbass woman from Texas say it.”
But instead of taking offense, a y’all speaker responded in a most respectful manner:

“Bless your simple heart.”

 

 

X Is for Xerxes: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

Lying in bed this morning, I came up with the perfect Y word. I began gathering information and working on an introduction.

Then something in my brain clicked and I realized today is X. I figured I might as well go back to sleep.

But then one of my characters, the sweet and very young Baptist preacher who told the teenagers he would drive them in the church van to take dancing lessons, walked into the cafe and sat down at a table with an old man who’s still cussing Roosevelt and long-haired hippies.

And then here came the old lady who’s always mad about something, and she jumped all over the preacher about the dancing thing, and she’s not even a member of his church, and then she whacked the back of his chair with her cane and scared him half to death.

She’s always on a rampage about something, and I knew they weren’t going to shut up and let me go back to sleep till I write chapter two and give them something else to do, so I gave up and got up. At 4:14 in the morning. 

Downstairs I turned on the TV to Youtube and Frederica Von Stade singing “Song to the Moon,” and then a string of other sopranos. I thought I might fall asleep listening. But so far I haven’t.

I have, however, come up with an X word: Xerxes. I heard about him when I was a toddler and my mother read nap time selections from The Bumper Book. The volume was big and pink and had tape–old yellowed tape–holding some of the pages together. The faded cloth on the hard cover had started to peel off at the corners, showing what looked like cardboard beneath. The book was obviously o-l-d, and I wondered where it came from, but I never asked, so I’ll never know.

But back to Xerxes.

He showed up in Edward Lear’s “A Nonsense Alphabet”:

X was King Xerxes,
Who, more than all Turks, is
Renowned for his fashion
Of fury and passion.

X

Angry old Xerxes!

I don’t remember hearing the poem, just X and Xerxes. To my embarrassment, I didn’t remember anything about Xerxes either, so I googled him. He was a Persian king who appears in the Book of Esther under the name Ahasuerus, and husband of Esther.

Regarding The Bumper Book, it’s available for purchase through Amazon. (Looks like the cover is yellow now.) Prices run from $41.76 for a Used copy to a Used-Like New copy for $245.00. Eighty-three per cent of reviewers give it a five-star rating. The low ratings refer to the condition of the used books. One reviewer, (four stars) said it was a replacement for the copy her dog ate and was smaller than the 1950 version. Just as I suspected.

In addition to Xerxes, it includes Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat,” A. A. Milne’s “Christopher Robin Is Saying His Prayers,” and Eugene Field’s “Winken, Blynken, and Nod” and “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.” If I had my way, all of those would be required reading for children. I heard “The Owl and the Pussycat” so many times that I can still recite it from memory. Jan Brett’s picture book of TOATPC has the absolute best illustrations in existence.

Just sayin’.

Here’s Frederica Von Stade singing Dvorak’s “Song to the Moon.” You’re welcome.

 

 

***

Images of The Bumper Book and The Owl and the Pussycat via Amazon.com

 

W Is for the W-Words: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

 

Buyer’s remorse. And not even five hours have elapsed since the purchase. It happens every time. Why do I do this to myself? (W-Word: Why)

News of the Writers‘ League of Texas’ annual summer retreat arrived via email this afternoon, and I pounced–checked the calendar to confirm it doesn’t fall on an infusion week, asked my husband to confirm what I’d already confirmed, filled out the online form, and clicked Register.  [W-Word: Writers’]

Some people think it over before clicking Register, especially when clicking Register requires an outpouring of funds.

If I made a list, it would look like this:

Don’t Go to the WLT Summer Retreat in Kerrville – Reasons

  1. Time away from home – six days
  2. The retreat is in July and I already miss David
  3. Indulgence-induced guilt
  4. I shouldn’t have to drive 100 miles to write what I could write staying at home
  5. Can write at home without paying registration fees plus gasoline and wear-and-tear on the car
  6. More guilt
  7. I miss David

Go to the WLT Summer Retreat in Kerrville – Reasons

  1. I want to [W-Word: Want]

And then there’s the year I came home with a two-hundred-word timed writing that three years later turned into a 4,000-word short story, and a year after that appeared in a crime fiction anthology–the Murder on Wheels pictured in the sidebar to the right.

Plus the new Summer Writing Retreat–Write Away, where all you do is write

Plus the creative energy generated by people writing together

Plus memories of retreats in Alpine in 2011 and 2014.

Regarding buyer’s remorse: it doesn’t last.

 

 

V Is for Vitality, Lack of: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

I thought I would write all twenty-six posts without them–I refrained from using them for Day C–but today I lack the vitality necessary to think of anything new. So on Day V I fall back on Cats.

William and Ernest.

As I recently posted, Ernest and I are having a disagreement over seating positions. My body and my massage therapist tell me I have to sit up straight and hold the laptop right in front of me. Ernest says he’s supposed to be right in front and the laptop can snuggle up to someone else.

I haven’t won, but, on the positive side, I’ve had to see the massage therapist only four times, and I now stand almost upright when I walk. In addition, I no longer get into the car like Audrey Hepburn. (That’s really more of a negative.)

Ernest spends more time than he used to sitting on David’s lap, he stares at me with an expression that implies he’s planning some outrage.

This evening we compromised. He curled up with his front on my leg, his head on the arm of the chair, and a narrow gap between. Because I feel guilty, I let him put his head on the keypad and, to keep him from sending emails, played Candy Crush. Then I moved my leg–it was numb–and he slid down, stretched out, and ended up squashed between me and the arm of the chair.

I took photos. They didn’t turn out–angle and proximity made it hard to get a good shot–but you might be able to get hint of our predicament. My predicament, really. As long as I rubbed his tummy, he didn’t care where he was. I don’t think he even noticed.

Ernest. Ruffled fur is from tummy rub.

William occupied himself this afternoon with walking back and forth across the keyboard and me in pursuit of a bowl of granola bar crumbs that I kept moving back and forth so he couldn’t get to it. He’s so big and heavy (and determined) that when he decides to walk on the keyboard, he walks on it.

Nineteen pounds at his last checkup, down from twenty-three. I calculated the other day–I used to bowl with a ten-pound ball, and it wasn’t easy to lift. William is worth two bowling balls.

When he was a kitten, he would race me to my chair. Seeing me approach it, he would run across the room to get there first. It was both cute and annoying. I thought he wanted the chair. After a while, he stopped.

Lately he’s been doing it again, and I’ve realized he just wants to be petted. But he doesn’t want to give up the chair. I feel guilty for not snuggling with him nine years ago, so I push and pull him to one side of the chair and squeeze into the other–it’s a big chair, and we almost fit. Sometimes he stays wedged between me and the arm. Sometimes he struggles to crawl around to my lap.

If he jumps up when the computer is already in my lap, there’s no question of working. It’s all about him.

Well, that’s the update on William and Ernest. If I weren’t so sleepy, I would write something else–something brilliant, something scholarly and profound, cogent even, displaying my remarkable erudition–but on this Day V, the tale of two tabbies is all the farther I can go.

***

I learned all the farther from a co-worker who hailed from Minnesota. I love it. It’s in my personal lexicon to use on occasions such as this.

***

WordPress suggests I use yabbies instead of tabbies. Nah. Good word, but it doesn’t fit.

UnSubject: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

I’m watching an old production of The Woman in White and pondering the place of the woman in Victorian fiction.

There are two half-sisters, one who has inherited, or will inherit, great wealth; the other is relatively poor. The wealthy one is beautiful; she is delicate and wears pastels. Occasionally she faints.

The poor one is nice looking but her face doesn’t rival that of her sister;  she is sturdy and wears plaid. What the poor sister lacks in looks and money, she makes up for in intelligence and gumption. No shrinking violet, she. When the going gets tough–when the heiress marries a sadist who locks her in an asylum so he can have her fortune–the sturdy one takes charge.

The sturdy sister is helped by a young man, frequently a man of lower station. He is in love with the heiress, of course–hopelessly, although she has hinted she would be favorably inclined toward him if only her guardian would approve. Guardians never approve. The hopeless young man would take her with no dowry at all, but he doesn’t want that kind of trouble.

It all works out, of course. The heiress gets loose and marries the young man and they’re happy ever after. The sturdy sister lives with them–the sisters are Devoted–and carries on her belt the ring of keys to all the doors and cupboards and probably makes out all the menus. And is happy ever after.

I have no argument with the plot, but the women . . . The delicate, sensitive girl watched over by the brave, sturdy one. The fainting. The vapors. The lack of brain power.

David Copperfield falls for the empty-headed Dora while Agnes hangs around to keep Dora from running completely  amok. Dora conveniently dies–she’s delicate–and after a time, he realizes he loves Agnes and always has. Agnes says she loves him, etc., and is kind enough not to point out it’s taken him long enough to figure it out.

One male author who had a clearer view was William Thackeray. Amelia was delicate and sensitive–I can’t remember her fainting–and Becky Sharp was sturdy, but Becky didn’t stand around going pat-pat-pat when Amelia had a headache. She made her own way and did her best to take Amelia’s husband with her.

(Here’s a poster for a movie based on Vanity Fair. Myrna Loy and Conway Tearle. “CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED.”)

Vida Woodward Waller and Jessie Waller, ca 1910

I shouldn’t be so hard on the fainters. It’s a wonder any woman wearing one of those corsets could stay on her feet at all. I’m told that around 1910-1920, every time my grandmother had a dress fitting, she laced her corset so tightly that she fainted amidst the pins and patterns. It upset one dress maker so much that she refused to sew for her.

However, she came from a family of natural fainters, men as well as women. But they say that when not wearing  a corset, my grandmother stayed in the saddle on any horse she rode, no matter how hard it tried to throw her off. She was no shrinking violet either. (I’ve had a couple of brushes with fainting myself, but when I feel one coming on, I usually manage to lie down on the floor before I topple over. Horses can toss me out of the saddle whenever they please, and I speak from experience.)

The question is, how did we go from Jane Austen and Lizzie Bennet to Dora Copperfield?

If Charlotte and Emily Bronte knew any delicate women, they didn’t make them main characters. Their females were sturdy. Jane Eyre didn’t put up with any nonsense from Rochester or from St. John Rivers. Catherine Earnshaw is a little cracked, I contend, thinking that Heathcliff would be okay with her marrying Edgar Linton, but she  didn’t wait for a sturdy woman to come along and tell her what to do. (Maybe she should have.)

(I’ve read that Jane Austen’s women would have burst out laughing if they’d had to deliver any of the speeches Charlotte Bronte wrote for Jane Eyre.)

[I’m not finished, but it’s almost midnight and I have to get this online today, so I’m going to post and finish later.]

Admission: This post is a stream-of-consciousness example of superficial faux literary criticism. The many generalizations are unfair and an ethical person would not write such things about the classics and then fling them into cyberspace. Normally, I am ethical, but not tonight.

The thing is, I started two posts, each running to six hundred words incomplete, and they were terrible and I scrapped them and wrote without regard for form or function. Ethics tomorrow, foolishness tonight.

 

 

 

S Is for a Sin & a Shame: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

LONG before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.

~ Eudora Welty, “Listening in the Dark

 

In the olden days, my family spent most holidays in my hometown with my father’s side of the family. Dinner rotated year to year from my house to Aunt Laura and Uncle Joe’s to Great-aunt Ethel’s. The woman hosting cooked turkey and dressing; the others brought side dishes.

Some of the same sides appeared year after year: Great-aunt Bettie’s potato salad, Great-aunt Aunt Jessie’s something-or-other salad, my mother’s pecan pie. Aunt Bettie put sugar in her potato salad–the older generation of Wallers sugared everything–and it was delicious.

Mother’s pecan pie was delicious, too; every year I ate  pumpkin pie, then regretted it. The pumpkin was good, but, as Garrison Keillor pointed out, the best pumpkin pie you ever ate isn’t that much better than the worst pumpkin pie you ever ate.

Aunt Jessie’s salad was a delicious enigma. Nobody knew what was in it then, and nobody knows what was in it now. Finely chopped pecans were recognizable. Lime Jello was highly probable. It wasn’t Jello-smooth, it didn’t taste like Jello, and it didn’t jiggle. As to the third major ingredient, I’m guessing cream cheese.

She brought it to every communal dinner, and  the other women wondered aloud what was in it. If anyone asked, she didn’t get an answer. Aunt Jessie certainly didn’t volunteer the information. She was known for not telling anything, most of all her age. After Uncle Curt died, she put up a double tombstone with her birth date engraved on it. Everybody in the family made a point of driving out to look at the miracle.

After dinner, we sat in the living room and the men–my father and his brothers–told stories, some about their childhood, others about local current events. As the only child there, I wasn’t outside playing with other children; I was sitting on the floor, listening.

Like Aunt Jessie’s salad, the same stories were served every year. Most of them were funny, and we laughed as hard each year as we had the last. Fentress was a singular place. It was like Charles Dickens created enough characters, most of them elderly, for an entire book and then set them down in a little town in Central Texas. Their quirks, their mannerisms, their speech, their opinions, their actions marked them as individuals.

Mr. John Roberts steered his old green Chevy well to the right before turning left, just as if he were still driving a horse-and buggy. Every time his brother, Mr. Perry, left the post office, he backed his old gray pickup at least a hundred yards before turning around to head for home (long-time residents knew not to not park behind him). My grandfather rolled Bull Durham cigarettes with one hand, drove on the left side of the road, and glided right past every stop sign he saw (if he saw them).

The stories were about small things, but they were our history, and worth hearing again. For example:

Mr. George Meadows used to wake my father up in the middle of the night because old Fritz was down in the river bottom baying at a treed raccoon and disturbing everyone’s sleep, and he wasn’t going to stop till my dad took his shotgun down there and took care of the coon.

When Great-uncle Carl was agitated, he fidgeted with the waist of his trousers. Once, back in the 1920s, a group of teenage boys, including my father’s oldest brother, Joe, went to Seguin, about twenty miles away, imbibed some alcohol, and landed in jail. The next morning, word got back to their families, and the fathers gathered downtown in the Waller store, to discuss what they should do. “Leave them there,” said Uncle Carl, “just leave them there and let them learn a lesson.”

Then someone mentioned that Carl Jr. was among the incarcerated. Uncle Carl started fidgeting with the waist of his trousers. Aunt Bettie said she thought he was going to pull his pants clear up under his armpits. He drove right over to Seguin and got Jr. out.

The best part of the story, in my estimation, is the crime that sent the boys to jail: They stole an anvil. I’ll bet in the history of the world, they were the only ones who ever stole an anvil.

The law imposed no consequences. I assume the anvil was returned to its owner and he boys apologized and that was that.

There. Those anecdotes aren’t interesting to the general public, including the readers of this post–they fall under the heading “You Had to Know the Participants,”–but I remember Uncle Carl’s fidgeting, and the image is as vivid now as it was sixty years ago. And that anvil . . .

The stories told on those holidays represent some of my happiest memories. They’re also material. I write fiction, and if you think I’m not weaving in bits and pieces, you can think again.

It would have been a sin and a shame if I’d missed out on those holiday gatherings.

*

I’m pleased to report that Uncle Joe went on to be a sober citizen, and a postmaster, and in that job he saw and spoke with most of the townspeople every day, and therefore had the opportunity to gather more stories to share at family gatherings.

**

Eudora Welty, “The Making of a Writer: Listening in the Dark.” New York Times on the Web.

***

Images of Raccoon and Anvil via Pixabay.com

 

R Is for Re-Vision: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

Writing is a lonely pursuit, and reading it aloud transformed it into an interactive experience It also  brought  the text to life. When Anne read her material to Meg she picked up the difficulties and polished them out so that the writing flowed more smoothly. Occasionally, there were a few ruffled feathers and a spot of wounded pride, but almost always the process was revealing and sometimes downright entertaining.

Joanne Drayton, The Search for Anne Perry

 

In seventh-grade literature, two questions were asked about every short story in our textbook:

  1. Q: Why did the author write the story?
  2. Q: Why did the author make the character do such-and-such?

I had a ready answer for each:

  1. For money.
  2. Because that’s the way it happened.

But I knew my teacher wouldn’t be happy with that, so every day, I made up an acceptable answer to each question. Looking back, I realize I was doing creative writing. My first foray into fiction, I guess.

At that time, I thought writers started at the beginning of the story and stopped at the end. I thought everything that occurred was inevitable. I knew about revision–I’d done plenty of that getting my master’s thesis in order–but my idea of revision was really editing and polishing. I didn’t know it meant restructuring, creating new characters, taking out some of the best parts if they didn’t fit with the rest, sometimes tossing the whole manuscript and starting over.

Writing is a lonely occupation. Revision, however, isn’t. Writers are people who need people.

I spent months writing the first three [what I called] chapters over and over. Somewhere in that over and over I figured out that those chapters weren’t going to turn into a book. I was lucky–the Writers’ League of Texas held a meeting designed to help writers form critique groups. I took two pages of my manuscript–in small pieces, the chapters weren’t too bad–and by the end of the evening was part of a three-person group.

In the course of ten years, membership has changed. I’m the only one of the originals still involved. We’ve worked, done some struggling, learned how to detach and see our work with new eyes. We’ve occasionally ruffled one another’s feathers, but we’ve learned how to ruffle, and be ruffled, appropriately. We’ve gone together to workshops and retreats. We’ve encouraged one another. We’ve become better writers. Because of repeated critiques, we’re all now published.

Without the aid of other writers, I might have given up a long time ago. With their aid, I don’t just rewrite–I look again. I re-vise.

I’ve also come up with better answers to those seventh-grade questions.

And I’m not lonely any more.

***

  1. Why did the author write the story?
  2. Definitely not for money.

***

Joanne Drayton. The Search for Anne Perry. New York: HarperCollins, 2012.

 

 

 

 

Q Is for Quotations & Mr. Twain: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

Today’s topic is Quotations. Today’s theme is Mark Twain.

The following quotations are taken from the “Directory of Mark Twain’s maxims, quotations, and various opinions.”

Jane Austen and cat get twice as many lines as the rest because I like Jane Austen and cats. Twain liked cats but despised Jane Austen. I think his writing and Jane Austen’s have something in common, and if here were here, I would tell him so and explain why. He might not like Austen any better, but he would acknowledge that I have a point.

A – Jane Austen

Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.

I haven’t any right to criticise books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

B – Bicycle

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live.

C – Cat

A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

I simply can’t resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course.

You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does — but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use.

D – Diplomacy

I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says–“Yes; the little ones does.”

E – Economy

It isn’t the sum you get, it’s how much you can buy with it, that’s the important thing; and it’s that that tells whether your wages are high in fact or only high in name.

F – Flea

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a congressman can.

G – Grammar

No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done.

H – Heroine & Hero

Girl in a book who is saved from drowning by a hero and marries him next week, but if it was to be over again ten years later it is likely she would rather have a life-belt and he would rather have her have it.

Person in a book who does things which he can’t and girl marries him for it.

I – Imagination

Now, isn’t imagination a precious thing? It peoples the earth with all manner of wonders, strange beasts and birds, angels, cherubim and seraphim. And it has to be exercised. No child should be permitted to grow up without exercise for imagination. It enriches life for him. It makes things wonderful and beautiful.

J – Journal

If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year.

K – Knowledge

We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter

L – Laughter

Laughter which cannot be suppressed is catching. Sooner or later it washes away our defences, and undermines our dignity, and we join in it — ashamed of our weakness, and embittered against the cause of its exposure, but no matter, we have to join in, there is no help for it.

M – Music

We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.

N – Name

…when a teacher calls a boy by his entire name it means trouble.

O – Opera

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

P – Prose

What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! …Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash.

Q – Quotation

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

R – Reading

It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one’s self anyhow — for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.

S – School

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.

T – Teaching

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler–and less trouble.

U – Unhappiness

There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage.

V – Vanity

Forty years ago I was not so good-looking. A looking glass then lasted me three months. Now I can wear it out in two days.

W – Watermelon

It is the chief of this world’s luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented.

X –

Y – Youth

The heart is the real Fountain of Youth. While that remains young the Waterbury of Time must stand still.

Z – Zug

Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does not mean,–when all its legitimate pendants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.

*

Unfortunately, the record displays no X quotation from Twain. There surely is one, but whoever went looking for it is still out there.

Zug comes from A Tramp Abroad, Appendix D: The Awful German Language. It’s written from the point of view of a middle-aged man trying to master German. If you want to laugh, click the link and read.

P Is Not for Pat Boone: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, ii

 

I woke this morning feeling perfectly fine but at the same time not quite quite, so I took a little white pill. Because the label says not to drive a car or operate heavy machinery, David drove me downtown to BookPeople for my biweekly critique group meeting. For the next two hours, I took part in a lively discussion about the craft of writing.

After the meeting, I fired up my trusty Chromebook and wrote three paragraphs of my Day P post.

Then my eyelids began to droop. I had a definite case of the drowsies.

Lest I fall asleep in CoffeePeople, I called David. He came and escorted me to the car, drove me home, steered me to the house, and poured me into my chair.

Since that time, I’ve felt, in turn, apathetic, detached, draggy, droopy, lethargic, impassive, passive, pedestrian, plodding, and what Hamlet said.

I couldn’t care less and I could care less.

I feel fine.

It’s just that, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Anyway, I’m dismissing all thought of finishing my original Day P post (“P Is for Pat Boone”) and submitting this instead. Then I turn my face to the future.

After all, tomorrow is another day

.

O Is for Origami: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

I was reading Deborah Weber’s O post today when a word therein sparked a memory.

The word isn’t her topic–that’s oakus, an old name for something many of you possess–but origami, the art of paper folding.

In my third-grade class, we students made snowflakes. That isn’t exactly origami, because origami is sculpture, three-dimensional, and our snowflakes were flat. But it’s a distant cousin.

Our teacher, Mrs. Calk–a kind, funny, thoroughly delightful woman–demonstrated the process. Take a sheet of typing paper, fold it this way and that, cut with scissors this way and that–the cuts would make each of our flakes unique, like the real things–and then unfold it into a perfect six-pointed snowflake.

Easy.

So we folded and folded and cut and cut. And sure enough, the many-layered triangles opened into perfect six-pointed snowflakes.

Except mine. It had eight points.

“Snowflake” by Charles Schmitt, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikipedia

I was counting them for the third time when Mrs. Calk reached my aisle. She’d been walking along, supervising, congratulating every student on the beautiful creations.

I showed her my anomaly. That stopped her in her tracks. She showed me how to fold–in teacher training, I learned this is called individual instruction–and told me to try again. She walked on. I tried again.

Eight points.

More encouragement from Mrs. Calk.

Tried again.

Eight points.

Mrs. Calk finally told me she believed it was time to stop folding.

I still haven’t managed a six-pointed snowflake.

Which brings me to origami. I once watched a librarian fold and fold while she told a story. Just as she reached the end of the story, she unfolded the paper, and there in her hand sat a little bird.

The woman was magnificent–her dexterity, proficiency, artistry. It was one of the most breathtaking performances I’ve ever seen. I mean, she talked and folded at the same time, and everything came out right.

The only thing I can fold is an eight-pointed snowflake. And I don’t dare try to talk while I’m folding.

***

 

I shouldn’t have been surprised the woman could tell a story and make a paper crane at the same time. She was, after all, a librarian.

***

Images of paper cranes, public domain, via Wikipedia

N Is for No: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

When I was a child, my family lived across the street from a couple whose daughter, Denise, was almost three years old. Denise had blonde hair her mother put up in a curly little pony tail. She was as cute as a bug and as bright as a button, but not as sweet as pie. She wasn’t a holy terror, but her attitude often (most of the time) made her difficult to deal with. She  was just plain contrary, and she made sure everyone knew it. Her favorite word was, “NO.”

One evening she and her mother, Phyllis, was sitting with us in our front yard, as they did nearly every summer evening. Phyllis sat in a glider and Denise stood in the seat beside her.

In the course of the conversation, Phyllis said, “We’ve had quite a day.” She went on to say–in vague terms–that there had been much discussion, much disagreement about what and how things would, and would not, be done, starting at breakfast time and running nonstop for the rest of the day–but she thought an agreement had finally been reached. Then she looked at her daughter and said, very sweetly, “But we’re not going to use that word any more, are we, Neesie?”

Denise leaned over, got right in her face, and said, in a very nasty tone, “NNNNNNNNNNO.”

The audience erupted in laughter.

And Denise beamed.

*

I would like to say there’s a moral to this story, but after decades of pondering, I haven’t found one. If you can think of anything, please leave it in a comment.

 

 

 

 

***

Image via Pixabay

L Is for List, List, O List: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

 

List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love —

~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, i

 

Yesterday I wrote about three conventions of the mystery/suspense novel screenplay that I see as less than realistic. Today I’m taking on two other conventions that give me pause. So–

List, list, O list, while I explain:

  1. A man meets a woman. He’s middle-aged, whatever that is these days. If he’s not over the hill, he’s making steady progress in that direction. He doesn’t have an uber-fat bank account, but he has an interesting job. He doesn’t teach third grade. The woman is young, a good twenty or thirty years younger than he. Her hair is long and silky, and legs are long and shapely, and the rest of her is shapely, too. And she’s smart and talented. The man is attracted to her. And guess what. She’s attracted to him, too! In fact, she falls in love with him, if not at first sight, at least at second. By third sight, they’re in bed together. Or sometimes it doesn’t take that long.
  2. See #1, except in this instance the man and the woman are closer in age. They may be young; they may be older. Otherwise the details are the same.

I thought about these literary relationships while watching a movie on Netflix. I won’t mention the title, but the leads are played by January Jones (long blonde hair and a pleasing visage, etc.) and a male actor whose name I still don’t know because I didn’t watch the credits.

They’re about the same age. They’re lawyers (a common profession); he’s just been hired as an assistant prosecutor. She introduces herself and says, “I’m your boss.” That evening, or maybe it’s the next, she invites him to her house. Etc.

Please note: I’m not talking about romances–Harlequin, Danielle Steele,* Judith Krantz,* the gothics–because in this genre, these are standard relationships. That’s what we read them for.

I don’t want writers of mystery and suspense to scuttle them altogether.

And I’m not saying May-December romances don’t occur in real life. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have the term May-December romance.

“Judi Dench” by Thore Siebrands is licensed under CC BY-2.0

But it would be nice to read now and then about an attraction between a middle-aged male and a middle-aged female character–a female character with hair styled for convenience, shoes chosen for comfort, ten or twelve extra pounds she isn’t trying to lose, and close enough to his age to remember the same TV commercials.

Is that too much to ask? Obviously not. The British manage it all the time. Consider As Time Goes By. Lionel and Jean meet after being apart for thirty-eight years. They look like they’ve been apart thirty-eight years, too. And the series doesn’t suffer.

It’s true that initially, before he sees Jean again, Lionel has designs on Jean’s daughter, but she’s not interested–more power to her–and he doesn’t suffer either.

And I am unanimous in that.

Thank you for listing.

***

 

 

Quotation verified at No Fear Shakespeare.

Image of couple by picnic_fotographie via Pixabay.com

 

 

K Is for Knowing–or Not: #atozchallenge

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

 

Three scenarios:

  1. A lone woman hears a sound in the middle of the night. She doesn’t know what it is, so she goes in search of the source: to the attic, the basement, the back yard, the barn, the woods, the creek. She might take a flashlight and/or a bat. She wears her pajamas and bedroom slippers.
  2. Chief Detective Smith, sitting at her desk in the incident room, after weeks of an investigation with too many clues and no idea how they fit together, suddenly jumps up, says to Detective Sergeant Jones, “Call the traffic division and find out the name of the Dalmatian that rides with Firetruck #12,” picks up her gun, and heads for the door. “Where are you going?” says Detective Sergeant Jones. Chief Detective Smith runs out to nobody knows where. [Alternate: The ransom note says, “Come alone to a dark corner of the park.” And the detective does.]
  3. A man or a woman, take your pick, kneels in the garden cutting roses/stands over the stove stirring soup/hears a knock and answers the door, take your pick, and looks up and says, “Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here?” And then doesn’t say anything else at all.

I see them all the time in mystery/suspense/thrillers on television, but I don’t believe them because

  1. If I hear a sound at night, I don’t go looking for it. I crawl under the covers or, depending on the nature of the noise, under the bed. Even when I know it’s just an armadillo banging on the water pipes under the house.
  2. Any detective who does what Chief Detective Sergeant Smith does–and she does it nearly every week, same time, same station–would end up getting either fired by her boss or coshed by the suspect she’s chasing, or by her partner, who’s had enough.
  3. The “You?” is old and tired.*

Why do writers use them?

Because the character needs to know. The lone woman needs to know what the sound is. The detective needs to know if she’s right about whodunit. The victim needs to know the murderer.

And the writer needs to conceal. A lone woman sneaking around in a dark attic builds suspense. A detective flying to a showdown builds suspense. A victim recognizing his murderer builds suspense.

And because they work. Viewers, and readers, are willing to temporarily suspend disbelief. I am willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story playing out on the screen–even when one side of my brain is saying to the other, “That is totally unrealistic.”

Now to my real concern: Will I ever stoop to using one of these conventions? Send a woman into the dark where a hobgoblin awaits? Send a detective off to meet a bad guy without telling anyone where she’s going? Let a little old lady in gardening gloves be axed by her best friend without giving her the chance to get out of the way?

I don’t know.

***

*Actually, come to think of it, #3 might be totally realistic.