The Train to Adventureland

Thinking about what I wanted to make for desert, I remembered the pound cake I used to make often when I was a teenager. I do recall some of the ingredients: a handful of lard, which was the perfect proportion in my smaller, girl's hand. How could I measure it now with a woman's hand? The recipe called for a whole lot of eggs and sugar. The ingredients don't seem different from any other pound cake in existence, other than its antique measurements, but in my memories it was delicious beyond other cakes.

I am curious—was the cake genuinely that good, or does memory give the cake a seasoning that cannot be recreated? I wanted to call my mother for the ingredients; the cake must surely be in her special, handwritten collection of recipes. But she's off on a wonderful trip, so I cannot call her and ask.

My mother taught me how to cook. Not like a chef or a gourmet, but with a practicality common to the women of her era who grew up in Arkansas during the Depression, when food had to be filling and stretched to feed a large, hardworking family. She taught me how to boil, fry, bake, grate, and mash potatoes. How to scrub off garden dirt, peel and chop the vegetables we grew, and make them into a meal that kept body and soul together.

She taught me how to slaughter chickens, though I could not bring myself to twist their heads off like she did. It took a stronger stomach than mine to spin the chicken in a circle and snap my wrist so the head popped off and the body flopped a bloody, headless dance on the ground. Later in life, when I was a Little Rock police officer, I saw steaming fluids flow thick from a dead man onto the frozen ground. I did my job and didn't throw up, despite the awful coppery smell--but I never learned to be as tough as my mother killing chickens.

She showed me how to dunk the decapitated chicken in steaming hot water, yank it out, and pluck until my aching fingers were reddened and caked with stinking, wet feathers. This activity brought on discussions of the wicked carpetbaggers, who invaded the South after the War Between the States.

"When those evil carpet baggers, those fat deceivers, were caught by the townsfolk, they'd be tarred-and-feathered-just-like-this." We held our hands up in the air and shook them, laughing as the feathers stuck like glue. And so I learned Southern history while I plucked chickens. I didn't miss TV or want to play a game. The game was work, and it was fun.

I grew up in Northwest Arkansas, which may be a southern state, but the wet winter wind hacks you to the bone, like cutting a chicken with a wide-bladed cleaver into pieces for frying. The wet cold is worse than Anchorage's snowiest nights, which is where I live now.

When the wind howled and the trees cracked from shackles of ice, we made hot chocolate to warm us from cheap cocoa powder and milk, stirring and stirring so it didn't scorch on the bottom of the pan. We made chocolate and peanut butter fudge the same way, stirring with patience and a long handled spoon. My mom's always kept her patience in bushels and baskets full, while I don't possess half as much.

I called Mom long distance a couple of days after her eighty-second birthday this April, and she started talking about her childhood and parents.

"When I was a little, I didn't know there was a Great Depression, because I had everything I needed. My parents made mistakes, but I always knew they loved me. Even when I ran through mud puddles in my good Sunday shoes and dress, ruining them, and they got so mad, I knew my mama and father loved me. Back then," she explained, "most children, the lucky ones, had clothes and shoes they only wore on Sunday, which were carefully preserved until they were outgrown. But I was a careless girl, and ran through mud puddles again and again in my shiny black Baby Doll shoes despite Mama's yelling. My frustrated mother, your grandmother, picked a slim branch from a peach tree and had at my legs in a fury until my legs bled in a dozen places. I cried and promised 'I'll never do that again.' And then my Mama cried," my mother laughed in her old woman's raspy voice, "and promised 'I'll never to do that again'—because she'd picked a switch from a peach tree in her haste. Everyone knows a green peach switch cuts the skin. She didn't switch me, much, after that."

That awful punishment became Mom's fond memory of her mother's faithfully sworn word. Forgiveness was at the heart of my mother, in the same way stubbornness is at the heart of me. I got more from my father than my mother in that regard, but I'll not talk about him just now.

On Mother's Day, my mother called me and we resumed our chat.

"One night, I went out with my friends and we sang around a bonfire. This was before I dated your father, and it was a lot of fun." A chill breeze ghosted over my skin as I listened to her descriptions of the blazing fire in front, and the icy cold creeping up her back during an autumn evening spent with people who had old-fashioned names. People she'd never mentioned before.

"You used to sing with a women's group, the Sweet Adelines," I said. "How long did you do that?"

"Oh, a few months, but you don't want to hear about that."

I always got the same answer. I am fifty-one years old, and I still don't know much about my mother's short singing career. I think my father disapproved. Her parents raised her to be an obedient wife, so she quit what she loved and went back to raising babies and keeping house. That was the way of her generation. My mother seldom sang in my childhood, and I cannot remember the exact sound of her singing, only the haunting beauty of it.

Mom's memories turned to thoughts of her own mortality. She feared being helpless and forgetful. "I pray God will take me in my sleep," she told me.

"That's something we all wish," I said. "But with your comparatively good health, that can't be soon. You're eighty-two years old, and still independent--still mow your huge lawn and keep your house neat as a pin. You drive your old truck to church, the store, and doctor's appointments. Geriatric horses should hope to be so healthy."

She laughed again, but it held notes of sadness.

"Will you ever have horses again, do you think?"

"I don't know," I said, now sad myself. "Not if I stay in Alaska. Too much snow."

"I wish you lived close by."

"I would like see you, but I can't fly out right now," I said, instead of also wishing to live close by. Even if my family and I moved away from Alaska, I didn't want to live in Arkansas--crawling with snakes, and chiggers in the boiling hot summers. The knife-edged winters were no better.

"You should fly out this summer. I'll take you on a nature cruise out of Seward, where you can see whales and seals," I offered.

"My bones are too old for that long flight," said the woman who mowed an acre-sized lawn every week.

I resolved to save up enough to fly out this fall and see her. That is the time to visit, when the heat of summer has cooled and the leaves turn red, gold and yellow, more vibrant than autumn here.

After we hung up, I believe she decided a trip of her own would be the thing to make her feel better. Mom made plans to take the train to Adventureland, ordered a ticket, and packed her bags without telling anyone. When it was time, she waited all alone for it to come into the station. I'm sure it arrived just as she'd expected it, not a minute late--the train wouldn't dare do differently. She stood straight, climbed in, and though I wasn't there, I am sure she sat in her seat, folded her hands in her lap, and didn't look back.

Yes, I think Mom told God how she wanted to go. He listened and granted her prayers. She had a brain aneurism on a Saturday. She passed out, was found unconscious that evening, and the ambulance took her to the hospital. She never woke up, and died on Monday. My mother went soft, and my gratitude for her gentle passing resembles happiness, though I am truly sad.

I know Mom's having fun out there, on her great adventure, seeing old friends while trying new things. I miss her, though she probably hasn't missed me yet.

I wish I could remember how to make the pound cake of my childhood. But I can't call and ask her for recipes or advice, because there aren't any phones out there.

Justice and Injustice.

I don't know how many of you have been involved in lawsuits, but the fact is, they seldom satisfy either side. I've been involved in a couple of civil suits, from a small claims court to a couple of larger civil court cases, all of which I won, if you want to call it "winning" when the judgement is in your favor but you still feel like you were a possom on the road and you've been run over by two pickup trucks and a semi-tractor trailer. I've never had to defend myself in court due to criminal charges, but I can well imagine how that might go if I were an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As this little video points out, Justice is more expensive than Injustice:
http://bit.ly/igDAPU

So, if something bad happens and you need to go to court--good luck.
I think we should go back to fighting duels with pistols at dawn. The misery is over faster and the results are about the same.

Some Evil Being is Retro-aging My Brain.

I have not been able to say or write anything right today. I'm hoping this blog comes out different, dang it! 

I've been talking and writing emails like a teenager all day. 

Email to another writer today: **I know ur going 2 hate my critique. So if u want me 2 help more tell me.**

Whoa...who got the paddle out on my behind recently? (No one who matters.)

Spoke to my daughter's teacher on the phone. I held it together for a semi-adult conversation, but as soon as I got off the phone: "Stupid teacher. A-number-one creeper."

Hubby, who is home sick with the flu and semi-delirious with fever gave me a sharp look.

"YOU used to be a teacher too, Vee. Why are you talking like that?"

For cryin' out loud. It's Wallace Nagell's fault. That fourteen year old loud mouthed "Little Person" is taking over my fifty-one year old body. I'm possessed. Now, why didn't that happen when I was writing about the 8,000 year old brilliant alien scientist king?  True, he was a predatory alien who ate humans, but damn...the great stuff I could have been spouting out. How tesseract tunnels work. The calculations necessary for warp drive engines to power galaxy-hopping starships would've made me a wealthy woman with the gratitude of the entire EARTH.

But NO, it's the four-foot-tall fourteen year old who's in the driver's seat and spouting his nonsense.

I sound crazy, don't I? (The other voices in my head say, if I'm crazy, at least the meds will be good.)

Okay, going to listen to "Hot Mess" by Cobra Starship again. That's Wallace's theme song. He's still at the wheel, the little hot mess. The "problem child, runnin' wild" in my head.

'Night all.

I Read 8 Young Adult Novels in 10 Days (And this is what I learned.)

Cheryl Lynn gave me a gift certificate for Tidal Wave books in our writing group's Christmas gift exchange. (The perfect gift for me, thanks Cheryl!) In fact, the gift certificate was almost lost entirely as it nearly burned its way out of my pocket before I could make it to the bookstore.

Some of the books I bought were YA books. I also went to the library and checked out an armload of YA books with the help of my daughter Autumn and the fantastic children's section librarian, Jane. I've read several in the past, but felt I needed to read some more in this genre, particularly ones that have been very popular in recent years, as I am plotting out a Middle Grade or Young Adult book now. So I read 8 books popular with teens and tweens in the last 10 days.

Things I discovered by reading so many YA books all at once:

1) There must be sidekicks who are also kids in YA books. To be used as: *foils, *someone who represents
     the hero's "conscience", *the 'other half' of the actual protagonist's soul, *to do the bad things the hero
     can't do, etc.

2) Adult sidekicks are too weird to be useful.

3) There is less layering and far fewer subplots. (I already knew about the subplots.).

4) Things my writing group might chastise me for (in the spirit of good, helpful critique only) crop up in 
     amazing abundance in YA books. The number one thing that caught my eye, and which most of us would
     criticize in a manuscript: children who seem to be too wise, too witty, too knowledgeable, or too cynical
     for someone of that age group. The number two thing I see is...adverbs.

Any thoughts on that?

Hallelujah Chorus -Quinhagak Village, Mostly Yupik, Alaska

Hallelujah Chorus -Quinhagak, Alaska

These folks are cute. A great sense of humor coming to you from snowy, Southwest Alaska, off the Bering Sea.


Hallelujah Chorus -Quinhagak Village, Alaska
 

Did Your Parents Censor?

     Did your parents censor what you read and watched on TV and at the movies?
     And did that parental protection keep you from worrying about monsters when they turned off your bedroom lights and wished you sweet dreams?
     My parents never censored anything I read or watched. That might have been why I spent so many nights of my pre-teen years with my head under my covers, making sure not even one toe-tip peeked over the edge of the bed. It's amazing how ordinary household blankets had a force-field protective power, so the monsters didn't get their claws on me and eat me. Covering myself up so I wasn’t monster-chow led to a lot of sweating in the summer, but I still have all my toes, ears, nose and fingers to this day, thanks to the power of the Blanket-Shield.
     I remember being not merely afraid of the dark, but absolutely terrified. An open closet door was a potential portal for things with more teeth than hair to come slithering into my room and devour my tender pre-pubescent bod with big bloody chomps. Any skittering I heard might be tiny monsters under the bed, which would eat me up with their tiny mouths filled with needle teeth.
     I admit I had these fears about monsters and turning the light off in my bedroom up until I was about twelve. What happened then was I had a hard time at school, and endured so much bullying that I felt I had more in common with the hideous monsters drooling under my bed than any similarity to my classmates. I also felt, if it’s dark, then a monster might not be able to see me any better than I could see it, so I might be able to run away or even get the drop on the thing.
     I lived on an isolated farmstead in the Ozark Mountains—Skylight Mountain to be exact. Occasionally when I woke up at night I’d crawl out of bed and go for long walks in the dark without a flashlight. The night became my friend; it hid me in a soft and friendly darkness when I snuck out to hike under the stars while my parents slept. The monsters, if they could see me at all, seemed more like potential companions than fearsome predators.
     I read my first sensual scenes when I was thirteen. Romance books weren't the original culprits for introducing sex to my young, curious mind. Sci-fi led the way with sexual content and suggestive themes, particularly Robert A. Heinlein and “Glory Road. The main character, Oscar, saw his future wife, Star, on a nudist beach and described her naked body in intense and loving detail.
     Star, as Oscar discovered after he married her, was his own great-great-great grandmother. She was immortal as well as scandalously immoral, or she seemed that way to a thirteen year old mountain girl who attended a small Southern Baptist Church on Hale Mountain.
I spent some time analyzing: What degree of sin, how much portion of guilt, should be assigned to to someone who married his ancestor? Was this genetic relation really any different from marrying a second or third cousin, which was perfectly legal everywhere? So “Glory Road” ambushed me with moral evaluation and philosophy, through the romantic elements so common in Heinlein’s work.
     Is it any wonder at all, with the books I read and the movies I watched, that I’d someday come to write about the beautiful monsters? And try to persuade you that, in my world, the society of monsters might be more comfortable than your human peers? If one of my monsters was under your bed, you’d want to invite him or her to keep you company on top of it.
     I write about aliens with sharp teeth and tentacles who are beautiful and desirable. You don’t think that’s possible? Oh yeah, trust me, I can make you see the monsters through my eyes and you will want them.
What did parental censorship, or lack of it, do for you when you were a curious youngster? What did you read and watch that affected you the most profoundly?

How Writing is like Coon Hunting.

How Writing is like Coon Hunting.


Have you ever been coon hunting?

I grew to adulthood in the Ozark Mountains, in the NW corner of Arkansas. The country folk used to coon hunt in the woods up there and probably still do.

Coon hunting happens at night. During the day, they hole up somewhere, so there's no use hunting before the sun goes down.

The guys all met for the hunt in pickup trucks, the beds loaded with leashed dogs crowded against coolers full of ice and beer. Just good ol' boys out for some fun with guns. Greeting and heckling each other, they put beer on the tailgates as one of the most important preparations for the hunt.

"Hey Harry, nice to see you and your tomboy!" they greeted my dad. He waved. I said nothing, only hefted my rifle, knowing I could outshoot most of these men even when they were sober.

After they gulped a few alcoholic beverages, the guys unleashed their hounds. Gathering up our guns, we ambled after the mob of canines disappearing into the night-dark forest.

The men reminisced about good dogs that'd died, naming them with gruff reverence. Jake. Molly. Tri-Sally who'd gotten run over by a tractor, too tough to die, running almost as fast as her pups on her remaining three legs. Good dogs. Their memories lived on in their descendents running for us that night.

"Do you remember Old Blue?" asked a gray haired man, his worn shotgun an extension of his wiry arm. "He never let a coon get an even break." I was unsure if he was talking about hunting. The edge of meanness in his words made me uneasy. A couple of men beside him laughed like they did when whispering dirty jokes.

The hounds' chorus signaled they'd found a coon trail and gave chase with tones so pure they sounded like church bells pealing in God's woods. Their voices rang of life and death and the saving or escaping of it. We quickened our pace.

When the dogs treed the coon, their voices changed. Their barking became angry. We know you are up there, and our people will blast you into Heaven. Some of the hounds summoned their masters, Come-come. We have him.

Everyone hurried to where the dogs had the coon treed, guns clutched in their arms, flashlights and lanterns swinging, splashing light on the trees. Despite their lights, several men trip over roots and leaves anyway. Me, I was a twelve year old girl. I didn't have a flashlight to light my path and didn't need one. My .22 rifle cradled in my arms was all I needed. I ghosted over the ground like a deer.

We arrived at the oak where the dogs leapt and thrashed the trunk with their paws, tearing the bark. A Bluetick and a Redbone tried to climb like cats. The Bluetick made it up as high as I was tall, only to fall back to the ground amidst the milling pack.

Men and boys circled the tree with their flashlights; the beams lights riffled the branches, searched for the eerie green-reflected light of coon eyes above our heads, but no eyes were seen.

I waited on the outskirts of all the flailing lights and stomping boots. I didn't want any beer drinking idiots to step on me and knock me down in their hunting frenzy. I wondered, if they sighted the coon, would one person shoot it? Or would the poor coon end up with more holes than hair?

Even as a young girl I knew you needed a good, seasoned hound to guide the younger dogs. Coons are clever creatures who probably studied with foxes some time in their distant ancestry and taught those red guys their tricks.

Coons who have been hunted before know all kinds of tricks to use against dogs. One of their favorite tricks is to urinate or defecate on the tree they first climbed, and then jump from the wispy branches of one tree to another, until they come to a spot where the branches are too far away. They are forced to ground again, and this is where the dogs could pick up his scent. If there are seasoned old coon hounds on the hunt, wise to this trick, the ruse doesn't work for long. But because I was out with a bunch of red necks whose main intentions were drinking beer away from their wives and swapping stories, we didn't have one experienced tracker in the bunch. We had a pack of adolescent pups barking up the wrong tree and no wise old hounds to show them the correct way of doing things.

The men encouraged the hounds to cast about the tree and showed them how to work in circles. Bob grabbed his black and tan by her leather collar and dragged the gyp away from the decoy spot to areas several yards away, shoving her nose at the ground to show her where coon scent might be found. After several false starts, a dog found the trail where the prey had returned to the ground. Rallying the pack, she launched into the dark woods.

Now this is how writing is like coon hunting. A seasoned writer knows when she is barking up the wrong tree. Experienced writers start casting about in overlapping circles from where they got lost to where they might pick up the story trail again. But a less experienced writer--like me--gets confused. I leap at that tree--my chapter--and try to climb it, but I can't seem to keep going. I've completely fallen for that decoy shit.

Around and around, I circle the spot where I got lost, positive this is the writing path I'm supposed to continue. If only I could glimpse my story staring down at me with glowing eyes for just one moment…but the reality is, the story has moved on and I need to find where it came to ground. Sometimes I have to drag my writing self away from the decoy by the collar until I start questing for the new scent on more than mere instinct. Or my critique partners see I'm on a false trail and help to redirect me. Eventually I find the scent trail and take off again.

Beer doesn't help in hunting for coons. However, I do find a Mike's Hard Lemonade helpful while I ponder the best way to solve my writing problem. I'm drinking a Mike's black cherry right now. Yum!

Oh, and I never DID shoot a coon. Those guys were the best beer drinkers and the worst hunters I've ever seen.