Johnny Lightning

My niece, Sallie Pennebaker Wilkerson, figured out the reason for her obsession for checking packages for “Batteries not included” in a story I wrote to her and her sister Jennifer about their father after his death.

Back in the day when my three sisters and I were coping with early adulthood, I lived near our parents for a year with our four-year-old Murray, anticipating the baby to be born while Allen served a tour in South Korea. As Christmas neared, sister Gwyn Pennebaker, who had no children yet, asked for a present suggestion for Murray. I had already spent my wad when Murray began seeing advertisements for a Johnny Lightning track on TV and decided it was the “must-have” gift for him. I told Gwyn I didn’t even know how much it cost and not to worry about it if it was over their budget. (She was drawing a Mississippi school teacher salary, and John David was setting up a law practice with college debts taking a share of their income.) John David, with sympathy to this preschooler whose dad was in Korea, decided they needed to bite the bullet and get the race track.

We had our family celebration the Saturday night before Christmas. The picture tells it all as far as Murray was concerned. Whatever I got him paled in significance to this treasure. John David, as eager as Murray to get started, helped him open the package and began pulling out parts. NO BATTERIES!

It was Saturday night in the country before the days of 24/7 shopping places. There was nowhere to go – nowhere that would have batteries before Monday morning. Murray was consoled and reasonably willing to wait until Monday. John David - not so much - his Christmas surprise had been spoiled.

In the years to come, Murray’s younger cousins Jennifer and Sallie Pennebaker would never experience a gift-giving occasion with a need for batteries.

Sallie replied to my story, “So this is the origin of the reason I'm obsessed with checking every package for ‘batteries not included’ and the size of batteries needed for all Christmas toys.  For instance, this year I specifically bought (2) 9 volt batteries for walkie talkies so that they would work when they were opened on Christmas day. Growing up in the Pennebaker household, we might not have a lot of things, but there was never any doubt there were plenty of batteries of all different voltages. Now I know, it is thanks to Johnny Lighting and Murray.”

A Literary History of Mississippi

On December 10, 1817, Mississippi became the twentieth state, and it seems fitting to acknowledge one of its greatest contributions to the union, indeed to the world at large on this significant birthday. We Mississippians come last on many lists, but most scholars note the disproportional number of literary giants the state has produced and wonder why. A book that will help you if you want to get some proof and look at some reasoning for this achievement is A Literary History of Mississippi, published by University Press of Mississippi and edited by Lorie Watkins. 

Chapters are both interesting and scholarly, written by experts about that particular period of Mississippi literature or the authors who are the chapter’s focus.  The first few chapters cover the field chronologically beginning with indigenous writers and oral storytellers, moving through the designation at that time in history of Old Southwest frontier literature with rural and backwoods settings, on to the Civil War writings, and slave narratives. The next section focuses a chapter each on Mississippi literary giants – William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, and Margaret Walker. The final section moves back to a general take on the modern-day writers, who seem to rise like kudzu in the field of popular literature, poetry, song-writing, biography, and the briefer forms of essays and short stories. One of these new writers, Jesmyn Ward, won the National Book Award for Sing, Unburied, Sing after this volume was published.

The volume is a good overview of Mississippi literature with condensed life stories and listings of the works of several major authors. It is a helpful guide to anyone interested in reading Mississippi tales (the essence of being Southern in one view), in finding or reviewing the times that motivated the writer, or in seeing how place influenced the narrative. An answer is given at the end about how such a disproportional number of writers came to be from this place. After pondering whether it is in the air we breathe or the water we drink, their answer was expressed in a more erudite way, but it amounted to “Beats me!”

Snow Day Criteria

How many inches of promised snow constitutes a reason for a “Snow Day” in South Mississippi? The final weather report before bedtime on December 7 forecast somewhere between half an inch and an inch and a half with a bit of incredulity about any snow at all. Across the bottom of the TV screen scrolled the endless listing of school closings. It would have been easier to name any that were staying open.

Now before my faraway friends (who live in places where they walk uphill both ways in twelve inches of the white stuff to get an education) begin to laugh, let me say there are reasons for half-inch closings. Just think of some questions Mississippians might ask:

• Snow plow? What’s a snow plow?
• I have milk and bread. Was I supposed to do something else?
• What do you mean the highway people didn’t salt the road because the rain we got earlier would have washed it away?
• You’re telling me I shouldn’t hit the brake when the car starts to skid? What would you have me to do?

I think you get my drift, but we do actually know how to behave when it snows in south Mississippi:

• Call off school and any nonessential jobs.
• Light the fire.
• Read THE SNOWY DAY.
• Build a snowman and make a few snow angels.
• Turn the pool toys into sleds and go downhill.
• Have a snowball fight.
• Stir up some cocoa and throw a few marshmallows on top.
• Take a bunch of pictures and videos and post every single one of them on Facebook!

The time for the snow to end changed with each weather forecast the next day – 9 AM, 10 AM, noon, mid-afternoon – and down it came until late afternoon. As it happened, the accumulation was reported between four and six inches with Al measuring 6 ½ inches in our front yard. The newspaper said “more than 5 ½ inches” and a new record over the 5-inch one from 1895. Another peculiarity of snow in Mississippi, the exact length of time for snowfall and depth of pileup is difficult, maybe impossible, to predict. The first picture is early morning, the last picture is after a day of snowfall leaves Scrooge with cold feet in more ways than one.  

So if our friends from farther north are laughing at our expense for closing school in anticipation of half an inch of snow, we Mississippians are always glad to bring a smile. We’re wearing one ourselves while we drink our cocoa in front of the fire and watch the flakes sifting softly from the sky.

No Time to Spare

Hearing the name Ursula Le Guin may conjure other worlds of fantasy or, if you are like me, her wonderful writing book Steering the Craft. Her new book, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters doesn’t fit either category. In her introduction, she mentions her aversion to the word “blog,” then turns around and writes pieces that fit the form perfectly.

In true Le Guin form, she covers a multitude of topics, inviting the reader to agree, disagree, or simply to consider the point she is making, frequently in a humorous fashion. I knew I was in for some fun in the first one when she pokes fun of those trying to think themselves younger than they are, “If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time getting out of the bathtub.”

In one fascinating comparison, the idea of belief gets mingled with artichokes and in an entirely different kind of piece, she paints a touching portrait of her longtime friend and aide named Dolores. If you need to know how to eat a soft-boiled egg properly, you can find out here. There are more cats than I need, but I have several cat-loving friends who could really get into several blogs starring her pets. I won’t even spoil the story of the rattlesnake, thinking you need to experience it all on your own.

Note the date of each entry as you read since the time sometimes is important to the essay (or “blog” if you want to call it that behind her back). I would recommend keeping the book handy in a place where you stir the soup or anticipate some waiting time, reading and considering one topic at a time just for the pleasure of it. She is by turns argumentative, funny, thoughtful, and compassionate but never dull.  

Main Street Books

A whole lot of celebration is happening at Hattiesburg’s Main Street Book Store. First came the fifteenth anniversary, accompanied by a sale, of course. In that fifteen years, Jerry and Diane Shepherd have added a special spot in Hattiesburg, MS as part of the successful effort to make downtown a happening place.

I’ve had my own observations and experiences in this fifteen years.

• Though I’m not a big-name author, Diane included me in a group signing and held a luncheon to promote my contributions to Cup of Comfort anthologies.
• When I began my search for the Ezra Jack Keats books that I did not own, I took the list to Jerry and told him I didn’t want to pay collector’s prices but wanted good copies of each, some out of print. He called when he had located all of them – at reasonable prices. We both got a surprise when I opened them to inspect and found one of them autographed!
• They know my name when I show up and allow me to meander through their books, pottery, and Mississippiana to my heart’s content, and commiserate with me on the months when the biggest charge on my credit card is to Main Street Books.
• They know what is on their shelves and how quickly they can get anything that is not.
• They once even gave me an ARC (advance reading copy) of a book I asked to order so I didn’t have to make a purchase.

Try any of the above in a big box store and see how far you get.

This year Main Street Books celebrates Mississippi’s bicentennial by special emphasis on the state’s authors, giving a Mississippi bicentennial Coke with each purchase of a book by a Mississippi writer.

On this very day December 4, they have their 14^th annual celebration of an author extravaganza with more than twenty authors present to sign books from 4 to 7 PM. Like the good Hattiesburg neighbors they are, they recommend in their event advertising that you step across the street afterwards to enjoy dinner at Grateful Soul from 4 until 8 PM.

Lest you think Main Street is alone, other local book stores in towns far away from me have gotten autographs on books from my author friends and shipped them out to me with pleasure. I “borrowed” the sign in this last photo from an independent book store Facebook friend that gives additional reasons for shopping locally. I hope recent statistics that say these independents are making a comeback are correct. I also hope that Main Street Books will stay in business until I make that big-name author status – which means for a very long time!

Always the McGee Girls

The McGee Girls was the first group of which I became a member, complete with official status as the oldest. Our group as daughters of a country preacher always gave me an affinity to the Bronte sisters as the vicar’s daughters. The first photo in this blog shows us in the only professional photograph made while we were growing up for which Ruth gave her bangs a haircut.

In order, we were:

·         Virginia Ann who didn’t lose her middle name until late in high school – a nerd with her nose perpetually in a book

·         Beth, the daredevil tomboy, out climbing trees or talking herself into the boys’ ball games

·         Gwyn the Elegant, whose name was spelled “Gwen” until she decided to do the upgrade, designing fine houses and sophisticated clothes for her paper dolls

·         Ruth, nine years younger than I was, my apt pupil and listener who knew the “right” way to wash dishes and line up a crocheted bedspread with precision at an early age and was always eager for me to tell her another story

Likenesses and differences have followed us into adulthood with all of us winding up in some branch of the teaching profession. I taught kindergarten, second grade, and junior high language arts. Beth became a librarian and Gwyn a high school math teacher. Ruth worked first with children who had speech problems and went on to become an advocate for students with learning challenges, looking for the most efficient and effective ways for the students, parents, and teachers to enhance learning. All four of us added another last name, moving the one we share to the middle. Our differences reflect our personalities as our likenesses reflect our core.

Occasions to get together in adulthood come all too seldom with two of us on either end of Mississippi, one in Virginia, and one in Georgia. This Thanksgiving gave us much to be thankful for as we gathered in Gwyn’s well-designed home with beautiful table settings that she dreamed of as a girl. Seventeen additions were present with the original four – husbands, children, and grandchildren – quite a bit of thanksgiving even without the twelve children and grandchildren who couldn’t come. The second photograph shows us today still having a bit of fun for the camera though nobody cut their own hair for the picture.

Rising to the top in my gratitude list this year was the continued status of being one of the McGee Girls and even my permanent standing as the oldest. While we are different in many ways like the “come on in and sit a spell” feel at my house rather than the elegance of Gwyn’s, we share values that make life good – faith, family, fun, and food. 

Murder in the Manuscript Room

What could be better to wile away the hours of a trip spanning almost the length of Mississippi than a good murder mystery? I’d saved Murder in the Manuscript Room by Con Lehane for just such an occasion.

In good crime novel tradition, amateur sleuth Raymond Ambler, who is NYC’s 42^nd Street Library’s curator of crime fiction, sets out to solve the murder of a young woman who may or may not have been the person she claimed to be. Multiple suspects turn up, all with questionable motives for the crime. Could it be the young Islamic scholar doing research in the library, an ex-husband, or a member of a corrupt police department? Is the crime related to another in the upstate prison or maybe to a long-ago murder of a union reformer? Winding through this plot is Ambler’s growing relationship with Adele Morgan, a custody battle for his grandson, and redemption help for the grandson’s babysitter caught with drugs. Adele’s friendship with the murder victim makes her an avid partner in the search for her killer. Her fondness for the grandson makes her a willing ally in the custody fight and enhances her relationship to Raymond.

This book is second in a series and although I had not read the first, enough pertinent items from it were included that I did not feel lost, but I think not so many that readers of the first would feel bored. It also brought closure while hinting at another mystery to come. 

The book accomplished its purpose as I lost myself in the streets of New York City while the highway miles flew by to North Mississippi. It brought no new insights on life nor did it teach any grand lessons, but it took away my question of “Are we there yet?”

Behind the Cliche

Clichés in their origins were clever or universal truths, sometimes both. “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.” Often, they reflect the region of the country where they originate. “Don’t buy a pig in a poke.” You may add your own favorites.

Some clichés are pertinent to the profession they represent. One of the most common ones for writers is “Write what you know.” Disputes arise with this, especially in the areas of fantasy and science fiction since even the context of these are often made up. Proponents argue that one can come to know by research or by careful preplanning as J. K. Rowling did with the Harry Potter series as she meticulously laid out her fictional community before she got involved in the story.

Within the last couple of months, I’ve published what I know and what I wish I knew. Thema Literary Magazine published, in their “Missing Letters” volume, an essay describing my search to know the rest of the story. Mama saved nearly all the letters I wrote home over the years but stopped in 1982 when Daddy died. Where are the others? Why did she stop? I wish I knew.

On the other hand, in its December edition, The Writer Magazine published my article on a subject with which I am well-acquainted. “Ranking Rejection” as the magazine suggests on the cover blurb tells why, even in rejection, some “no’s” are better than others. I know each category well and can illustrate each of them from my rejection folder, beginning with zero for no answer at all to ten for an acceptance!   

While I like seeing the article in print with my byline, I do wish I didn’t know this topic quite so well!

Myself and My World: A Biography of William Faulkner

On a week when Joyce Carol Oates was quoted as saying, “If Mississippians read, Faulkner would be banned,” it just so happened that this Mississippian was in the midst of an excellent biography of William Faulkner, Myself and the World: A Biography of William Faulkner by Robert W. Hamblin. It seemed the perfect foil for her statement.

Hamblin himself notes that excellent biographies of Faulkner have been written by academics for academics. His intended audience, the general reading public including younger readers, brought him to write an interesting and readable volume. Chronologically, he follows Faulkner from his birth in New Albany, Mississippi to his death with his wish fulfilled of leaving work that would live long after him.

Contrasts abound in Faulkner’s life. Critical acclaim in the world at large was followed by antipathy in his native Mississippi. His brilliant writing periods intersperse with times when he fell prey to alcoholism.  Family ties include devotion to his mother and taking an orphaned niece into the family but having multiple extramarital affairs.

Hamblin says if the book causes the readers to want to read (or reread) Faulkner’s novels and stories, it will have served its purpose. I will admit that I found myself wanting to do just that as I read the account of where he was in life as each manuscript was finished. Starting with the Snopes trilogy, I plan to read with the biography at hand to match the time in his life to the book he was writing. I recommend the biography even to those who aren’t all that interested in Faulkner’s work.

Even before I begin the Snopes books, I just downloaded The White Rose of Memphis, his grandfather Falkner’s claim to fame, intriguingly mentioned in Hamblin’s introduction.

So, Joyce Carol, there are those of us in Mississippi who read quite a bit. Sometimes we used to read your books.

Playboy Magazine and The Snowy Day

People who know me well may be surprised that Hugh Hefner’s death triggered thoughts for a blog. Then again, there have been other strange topics covered here from time to time. The second surprise may come in pairing Playboy magazine with The Snowy Day. Hang with me, and I’ll connect the dots.

When he answered the phone, Ezra Jack Keats expected the first words he heard, “Long distance from Chicago.” He’d had a problem with Playboy magazine’s paycheck sent for an illustration he had done for them. They’d overpaid him. Scrupulously honest, he’d called the magazine and talked to a secretary who knew nothing about it but promised to check and get back with him.

But this wasn’t that phone call! A different voice said, “Mr. Keats? This is Ruth Gagliardo from the American Library Association. Are you sitting down? I have wonderful news for you. Your book The Snowy Day has won the Caldecott Award.” She sounded excited.

Still a novice in the children’s book world, Keats had no idea what a Caldecott Award was. He thanked her for the award and figured he’d ask around later and find out what he’d won.

“Would you like to make a statement?” she asked.

How should he respond? “Well, I’m certainly happy for the little boy in the book.”

“Oh, my. How touching! I’ll always remember what you said . . . Your Snowy Day, we all believe, will be a landmark in children’s books.” Mrs. Gagliardo asked him to keep the award a secret until after the press released the story. Keats promised and surreptitiously questioned friends who said the Caldecott was the highest award given for picture books.

If you’re still curious about the Playboy issue, Keats got a another long distance call from Chicago, the Playboy secretary saying the editors decided his art was worth more than the original agreement – no mistake and he could keep the money.

I can’t guarantee that the picture in my photo is the one under discussion since he did several for Playboy, but the magazine date makes it possible. Herbert Gold’s description in the piece of fiction “Happy Hipster” says, “He had a long creased horsy face, intelligent, and with large square teeth, a long lazy body with lots of lean on it.” Seems to me Keats captured the fellow pretty well, and one might actually read the magazine for the story and enjoy the art.

As for Mrs. Gagliardo’s prediction that The Snowy Day would become a landmark, here we are more than fifty years later buying Snowy Day stamps at the post office!

Maya Lin

Fittingly, Susan Goldman Rubin titles the chapters of her book Maya Lin with artful substances from nature since the natural world informs Maya's architectural art.

            Chapter 1 – Clay describes Maya’s early years in a home of Chinese ancestry with a father who is a ceramicist and a mother who is a poet. Given the chance to do her own modeling with the clay, hearing poetic words, and being surrounded by natural beauty sets a stage early for what she will become.

            Chapter 2 – Granite tells the story of her unexpected win by a college student over 1,421 entries to design the Vietnam Memorial. Who would have thought her simple symbolic design would require so much strength on her part to keep that design as she had envisioned or that she would get only a B + for the class?

            Chapter 3 – Water gave her a vision of using the biblical quote from the Martin Luther King address on the Civil Rights Memorial “Until Justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream” with water flowing over the quote.

            Chapter 4 – Earth took her back to childhood playing with her brother over hills behind their house. She created “Wave Field,” “Flutter,” and “Storm King Wave Field” from that memory experience.

            Chapter 5 – Glass kept an old barn in one sculpture and created a skylighted Noah’s ark with another, both with abundant glass to give a feeling of being outdoors in nature.

            Chapter 6 – Celadon green from her Chinese heritage was Maya’s choice for the basic color of the Museum of Chinese in America.

            Chapter 7 – Dunes and Driftwood became replacements for parking lots as she paid tribute to the paths of Lewis and Clark and the parallel path of the Native Americans to the ocean. She achieved her goal of showing what had been lost and what could be saved.

            Chapter 8 – Wood has her only design for a family home. Most of the time, Maya will not do this kind of work. However, she did not abandon her outdoor approach since the house has a tree growing up through the deck and an abundance of windows.

The final chapter sets her philosophy of giving back and thinking about what is missing as society takes over the natural world.

With many beautiful photographs, abundant research, and a gift for story-telling, Susan Goldman Rubin shows Maya, the human being, along with her artistic achievement and her love of nature.  I recommend this fascinating biography of the work of the accomplished architect which is also a Junior Library Guild selection if you would like additional verification.

Ear Worms

Okay, they’re not really worms – just the name for that song that goes around and around and around in your head – at least until you get another song to take its place.

Six years old, I walked a quarter mile down the country road to school. Playing in my head, I heard, “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down . . .”

Grade school summers found me building a playhouse under a spreading apple tree. Amusement came with the lyrics, “It rained all night the day I left. The weather it was dry. . . Susannah, don’t you cry.”

In junior high, I watched recess athletes from the sidelines wishing I was home with a book. Passing time in my head, I heard, “Oh, do you remember Sweet Betsy from Pike who crossed the wide prairie with her brother Ike . . . ” (Turns out it was her lover Ike, but it had been cleaned up for junior high consumption.)

A high school nerd, I eschewed Elvis and his hound dog, preferring the Glee Club number Mrs. Doxey taught. The bittersweet mood playing in my head matched my own, “In the still of the night, as I gaze from my window. . . ”

A ninety-mile-a-day commute as I finished my last two years of college at Ole Miss brought “On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again . . . ” Technically, I wasn’t that excited, but what do you do when song lyrics accompany the hum of tires?

In adulthood, the ear worms have usually lingered after choir practice, following the seasons of Christmas, Lent, Easter, and ordinary time. “Lord, listen to your children praying, Lord send your spirit . . . ”

Is this phenomenon heredity or contagious? I watch my five-year-old grandson color his picture at the counter and carefully write B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N on the bottom, humming all the while. “There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo . . . ”

I think I’ll wait until he’s a bit older to tell him he has an ear worm.

Full Curl

The promise of a mystery set in Banff National Park overcame my hesitancy of reading a book by an unknown debut author. We had visited both Banff and the counterpart United States Rockies in recent years. I relished a vicarious return and took a chance that the new Canadian author from a Canadian publisher would be a good storyteller. Consequently, I clicked “request” on the offer from Net Galley to read Full Curl by Dave Butler (no relation).

The intrigue lasts from beginning to end as park warden Jenny Willson (yes, with two “l’s”) almost catches the poachers who are hunting wildlife in Banff National Park only to miss them. The ante rises for her and the perpetrators as murder and drug dealing incorporate into the crime mix. Then there are the bureaucrats who are reluctant to join the chase because they don’t take a woman warden too seriously. Obviously, they don’t know Jenny Willson well.  

Dave Butler portrays the park skillfully and beautifully in the narrative without calling attention to his descriptions but giving the reader a sense of being present in the park. No doubt this ability comes from his internalizing the area during his day job as a forester and biologist near the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia.

Caution for the debut author was completely unnecessary. In fact, I was pleased to see the notation on the cover, in the front, and in the back of the book “a Jenny Willson mystery, Book 1.” Since my pleasure reading genre is a good mystery, I think I’ll be seeing Jenny Willson – with two “l’s” – again.

Trying Not to Butt In

I couldn’t help but overhear as I straightened up during my volunteer time in the children’s book area at the Oak Grove Public Library’s big sale yesterday. The mother said to her son, who was happily browsing the books, something to the effect that he needed to stop looking at the ones with pictures and find some that had a lot of words to read.

Oh, my! Oh, my! I could scarcely restrain myself. Such sacrilege – and in Children’s Picture Book Month! But, as Mama would say, “She didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat and hadn’t asked my advice.”

You haven’t asked either, but you are reading my blog so here goes. One is never too old for picture books! I’m very grateful that I still get them sometimes for Christmas, Mother’s Day, or my birthday.

My difficulty is choosing which to read as I honor Picture Book Month:

• Do I read Jerry Pinckney’s beautifully illustrated Aesop’s fable The Lion and The Mouse, which technically can’t be read since it only has a few animal sounds for words.
• Do I read The Nutcracker, illustrated by Susan Jeffers – one of my favorites, that I got for my birthday (along with tickets to see local production)?
• Do I read Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day since I still get those now and then?
• Maybe I’ll take time to peruse A Child of Books from another birthday that has far more intricate things to see than any kid has the knowledge or attention span to appreciate.
• And let’s not forget that Thanksgiving is coming which calls for Pat Zietlow Miller’s Sharing the Bread: An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Story.

The list could go on. Fortunately, November has thirty days, and who knows, I may cheat and read some in December or even July.

I wish I had thought faster this morning. I would love to have reminded the mother, who had the best of intentions, that before her son had teeth she only let him eat soft foods like mashed potatoes. But when he became capable of chowing down on steak, she didn’t take the wonderful buttery mashed potatoes away - just encouraged him to enjoy them together.

Dilemma

Words hovered in my head waiting to go on paper. I’d even been encouraged to put them together and send them. I began eagerly, but then the butterflies beckoned.

Last week, a swarm of Gulf Fritillaries enticed me to frolic with them, perhaps in gratitude. Their early stages advanced from the dot of a yellow egg laid on a leaf, through a series of ever larger bundles of black spikes, to obese orange caterpillars as they stripped my Passion Flower vines to nothing by stems. (Not to worry, the vines rise from the dead as surely as a Phoenix, and they are already putting on new leaves.) Joining the Fritillaries were Monarchs, Painted Ladies, ordinary Sulphurs, grand Spicebush Swallowtails, and scores of little brown butterflies with various markings to whom I have not been introduced. On this cool crisp October morning they seemed to call, “Come outside to play.”

A quote from Robert Herrick of long ago (1591-1674) came to mind as he advised the young virgins to “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” for the “same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.” Last week’s first cool crisp October morning foreshadowed the coming of winter when butterflies would be migrating if not dying. The days for playing in the yard among the smiling butterflies grew as short as those of the rosebuds.

Still the manuscript waited. It would not write itself. Torn between the few butterfly days and the need to write words, I did what I had to do. I took turns and combined the two. While I worked in the yard outside amongst the flying friends, I thought about the next part of the story. When I came inside to write the next part of the story, I watched the butterflies out my window. I’m guessing it’s what my role model, Eudora Welty, would have done. 

I wrote this blog last week on the day of my temptation, and I’m glad I followed my urge to the yard. A cold front blew in over the weekend, and those butterflies took themselves to a warmer playground. The manuscript is still a work in progress. 

Salt to the Sea

“Guilt is a hunter.

          My conscience mocked me, picking fights like a petulant child.

          It’s all your fault, the voice whispered.”

So begins Salt to the Sea in the voice of Joana, yet another gripping historical fiction novel by Rita Sepetys that draws on her own family’s history. As she did in Between Shades of Gray, Rita draws on her Lithuanian family history to revisit the real happening of the worst maritime disaster in history. Nine thousand passengers, most of them refugees, drowned when the German ocean liner Wilhelm Gustloff sank in 1945. Her father’s cousin missed the disaster only because she was unable to board on that fateful day. That cousin suggested that Rita write the book. Others told her it was forgotten history and not worth bothering.

I’m glad Rita ignored the negative voices. Three main characters, Joana, Emelia, and Florien tell their stories of trying to make the ship that will take them to safety ahead of the Soviet advance with a fourth Nazi naval soldier named Alfred telling his own unreliable story as he tries to obtain status with the German regime. The story switches among each of their voices. In the first chapter of each, they find a different hunter. For Florein, fate is the hunter, for Emilie, it is shame, and for Alfred, if is fear. Backstories and secrets; setting; and well-drawn secondary characters, including a shoemaker who can deduce people’s story by their shoes, add to the tension even before the ship goes down. Tough decisions that weigh personal safety against the needs of the group proliferate, with the reader drawn into a desire to help make the choices.

I’m not alone in my praise for this book since it also won the 2017 CILIP Carnegie Medal, given in honor of Andrew Carnegie, for an outstanding children’s book; the 2017 Mid-South Division Crystal Kite Award and the 2017 Golden Kite Award for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the last two being the only awards judged by peers in the field.

I’m left with one puzzle, how soon can I expect another Rita Sepetys book?

Lessons from Preschool Soccer

Robert Fulgham has nothing on me. You may remember that he learned all he really needed to know in kindergarten and wrote a book about it. I learned a slew of life lessons on one fine Saturday morning watching preschoolers play soccer and am now writing a blog about it.

Tatum Park in Hattiesburg is a sea of soccer fields on Saturdays so locating where our two preschool grandsons were playing took the modern intervention of cellphones, but that’s beside the point. I had planned to give cheers and moral support, but unexpectedly ended up with a few surprises and great ideas.

(1) It was not uncommon for the young players to make a goal for the opposing team. Applause followed nonetheless.

(2) When one grandchild accidentally kicked the soccer ball into his teammate’s face, he cried longer than his injured friend – truly sorry that the other child was hurt. 

(3) Bystanders and parents, including the injured child’s parents, kept repeating, “It’s okay. It was an accident.” Blame was not assessed.

(4) The injured child, without prompting by an adult, brought peace to the kicker as he gave a hug to show both love and forgiveness.

(5) At the end of the other grandson’s game, I asked my son who won, and he said, “I don’t know.” Neither did any of the children who were busy giving high fives and running under the tunnel formed by their parents.

(6) The tunnels turned out to be so much fun that the temptation to run through one on a brother’s field was accepted and even encouraged.

Lessons carved out over the course of the morning were to take joy in scoring one for an opponent, to truly care when you cause someone to hurt, to extend forgiveness freely and spontaneously, and to find joy in the game and celebrate no matter who won or even if it’s your home field.

I have my doubts that these lessons will remain unblemished for a lifetime, but if they could stay and spread – picture what a world that would be!

Speaking Our Truth

The nonfiction book Speaking Our Truth by Monique Gray Smith takes an in-depth look at the residential school system in Canada, but its interest spreads to the United States since similar schools and problems occurred here. Interest in this book extends to anyone concerned with fair treatment of Indigenous people wherever they occur. The author, with Cree, Lakota, and Scottish heritage, infuses her account with personal passion.

Her book cites the report “The Survivors Speak: A Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada” as background and looks to bring action to the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In the initial chapter, she gives the names used to describe these first people – Indian, Native, First Nation, Aboriginal, and Indigenous – explaining that she will use the one that was the norm of the time as she tells the story beginning with Indian for the 1800s and coming to Indigenous for the present day.

Scattered throughout the book are personal accounts of those she calls Survivors who lived through experiences in the residential schools, sometimes with one generation repeating the last. Separated from parents and unable to practice their culture or speak their own language, indigenous children also suffered abuse, deprivation, and hunger in the schools. Frequently, discipline patterns learned at the school were passed along to children of these Survivors. The reader is left wondering who thought this would be a good idea.

Balancing the negative picture comes the efforts now being made to bring reconciliation and hope with projects such as Orange Shirt Day, the Blanket Exercise, and Project of the Heart. Discussion questions leading to empathy thread through the narrative. Back matter includes opportunities for further study in Online Resources, Reading List, Glossary, List of Residential Schools, and an Index.

As a coincidence, the next book I read and will not be discussing or recommending had a girl “whooping like an Indian on the warpath.” I would have been offended by the negative stereotype, but coming immediately after Speaking Our Truth, the phrase touched a newly exposed nerve.

In a second coincidence, I need to get this posted quickly so I can leave for the Native American Mounds Tour in and around Natchez with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Maybe I’ll find another accurate and empathetic story today.

The Case of the Missing Painting

Did I detect a touch of accusation in my principal’s voice? A few weeks into the new school year, Mrs. Morgan came down to my room, “Virginia, do you know what happened to Andy’s painting in the teacher’s lounge? I've looked everywhere. You were my last hope.” My concern matched hers. We agreed to keep a lookout, but one day led to another and the school year wore on.

Andy Woods, our quiet introverted art teacher for the first few years that I taught second grade at South Polk Elementary School, challenged those who were artistically talented while encouraging the ones with no more talent than I have. I think of her when October comes.

Andy left us the first time to have surgery for breast cancer. She downplayed her concern, talking to only a few of us with whom she had become close. I bemoaned my inability to teach art to my students while she was out. She knew I could put all my artistic ability in a thimble and still have room for my finger. Smiling, she said, “You can. Just tell them to use all their space and realize that nothing is just one color.”

When Andy came back to inspire our creative and noncreative students, we rejoiced and settled comfortably – until the cancer returned aggressively a couple of years later to the other breast. The group of friends mourned with her, unwilling to accept the diagnosis that she would not return and treatment would be palliative.

After Andy died, Mrs. Morgan asked me to do a eulogy at faculty meeting. Using Andy’s words, I said she had filled all her space and had painted her world with a myriad of colors. Mrs. Morgan placed her favorites, Andy’s clown paintings, around her office. Andy’s husband gave us a mixed media painting for the teacher’s lounge that visualized sitting on the patio in the fall with the morning paper and a cup of coffee. We enjoyed it, and then it went missing – for a while.

Late one afternoon toward the end of the school year, when almost everyone had gone home, Mrs. Morgan returned to my room, beckoning me to come with her. In the teacher’s lounge, she pulled something from behind the soft drink machine – Andy’s painting! The painters had taken it down the summer before and stuck it behind the machine rather than replacing it on the wall. “Take it with you,” she said. “You are the last one working here that was close to Andy, and I have the clowns.”

Truthfully, it doesn’t have to be October for me to think of Andy. The painting hangs where I see it when I eat or drink coffee. But in Breast Cancer Month especially, it makes me hope for the day when we will be rid of this terrible disease for Andy and for people like her who fill all their space with color and beauty. 

Lightning Men

In his novel set in 1950s Atlanta, Thomas Mullen borrows his title Lightning Men from Nazi Germany. In the prologue, Jeremiah, newly released from prison is told one of three things happen when a Negro is released from jail: (1) his family or friends pick him up, (2) the prison takes him by bus to the train where his people meet him. or (3) they give him about seventy-five cents and let the prisoner walk. By the time the prologue is finished, crime has begun and the writing has seized the reader. 

The body of the novel has the police department chasing drugs and alcohol and solving murders while keeping a line drawn between the white and black officers with both groups wondering who among them are the corrupt. There’s a group of Columbians with the Nazi-style lightning bolt on their sleeves which now reappears on street signs. The policemen’s personal stories weave in and out and color their own hand at justice, giving hard choices between family and the law.

As tensions escalate over black families moving into “white” neighborhoods, Mullen draws a parallel: “‘Lightning men,’ the doughboys had called the SS troopers. But they were all lightning men. Not just the Columbians but the Klansmen, too, and the neighborhood association that had offered to buy Hannah’s house as if that were a legitimate, regular ol’ business arrangement shorn of threats.”

Such a tangle of multiple stories keep the reader on edge pondering if any satisfying ending can come of all this – and yet it does with an ending that left me shaking my head and saying, “I didn’t see that coming.”