W is for Writer Friends

I’m what I call a writer wannabe. Even though I’ve self published three books, none of which are on amazon.com, I still don’t consider myself a real writer; however, I have lots of friends who fall into that category.

I’ll tell you only a smidgen about the writers and their books because I want you to read them for yourselves, and I don’t want to give anything away that might cause you not to read. So, here they are, listed alphabetically by last name but not by preference:

Adrian, J.D. – Now I’ve Seen Everything: Growing Up in Maine in the 1940s and 1950s. Joyce is my husband’s first cousin and a dear friend whom I call my sister-cousin.  Her book is a memoir and a very good one. I proofread it for her and enjoyed every minute.

Brandt, Betsy – The Three Sources of Creativity: Breakthroughs from Your Head, Heart and Gut. Betsy is one of my Christian friends and writes beautifully about creativity. She is also one of my cheerleaders for writing.

Coleman, RoseAnne – The Stories I Keep. All I need to say about this book is that RoseAnne is a born Southern storyteller. All of her stories are personal experiences.

Conoway, Patricia J. – Listening With My Eyes: An Abused Horse, A Mother with Alzheimer’s, the Journey to Help Them Both.  My neighbor used her experiences with an abused horse to help her know how to care for her mother. A memoir.

Fisher, Ruth. H. – The Amazing Victor McLaglen Motor Corps: The History of the Oldest Motorcycle Stunt and Drill Team in the World, 1935 – 2014. Ruth is a friend whose husband, Harry, was the leader of this team from 1978 until he died in 2014. Ruth was the announcer for the team and is the foremost authority on the history of this famous team.

Fletcher, Claudia – Out of Many, One Family: How Two Adults Claimed Twelve Children through Adoption; and Little Did She Know. Claudia is the daughter of my husband’s first cousin and, as you can tell from the title of the first book listed, the mother of twelve adopted children. Oh, how much I admire Claudia!

Holmes, Tyrone – The Undone Heart.Tyrone used to go to Florida to do math presentations for me when I was a sales representative for McDougal Littell Publishing Company. I called him, even back then more than twenty years ago, a math teacher with an English teacher’s heart. I recognized him as an excellent writer, so I wasn’t at all surprised to find that he had published a book of poetry.

Jarvis, Sharon Downing – A Fresh Start in Fairhaven; Mercies & Miracles; and Through Cloud & Sunshine. Sharon and I were best friends in junior and senior high school. She wrote wonderful teenage stories about Tony and Tricia, and on Friday nights, we used to sit side by side on her bed with her writing and me reading the stories. I always knew that she’d be a “real live writer” one day, so I wasn’t at all surprised when she became a published author. She writes for Deseret Book.

Lutz, Nancy Cole – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe: Nurturing Learners. Nancy tells the stories of three elementary students and their learning quest. This wonderful teacher adapted materials for these children.

Lytle, Samuel L. – Gold Stars: Why do you do good things?I met Sam in an online journal writing class. Through class discussions, he found out that I could proofread. So that’s just what I did for him. He published another book (online) and when he requested me to, I submitted my story of handling my grief after our son died. I can’t remember the name of the book.

Posey, Nancy – Let the Lady Speak. My cousin, Nancy Posey, wrote this chapbook of poems about  famous women in history and literature – their thoughts and feelings. She was the 2009 winner of the November Chapbook Challenge of Poetic Asides with her collection. She is my inspiration to be a writer.

Purkins, E.W. – Finding Light in the Dark. E.W. Purkins is Chip to me, a friend from our little church here in Cerrillos, NM. He recognizes that his poems are dark, but I always encourage him to write more!

Shama, Avraham – Finding Home: An Immigrant’s Journey . . . A Memoir. My friend here in New Mexico, Avi Shama, paints a beautiful, sad, but true picture of life in Israel during his childhood and of his finding his true home here in America.

Taylor, Rodney – Countdown to Midnight.I proofread this first novel, a murder mystery, by my childhood friend. Rodney has also written books about the Bible.

Thurston, Cheryl Miller – Hide Your Ex-Lax Under the Wheaties; and Cranky Language Lady. I met Cheri at a National Council of Teachers of English conference many years ago. She was working at the booth for her publishing company, Cottonwood Press, located in Colorado. We immediately clicked, and I bought two books from her: Hide Your Ex-Lax Under the Wheaties(a book of poems for teachers) and Writing Your Lifeby Mary Borg. I must show you the poem, the first line of which is the title of the book:

A Consumer Guide for Teachers

Hide Ex-Lax and beer under Wheaties

and condoms below the Parkay.

Put pregnancy tests and your tampons

under boxes of Budget Gourmet.

Hide hemorrhoid treatments and hair dye

under Cocoa Puffs, cat food or Fritos.

And if you buy douches or Denture Cream,

then slip them below the Doritos.

It’s best to be careful when shopping.

It’s best to be overly prudent.

Just let down your guard for a second –

and you’re bound to run in to a student.

She’ll shamelessly stare in your basket.

You’ll strive to look innocent, cool.

Tomorrow your personal secrets

will be gossip all over the school.

I must tell you a secret before I close: I haven’t read all of these books by friends. Maybe someday I will, but for right now, they serve to encourage me to write. I have no desire to write a novel or poetry. But I do love writing memoir. We’ll see what happens to this writer wannabe.

V is for Velvet Melon, Jay's Band

Once again, I’m using something that I wrote a while back. I was asked to do a short bio of Jay for his friend’s blog. Impossible! There’s too much to tell about my boy. But I tried to whittle his life down a bit and came up with some acceptable information . . . a mother’s memories. I included that writing in the book that I wrote about Jay last year, My Mom’s Always Hot!And the following is just a snippet of what I included. It sort of begins in the middle, but I think you’ll get the picture.

                                                            HIGH SCHOOL

Of course, I remember the night in January of 1985, when Joey Allred called Jay.  I was doing dishes, and I heard Jay say something about a band.  At that moment VELVET MELON was born.  Jay and Joey had a dream.  It came true every Saturday morning around 10:00 and went on for about four hours, letting up only for the guys to consume dozens of hot dogs. That was all I could afford to buy that whole bunch of boys who all looked and sounded alike to me.  Even though Joey and Jay together formed Velvet Melon, Jay was always in the lead.  I could hear him giving orders as I set out the food.  It’s so funny that a month before the band came into existence, Frank was spreaching about the ills of rock music, and I was shouting “Amen” to what he said.  According to Frank, that rock beat would mess up your heart.  I wonder.  Somehow, though, when our boy began to play and sing the “stuff,” it wasn’t quite so bad.  I was immediately in love with all that Jay did.  Frank, Wendy, and I were Jay’s #1 fans, and Steve, Wendy’s first husband, wasn’t far behind.  Naturally, certain gigs stand out more than others.  We went to all of them, except for the private parties, which, by the way, were usually broken up by the police, who were responding to the complaints of neighbors.  It’s probably a good thing that we weren’t invited to these gala events anyway because we might have seen some things that our tender eyes didn’t need to see yet.  The fact is we did see some things that we shouldn’t have; however, we thought it best to ignore some of them.  The gigs that I enjoyed most were those at Pine Forest (sock hops, talent shows, even concerts). I can’t remember when they started to play in clubs, but it was probably after Jay was out of high school. But the clubs that I enjoyed most in the early days, whenever they were, were Longnecker’s and Fennegal’s. I never did care much for The Rex.

I enjoyed Jay’s high school days right along with him.  But on to later days . . .

AFTER  HIGH  SCHOOL / IN VELVET  MELON

I’ve already written about many of my memories of this time.  They were such good years.  It has occurred to me that I probably should say something here. None of my memories involve some of the “trouble” that middle schoolers and high school students sometimes get in to.  I found out in later years that we didn’t escape some of these “events”; we just didn’t know about them.  Even though we discovered later some of the things that Jay did and that we didn’t approve of, we were happy to know for sure that he was not involved in drugs.  It really is a miracle in the twentieth century and especially in the rock music circle for a person not to be involved in this aspect of the lives of young people.  I never feared that Jay would have anything to do with drugs. In fact, I can remember telling him that he might get in trouble because of his outspoken abhorrence of them. I feared that someone might slip something into a drink just to prove to him that he, too, would do drugs. That never happened.  Thank you, Lord!  That one line that he wrote in an original always comforted me: “I don’t mix drugs with rock and roll/I’ve got Jesus in my heart to save my soul.”  Isn’t that a wonderful line?  Wish he had felt the same way about beer!

There are far too many gigs for me to mention too many specifics.  Here are just a few:

The performance at The Bitter End in New York on the trip before the move . . .

Times at Longnecker’s . . . Suzy, Rick Holt, New Year’s Eve, taking my seniors in after the Senior Banquet . . . mentioning how good the band sounded one night and then getting the dreaded call about Keith’s accident just a few hours later.  By the way, remember that math and science teacher that Jay didn’t like?  She taught the kids CPR, and Jay used it on Keith that night.  Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.

The beach house fiasco . . . We had just left when the balcony fell . . .

The French Quarter . . . spending two days snowed in in motor homes with nine kids in their twenties . . .

The gig on the riverboat . . . Jay got a bit sick when he looked out the window while they were playing.

The night at Coconut Bay just before he was going to let Keith go.  I kept looking around for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Finally, I spotted him, do-rag on his head, huddled in fetal position off in a corner, obviously praying for help with his task.  How my heart hurt for him.  He knew what was best for his band, but Keith was his friend, and he couldn’t stand to hurt him.  So many times he said to me, “Please pray, Mom.  I’ve got to have help.”  And I prayed.  And he did, too.  I wonder how many people know that about  my boy.  A few do.

Many nights at various gigs when he grabbed me just as we were leaving to give me a big hug and a huge kiss . . . right there in front of everyone.  Not many young men honor their mothers in such a way.  In fact, I remember one morning last spring when he called me at school to register a complaint.  It seems that he had had it with us!  We would go to his gigs, sit through one set, and then leave . . . without telling him good-bye.  What greater compliment could a twenty-four-year-old son give his parents?  None, as far as I’m concerned.  Then there was the time that he called and Becky Mc answered the phone in the teachers’ work area.  He wanted to speak to me, but before she went to look for me, she told him that we were all burning up because the air conditioning wasn’t working properly. She said, “Your mom’s really hot.” His reply . . . “My mom’s always hot!”  Now, that’s a compliment, too!

Oh, and there was the night of October 31, 1987, when Velvet Melon played “Rebel Yell” for Wendy and “My Girl” for Corey.  Corey had just entered the world about four hours before the gig.  The guys were dressed in their costumes . . . Jay was the Punk Monk that year!  Everyone was so excited about their new little mascot.  Corey has truly been right up there with the #1 fans! So many times Jay has played songs for her while she was at gigs.  She was a light in his life.  He truly loved her.  He didn’t always know exactly what to do with her, but he loved her.  He learned from my mother not to “mash her head”!  That was always a great line, but you had to be there to understand, I’m afraid.

Probably the gig that will always be most memorable to me, though, is the one on the night of June 27, 1992, his last gig.  I wouldn’t take anything for that evening.  We were there at Yesterdays in Chattanooga, TN, from beginning to end.  We heard every lick, saw every wink, loved every minute of it.  He came and sat with us during one of the breaks – as he always did – and said, “You’ll never know the feeling.  The feeling of having them right in the palm of your hand!” He loved performing . . . leading the audience in whatever direction he wanted them to go.  Andy was right.  Jay had charisma . . . he still has it.  Witness the hordes of young people who are still drawn to our house.

And then the four days after that gig when we spent time in Jay’s home in Nashville.  I wouldn’t take anything for those days! The guys composed and recorded . . . I read . . . we (Jay, Frank, and I) shopped for a washer and dryer, and Jay and I acted crazy while Frank had to be serious with the saleslady, whom we invited to gigs in the Nashville area (she’ll never know what she missed) . . . my heart soared as I listened to Jay negotiate with Bill Puryear, an agent ready to sign  Velvet Melon . . . we ate out . . . Jay cooked breakfast for us . . . he ate my leftovers from the Chinese restaurant that he never had a chance to go to . . . I was “smitten” with vertigo (thank goodness) . . . I watched him leve for the last time, dressed in the outfit that we buried him in.  I thought as he left, “I can see why the girls love him.  He is SO cute!”  The rest is history.  

One thing that’s missing in these memories of Jay and Velvet Melon is the meaning of the title of the band and where it came from. It means absolutely nothing. The choosing of the name for the band has a little history, though. One night the guys were practicing at our house, still not having a name for the band. Jay’s girlfriend, Gina, called during practice, and the guys took a break so that Jay could chat for a while. As they were talking, Gina said, “I saw the funniest thing carved into the top of my desk today.” And what did she see? “Velvet Melon”! I’m sure it meant something to someone, but all it meant to Jay was that Velvet Melon would be the name of their band. “Thanks, Gina! You just named the band.” And he went back to the game room and announced the news to the guys. They loved it! Everyone did. And those who were regulars at gigs were Melonheads! They are Melonheads to this day.

Wendy took this photo a couple of years before Jay died. Jay's the one on the left. I'll bet you could have picked him out without my telling you!

U is for Usage

From 1964 to 1996, I got up every weekday morning at 5:30 and headed out the door for either Pascagoula (MS) High School, Jackson County (MS) Junior College or Woodham (Pensacola, FL) High School to endeavor to teach young people grammar, composition, vocabulary, and literature. I loved those years! I was probably a bit different from most English teachers (today they’re called language arts teachers) because what I wanted to teach the most wasn’t literature, though I loved teaching that part of English. No, I wanted to teach grammar, and I wanted my students to learn to love grammar as much as I did. I doubt that I was as successful as I wanted to be; however, most of them at least increased their knowledge of grammar while they were I my class.

This is the book that I taught from (I know it’s supposed to be “from which I taught,” but I don’t always follow the rules.) for many of my thirty-two years in the classroom . . .

 But I taught from the book labeled either “Fourth Course” or “Complete Course,” depending on whether I was teaching tenth or twelfth grade students. John Warriner was a master at composing grammar books . . . the best! Chapter 10, “Glossary of Usage,” was my favorite chapter, and we had a great time with it because it was full of usage problems that they didn’t even know were problems. I hope they remembered just a little bit of what we worked with. Today, I hear every day errors in the following usage problems, and I cringe when I hear mistakes by people who are supposed to be educated. Maybe they were absent when their teachers taught Chapter 10.

Anyway . . . here are some usage problems that are still prevalent today:

amount, number – Use amountto refer to a singular word; use numberto refer to a plural word.

            A large amount of money was in the drawer.

            A large number of coins were in the drawer.

bad, badly –Bad is an adjective, modifying nouns and pronouns; badlyis an adverb, modifying verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

            She feels very bad about her failure.

            The stockyards smell bad.

bring, take – Use bringwhen the meaning is to convey something to the person speaking.Use take when the meaning is to convey something away from the person speaking.

            When you come back, bring your textbooks, pencils, and paper.

            Will you please take this note to your father when you go home?

fewer, less – Fewer is used before a plural noun;lessis used before a singular noun.

            There were fewer guests at the last party.

            We took in less money tonight.

nauseated, nauseous – Nauseatedmeans “sick.” Nauseousmeans “disgusting, sickening.”

            After eating too much rich food, the child became nauseated.

            The nauseous odor of dead fish overwhelmed us.

These are not nearly all of the usage errors that bother this old English teacher, but I won’t go any further. There are also some usage errors that are more easily seen in writing: accept and except, affect and effect, and others. But enough is enough! I feel better after pointing out these errors in usage.

Just because I know when these words should be used doesn’t mean that I always use them correctly. Some of them require some thought, and sometimes my “thinker” doesn’t get activated quickly enough to catch errors. Maybe you have the same problem.

T is for Tap Dance and Other Kinds of Dances

I must confess that I wrote this piece a long time ago, maybe as the D word when I wrote my alphabet journal along with my students. I liked it then, and I like it now. So why reinvent the wheel? Here’s a piece that I wrote entitled “Dance Classes.” I’m also including a link to a great video starring tap dancers. I hope you’ll give yourself the pleasure of taking a peek.

Dance Classes

I know my mother meant well when she enrolled me in dance classes. The first ones met on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in a small studio on Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late ‘40s. I was eight or nine years old, but the memories—no nightmares—associated with those lessons remain vivid.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mother took me to tap lessons. If you’ve never seen a too-tall-for-her age, very round girl shuffling strapped-on, long, skinny shoes with big taps on the toes, you’ve really missed something. It was a sight to behold, but I’m sure not one you’d want to remember. One shuffle, two shuffle, three shuffle, slide. One shuffle, two shuffle, three shuffle, slide. Over and over again. My mind was always somewhere else, so I made more mistakes than those slim little girls with the cutesy feet. The class lasted only an hour or so, but it seemed an eternity to me.

On Thursday afternoon, my mother, who was determined that I’d learn to be graceful by taking dance classes, took me to ballet. Same place, same eternity, same clumsy girl. This time, though, the sight was different. There I was at the ballet barre, holding on tightly while my long, log-like legs went up and down and up and down in the most un-graceful way imaginable, my mother sitting to the side, just rolling her eyes. When we put on toe shoes, I’m sure all she could picture was broken ankles; however, I never broke an ankle, but I surely did turn both of them. I never could get up on pointe and stay there.

Those afternoons were never pleasant as we rode the streetcar home to our apartment in post-World War II housing. And then came Saturday morning. Back to the studio we’d go so that I could take acrobat. Oh, my, but that was an experience for all! As I tried to do somersaults, I’d roll off the mat. As other girls threw their shapely legs straight up in cartwheels, landing gracefully on the mat on both feet, I’d look warily at the mat, sling my legs maybe a foot off the floor, and usually land right on my fanny. But the worst thing of all was flips. I was so much overweight and so uncoordinated that I had to have help. The teacher had assistants who would put a belt around my waist, hook on straps, and literally throw me over in a flip. So, so embarrassing and so, so uncomfortable. I never landed correctly even with help.

I failed to mention earlier that my teacher, Miss Beryl (in my mind, she was  Miss Barrel!), weighed about 300 pounds and couldn’t do even one thing to model for us. Her assistants, older prize students, taught us what they knew with coaching from the sidelines from the teacher. I think my mother realized that the lessons were futile after a year or so and withdrew me from lessons. But, never fear, my mother was determined!

When I was in seventh grade, she enrolled me in Saturday night ballroom dancing. Would she never give up on making me graceful and ladylike? I guess not. Those lessons were fun because I was with other kids who probably didn’t want to be there any more than I did. They were equally as embarrassing as the other dance lessons, though, because I was at least a head taller than any of the boys in the class, and of course, boys and girls danced together. We learned the foxtrot, the tango, the waltz, and the Charleston . . . but not the jitterbug. I don’t know why that one didn’t enter in to our repertoire. The son of one of my daddy’s bosses was in the class, a little shrimp of a fellow but a sweet boy with a sense of humor. He called me Giant Economy Size, and I called him Sample Size. We danced together as much as possible and had fun in a situation that could have been a disaster for both of us!

My mother never gave up on making a lady out of me, and today I’m grateful. She always meant well, and actually none of those dance classes did any harm. Today, I see only good from them if only for a laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4FYNF02yEM

S is for My Glorious Southland

I was born in the Deep South and lived there until I was sixty-three, when we moved to New Mexico to be near our daughter, Wendy, and her family. I was born in Shreveport, LA, but I don’t remember living there. Here are the places that I have lived after Shreveport:

·     Baton Rouge, LA – I remember nothing about this city because I was just a baby.

·     Mobile, AL – We moved there when I was two, and I have a few definite memories.

·     New Orleans, LA – When I was five, we moved to The Crescent City. I attended all of my elementary school years there and one year of junior high school.

·     Pensacola, FL – I was thirteen in May 1953, and we moved to Pensacola in August of that year. I completed my junior high and all of my high school years there. I consider Pensacola my hometown!

·     Clinton, MS – I spent all of my college years at Mississippi College (B.A. and M.A. degrees) and married Frank while we were both still students. Wendy was born in Jackson, MS, during our college days.

·     Pascagoula, MS – I began my teaching career at Pascagoula High School in 1964, and taught at Live Oak School and Jackson County Junior College during our years in Pascagoula. Jay was born while we lived there.

·     Pensacola, FL – We left Pascagoula in 1969, and moved to my hometown so that Frank could learn my parents’ business since it would be ours someday. I taught at Woodham High School for almost 28 years.

·     Cerrillos, NM – In 2003, we moved to The Land of Enchantment, the first place not in the Deep South, and here we are today in 2018. We’ll never live anyplace else!

For sixty-three of my seventy-eight years, I never thought much about living in the Deep South. Where else would I live? It never entered my mind that I’d transplant all the way across the country, but I did. When people from other parts of the country said that they didn’t know how I could stand living in all that humidity, I’d shrug my shoulders and say, “What humidity?” I thought everyone dripped in the summer. But the first time I went back to Pensacola after moving to New Mexico, I almost died when I walked out of the airport into the beautiful sunshine and very wet air that I had lived in most of my life and never even noticed it. I loved living in the Deep South and cried buckets before we left my hometown to move to Cerrillos, NM, even though I wanted to move.

I could write a book about why I love living in the Southwest, but that’s not the topic for this piece. Instead, I’ll just say that even though I have a gazillion friends here and even though I love our not-so-new house (it’s fifteen years old now) and even though having four distinct seasons is delightful, I still long for My Glorious Southland and must go back at least once a year.  I couldn’t stand it if I couldn’t see my old friends and my cousin JoAnn and Frank’s brother Bob at least once a year. And maybe even more importantly, I couldn’t bear to go more than a year without delicious fried seafood . . . not seafood at Red Lobster, the only kind we can get here in NM. I keep up with my friends regularly through email, Facebook, and occasional phone calls, but REAL fried seafood here in NM is almost nonexistent!

When I lived in the Deep South, I didn’t realize how gloriously beautiful it is. I love our scenery here in the high desert, but nothing can compare to the lush green of Northwest Florida. In fact, that lushness begins in East Texas and continues through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama before I reach the Panhandle of Florida.

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And finally, there are no people like my people in the South. Please don’t have your feelings hurt if you live elsewhere. I have met wonderful people all over the world, but there’s just something about Southerners that draws me to them. We have similar accents and use the same figures of speech. For the most part, we go to church on Sunday morning and we have conservative political leanings. I just fit in with Southerners.  I wrote a piece recently called “You Can Take the Girl Out of the South, but You Can’t Take the South Out of the Girl.” It’s true! I love My Glorious Southland . . . but I just want to visit. I’m a New Mexican with a Southern heart and will always live right here in the hills outside Cerrillos, NM!

R is for Reunions

My husband, Frank, was 75 in 2008, and he decided that in addition to his usual Big Birthday Bash, he wanted to have a Young Family Reunion here at our house. The Young family hadn't had a reunion since 1940! Believe it or not, New Mexico is almost central for his family, who live in Washington State, California, Florida, and Connecticut. I was elated to plan for this gathering because I had never been to a family reunion, and I knew that getting his cousins and siblings together would be a blast! And it was.

My cousin and I decided sometime in the fall of 2008 that we needed to start having Kolb family reunions, and that’s just what we did. Our first was in September 2009, and we’ve had one every other year since then. Here’s where we’ve gathered: Hilltop Lakes, TX; Monroe, LA; Heber Springs, AR; Cerrillos, NM (our house); and Sicamous, B.C., Canada. In 2019, we’ll go back to Heber Springs. These get-togethers of all sorts of cousins (even of a friend of a distant cousin whom we now consider a cousin and a childhood friend of ours who lived next door to our grandparents) are just so much fun!

But family reunions aren’t the topic for this post. I want to tell you about my 60^th High School Reunion, which was held on April 20 and 21 this year. We old folks graduated on June 4, 1958, from Pensacola (FL) High School. There were 620 graduates, and about 100 of us and spouses were at the Pensacola Yacht Club for our celebration. And let me tell you that old folks still know how to celebrate!

Sometimes the elderly are forgetful, though, and I am one of them. My best friend asked if Frank and I could get together with a group called the Taste Buddies, friends who gathered every other month for a potluck when we lived in Pensacola fifteen years ago. They still gather. Fran wanted to get everyone together at her house on Saturday, April 21, and I gladly accepted, forgetting that the big dinner meeting for our class would be that night. Can you believe that? I couldn’t disappoint Fran and the other friends, so I missed the dinner and entertainment on Saturday evening.

But Friday night was fantastic! I was on the registration committee, so I was able to greet everyone when they arrived. So much fun! I must admit that since our class was so huge, I really didn’t know lots of people. I was shy in high school and was friends mostly with my church buddies, but I’m not shy now, so I left the gathering probably knowing more people in 2018 than I did from 1955 – 1958! Something you need to know about me, as far as shyness is concerned, is this. As soon as I graduated, I declared to myself that two things were definitely going to happen at Mississippi College: I was going to be known (I’d never be shy again!), and I was going to be called Sandy, not Sandra. My mother liked the name Sandra, but I never did. I still don’t, and I use that name only for official reasons.

It was so much fun getting together with the people that I did remember from high school days, and it was fine for me not to be there on Saturday. After all, my Taste Buddy friends were so special, and I needed to get together with them!

I always say that if there aren’t pictures of an event, then the event didn’t happen. So . . . to prove that the 60^th Class Reunion happened, here are some photos.

Q is for Quotations

I love quotations and used to put one on the board every morning for my students to react to. Sometimes they were serious, and sometimes not. I always had an opinion about them, but I didn’t share it with the kids because I wanted them to write what THEY thought, THEIR opinions. I don’t really remember any of the quotations, though they’re written down somewhere, except one: “One cannot argue about opinion.” I really like that one because it gives a person permission to believe anything he or she wants.

What I want to share with you today are quotations about three specific areas: writing , reading, and grief. They may not sound related, but they are to me: I turned to both reading and writing during my time of active grief after our son died. Through the years, I have collected quotations about all three areas.

GRIEF Quotations

“If we knew what was going to happen around the corner, we wouldn’t get up in the morning.” -- Polly Shivers Walker (This is ever so true. I think that one of God’s biggest blessings is that He doesn’t tell us what will happen in the future.)

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” -- Anne Lamott  (I remember people saying to me, when Jay died, “How will you ever get over this?’, meaning Jay’s death. My reply came straight from God, “I won’t get over it, but I’ll get through it with the help of my family and friends and most of all . . . God.”)

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,

The deper the grief, the closer is God!” -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face – I know it’s an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.”  --Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle(I did this!)

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”  -- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed  (So true! This is one of the most beautiful books about grief.)

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

From an Irish headstone”  -- Richard Puz, The Carolinian

“I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.” -- Mitch Albom, For One More Day  (Jay died more than 25 years ago, and I still miss him every day.)

“Not only had my brother disappeared, but – and bear with me here – part of my very being had gone with him. Stories about us could, from then on, be told from only one perspective. Memories could be told but not shared.” --  John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back  (I know that this is how our daughter, Wendy, feels.)

READING Quotations

“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” – Malorie Blackman  (When we went back to church, about two weeks after Jay died, my librarian friend had gathered all the books she could find in our church library about how parents dealt with the death of a child. Because I could empathize with those parents and walk a bit in their shoes, I was able to learn how to deal with the death of our son.)

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison

“We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else’s mind.” – Anna Quindlen  (I can hardly go to sleep without reading first.)

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” – P. J. O’Rourke  (I hope thrillers are in this category!)

“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy books and that’s kind of the same thing.” – Anonymous (Well, Mr. Anonymous surely did know what he was talking about!)

“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” – C.S. Lewis  (I wish I would do this!)

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – C.S. Lewis (I’d rather have coffee, but I do love a long book!)

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” – Henry Ward Beecher (Oh, so very true . . . or on Amazon! I’m a sucker for a book!!)

WRITERS/WRITING Quotations

“I write to find out what I’m thinking about.” – Edward Albee

“It seems to me that writing is a marvelous way of making sense of one’s life, both for the writer and for the reader.” – John Cheever   (I write memoir so that someday IF anyone in my family is interested, he or she can see what I was thinking and what happened to me.)

“I write; therefore, I am.” – Samuel Johnson

“An experience isn’t finished until it’s written.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“We write to taste life twice: in the moment and in the retrospection.” – Anais Nin

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” – Flannery O’Connor

I have many more quotations that I love, but I don’t have the time to write them, and you don’t have the time to read them; however, I can’t close my piece on quotations without giving you my very favorite quotation in the whole world. It speaks my heart:

There is an endearing tenderness in the love of a mother to a son that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer to her by misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him. 

—Washington Irving

                                             

P is for My Favorite Photographer

P is for My Favorite Photographer

I’m not going to beat around the bush. Our daughter, Wendy Young, is my favorite photographer. She’s excellent in her field, but I want you to know what she went through to get to the point that other photographers, some very well known, also consider her excellent . . . ever so talented.

Wendy’s dad gave her her first camera, a Kodak Instamatic, when she was five or six years old. She had heard Frank talk about his loving photography and how he had learned to develop his own film; therefore, our Daddy’s Girl wanted to follow in his footsteps. So . . . the Christmas gift in 1968 or 1969, and Wendy was on a roll (pun intended). She went through lots of rolls of film during her childhood, most of it black and white because it was very expensive to purchase and develop color film back then. I’m sure that Wendy has some of those photos in a box somewhere or at least the negatives, but I don’t have any. If I did, I’d insert them right here!

Throughout her public school years, she continued to make images, as photographers call taking pictures. We knew that she loved photography, but it wasn’t until 1982 that we discovered how much she loved it and that she’d be a “real” photographer one day. A little explanation . . .

When she graduated from high school, she went to Southern Miss (the University of Southern Mississippi) to major in French horn. I must brag a bit: she was an excellent French horn player, and I could write a whole piece about that talent. We thought everything was going fine over there in Hattiesburg until her final grade report came, and she had failed everything except band and private French horn lessons. Since she had a music scholarship, it was obvious that she wouldn’t be able to keep it. We were very much disappointed, and she felt terrible about disappointing us. We wanted her to have a college education, but all we could afford was a year or two at Pensacola Junior College.

She was happy to be at home attending college, mainly because her boyfriend (whom we didn’t approve of) was in Pensacola. And so she enrolled for core curriculum courses, including music, of course. She was also taking a photography course. As far as we knew, she was doing fine in her all of her classes.

During my spring break in 1983, I decided to surprise our darlin’ daughter by waiting for her outside her English class and taking her to lunch. The surprise was on me! When class was over, all of the students filed out, but there was no Wendy. I knew her English teacher and approached him. “Rick, I came to meet Wendy, but she’s not here.”

“Wendy? Oh, yes. She’s your daughter. Oh, my, I haven’t seen Wendy since sometime in January.”

This was the same thing that she had done at Southern . . . skipped classes. I felt sure that I knew where she was. Rick told me how to get to the photography department.

Sure enough, there was Wendy, just as happy as could be. I told her that there would be a family conference that evening and that she had better head for home as soon as she finished in the lab. Wendy hated family conferences, so I know that her afternoon was miserable . . . as it should have been.

To make a long story short, we had our conference. Wendy told us that she wanted to major in photography instead of music. We said, “Fine, but there will be no more money for tuition. You’re on your own.” We did agree to help with the purchase of textbooks, but that was all.

Because she had signed up for and then dropped so many courses, she was on academic probation for years. During those years, she married, had our precious Corey, and divorced the man she never should have married, except that because of that marriage, we have Corey and a great barbecue recipe from her ex-husband’s father, who at one time was a cook at the prison. That’s probably more information than you really needed, but it makes for a good story.

Anyway, Wendy went on to take all of the photography courses offered in the excellent department at PJC. The professors that she had and the fellow students that she met are some of her best friends to this day. And they all admire Wendy’s work because she is a photographer of the “toppest notch” (I made that expression up, as you probably know. Just couldn’t think of anything better!).

In 1996, fifteen years after she started college, she finally almost graduated. You see, we aren’t super good in math in our family. Frank is good in geometry, and I did well in algebra because I kept my nose in a book all the time; however, math just didn’t interest Wendy. I shouldn’t say that. She loved working with the graphing calculator, mainly because she could almost draw pictures with it. In fact, she taught one of her adjunct professors to use it. But she just couldn’t pass College Algebra, and that course was necessary for getting her AA degree. She failed the course once, got a D once, and still had to take it again and make at least a C to graduate. Her problem wasn’t that she didn’t understand; she just couldn’t do well on tests.

She was teetering on passing and failing just before the final exam in 1996. Several of the students in her class gathered at our house the night before the exam, and Wendy was the teacher. She knew the material; she helped the other students.

But when the test was over and the students reported to class for the last time, they all received their grade slips, and Wendy’s had either a D or an F on it. I don’t remember. All I know is that she didn’t get a C, and she absolutely had to have at least that grade to get credit for College Algebra and graduate. When the other students learned that she wouldn’t graduate, they literally begged the teacher, an adjunct, to give her a C. Her reply was that giving her a passing grade wouldn’t be fair to all of them. They didn’t care, but she didn’t budge.

But did our photographer daughter get upset? Not on your life! Her response was that the College of Santa Fe, where she had already been accepted, didn’t require any math as a prerequisite for a Fine Arts in Photography degree. She “shook the dust of PJC from her sandals,” so to speak and started getting ready for her move to New Mexico. But let me tell you something else about graduation.

All she wanted was to wear a cap and gown and have her picture taken with her professors. She actually walked with the graduates, but she didn’t receive her diploma. Getting that was contingent on her getting an acceptable grade in algebra. But she got her photo! I wish I had a copy of it to show you.

I’ve told you all of that about Wendy, one of the smartest young women I’ve ever known (in lots of respects, not just photography) to tell you about her photography.

Because I’m not good at introducing you to the various stages in her photography career, I’ll give you links to her work. For each link, she has a narrative written. If you’d like to go to her website to see everything there, just put http://boxcarstudionm.comin your search slot. Here are some of my favorite places to check out on her website:

Early Work: http://boxcarstudionm.com/early-work

Teenagers: http://boxcarstudionm.com/teenagers

River: http://boxcarstudionm.com/river

Free, White, and Twenty-one: http://boxcarstudionm.com/free-white-and-twenty-one

A Long and Slow Surrender: http://boxcarstudionm.com/a-long-and-slow-surrender

Our Wendy is a super talented photographer, and we are ever so proud of her. She has come a long way in her journey, a journey that has taken her to the point that she’s well known in her profession. She’s the Girl Friday and more to Gay Block, a professional photographer; she has worked as an adjunct at her alma mater here in New Mexico (The College of Santa Fe, now known as the Santa Fe University of Art and Design); she now tutors in digital several professional photographers, who are famous in print photography. She has become well known in Santa Fe, and I can’t tell you how proud Frank and I are when we’re introduced as Wendy Young’s parents and then have the pleasure of listening to photographers and artists inform us about how good she is in her profession and what a wonderful person she is. We beam!

But I can’t close in my piece about Wendy without saying that in addition to being such a good photographer, she’s a wonderful wife, mother, and daughter. I see another piece in the making someday when I can introduce you to Wendy’s husband, Todd; her daughter, Corey; and her and Todd’s son, Jackson. Maybe I’ll write a book!