Listen, my children and you shall hear

            It’s Poetry Month! All the month of April—as if I don’t every month—I’m reveling (maybe even wallowing) in poetry. Here are some poetry resolutions.

1.      Read more poetry!

2.      Find poets I haven’t read before.

a.       John Koethe

b.      Harryette Mullen

c.       Larry Levis

d.      Rosemary Catacalos

3.      Read old friends

a.       Billy Collins

b.      Maxine Kumin

c.       Shakespeare (!)

d.      Sharon Olds

e.       Rita Dove

My little reading table is getting
overloaded! So many books. . .

Here I’ve got to stop to tell what happened yesterday as I thought about reading old friends. One of my oldest poet friends (I’ve written about this before) is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Now a poet friend of mine has told me Longfellow is “out” in these day. Not to this girl. I have lots of his lines tattooed into my brain during my grade school days. Never know when they’ll come in handy; like this morning. When I glanced at the morning paper the date sprang out—April 17. Hmmm. Then, tomorrow is April 18. And the words popped not just into my head but out of my mouth—

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteen of April in Seventy–five

Listen my children

Minutes later, the book was in my hands and I read the tale aloud right to the final words.

Through all our history, to the last,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

There I was, in the fifth grade wearing my new spring dress in the center of the stage at the Wolflin School spring program. I gave it all I had. Did everything but bring a horse on stage with me and wear a three cornered hat. Now that I think about it, maybe I did wear a hat. My whistling, stomping dad led the ovation that followed. Thank you, HWL for a great poem, a bit of history, and a fine memory.

Now back to my list:

4.      Write some poetry—I write lots of haiku (check me out on Facebook, occasionally I’ll post one.) This month I’m stretching. Maybe a longer poem about the cats, or the kids at the museum, or the big oak tree. Maybe, one about what’s going on in the news—does history repeat itself?

Poet Laureate of Texas
Rosemary Catacalos

5.      Hear some poets read in person. My wonderful indie bookstore Brazos Books has almost weekly readings. I’ve made one. Last night I met a new poet friend—in person. Off I hied to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to hear Rosemary Catacalos, the Poet Laureate of Texas, read her poems and to top it off to a party where I’ll met her. What a treat! You saw her name in my new-to-me poets list. Not anymore. I’ve read (more than once) her recently reissued 30-year-old book “Again for the First Time.” They ran out of her new one, “Begin Here” before I could buy one. Not to worry. I ordered it first thing this morning.

and her book.

Serendipity

 

 “You can’t read all day unless you start in the morning,” a friend recently advised. Many a day that’s advice I follow happily. I’m not a reader who takes a book and reads from start to finish before looking at another. No, what I’m reading depends on the time of day, my mood and even the weather.

            I read across the spectrum. I may escape in some light detective fiction just before bedtime, but daytime hours are likely to find me deep in biography, travel or serious fiction. Although I enjoy them all, I do have a favorite genre—memoir. That’s why I was more excited than usual a few weeks ago when a book package appeared by the front door. A new memoir to review for Story Circle Book Review! Saturday morning I braved the rain to head for the Black Hole Coffee House to sip a latte while I read The Secrets of the Notebook: A Woman’s Quest to Uncover Her Royal Family Secret by Eva Haas. Actually, it was three lattes. The book demanded to be read straight through.  Check at  http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/secretsofthenotebook.shtml  and see what I think.

I read all sorts of memoirs, not just for reviewing but for pleasure and learning.   I’ve just finished taking a personal writing class; we are used a book of essays (Book of Days) by Emily Fox Gordon as a source for our writing prompts. I became intrigued by the author’s style and bought one of her earlier books, Are You Happy? It addresses memories of her early childhood. I stepped right into her Mary Janes. Or mine. For as I read about her life in Williamstown, Massachusetts, I remembered the little girl in Amarillo, Texas half a continent away.

            While reading, I started a list of those suddenly-surfacing memories, a patchwork of little Trilla’s life. And, no surprise, the earliest memory I have is about a book. My sister is in the brown chair reading from an orange story book. I’m tucked between her and the arm of the overstuffed chair. I look at the pictures and wish I could read too. She starts to read the story about a chicken to me, but she’s only in the second grade; she gets tired of stumbling on the big words. Mother promises she’ll read it to both of us as soon as the ironing is finished and supper started.  I know she’ll keep her word, but I want to be able to read it to myself right now.

It's ours for sure--Sarah Nan
and Patricia Louise Nordyke!

A wonderful book--still!

A few days after I enjoyed this memory, serendipity struck. When I’m not reading or writing, I often spend some time trying to simplify our lives. Part of this involves going through boxes unopened for, sometimes, many years deciding what we can live without. That day I opened yet another box marked “miscellaneous papers” to find not papers but old books.  Near the top was a bright orange, well-worn book, The All About Story Book. The book! What was it doing here? When I’d remembered it, I assumed it was long gone, now I held it in my hands. I turned crumbly pages until I got to 37 and found “All About Miss Fluffy Chick.” I sank down to the concrete floor and read it.

Later, I went to the computer and did some detective work and found an affordable copy. Guess what my sister can look forward to for her birthday? If I can wait that long. She knows she’ll likely be getting a book, she almost always does, but this one will be a real surprise.

Now we’ll see if she reads my blog. Nan, give me a call and you won’t have to wait ‘til your birthday to get your All About Story Book!

Think she'll be surprised?

 Happy Reading! 

(This entry also appears at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com/category/interviews-book-reviews/book-learning/ )

My bluebonnet girl

[I posted a version of this entry two years ago. It’s bluebonnet season and a special day, a very special day at our house, so here’s an ever so slightly updated version. This may become an annual tradition!]

Another baby!  Yea! And, maybe, maybe this time a girl? Not that I really cared, but for several months all liquid that entered my body, even at parties, came via my pink mug. I got a handbag big enough to carry it everywhere.

            Boy or girl, didn’t really matter, no, what bothered me was that we lived in Oklahoma. This wouldn’t do. I might have a girl (I hope, I hope, I hope) or a boy (fine by me) but by gosh or by golly, I was going to have a Texan. My plan? About a month ahead, visit my mother in Amarillo and refuse to leave.

            Then, a bolt from the blue! Bob was transferred to Houston. Off we went in the big Chevy wagon—Daddy, Mother, the four-year-old, Mr. 17-months, and Daffodil the part-cocker.  That was in March.

            April 8—we welcomed our bluebonnet baby, our bluebonnet girl, born in the peak of bluebonnet season! Katy joined the clan. (Aptly named Daffy didn't make the picture.)

            She was a joy then, and a joy (and lots of laughs) along the way. She became a lovely young woman.

            

 

And a fantastic daughter. And  now a good Montrose neighbor—on her way over right now to do the NYT crossword. Thank goodness it’s Monday! 

            Guess what! We unearthed that long ago pink mug, and it is now Katy’s exclusively,  A pink mug of coffee goes well with a puzzle.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATY P, MY BLUEBONNET GIRL.

February 14--years ago

Valentine Day—oh, that brings back school day memories. Mother was a procrastinator, so we’d spend the afternoon of the thirteenth dashing from H&Y Drugstore ownered by those cute Hansard twins' daddy, to Goeslin’s (later TG&Y) on a frantic search for Valentines. Then, after supper, we’d sit around the breakfast table and address them. I was a scrawly writer, so she helped. One for each kid in the class. That was the rule. Miss Copeland had sent home the list two weeks ago, and the rule, “one for everyone or none at all.”

            This followed the first grade disaster. It was Miss Harper’s (name disguised to protect the guilty) first year to teach. She later swore they didn’t teach her this at Texas Women’s. We spent a couple of days of our art period (ahh, we did have art every day in those good old days) building and decorating our “Valentine Post Office.” Then the big day came. One at a time, we went and played postman filling the boxes. Then in reverse order we took the sack we’d brought our Valentines in and collected our mail.

            Disaster. Jerry, who couldn’t learn to read and nobody liked didn’t get but two and the one Miss Harper gave him. Thank goodness for my sweet mother, mine was one of the two. Several other kids only got a few. And Julia W. and Betty A. got one from everyone and two from some of the boys. I did okay. But I can still remember some of the kids I didn’t get one from. Never again.

            One for all and all for one!

            That’s not my biggest February 14^th memory though. That one has nothing to do with Valentines other than the date. We lived in Amarillo, in the middle of the wind-swept Panhandle of Texas. Often we got the gift (?) of ‘blue northers’ from the icy Rocky Mountains, swept across the plains by a ferocious North wind, the blizzards could be blinding. Mother hated them. February was usually the worst month. Dorothy, the eternal optimist, declared that because spring was around the corner, on February 14 it was appropriate to wear a new spring cotton dress. She spent much of January and early February making dress for my sister and me. (Sewing was not her long suite, but she hung in and did it.) No more heavy jumpers and sweaters.

One year we were mid-snow storm. I despaired about my new dress. I certainly couldn’t wear it in the snow. Not a problem. After I put it on, Mother pulled my Sunday wool jumper over my head, declaring that the green in the jumper matched the green in the leaves of the daisies she’d embroidered around the neck. Off I went to Wolflin School through the snow with my bag of Valentines feeling smart, stylish and very springish. 

Not Just Any Day, January 20

Look at the calendar—it’s January 20, Friday—just another day with a long to-do list and a party tonight. But wait, January 20, the date rings a bell. Think. Yes. It’s Inaugural Day. Well, some years it’s Inaugural Day, and suddenly a couple of quick snapshots pop into my mind as I regard the calendar.

            In 2008 I lived deep in the south of a deeper than Deep South state so red (Georgia) that you might consider it a pre-primary color. While, even there, a few others shared our feelings, we mostly headed the 40 or so miles south to the friendlier environs of Tallahassee. After all, Tally is a state capital and has two major universities—what else would you expect? We had a women’s (we didn’t ask if they were ladies—didn’t matter) lunch group that could grow quite rabid. One of my good friends and fellow club members gave me a call a few days before Inauguration Day. Come on down for lunch and a glass of wine to watch the ceremonies. I got there early.

            When the time came we gathered around the huge screen, silent. Picture the group—all women of a “certain age.” Some of them certainly of a “certain age.” Except for me, all were native north Floridians, most from families of substance, families who had settled the land in the early 1820s, doubtless slaveholders. These women had grown up accustomed to African American servants, the traditional southern way of living.

            And now they clustered around the huge screen, glasses of red wine clutched in their hands, ready for the moment. The President-elect, soon to be President, strode up the steps. One woman burst into tears. She stood up, glass in hand.

            “I never thought I’d see the day!” She raised her glass. The rest of us rose and joined the toast to our new leader. Certainly a day to be proud!

            Go back, way back, 49 years to a young housewife/part-time student thinking about cleaning the kitchen. She was always thinking about cleaning the kitchen; lots more than she ever cleaned the kitchen. She poured another cup from the electric peculator and settled down at the kitchen table—really just the table, in this tiny house, there was no dining room. Her barely-two-year-old thundered up and down the hallway on the tiny tricycle he’d gotten for his birthday a couple of weeks before. It was too cold on the blustery plains of the Texas Panhandle for him to go outside. Why not? She asked herself. It’s a historic day. She flipped on the TV, and as she would so many more times began to watch a President-elect with a lovely family mount to the platform.

Sometimes he rode
a pony instead of
a trike.

            “Ask not what you can do for your country. . .”

            She grabbed the child as he whirled by and held him fast on her lap. “You are watching history!”

            During the campaign she’d been a vocal campaigner, even if she didn’t vote for Jack Kennedy—she was too young, wouldn’t hit 21 until that July. But that didn’t hold her back. When Kennedy made a five minute layover at the Amarillo Airport she’d gone with her equally ardent granddad and had been at the front of the handshaking line, child in her arms. She sported a bumper sticker on the clunker of the white Studebaker Scotsman that the young family tried to get around in. (Sometimes it preferred to take a nap.) That sticker had gotten her in trouble.

            The family usually joined her mother for services at the First Presbyterian Church and then, along with a chunk of the congregation, for dinner at the Silver Grill. As they stood in line one of the church dowagers came up to her.

            “Honey, I know you’re young and probably haven’t thought about it, but you really shouldn’t have that sticker on your car and park in the church parking lot. Really, dear, you shouldn’t have that sticker at all. You know,” she lowered her voice, “that man’s a Catholic.” In case the point was missed, she said it again. “A Catholic.”

            The young woman (you know who she is) almost bit a hole in her lower lip. She was too good a daughter to be rude in front of her mother. But the next day, the Studebaker had two bumper stickers.

Once upon a time

I know where I was 53 years ago today—in my family backyard, renamed ‘the garden’ for the occasion. At precisely 9:30 in the morning, my friend Carol Brown started working her way through Handel’s Largo, I took my father’s arm and all of eighteen (for a whole month) I floated down the stairs into married life.

            Bob stood at the alter shifting from one foot to the other; such a mature man. He was nineteen. The garden alter was lovely draped in ivy and white chrysanthemums. Forty-eight hours earlier, it had still been the big swing set made of three-inch pipe and set in concrete. Mother didn’t want any tipping over. Swings down, flowers up. Instant alter. Years later, I watched my children hang by their knees on the spot where we made our vows. That’s the side of the ‘alter’ to my right in the picture.

            I didn’t feel nervous. I didn’t think I was nervous, but the minute we got to where Bob, our fine and understanding minister, Burnette Dowler, stood waiting and Daddy released my arm, I started shaking. It was the first time. It was the last time. I felt and probably looked like a fern in the water. The something deep in me was yelling, “Watch out.”

            We proceeded. When the time came to take Bob’s hand, I was fine. The fern found her roots. Rings changed, cake eaten, clothes changed, hop in my folks car (they later drove ‘our’ well-decorated Plymouth down Polk Street, Amarillo’s main drag) and off for our romantic honeymoon.

           

August 30, 1958

            Been a long, long road with ups, downs, curves and even a few detours, but we’re still on it looking for new adventures, old books, and fun. 

Bob and Trilla, 2011

Fun: When Bob saw the  wedding picture for the first time in a few years, he asked why I was holding hands with Buddy Holly. What do you think?

Sudden memories

Grandmother and Grandfather Nordyke on the
Callahan County, Texas farm. The grey Chevy
is parked under the cottonwood in front.

Have you ever been reading a book and suddenly swept up by it, you land right in the middle of your own memories? That’s what happened when I read the first chapter of The Sound of Windmills by Jackie Woolley. She so described life on a hard scrabble Texas farm in the 1940s that all of a sudden I was back in the grey Chevy going to visit my grandparents on that on-the-edge farm where my dad grew up.

Here’s the review I wrote of this book for Story Circle Book Reviews. ( You can read my review at http://storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/windmills.shtml.

The Sound of Windmills

Jackie Woolley

The trip to see Grandmother and Grandfather on their family farm on the semi-arid, windy, and lonely edge of west Texas delighted this little girl. As we drove up the dirt road in our old gray Chevrolet, I bounced all over my side of the back seat knowing I was going to have so much fun--gathering eggs, watching Grandmother milk the cow, walking down to Greenbriar Creek to gather dewberries, not to mention gobbling up the dewberry cobbler that came out of the woodstove just a little later. All of this played out  to the background serenade of the whirring windmill. It was lots of fun for a city girl, but not so much for the couple who wrestled their living from these 287 acres for most of their adult lives. It remains a memory I treasure: not only for the fun but, now, for the character and good natures of these two strong people.

            All these memories and many more, came rushing back as I read Jackie Woolley's multigenerational saga of the Taylor family. Myra and Joel Taylor live with their daughters, Marilyn and Rugene on a working farm, much like my grandparents', near the fictional town of Langor, Texas. It's a hard life, and Woolley has an excellent eye and ear for it. I do not know exactly how much of this story is autobiographical; I suspect, quite a bit.

            The hardness of farm life is made even harder for the Taylor family because as the story opens, Joel, a polio victim, is dying. Myra, who has done most of the farming and managing for years, expects to carry on with the help of her daughters and a trusted hand, but after Joel's death, their long-time landlord (they are sharecroppers) mercilessly tosses them out within days. Stricken, Myra lands on her feet, and begins to form a new life for the three. This is the true beginning of the long story.

            The focus is primarily on the younger daughter Rugene, a strong spirit and sometimes lonely bookworm. She is determined to go the college and find a life for herself but not in Langor. At the same time she is determined that "I'll be back someday. I'm going back to buy the old farm.” Rugene manages to live much of her dream. Meanwhile, Marilyn and Myra also struggle with their own lives and as well as with holding the three of them together as a family.

            Because the novel spans several decades, it might have been confusing to a reader. What is happening to whom and when?  Woolley handles this problem skillfully by working historic happenings into her story without being obtrusive. The book is no one-night read. It is a rather daunting 545 pages, and is full of twists and turns; however, the main story moves nicely along holding the reader's interest. By the time it comes to a close most of its issues are resolved and three strong women are at peace with themselves and with each other.

Thanks for the memory

I promise. This won't be sad. But. . .

Twenty-four years ago today, my mother died. I'm not going to tell that tale. Rather, I'll share a favorite story.

We'd moved to Houston. Mother lived in our family home on Lipscomb Street in Amarillo.  We or, at least, the three kids and I made the right-at 800 mile drive every summer for a couple of weeks of fun--memories they treasure. (I looked on one of the guy's Facebook profile and found he was claiming Amarillo instead of Houston as his home town. Hmmmmm.)

Mother came to see us as well, but it was rarely for fun. Usually she'd dropped what she was doing, walked away from her desk at the Amarillo Globe-Times just as soon as she could find someone to cover for her in reponse to my cry for help. One time a kid had been a terrible accident, I needed to be at the hospital, who would keep the other babies? Mother. That was but one.

This time was different. She'd come as part of my birthday present. I got a sitter for the day and she and I set out for a day of grown-up fun. She'd lived in Houston as a bride. We found the duplex where they lived. Ever the reporter she hopped out of the white Studebaker and sprinted to the front window. She came back with a funny look on her face.

"What is it?"

"It's the same furniture!"

Now it was time for the real fun--shopping downtown. Hard to believe, but this was pre-Galleria Houston. The fine stores were all downtown. This was a special trip. I suspect now that Mother had engineered the whole thing. Almost all of my birthday presents had been money. Not just Mother, but Bob, my grandparents, even my sister, who was on as tight a young-family budget as I was managed  five bucks. Mother told me that it was time I had a good dress. Not something I'd made myself, and not, not, not that cut down maternity dress.

Off we went to Neiman Marcus for lunch. This was the start of a great tradition. For the next twenty or so years, every time Mother made a non-emergency Houston visit, we alway had lunch at Neiman Marcus--downtown, then Galleria, finally the now long-gone Neiman's in Town and Country near our house.

"We'll look for that dress here," Mother told me.

"No. Let's go to Foley's. I can get two for what one will cost here."

"Let's at least look. It's so much fun." We hopped on the escalator.

The prices in the dress department knocked me out. "Let's go."

"Oh, try on a couple." Mother pulled a dress off the rack. "This one's not too expensive, and there are so many thing you can do with a black dress. Dress it down for church, dress it up with a pin for those company parties." She gave me that look. I'd had an almost lecture over afternoon coffed the day before about a wife's responsibility to make her husband proud, or, at least not embarrass him with a made-over maternity dress.

Just to hush her, I agreed. It was my money; I was going to buy two dresses at Foley's.  The saleswoman acted like I was the most important customer she'd had in two weeks. Was this dressing room fine? Would we like a cup of tea? What else could she do?

I wanted to cry. I'd never looked so good in my life. Not even in the wedding dress I'd bought on sale. I turned, I looked this way and that in the three-way mirror. Another mirror on the other wall showed my back. I looked good all the way around.

"Just imagine it with  your pearls."  Mother had given me and my sister pearls for high school graduation.

I could. Time to finish this before I wavered. Just as I reached for the zipper, the saleswoman reappeared.

"Can I bring something else."

Mother smiled brightly. "She'll take it."

"Wonderful choice."

I waited until she left with the dress before I started. Mother held up her hand.

"Listen to me. You are worth it. That's why we all gave you money. So you'd have a dress worthy of you."

I hushed. I also wore that dress until it was a thread and loved every minute of it. I still love it's memory.

Thanks Mother.

So what to do today to honor her memory. I can't drive 800 miles to put flowers on her grave. I could make a donation, but no.

I'm going to buy a new outfit and make her proud.