New Years is such a peculiar holiday on the calendar. It doesn’t have religious nor historic connotations like most major holidays although it does contain elements of both. The drinking or party phase section of the population, commemorate it with the required bacchanalia and woozy recovery but the rest of us aren’t so sure of our role. We can review the year end lists or re-watch The Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller biopics that seem to appear on each New Year’s Eve TV schedule but by now I know exactly when Lionel Hampton will show up and June Allyson will tug on her ear lobe. Nope, I don’t want to spend this New Year’s re-watching the same old movies, nor do I want to spend it kicking my poor old liver with an overdoes of scotch. Instead I want to end the year as I’ve spent it: in the company of words. Reading New Books – After checking various electronic records and the drain that sucks up my spare income and phone space (Amazon Kindle) I can safely say I read at least one new book every week this year, which was sort of like making a new friend every week. Some…
Another Christmas is looming fast and I see the hordes of last-minute shoppers whenever I drive by the stores – a vision that triggers my agoraphobia. Still, I understand the shoppers’ need to seek out each perfect present. Those presents are for loved ones and each year we want to give them something they want or they need. So, wish lists can really aid a holiday shopper. Still, sometimes it’s the present that’s not on the list that makes the biggest impact. It was 1972 when we celebrated Christmas in California. My parents drove half way across the continent so we could spend the holidays with my mother’s parents in their San Diego apartment. California was unalloyed good as far as my sister and I were concerned. California meant warmth, and trips to Disneyland, and time with grandparents who would move heaven and earth to gratify our every whim. I was 13 and, in Grandma’s words “too old for toys, too young for boys”, so my wish list was fairly nebulous but my sister was much younger and very specific. She wanted Mattel’s “Barbie Surprise House”, one of the hot-ticket items that year. Since I was “old enough to know”,…
People have certain expectations about the genres they favor and mystery fans expect stories driven by a puzzle. As interesting or well-developed as some of the characters in these stories are, they still exist to serve the central plot and very few of them are driven by ideals. Holiday stories, on the other hand, focus much more on character and these usually have an underlying moral code. That’s what makes Sue Ann Jaffarian’s The Ghost of Mistletoe Mary such an unexpected delight. She balances the requirements of both genres and then blends them to create a mystery with a heart. Like Charles Dickens, Jaffarian has a keen social conscience for the downtrodden in our society. Dickens noticed the growth of the Industrial Age also exploited the least protected in Victorian Society – the poor and children, in particular. Jaffarian’s story takes us to Skid Row in Los Angeles and the dispossessed of our own era: the indigent, the addicts, the emotionally troubled, and all too often, the military veterans whose return to civilian life is hijacked by untreated traumas. Because these people don’t fit in with society’s norms and because they tend to distrust the police, they are easy…
Every November for the past 15 years, various aspirants to Literary Lionship have girded on their writing tools and thrown away their few remaining brain cells on what is known as NaNoWriMo – the Nation Novel Writing Month. The objective of this event is to see if the would-be writer can create a first draft of a 50,000 word novel within 30 days. What follows is the expurgated diary of one of these self-imposed masochists. 11/1/15 – Ok, here goes nothing, as the man said. Got an idea, got a word-processor and the nice people at http://nanowrimo.org/ promise that if I’ll just scribble down 1,666 words of this thing every day, I’ll have a sure-nuff 50K word first draft by the end of the month. At least Darling Spouse is in my corner. What would I do without him? 11/4/15 There are thousands of writers using this site and everyone else seems bustin’ loose and making literary history. I’ve got a first chapter done – I don’t like it, it stinks, but at least it’s done. I sure am glad six or seven of these people want to be my writing buddies – misery loves company and maybe they…
Those next hours were the worst and the longest I’ve known since Ponder died. I kept struggling to move forward with Jerry’s arm around my neck, his bad right foot banging against my left like we were the last pair in a three legged race. We walked through fields a good five yards away from the road and tried not to stumble. The hot still night hugged my right side and Jerry hugged the left. Sweat and blood brought out ever biting bug and they got every inch of us that wasn’t covered by clothes or each other. As we rocked along like some old, drunken couple, I heard myself singing under my breath: “Leaning, leaning, leaning on the ever-lasting arms of God” “Leaning, leaning, leaning on the ever-lasting arms of God” Jerry threw back his head and laughed “Viola, I’d never have picked you as a holy roller!” Well I’m not but I’d gone to church enough to learn the old hymns. Jerry must have too because he joined me on the chorus after we hit the paper mill smell. On and on, over and over, I put one foot out and then the…