Ghosties, goblins and haints, oh my!

Resident ghouls one year at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow,

Pat, Dorothy, Tayla, Tom

 

            When I began this post, it had rained gently all day. I smelled the rain the first thing that morning, even before I knew it had begun. The aroma and the sound of rain have long been some of my favorite sensings. I like the foreboding sound of thunder, too, although that was lacking. A gentle rain should do--if not much to alleviate the drought--some good for the flowerbeds, azaleas and the dogwoods. From the looks of it, it's too late for the lilac in the back dooryard. If I get another one, I should plant it more in the shade, my brother said.

 

            Before leaving for Beebe on Saturday, I'd watered all the plants, put food and water out for the cats, worked up all the groundfall pears, washed clothes and run the dishwasher. What else?   Oh, before long, I need to find LPs of "Danse Macabre" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." I must locate "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to re-read--all in the celebration of Halloween. I won't do the zombie movies or books--those are of a different time and place. I'll remember the Halloween carnival recapped in my newest novel, "Her Face in the Glass."
 

            Some folks remember ghost stories from their childhood told by their grandfathers or other relatives. I don't. Is that a good thing or not, I wonder. A sister remembers that she and some of her siblings used to make masks out of brown paper bags.  Also, that they would sit on the stairs of the basement and tell boogie man "made up" stories along with scary noises.  "I think we also went to the cemetery and roamed around all up and down the road."

         

           We never did the ouija-board thing, either. I wonder why? You'd think with five girls and three boys and lots of friends, someone would have had access to one. Maybe we were too scared. Perhaps it was frowned on by our parents, the preacher or the church itself. Was it even around then?

 

            Speaking of scared, one brother says he donned an old sheet with holes for eyes, and came to our own front door. "I scared the bejesus out of the smaller kids. They  screamed bloody murder and hung on to Mom's skirt tail.

             I don't remember any of us Couch kids trick-or-treating, either. Bryant Schools DID have a Halloween carnival--at least ONE year. I DO remember that.

            Kid Billy ( now 25 years old) remembers that for many years, I made pumpkin pies out of jack-o-lanterns for many. He asked for the recipe. He remembers wearing a Ninja costume, and going with a babysitter through a college dorm in Arkadelphia--the first time he'd collected so much candy. He was 6 or 7.

            As a mother of four, I sewed a rabbit costume for the younger daughter, and a wonder-woman outfit for the older one. They were both drill teamers at the time. No idea how--or if-- the two boys "dressed up."

            No trick-or-treaters have visited Couchwood since long before Mom died in 2006. There weren't and aren't many children in this neighborhood. It's likely to change when the new subdivision goes in directly north of us.

            I have a bag of Halloween decorations and objects that I pull out each year. Kid Billy's papier mache pumpkin from art class has lost its chin but leers at me from its place on a book. Also, a multi-branched "tree" with figures hanging from it, a mug that reads, "It's scary without coffee," a black-plastic mouse, a Jack-o-lantern mug that I do not use and a small wooden witch. Also, a felt tote and a purse-sized, handled fanny pack--or something.

            Today, Halloween is almost as big a holiday as Christmas. Costumed children are already being photographed getting ready for--or attending--church carnivals. When I drove by mid-afternoon, Geyer Springs Baptist Church had a huge carnival set up and operating.

            I'll be doggone! I actually stayed on one subject for most of the column. Hmm. My attention span must be growing.

If you haven’t had a happy Halloween, it’s not because you haven’t had enough reminders on Facebook, or goings-on in your town. Remember to set your clocks back after all the "kiddies" have come and gone.



From pillar to post and back again

      It’s about time for another Dairy Hollow (writers’ colony) residency in Eureka Springs. I’ve been going “to the mountains” every autumn for the past five years. It is as gorgeous now as it is in the spring––only different. For three years, BFF Dot-from-Beebe has gone, too. One year, our planned trip to the Florida panhandle was cancelled due to an incoming severe weather event. We were psyched for a vacation, so we found a haven in The Hollow, where we also wrote. BUT, we visited Crystal Bridges as part of our get-away.           

There is an industry trend toward using fewer commas in the print media. Here is an example of a sentence where a comma would have helped me understand the context. “Masked youth wearing black torched cars...” My thought: how does one wear a torched car, even on Halloween?

            Re-reading, I paused—like a comma demands—and got the gist. “Torched” is a verb instead of an adjective. However, “torched cars” is also a possibility.

            If that weren’t enough, I read another headline that used “... OK—illegal ...” which if read rapidly, might give one an eerie feeling. An oxymoronic conundrum? Perhaps I’d better slow down from now on.

            Slowing down will not change the stupidity of the fellow who walked out of a Walmart in stolen jeans, leaving his old jeans and his wallet in the dressing room.

            What an ignoble way for a noble woman to die, especially at the age of 94. Mrs. Helen Wittenberg was pulled from a burning building near the Governor’s Mansion. She died a few days later of smoke inhalation.

            Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine mothers and/ or fathers naming their babies these unusual (to us) names. But there they are, in black-and-white-and read all over: Corney, Cotton, Lawrie, Oswald (female!), Maitland (m), Paskal, Kell, Arnis, Lonzo and Jewell (1916-era),  Roswald, Sundown, Mallard and Lessie, Chessie, Blossom, Ammer, Shenna and Binnie (m).

            I like the way Bill White (Hot Springs Novel Writers) writes. He’s a real journalist and knows that a good column concerns only one subject. I can’t seem to do that very often. Instead, I bounce from pillar to post, from subject to subject. Wonder if it has anything to do with attention spans?

            That said, here is a list of eponyms—words derived from proper names––that have become part of the language: pasteurized: Louis Pasteur; diesel: Rudolf Diesel (German); volt: Count Allesandro Volta; shrapnel: Henry Shrapnel; bigot: Nathaniel Bigot; lynch: William Lynch (18th century); bloomer: Amelia Jenkins Bloomer; and guillotine: Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

Maybe bouncing from pillar to post is one method of making sense of things. Or a way of keeping different projects at the forefront of one’s attention. An example: when I go into any room in this house, there is the temptation to straighten that, check this, finish moving that piece, continue “thinning” boxes of old cards and letters and games and school papers and . . .      Now, why did I come into this room?

           

 

Blogging about the tasks to complete between now and winter

[In searching for pears, Blogger wouldn't let any photo show up here except this one. I have a complaint submitted. Anyway, we need any rain that hangs in any clouds.]

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Several October tasks still loom: working up the small, drought-stricken, windfall pears is an annual October activity. A stranger stopped by last week. “What are you going to do with the pears, and may I have some?” At this writing, I have “worked up” four batches (with one more waiting), each batch resulting in  three containers of stewed, frozen fruit.

Another imminent must-do I've done is rearrange the old breakfast room to host the outside plants. With windows on the east, south and west, including the upper glass of the door, it the lightest place inside the main floor. I lugged in two heavy wooden benches and as many plant stands as I could fit around and in front of them. The small, round table ––with a pad of plastic covering the top–holds the split-leaf philodendron. And inside that large pot, two smaller ones fit nicely.

A nine-year-old dish garden and a new one from a son on Mother’s Day, were separated, ala Janet Carson’s suggestion, and now I have seven pots instead of two. A maranta (prayer plant) is on a bench, and the huge fern of Mom’s comes inside tomorrow before the night temps get to 42 degrees.

Two Boston ferns purchased several years ago had a hard time, both over the winter and during this torrid summer. I’ve groomed them so they look a lot better.

The five kinds of begonias [pictured(finally!) is brother Guy's plant] fared well over the summer. The tall corn plant sits on a bench, and Mom’s Norfolk pine occupies a low table. Smaller plants fit into that large pot, also.

An airplane plant––in an oblong pot––will fit on the sill of the high window in the bathroom. But the mother-in-law’s tongue perished during last winter from its place on the back porch. As did the peace lily, the sheffelera, and a Boston fern given to me from a son’s neighbor. A generous friend shared a part of her sheffelera, which is growing nicely, and my sister gave me her extra peace lily.

I do believe in resurrection, for that Boston fern from Hot Springs––only crisp, brown stalks this spring––came alive again and is a beautiful specimen.

Another thing that needs doing before winter sets in is covering the outsides of the several window ACs. The black things you buy for that purpose are too ugly. I’ll think of something.

Also, I need to put new glass in the top section of the back storm door. One of these days, I’ll have the entire door replaced. Sure—about the same time I have someone repair the living room ceiling, replace all the windows with simulated wood ones. “They look like the original ones, but they are expensive,” my sibling said. I knew that.

I won't put away the hose until it rains. In fact, just tonight--with the aid of the motion light and the front-porch light, I watered the annuals and the mums. Oh, I know watering is supposed to be done in the mornings, but . . .

And there's weather stripping to add around the drafty doors. Always something to do in October, isn’t there?

Enjoy the tasks you've set for yourself. IF you can.
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PL - dba lovepat press, 2015

HER FACE IN THE GLASS now available in e-book and softback from Amazon. Reviews appreciated.

Of October and poets

Northeast flowerbed, Couchwood (Saline County) '15

                The first few days of October have been perfect for a pajama-and-robe sit-out. In fact, one day, cool, breezy temps necessitated both a long-sleeved shirt and a wind breaker––and socks.  Even then, I was cold, so I moved inside to the dining table.

            One October activity has come and gone. The annual National Poetry Day Celebration of the Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas happened last Saturday at the Cox Building in Little Rock. I bummed a ride in return for a book and a bucket of pears. My chauffeur, Dennis Patton, the new president, won not only the Merit Award, but also the $1,000 first-place Sybil Nash Abrams Award. His wife Frieda, a board member, made sure he didn’t dawdle over the board meeting. He and I, Cathy Parker and Don Crowson of the Saline County branch brought home 23 awards—close to 15% of the prizes/ places given.

           Hot Springs poets were well represented, both in sponsoring three contests, judging and winning. Delores Hinde sponsored a contest. Dr. John Crawford, Hinde and Linda Woodbury each judged a contest, while Crawford, Woodbury and Bethel Kymes brought home awards. The family of the late Opal Jane and Harry O’Neal, long-time, dedicated members of the Rountables (both the state and local), sponsored two contests.

           Speaking of Hot Springs poets, here is a poem by the late Nina Tillery that mentions both October and poets. It won a coveted honorable mention in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies contests in 1999, and was published in the Poets’ Roundtable of Arkansas’s anthology in 2002.

THE PARADE by Nina Tillery
I watched a parade of poets pass my window
in October. I tried to catch their singing
as they marched briskly by.

Longfellow trailed his garments past
and Whitman sang of blades of grass. 
Frost predicted fire and ice; 
Sandburg traced the prints of mice.

Eliot swayed to and fro
mumbling of Michelangelo. 
Hopkins touted simple sight;
Williams burned fir trees to ash.

Cummings moved through dooms of clowns; 
Roethke and Papa waltzed around. 
Bishop carried a wallpaper fish; 
Sexton chased a twelve-fingered witch.

Giovanni declared the Congo taboo; 
Plath chased about a big black shoe. 
I waved to Angelou, Oates and Moore, 
Bly, Neruda, and all gone before.

Then I fell in step behind them, 
proud and sober,
and I marched past open windows
with the poets in October.
                  
Here’s wishing you pleasant mornings in October. Perhaps with your favorite cuppa and a book of poems.

Blogging about a busy weekend

Photo by Thurman Couch, Pasadena, CA

 

Last weekend was an aberration, an anomaly. Thank goodness, it’s now history, and I can begin living the rest of my life normally. Until next year at this same time.

The city of Conway began celebrating a week called “Arts Fest” last Saturday, and as part of that, the Faulkner County Library, with Nancy Allen as coordinator, planned another Authors’ Fair for the afternoon—from one till four p.m. Set-up time was thirty minutes beforehand.

Writer-friend Dot-from-Beebe and I drove over and pulled up to a spot close to the door. I had more to schlep, uh, haul in than she did, since I was hawking two books. Which meant a floor easel, a large poster (from the first time I participated), plus table decorations, candy and books (of course). Dot was selling FOUR books, but this was her first Fair. She brought her stuff in a handled box.

Once our space was assigned, we set about designing our displays, plus the out-sized name tags for the table, large, framed photos of the books to be featured, as well as portable easels to hold them.

Twenty-four long tables—four to a side--were squeezed together or turned at an angle, so that the only way for the vendors (of whom I was one, though I never, ever called myself such before) to “escape” was to walk through the “stacks” until we could find a way out of the maze. Once, I got down on all fours and “walked” under the table to see my display from the front and to tape the nametag to the cloth.

At 1 p.m., the traffic began. And, unlike three years ago when the Fair was in its first year, it never let up. A high-school girl, who reminded me of my great-niece Marley, was reporting for “Arts Fest” itself. She wore a Hendrix College shirt, so I engaged her about that. Other college-age couples—one from Missouri—came by, mostly interested in how we got started writing, etc. One woman in a group of three read the back cover material of our books, but went on without buying.

Several reporters and one Little Rock TV station were represented. The latter interviewed one writer for quite a spell. UCA was represented by several folks, but my writing mentor at Hemingway-Pfeiffer’s June writing retreat was not there after all.

Finally, a childhood friend who lives in Conway came in as promised. Her car had died, so a cheerleader-granddaughter drove her over and waited in the car. Mae and I “caught up,” as they say. She bought two sets of books—four in all—to send to her siblings AFTER she read them. 

Anna came in once. This child who had cheered at the football game the previous night, and then attended the dance afterwards, was sleep-deprived, but seeing that Mae was not ready to leave, again left the area.

About quitting time, Anna returned. This time, she gathered Mae’s things, took the books in hand and gently guided her grandmother out. Mae was headed out, but her face was turned to me and waved. “Come see me,” she called.

A fun experience and fifty dollars to show for it. Dot and I treated ourselves at Arby’s before heading back to Beebe. The pumpkin milkshake and brisket sandwich hit the spot.