Still too hot to work outside

During last week’s heat wave, I stayed inside. Also, I was under a deadline to enter a regional writers conference contests. I entered seven—three prose pieces and four poems. And I even made it BEFORE deadline. Now, I’m facing two more sets of contests with mid-August deadlines.

Another inside activity that has taken more of my time is reading the current news, both online and in print. It’s not that I don’t have things to do in this house, but I feel a compulsion to keep up with EVERYTHING going on in the country and the world. I credit Dr. Richard Yates at Hendrix College during the late ‘50s when I took American and World Governments. Made Ds in both, but I cared not then nor now.

I’m learning, too, as I read. Just today, I looked up the word, “exculpatory,” a word used by Mr. Giuliani. That’s an adjective for “exculpate,” a verb meaning to show or declare that (someone) is not guilty of wrong doing.

Puzzles educate now and then: I didn’t remember (if I ever knew) that Zimbabwe was once Rhodesia. And that a “cure-all” is E-L-I-X-I-R. I had the last letter wrong; no wonder I couldn’t figure it out. “Salient” was the answer to “conspicuous,” and “vera” means “truth.”

A prison cellblock can hold approximately 60 inmates, according to an article by C. Turnage in the  state paper last week. And the U. S. Forest Service was created in 1905. So wrote F. Lockwood, ADG.

For the longest time, I’ve heard—but never used—the word “inflation.” Now, I know what it means to inflate a tire, but I’ve never grasped the concept of inflation except that it’s not necessarily a good thing. But an ADG editorial last week, had an actual definition, which I quickly wrote down: “A hidden tax that destroys the value of our currency.”

Bing Online defines it this way: “In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over … time. When the price level rises, each [dollar] buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange and unit of account within the economy.” OK, inflation is when our cash buys less now than it used to. Got it.

“Hegemony” is another mystifying word. Two pronunciations are listed online:” həˈjemənē,” and “hejəˌmōnē.” It means: “leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others.” I’ll never use it in conversation, but I can now pronounce it in my head when I read it.

Finally, another F. Lockwood article elucidates a bit of government information: “Under the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, lawmakers are supposed to pass a dozen separate spending bills by October 1, the start of the federal fiscal year.

“But that hasn’t been done by deadline in more than two decades. Some years, they fail to pass any of the 12—late or otherwise. Instead, they pass a series of stop-gap spending measures, known as continuing resolutions, or they pass a single, massive spending package.” Hmm. By October 1, we’ll see what this year’s Congress has done/ will do.

            Stay cool, folks.

c 2018, PL d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA

A bit of nostalgia: the late Charles Allbright, Arkansas Traveler columnist

Cover of the hardback book in my library, published by August House in 1986, copyright held by Maylon T. Rice

After a near computer crash, I spent the following days moving documents to an external hard drive, just in case. This, instead of working in the yard during this heat wave. I knew better’n to do that. I scrolled through columns dating back to 2011, stopping specifically at any dated early July. Perhaps I could update one and reprint it. All columnists do that occasionally.

All writers also keep stacks of clippings: things to file, articles to rebut, ideas for stories, etc. Here is where a 2013 column begins:

Serendipitously, while going through sheets of old paper looking for something—I found. . . I found a yellowed newspaper article. The date was October 8, 2000. The paper was the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was the “Arkansas Traveler” column by Charles Allbright. The headline read, “Last (but not least) names.”

The first words of the article were "PAT LASTER TAUGHT SCHOOL 27 years . . .”

I’ve been retired 24 years, but even 18 years ago, I was keeping a log of names. 
Here, without permission from Mr. Allbright, who died in late 2015, or the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette bigwigs, or Maylon Rice, who is a Facebook friend, I’ll reprint it as it was.

“Pat Laster taught school 27 years, then one day found herself running wild-eyed out of her classroom, never to return. The devil helped her do it.

“‘I’d endured all the L. and A. I could take.” Lip and Attitude, from parents. A few each semester can engage the world’s most hopeful profession in ongoing dogfight.

“Pat Laster believes that J. Gatling is not catching the same from parents in Morrilton. She loves J.’s autumnal ritual of studying the names of his new students in Morrilton High. Then sharing them, as lyrics for a hopeful tomorrow.

“’I hope Mr. G. can keep it up longer.”

“So. How go Pat Laster’s days?

“’In the quiet of my mornings with only the fan’s whir and the calico’s purr, I take names, too. Mostly from the obituaries in newspapers.”

"Special names? None can be more special. Names of those who died. Their loved ones. Their pallbearers. Their preachers. Most are at the far end of Mr. Gatling’s life songs.

“And what will Pat Laster do with her houseful of special names? Why, put them in her novel, of course. Maybe employing the begat format. Or Faulkner’s stream of consciousness. Somebody said “Requiem for a Nun” went 42 pages before encountering its first period. No, no, not your antebellum kind of period. The punctuation mark that ends a sentence. We will be checking this for truth. For one thing, we love the book. For another, true or untrue, where will you find a better example of a mind’s running dolefully amok?

“With deepest respect, Pat Laster enters names from the newspapers in her journal. These are Arkansas names: Orbin. Drue. Chane. Dyka. Chelese. Phala. Waldine. Dibrell. Bobara. Destine. Lucchese. Delta. Dakota. Homerleen. Vileras. Duard. Dax. Malderine. Timber. Nela. Delbra. Kendyl. Reck. Lapria. Shanny. Odd.

“It never occurred to B. F. Allbright that his name was, well, unusual. Brice Fount. Get outta here. We once asked his mother, Grandma Allbright, where’d that combination of names came from. Grandma was then in her 97^th year, not in full possession of her communicating skills. She was in absolute possession of a mouthful of Rooster snuff. It could have been three weeks later when she answered:

“’Why’nt you go ask his daddy?’

A challenge. His daddy died when Brice Fount was 7. Took pneumonia, Thomas Finley Allbright did, trying to save his school from being destroyed by fire. But it was gone. So was he. Up in Valley Springs, near Harrison, you’ll find a stone building identified as Allbright Hall. The granddad we never knew.

“Not bragging here. Just pointing out, not everybody with this family name was a lightweight columnist.

“But back to Pat Laster and her collection of names in Arkadelphia. The surnames are likewise interesting: Box. Roach. Strain. Kindsfather. Hum. Peeks. Bear. Sink. Cotton. Fang. Jobs. Said. Smellback. Hamlet. Pouncey. Bottoms. Boatenhammer. Winbush. Carrier. Grooms. Looms. Lawman. Woodring. Battle. France. Johndroe. Whitehouse. Swindle.” . . . . . . .

Mr. Allbright, photo from the back cover of said book.

Pat, here. I am still amazed to re-read this. I hated it when in AD-G “retired” him and Richard Allin in 2004. Their—and our, and literature’s—loss.

c 2018, PL, d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA