Tag Archive for: Southern fiction

Now, I’ve never been an activist. I am somewhat apolitical, or at least laissez faire. I live by the Paul Simon credo: “I get all the news I need from the weather report.” Don’t be haters. There is room in this world for Simonites.

But my point is that all of that has changed. I have now taken up not only a cause, but arms to defend that cause. “Freedom of the press?” you may ask, since I have a journalism background. Nah, that will work itself out. Freedom of speech, since I am a communications major and a writer? Nope, I hear plenty of free speech going on. The right to bear arms? Well, yes, but only incidental to my main cause.

I was on the front porch this morning in the first rays of sunlight, actively fighting for the rights of birds to enjoy their feeders and their supply of gourmet, species-specific seeds unmolested by marauding bands of rogue squirrels. There are oak trees in the yard with a billion acorns, for heaven’s sake. The lawless rodents have no need to go seed rustling. It’s pure greed and a lack of regard for their fellow  – ah – phylum mates. It really comes down to a class war, kinda like the Clantons and the Cowboy Gang against innocent ranchers and townsfolk. On the battleground of my little Fairhope habitat, the Sciuridae Family has become the enemy.

So that is why I was on the porch in my PJs in the dim pre-dawn light, wild-eyed and tousle-headed, armed only with random shoes for throwing at the gang leader. I do have a BB gun somewhere, but no ammunition, and I have packed up most of my belongings for an impending move. What I DID have at hand was a collection of shoes taken off at the front door, and the first cobbled missile hurled from the porch sent Curly Bill Sciuridae scrambling up the nearest oak.

After seven more forays toward the feeders, all defeated with footwear, the Sciuridaes had turned back and an array of blue jays, cardinals, and chickadees were breakfasting peacefully on black-oil sunflower seeds and such. I had regathered my ammunition and had a cup of fresh-ground coffee in my hand. I brought my laptop out so I could work and still remain vigilant. I didn’t dare take time out for a shower, so I was still garbed in nightwear with my hair sticking up on one side and plastered down on the other. Peace reigned in my world, though, so I was content.

My attention turned from the birds to the young school children who were now making their way from the neighboring cul-de-sacs toward the bus stop near my house. I smiled and waved at the ones familiar to me, and at the parents who accompanied the youngest ones. Totally distracted by the morning ritual, I failed to see Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo sneaking in from the leafy cover of the overhead canopy. I sighed happily, then turned my head to gaze on my little flock, and there they were. The Sciuridae ring leaders were perched on top of the feeder nearest me, stuffing their nasty, greedy, furry little cheeks and staring at me in total defiance.

In my recovery of the shoes, I had discovered a cache of magnolia pods, and I quickly catapulted one of these toward the outlaws. They fled and I chased them from my yard to the neighboring trees. Maybe I was bleary eyed from doing battle before coffee, but I would almost swear Curly Bill had a red bandana tied around his hind leg. “Run, you lily livered gray coated fiends. RUN!” I yelled. Caught up in the moment, I continued, “Tell all the other curs the law’s comin’! You tell ‘em I’M coming… and hell’s coming with me, you hear?” Then I nodded to the startled young man who was hastily moving his four small children to the other side of the road and hurried inside to unpack a big box of shoes.

 

 

How is it possible to have a dream come true and not even realize it at the time?

I was talking to a library group yesterday about writing and my novel, The Trouble with Grits, when it hit me. Let me explain.

You see, I have always loved words. I learned to talk early and to read early, and I just adored books. Somewhere along the way, I discovered I also loved to write.

In the fourth grade, I wrote a short story and decided it was pretty good and I just knew it deserved to be published. I set about finding a publisher, certain that I was about to become the world’s youngest rich and famous author. I sent my manuscript, handwritten in pencil, to the only publication I could come up with at that tender age, and awaited my coming fortune.

What actually came was my first rejection letter. The Times Picayune very gently and kindly informed me that they were a newspaper and did not publish fiction. Although they wished me well in my writing career, I took it hard. I was not discovered; I was rejected. So, I swore off writing.

After a bit a wallowing in abject misery, something a dramatic artsy-type child revels in, I rallied. You can’t keep a good nine-year-old down, after all.  To make my comeback, I sent a quarter and the back of a Kellogg’s corn flake box off in the mail to get a set of watercolor paints. I would be the world’s youngest rich and famous artist.

Well, that didn’t work out either, so I just accepted my fate as an average kid in elementary school and played Barbie dolls and climbed trees.

I did maintain my love of reading, however. One day, as a young teenager, I was in the Hattiesburg Public Library, where I spent a lot of time, and I looked over and noticed a volume of Mark Twain sitting on the library shelf. A light didn’t shine around it and a chorus of angels did not sing, but that book did somehow stand out. Something rose up in me and I thought, That is what I want. One day, I want a book of mine to be on a library shelf. I wasn’t dreaming about fame and fortune, I just wanted something I wrote to impact someone like Mark Twain’s writing impacted me. I wanted someone to read my writing and laugh, or cry, or smile, or just be provoked to thought.

Now, I was not writing anything at that time, and I didn’t pursue fiction writing for many years. In truth, I completely forgot that moment until I was talking to the group in the library at Mount Olive, Mississippi. As I was getting ready to read from my first novel, I realized that my dream from long ago had come true. I had a book on library shelves. And I hope someone reading it is moved to laugh, or cry, or smile, or think.