When I first heard about this class, I knew I had to take it. I needed an infusion of the arts to revive me for the coming school year. I would also have said then that I love to write. Since I have learned how to be a good editor and “tell the truth” as Steven King taught us in On Writing, I would have to change that last sentence to I need to write.
I have always had words, lines, snippets of conversations, and even whole scenes dancing themselves across the stage of my mind. I’ve kept them pretty bottled up even though they nagged at me to be siphoned off, if for no other reason, to relieve the tension and quiet my brain for a little while. But this class has increased the tension, the need to write it down. The memories have bubbled up and spilled over. So much so that today I actually had to pull over on the way home to jot down the words flowing through my head. I would like to be able to say that the tightness in my chest eased after that and I was able to breathe a little better, but it didn’t. I knew that eventually I would have to edit the damned thing and sweat over the sound and placement of each word and image as we have done over and over these past two weeks.
Before now, I have never agonized like this over my writing. In the past, I wrote it and put it away or turned it in for a grade if needed. This class has taught me to dig deeper, analyze, choose the best words, paint a more vivid picture, and yes, it has frustrated me. But it has also stretched me and challenged me to become a better writer and a better editor.
I have dreamed of being a writer since before I knew how to form letters. Long before I knew how to write my ABCs, I practiced loopy curls across the page and then read my stories to my mom. I know now that it takes more than dreaming; it takes guts and hard work to be a writer—especially a writer of memoir (although I suspect that all writers inject a little memoir even into their fictional pieces).
Though I won’t miss the daily commute to Charleston, I will miss the “approved/sanctioned” time to write, the camaraderie, encouragement, advice and support of my fellow writers, and the very practical and challenging instruction this class has offered.
P.S. I’m glad I learned to blog in “polite company.”
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Chalk Juice-Final Draft
“Mama, bring us a towel,” Adam called from the back door.
Uh-oh. Why do they need a towel? I wondered.
When I had looked out moments before, my tiny artists were busily creating chalk masterpieces on the smooth concrete diamond in the middle of our red brick courtyard: temporary worlds unlimited in imagination. Being a staple in our toy box, the dusty chalk is used to write rainbow colored notes of welcome to friends coming over for summer cookouts or to fashion birthday party carpets complete with multi-tiered birthday cakes with more vibrant colors and artistic designs than any of my Leaning Tower of Pisa-esque cakes.
Hurrying to the door, I saw two little purple faces staring up at me. No, they weren’t aliens. They were Adam, then almost six, and Faith, who had just turned four.
“What did you do?” I asked in a tone not quite resembling that of Richie Cunningham’s perfect T.V. mom.
“We made chalk juice,” they chimed almost in unison. If ever the devil and an angel got together, this is the look you would see on its devilish angelic face: cherubic cheeks and wicked grins topped by eyes that said, We might be in trouble, but boy was it worth it!
“Where are your clothes?” I screeched.
Yes, they were naked as the day they were born. But this day, instead of red, oozy slime covering their birthday suits, they were wearing purple “chalk juice.” Head to toe.
Chalk juice, my children had learned from a family friend (a friend I would dearly love to get my hands on at this moment), could be made by wetting sidewalk chalk to form a pasty paint. Up to this point, though, they had used it only on inanimate sidewalks and concrete patios, surfaces that I did not have to wash.
Adam and Faith began to look a little worried as I repeated my earlier question with staccato succinctness, “Where. Are. Your. Clothes?”
“Outside. We didn’t want to get chalk juice on them,” Faith replied with shoulders shrugged, arms outstretched, and palms up to indicate that, of course, this should be obvious.
Well, it did make a kind of sense. They took off their clothes so they wouldn’t get them dirty—much the same, I remembered, as my mom said I had done at the age of three when my cousin Vanessa and I decided to go “swimming” in a black, silt-filled puddle. Vanessa had ruined her new dress.
“Wait right here. Do not come in this house dripping wet,” I commanded as I raced for the nearest Barbie emblazoned beach towel. I grabbed the camera, too. The damage was done—might as well get a cute picture out of it. Besides, this would make an excellent picture for their senior page in the high school yearbook. Hey, a mom has to get revenge somehow.
Retrospect is the perfect mom. She would have overlooked their jay-bird nakedness, applauded their artistic endeavors, and washed them up with cheerful admonitions not to paint their bodies anymore—at least, not literally.
I, however, am not. My response was not quite so cheerful or enlightened that day as I roughly scrubbed the chalky indigo artwork from their wriggling bodies until the tub waters—clear at first—changed to dusty rose, gentle lavender, and finally deep violet. Their glowing pink skin testified to the force it took to remove their joyful stains. All evidence of the chalk juice was washed away—except for the photo.
If you look at that snapshot today, you won’t see my scowls, of course. What you will see are the smiling faces of two children living completely in the moment, glee creasing their faces into grins, their spirits testifying that sometimes the fun is worth the trouble.
Uh-oh. Why do they need a towel? I wondered.
When I had looked out moments before, my tiny artists were busily creating chalk masterpieces on the smooth concrete diamond in the middle of our red brick courtyard: temporary worlds unlimited in imagination. Being a staple in our toy box, the dusty chalk is used to write rainbow colored notes of welcome to friends coming over for summer cookouts or to fashion birthday party carpets complete with multi-tiered birthday cakes with more vibrant colors and artistic designs than any of my Leaning Tower of Pisa-esque cakes.
Hurrying to the door, I saw two little purple faces staring up at me. No, they weren’t aliens. They were Adam, then almost six, and Faith, who had just turned four.
“What did you do?” I asked in a tone not quite resembling that of Richie Cunningham’s perfect T.V. mom.
“We made chalk juice,” they chimed almost in unison. If ever the devil and an angel got together, this is the look you would see on its devilish angelic face: cherubic cheeks and wicked grins topped by eyes that said, We might be in trouble, but boy was it worth it!
“Where are your clothes?” I screeched.
Yes, they were naked as the day they were born. But this day, instead of red, oozy slime covering their birthday suits, they were wearing purple “chalk juice.” Head to toe.
Chalk juice, my children had learned from a family friend (a friend I would dearly love to get my hands on at this moment), could be made by wetting sidewalk chalk to form a pasty paint. Up to this point, though, they had used it only on inanimate sidewalks and concrete patios, surfaces that I did not have to wash.
Adam and Faith began to look a little worried as I repeated my earlier question with staccato succinctness, “Where. Are. Your. Clothes?”
“Outside. We didn’t want to get chalk juice on them,” Faith replied with shoulders shrugged, arms outstretched, and palms up to indicate that, of course, this should be obvious.
Well, it did make a kind of sense. They took off their clothes so they wouldn’t get them dirty—much the same, I remembered, as my mom said I had done at the age of three when my cousin Vanessa and I decided to go “swimming” in a black, silt-filled puddle. Vanessa had ruined her new dress.
“Wait right here. Do not come in this house dripping wet,” I commanded as I raced for the nearest Barbie emblazoned beach towel. I grabbed the camera, too. The damage was done—might as well get a cute picture out of it. Besides, this would make an excellent picture for their senior page in the high school yearbook. Hey, a mom has to get revenge somehow.
Retrospect is the perfect mom. She would have overlooked their jay-bird nakedness, applauded their artistic endeavors, and washed them up with cheerful admonitions not to paint their bodies anymore—at least, not literally.
I, however, am not. My response was not quite so cheerful or enlightened that day as I roughly scrubbed the chalky indigo artwork from their wriggling bodies until the tub waters—clear at first—changed to dusty rose, gentle lavender, and finally deep violet. Their glowing pink skin testified to the force it took to remove their joyful stains. All evidence of the chalk juice was washed away—except for the photo.
If you look at that snapshot today, you won’t see my scowls, of course. What you will see are the smiling faces of two children living completely in the moment, glee creasing their faces into grins, their spirits testifying that sometimes the fun is worth the trouble.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Chalk Juice-1st draft
“Mama, bring us a towel,” Adam called from the back door.
Uh-oh. Why do they need a towel? When I had looked out moments before, my tiny artists were busily creating chalk masterpieces: temporary worlds unlimited in imagination.
Hurrying to the door, I saw two little purple faces staring up at me. No, they weren’t aliens. They were Adam, then almost six, and Faith, who had just turned four.
“What did you do?” I asked in a tone not quite resembling that of Richie Cunningham’s perfect T.V. mom.
“We made chalk juice,” they chimed almost in unison. If ever the devil and an angel got together, this is the look you would see on its devilish angelic face: cherubic cheeks and wicked grins topped by eyes that said, We might be in trouble, but boy was it worth it!
“Where are your clothes?” I screeched.
Yes, they were naked as the day they were born. But this day, instead of red, oozy slime covering their birthday suits, they were wearing purple “chalk juice.” Head to toe.
Chalk juice, my children discovered early on, could be made by wetting sidewalk chalk to form a pasty paint. They used it to create their mini-masterpieces on the smooth concrete diamond in the middle of our red-bricked, vine covered courtyard. We had often used the dusty chalk to write rainbow colored notes of welcome to friends coming over for summer cookouts or to fashion birthday party carpets complete with multi-tiered birthday cakes with more vibrant colors and artistic designs than any of my Leaning Tower of Pisa-esque cakes.
Adam and Faith began to look a little worried as I repeated my earlier question with staccato succinctness, “Where are your clothes?”
“Outside. We didn’t want to get chalk juice on them,” Faith replied with shoulders shrugged, arms outstretched, and palms up to indicate that, of course, this should be obvious.
Well, it did make a kind of sense. They took off their clothes so they wouldn’t get them dirty—much the same, I remembered, as my mom said I had done at the age of three when my cousin Vanessa and I decided to go “swimming” in a black, silty puddle. Vanessa had ruined her new dress.
“Wait right here. Do not come in this house dripping wet,” I commanded as I raced for a fluffy, pink, Barbie emblazoned beach towel. I grabbed the camera, too. The damage was done—might as well get a cute picture out of it. Besides, this would make an excellent picture for their senior page in the high school yearbook. Hey, a mom has to get revenge somehow.
Retrospect is the perfect mom. She would have overlooked their jay-bird nakedness, applauded their artistic endeavors, and washed them up with cheerful admonitions not to paint their bodies anymore—at least, not literally.
I, however, am not. My response was not quite so cheerful or enlightened that day as I roughly scrubbed the chalky indigo artwork from their wriggling bodies until the tub waters, at first violet, changed to gentle lavender, dusty rose, and finally cleared. Their glowing pink skin testified to the force it took to remove their joyful stains. All evidence of the chalk juice was washed away except for the photo.
If you look at that picture today, you won’t see my scowls, of course. What you will see are the smiling faces of two children living completely in the moment, glee creasing their faces into grins, their spirits testifying that sometimes the fun is worth the trouble.
Uh-oh. Why do they need a towel? When I had looked out moments before, my tiny artists were busily creating chalk masterpieces: temporary worlds unlimited in imagination.
Hurrying to the door, I saw two little purple faces staring up at me. No, they weren’t aliens. They were Adam, then almost six, and Faith, who had just turned four.
“What did you do?” I asked in a tone not quite resembling that of Richie Cunningham’s perfect T.V. mom.
“We made chalk juice,” they chimed almost in unison. If ever the devil and an angel got together, this is the look you would see on its devilish angelic face: cherubic cheeks and wicked grins topped by eyes that said, We might be in trouble, but boy was it worth it!
“Where are your clothes?” I screeched.
Yes, they were naked as the day they were born. But this day, instead of red, oozy slime covering their birthday suits, they were wearing purple “chalk juice.” Head to toe.
Chalk juice, my children discovered early on, could be made by wetting sidewalk chalk to form a pasty paint. They used it to create their mini-masterpieces on the smooth concrete diamond in the middle of our red-bricked, vine covered courtyard. We had often used the dusty chalk to write rainbow colored notes of welcome to friends coming over for summer cookouts or to fashion birthday party carpets complete with multi-tiered birthday cakes with more vibrant colors and artistic designs than any of my Leaning Tower of Pisa-esque cakes.
Adam and Faith began to look a little worried as I repeated my earlier question with staccato succinctness, “Where are your clothes?”
“Outside. We didn’t want to get chalk juice on them,” Faith replied with shoulders shrugged, arms outstretched, and palms up to indicate that, of course, this should be obvious.
Well, it did make a kind of sense. They took off their clothes so they wouldn’t get them dirty—much the same, I remembered, as my mom said I had done at the age of three when my cousin Vanessa and I decided to go “swimming” in a black, silty puddle. Vanessa had ruined her new dress.
“Wait right here. Do not come in this house dripping wet,” I commanded as I raced for a fluffy, pink, Barbie emblazoned beach towel. I grabbed the camera, too. The damage was done—might as well get a cute picture out of it. Besides, this would make an excellent picture for their senior page in the high school yearbook. Hey, a mom has to get revenge somehow.
Retrospect is the perfect mom. She would have overlooked their jay-bird nakedness, applauded their artistic endeavors, and washed them up with cheerful admonitions not to paint their bodies anymore—at least, not literally.
I, however, am not. My response was not quite so cheerful or enlightened that day as I roughly scrubbed the chalky indigo artwork from their wriggling bodies until the tub waters, at first violet, changed to gentle lavender, dusty rose, and finally cleared. Their glowing pink skin testified to the force it took to remove their joyful stains. All evidence of the chalk juice was washed away except for the photo.
If you look at that picture today, you won’t see my scowls, of course. What you will see are the smiling faces of two children living completely in the moment, glee creasing their faces into grins, their spirits testifying that sometimes the fun is worth the trouble.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
No Excuses-Final, Final Draft (I think)
“He called me a tramp!” I sobbed into the payphone.
“Who?” Tony asked.
“My dad.”
“Oh, Ronnie.” He paused and then asked, “Where are you?”
“At a convenience store near his house. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go home,” I hiccupped over another sob. “I just need to talk.”
“We can’t talk about this over the phone. Can you drive?”
“I think so,” I answered.
“Okay….Meet me at that gas station near Carowinds, the Exxon just off I-77. I can be there in about thirty minutes. Ronnie?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
Hanging up the phone, I stumbled into my ’68 primer-gray Nova, wiped my eyes on a Hardee’s napkin, and started the car.
I wasn’t sure why I needed to see Tony, my boyfriend of almost a year. I just knew that I did. Our relationship, though the longest one I’d had to date, had been rocky. We had started dating the previous fall at East Carolina University. On the five-hour car rides back home for semester breaks, we had gotten to know each other, but something we saw in each other scared us both. We broke up. We got back together. How could I know that tonight would change the way I looked at our past and our future.
After driving for half an hour over inky back roads, I pulled into the parking lot of the all-night convenience store. Tony was waiting, propped against his blue, Volkswagen bug, one leg casually crossed over the other. He was dressed in his customary summer uniform of old cut off jeans and a tee shirt with the sleeves ripped out. The most expensive part of his ensemble were his black Sambas with the three white diagonal stripes on the sides. After years of playing soccer with his older brothers and high school team, he went nowhere without those shoes.
I pulled over and parked beside him in a corner of the parking lot beneath the bright, buzzing fluorescent lights. Not bothering to slide my feet back into my flip-flops, I reached for the cool metal door handle and stepped barefoot out onto the pavement still warm from the sun even though the sun had been gone from the July sky for over an hour.
I had stopped crying by now, but a fresh spate of tears welled up and spilled down my sunburned cheeks at the sight of him. He actually came. I called and he came.
The acrid odors of tar and gasoline grew fainter the closer I got to Tony. His unique summer smell of sweat, Speed Stick, and spicy cologne reached me just as he stretched out his arms. The tender look in his eyes said he wasn’t as afraid of our future as he had been. Neither was I. I stepped into his arms and blinked back the tears.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
“You want to talk about it?”
“He called me a tramp. We were fussing about that woman he’s dating, and Daddy said she was every bit as good as I am.”
“You mean Odine, the one he was messing with while he was married to your mom?”
“Yeah, her. He compared me to her! Can you believe that? And he said Mama was no better than her either. My mama is a saint!” More angry than hurt now, I started crying again. “That’s when I left and called you.”
“He’s wrong.”
I nodded against the hardened muscles of his shoulder. The freshly washed cotton of his tee-shirt soaked up the last of my tears.
“You do know he’s wrong about you, right?”
“I guess.”
“You guess? No, listen, he’s wrong. What kind of dad says that about his own kid?”
“A drunk one.”
“That’s no excuse and you know it.”
As we stood there, leaning against the hot metal fender and cars and strangers streamed in and out of the parking lot around us, I started to relax. I tuned into the lull of the cicadas in the tall grass as I tuned out the hum of the big trucks on the highway. I no longer heard the rowdy shouts of good old boys stopping to fill up on gas and beer. Daddy’s voice, too, grew fainter as Tony’s heartbeat filled my ears.
Looking down at me, he grinned and asked, “You want a Coke?”
“No. A Sun-Drop would be good, though.” I smiled back for the first time that night.
He sauntered back in his slightly bow-legged gait, cold drinks in hand. Our relationship had changed. He was the first man who had ever loved me for me. When I really needed him most, he was there. No questions. No excuses. He still is.
“Who?” Tony asked.
“My dad.”
“Oh, Ronnie.” He paused and then asked, “Where are you?”
“At a convenience store near his house. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go home,” I hiccupped over another sob. “I just need to talk.”
“We can’t talk about this over the phone. Can you drive?”
“I think so,” I answered.
“Okay….Meet me at that gas station near Carowinds, the Exxon just off I-77. I can be there in about thirty minutes. Ronnie?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
Hanging up the phone, I stumbled into my ’68 primer-gray Nova, wiped my eyes on a Hardee’s napkin, and started the car.
I wasn’t sure why I needed to see Tony, my boyfriend of almost a year. I just knew that I did. Our relationship, though the longest one I’d had to date, had been rocky. We had started dating the previous fall at East Carolina University. On the five-hour car rides back home for semester breaks, we had gotten to know each other, but something we saw in each other scared us both. We broke up. We got back together. How could I know that tonight would change the way I looked at our past and our future.
After driving for half an hour over inky back roads, I pulled into the parking lot of the all-night convenience store. Tony was waiting, propped against his blue, Volkswagen bug, one leg casually crossed over the other. He was dressed in his customary summer uniform of old cut off jeans and a tee shirt with the sleeves ripped out. The most expensive part of his ensemble were his black Sambas with the three white diagonal stripes on the sides. After years of playing soccer with his older brothers and high school team, he went nowhere without those shoes.
I pulled over and parked beside him in a corner of the parking lot beneath the bright, buzzing fluorescent lights. Not bothering to slide my feet back into my flip-flops, I reached for the cool metal door handle and stepped barefoot out onto the pavement still warm from the sun even though the sun had been gone from the July sky for over an hour.
I had stopped crying by now, but a fresh spate of tears welled up and spilled down my sunburned cheeks at the sight of him. He actually came. I called and he came.
The acrid odors of tar and gasoline grew fainter the closer I got to Tony. His unique summer smell of sweat, Speed Stick, and spicy cologne reached me just as he stretched out his arms. The tender look in his eyes said he wasn’t as afraid of our future as he had been. Neither was I. I stepped into his arms and blinked back the tears.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
“You want to talk about it?”
“He called me a tramp. We were fussing about that woman he’s dating, and Daddy said she was every bit as good as I am.”
“You mean Odine, the one he was messing with while he was married to your mom?”
“Yeah, her. He compared me to her! Can you believe that? And he said Mama was no better than her either. My mama is a saint!” More angry than hurt now, I started crying again. “That’s when I left and called you.”
“He’s wrong.”
I nodded against the hardened muscles of his shoulder. The freshly washed cotton of his tee-shirt soaked up the last of my tears.
“You do know he’s wrong about you, right?”
“I guess.”
“You guess? No, listen, he’s wrong. What kind of dad says that about his own kid?”
“A drunk one.”
“That’s no excuse and you know it.”
As we stood there, leaning against the hot metal fender and cars and strangers streamed in and out of the parking lot around us, I started to relax. I tuned into the lull of the cicadas in the tall grass as I tuned out the hum of the big trucks on the highway. I no longer heard the rowdy shouts of good old boys stopping to fill up on gas and beer. Daddy’s voice, too, grew fainter as Tony’s heartbeat filled my ears.
Looking down at me, he grinned and asked, “You want a Coke?”
“No. A Sun-Drop would be good, though.” I smiled back for the first time that night.
He sauntered back in his slightly bow-legged gait, cold drinks in hand. Our relationship had changed. He was the first man who had ever loved me for me. When I really needed him most, he was there. No questions. No excuses. He still is.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The River-Final Draft
Even though Daddy said the water was warm enough on the last weekend of May, it usually wasn’t until sometime in June; but the air and sun heated up our goose-pimpled flesh quickly enough to make that first shivering dip worth it. After anxiously awaiting all winter and spring for summer, we were dying to dive in on Memorial Day weekend, no matter what the temperature. What Friday is to the working man, Memorial Day at the river was to us kids; it was the day we finally could see our whole, lazy, sun-doused summer stretch out before us like the snapping turtles stretched out on the half-submerged logs.
We—my cousins, my brother, and I—waded carefully into the cool blue-green depths, squishing our toes softly through the muddy bottom, churning up the mud that would change the water to a soft, cloudy brown. We treaded carefully the first few times we went in but not from fear of the tiny nips of the bream swimming around our toes. Sure, we had heard the veiled threats of catfish as big as small cars and gar (fish with teeth?). But this was pre-Jaws and who had ever heard of such a thing? We eased into the water’s edge because we never knew if someone had thrown in broken glass or old cans that would shred your feet to ribbons in a second if you found them the hard way.
My dad taught me to float and then to swim that Memorial Day weekend. I never make a dive through a salty wave or roll over to float languidly in a chlorine-saturated pool that I don’t think of him.
“Really, Ronnie, you ain’t gonna’ drown. I got ya’. Lay back and relax,” Daddy insisted.
He should have understood my hesitance after all the stories he’d told me about how he and his brothers had been taught to swim. My grandpa, Pappaw Joe to me, threw them in and yelled, “Sink or swim!”
How could water that I could slice through in one minute hold most of my body afloat in the next? I wondered. Finally, I relaxed and Daddy held on, and I lay back in the sun-warmed blue-green waters, and I did float. At least I did until I realized Daddy had let go. Then I panicked and floundered, sinking under the stirred up muddy brown waters.
“Lesson number one,” Daddy said when I came up sputtering and gasping for breath in less than three feet of water. “Don’t panic.” That rule has applied to more than swimming in my life and when I need to hear it, it still comes back to me in my daddy’s deep, rumbling baritone.
Eventually, I moved on to dog-paddling, which would evolve into actual swimming strokes in later summers. Amazed by the silkiness of the river water as it slipped between my fingers, I was always a little surprised that I really could grab something that slippery and push it behind me to propel myself forward if I held my hands just right.
Our favorite games at the river were diving and breath-holding. The trick to staying under the longest, we discovered, was to have someone gently hold you down with one hand on your head. If he or she used two hands, it became a different game of let’s-try-to-drown-each-other, which the grown-ups mostly frowned upon. Sitting on the river bottom, holding my breath, I found myself going into a sort of trance of counting and staring back up at the golden rays glinting down through the surface layers of the water where I had been just moments before. The layers started out clear as sunshine at the top and gently flowed into golden-brown flecked with glittery mica flakes to finally settle into a deeper, loamy green around me.
When we weren’t being so competitive—racing each other to shore or diving for intentionally dropped objects—we lazed in the sun on the small strip of sandy shore or on the rippling waters themselves. Hot from lying on a rubber raft in the sun, we would slip down into the murky waters to find the cool lake water near the bottom, water that was cool even in July.
Food was secondary in our concerns then, but it tasted better in the slightly fishy river breeze than anywhere else we might be. Mostly it was just tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise tracks on your chin and red juice dripping down your still-wet-from-swimming elbows. Sometimes we added bologna (which we pronounced baloney) to the tomato sandwiches—not the other way around, mind you—but then we always had to sing the song, My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R; my bologna has a second name, its’ M-A-Y-E-R. We chased our sandwiches with Cokes icy from the Styrofoam cooler and slightly melted Little Debbie oatmeal cakes.
“Now you kids know you cain’t go swimmin’ for at least thirty minutes after you eat,” was closely followed by our moans and grunts of complaint. In those days before Nutri-System and Weight Watchers, that was the only thing we feared about food.
No work on Monday meant we could spend the night at the river. It wasn't what you would call camping, though. Camping requires gear: tents, sleeping bags, Coleman stoves. We took a change of clothes and maybe a blanket or two. After swimming all day, the adults crashed in the car while the kids (luckier still) slept on the hoods and roofs of the cars, falling asleep next to our cousins, who were also our best friends, with the last image etched onto the backs of our eyelids being the twinkling stars in the purply-black night sky above.
The next morning was mist-shrouded river banks, orange sun sneaking peeks between the full-leafed limbs of the deep green forest on the opposite bank, and groggy kids shivering around the fire while the adults cooked scrambled eggs, grits, and toast over the hastily constructed grill of a metal rack laid over the rocks surrounding the flames. The aromas of breakfast cooking in the early morning lake-dewed air surely roused any late sleepers.
This became the rhythm of lazy summer weekends. Weekends before sunscreen or cholesterol worries. Weekends before the river banks became the homes of choice for the Charlotte elite. Now, when I go back, almost every square inch is staked and claimed. Half-million dollar houses occupy lots where we camped. Access is restricted to those with property deeds or boats, something we never could have afforded when I was young. But the river of my childhood will always exist for me, floating among the memories of cousins, sunburn, and tomato sandwiches.
We—my cousins, my brother, and I—waded carefully into the cool blue-green depths, squishing our toes softly through the muddy bottom, churning up the mud that would change the water to a soft, cloudy brown. We treaded carefully the first few times we went in but not from fear of the tiny nips of the bream swimming around our toes. Sure, we had heard the veiled threats of catfish as big as small cars and gar (fish with teeth?). But this was pre-Jaws and who had ever heard of such a thing? We eased into the water’s edge because we never knew if someone had thrown in broken glass or old cans that would shred your feet to ribbons in a second if you found them the hard way.
My dad taught me to float and then to swim that Memorial Day weekend. I never make a dive through a salty wave or roll over to float languidly in a chlorine-saturated pool that I don’t think of him.
“Really, Ronnie, you ain’t gonna’ drown. I got ya’. Lay back and relax,” Daddy insisted.
He should have understood my hesitance after all the stories he’d told me about how he and his brothers had been taught to swim. My grandpa, Pappaw Joe to me, threw them in and yelled, “Sink or swim!”
How could water that I could slice through in one minute hold most of my body afloat in the next? I wondered. Finally, I relaxed and Daddy held on, and I lay back in the sun-warmed blue-green waters, and I did float. At least I did until I realized Daddy had let go. Then I panicked and floundered, sinking under the stirred up muddy brown waters.
“Lesson number one,” Daddy said when I came up sputtering and gasping for breath in less than three feet of water. “Don’t panic.” That rule has applied to more than swimming in my life and when I need to hear it, it still comes back to me in my daddy’s deep, rumbling baritone.
Eventually, I moved on to dog-paddling, which would evolve into actual swimming strokes in later summers. Amazed by the silkiness of the river water as it slipped between my fingers, I was always a little surprised that I really could grab something that slippery and push it behind me to propel myself forward if I held my hands just right.
Our favorite games at the river were diving and breath-holding. The trick to staying under the longest, we discovered, was to have someone gently hold you down with one hand on your head. If he or she used two hands, it became a different game of let’s-try-to-drown-each-other, which the grown-ups mostly frowned upon. Sitting on the river bottom, holding my breath, I found myself going into a sort of trance of counting and staring back up at the golden rays glinting down through the surface layers of the water where I had been just moments before. The layers started out clear as sunshine at the top and gently flowed into golden-brown flecked with glittery mica flakes to finally settle into a deeper, loamy green around me.
When we weren’t being so competitive—racing each other to shore or diving for intentionally dropped objects—we lazed in the sun on the small strip of sandy shore or on the rippling waters themselves. Hot from lying on a rubber raft in the sun, we would slip down into the murky waters to find the cool lake water near the bottom, water that was cool even in July.
Food was secondary in our concerns then, but it tasted better in the slightly fishy river breeze than anywhere else we might be. Mostly it was just tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise tracks on your chin and red juice dripping down your still-wet-from-swimming elbows. Sometimes we added bologna (which we pronounced baloney) to the tomato sandwiches—not the other way around, mind you—but then we always had to sing the song, My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R; my bologna has a second name, its’ M-A-Y-E-R. We chased our sandwiches with Cokes icy from the Styrofoam cooler and slightly melted Little Debbie oatmeal cakes.
“Now you kids know you cain’t go swimmin’ for at least thirty minutes after you eat,” was closely followed by our moans and grunts of complaint. In those days before Nutri-System and Weight Watchers, that was the only thing we feared about food.
No work on Monday meant we could spend the night at the river. It wasn't what you would call camping, though. Camping requires gear: tents, sleeping bags, Coleman stoves. We took a change of clothes and maybe a blanket or two. After swimming all day, the adults crashed in the car while the kids (luckier still) slept on the hoods and roofs of the cars, falling asleep next to our cousins, who were also our best friends, with the last image etched onto the backs of our eyelids being the twinkling stars in the purply-black night sky above.
The next morning was mist-shrouded river banks, orange sun sneaking peeks between the full-leafed limbs of the deep green forest on the opposite bank, and groggy kids shivering around the fire while the adults cooked scrambled eggs, grits, and toast over the hastily constructed grill of a metal rack laid over the rocks surrounding the flames. The aromas of breakfast cooking in the early morning lake-dewed air surely roused any late sleepers.
This became the rhythm of lazy summer weekends. Weekends before sunscreen or cholesterol worries. Weekends before the river banks became the homes of choice for the Charlotte elite. Now, when I go back, almost every square inch is staked and claimed. Half-million dollar houses occupy lots where we camped. Access is restricted to those with property deeds or boats, something we never could have afforded when I was young. But the river of my childhood will always exist for me, floating among the memories of cousins, sunburn, and tomato sandwiches.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The River-1st Draft
Every summer I go back to the river, not the wide, rambling low country rivers where I live now or the skinny little rocky streams my grandparents would have called a river in their native mountains, but the place we called “the river” that is also known as Lake Wylie.
Memorial Day always meant the first time we could go swimming. That’s when Daddy said the water was warm enough. Of course, it usually wasn’t warm enough until sometime in June, but the air and sun heated up our goose-pimpled flesh quickly enough to make that first shivering dip worth it. After anxiously awaiting all winter and spring for summer, we were dying to dive in on Memorial Day weekend no matter what the temperature. What Friday is to the working man, Memorial Day at the river was to us kids; it was the day we finally could see our whole, lazy, sun-doused summer stretch out before us like the snapping turtles stretched out on the half-submerged logs.
We—my cousins, my brother, and I—waded carefully into the cool blue-green depths, squishing our toes softly through the muddy bottom, churning up the mud that would change the water to a murky brown. We treaded carefully the first few times we went in but not from fear of the tiny nips of the bream swimming around our toes. Sure, we had heard the veiled threats of catfish as big as small cars and gar, fish with teeth? But this was pre-Jaws and who had ever heard of such a thing? We eased into the water’s edge because we never knew if someone had thrown in broken glass or old cans that would shred your feet to ribbons in a second if you found them the hard way.
My Daddy taught me to float and then to swim. I never make a dive through a salty wave or roll over to float languidly in a chlorine saturated pool that I don’t think of him.
“Really, Ronnie, you ain’t gonna’ drown. I got ya’. Lay back and relax,” Daddy insisted.
He should have understood my hesitance after all the stories he’d told me about how he and his brothers had been taught to swim. My grandpa, Pappaw Joe to me, threw them in and yelled, “Sink or swim!”
How could water that I could slice through in one minute hold most of my body afloat in the next? I wondered. Finally, I relaxed and Daddy held on and I lay back in the sun-warmed blue-green waters and I did float. At least I did until I realized Daddy had let go. Then I panicked and floundered, sinking under the stirred up muddy brown waters.
“Lesson number one,” Daddy said when I came up sputtering and gasping for breath. “Don’t panic.” That rule has applied to more than swimming in my life and when I need to hear it, it still comes back to me in my daddy’s deep, rumbling baritone.
Eventually, I moved on to dog-paddling and actual swimming strokes that Daddy taught me with painstaking patience summer after summer. Amazed by the silkiness of the river water as it slipped between my fingers, I was always a little surprised that I really could grab something that slippery and push it behind me to propel myself forward if I held my hands just right.
Our favorite games at the river were diving and breath-holding. The trick to staying under the longest, we discovered, was to have someone gently hold you down with one hand on your hand. If he or she used two hands, it became a different game of let’s-try-to-drown-each-other, which the grown-ups mostly frowned upon. Sitting on the river bottom, holding your breath, you could find yourself going into a sort of trance of counting and staring back up at the golden rays glinting down through the surface layers of the water where you had been just moments before. The layers started out clear as sunshine at the top and gently flowed into golden brown flecked with glittery mica flakes and then settled into a deeper, loamy green around you. Try as we might, we never quite beat Daddy at the breath-holding game despite his two-pack-a-day smoking habit, so we kids usually disqualified him and just competed with each other.
When we weren’t being so competitive—racing each other to shore or diving for intentionally dropped objects—we lazed in the sun on the small strip of sandy shore or on the rippling waters themselves. Hot from lying on a raft in the sun, we would slip down into the murky waters to find the cool lake water near the bottom, water that was cool even in July unlike the ocean waters at the beautiful South Carolina beaches I frequent now.
Food was secondary in our concerns then, but it tasted better in the slightly fishy river breeze than anywhere else we might be. Mostly it was just tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise tracks on your chin and red juice dripping down your still-wet from swimming elbows. Sometimes we added bologna (which we pronounced baloney) to the tomato sandwiches—not the other way around, mind you—but then we always had to sing the song, My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R; my bologna has a second name, its’ M-A-Y-E-R. We chased our sandwiches with Cokes icy from the Styrofoam cooler and slightly melted Little Debbie oatmeal cakes.
“Now you kids know you cain’t go swimmin’ for at least thirty minutes after you eat,” was closely followed by our moans and grunts of complaint. In those days before Nutri-System and Weight Watchers, that was the only thing we feared about food.
Sometimes we spent the night. Not that we ever really camped. Camping requires gear: tents, sleeping bags, Coleman stoves. We took a change of clothes and maybe a blanket or two. After swimming all day, the adults crashed in the car while the kids (luckier still) slept on the hoods and roofs of the cars, falling asleep next to our cousins, who were also our best friends, with the last image etched onto the backs of our eyelids being the twinkling stars in the purply-black night sky above.
The next mornings were mist shrouded river banks, orange sun sneaking peeks between the full leafed limbs of the deep green forest on the opposite bank, and groggy kids shivering around the fire while the adults cooked scrambled eggs, grits, and toast over the hastily constructed grill of a metal rack laid over the rocks surrounding the flames. The aromas of breakfast cooking in the early morning lake-dewed air were sure to rouse any late sleepers.
This was the rhythm of lazy summer weekends. Weekends before sunscreen or cholesterol worries. Weekends before the river banks became the homes of choice for the Charlotte elite. Now, when I go back, almost every square inch is staked and claimed. Half-million dollar houses occupy lots where we camped. Access is restricted to those with property deeds or boats, something we never could have afforded when I was young. But the river will always exist for me, floating in the memories of cousins, sunburn, and tomato sandwiches.
Memorial Day always meant the first time we could go swimming. That’s when Daddy said the water was warm enough. Of course, it usually wasn’t warm enough until sometime in June, but the air and sun heated up our goose-pimpled flesh quickly enough to make that first shivering dip worth it. After anxiously awaiting all winter and spring for summer, we were dying to dive in on Memorial Day weekend no matter what the temperature. What Friday is to the working man, Memorial Day at the river was to us kids; it was the day we finally could see our whole, lazy, sun-doused summer stretch out before us like the snapping turtles stretched out on the half-submerged logs.
We—my cousins, my brother, and I—waded carefully into the cool blue-green depths, squishing our toes softly through the muddy bottom, churning up the mud that would change the water to a murky brown. We treaded carefully the first few times we went in but not from fear of the tiny nips of the bream swimming around our toes. Sure, we had heard the veiled threats of catfish as big as small cars and gar, fish with teeth? But this was pre-Jaws and who had ever heard of such a thing? We eased into the water’s edge because we never knew if someone had thrown in broken glass or old cans that would shred your feet to ribbons in a second if you found them the hard way.
My Daddy taught me to float and then to swim. I never make a dive through a salty wave or roll over to float languidly in a chlorine saturated pool that I don’t think of him.
“Really, Ronnie, you ain’t gonna’ drown. I got ya’. Lay back and relax,” Daddy insisted.
He should have understood my hesitance after all the stories he’d told me about how he and his brothers had been taught to swim. My grandpa, Pappaw Joe to me, threw them in and yelled, “Sink or swim!”
How could water that I could slice through in one minute hold most of my body afloat in the next? I wondered. Finally, I relaxed and Daddy held on and I lay back in the sun-warmed blue-green waters and I did float. At least I did until I realized Daddy had let go. Then I panicked and floundered, sinking under the stirred up muddy brown waters.
“Lesson number one,” Daddy said when I came up sputtering and gasping for breath. “Don’t panic.” That rule has applied to more than swimming in my life and when I need to hear it, it still comes back to me in my daddy’s deep, rumbling baritone.
Eventually, I moved on to dog-paddling and actual swimming strokes that Daddy taught me with painstaking patience summer after summer. Amazed by the silkiness of the river water as it slipped between my fingers, I was always a little surprised that I really could grab something that slippery and push it behind me to propel myself forward if I held my hands just right.
Our favorite games at the river were diving and breath-holding. The trick to staying under the longest, we discovered, was to have someone gently hold you down with one hand on your hand. If he or she used two hands, it became a different game of let’s-try-to-drown-each-other, which the grown-ups mostly frowned upon. Sitting on the river bottom, holding your breath, you could find yourself going into a sort of trance of counting and staring back up at the golden rays glinting down through the surface layers of the water where you had been just moments before. The layers started out clear as sunshine at the top and gently flowed into golden brown flecked with glittery mica flakes and then settled into a deeper, loamy green around you. Try as we might, we never quite beat Daddy at the breath-holding game despite his two-pack-a-day smoking habit, so we kids usually disqualified him and just competed with each other.
When we weren’t being so competitive—racing each other to shore or diving for intentionally dropped objects—we lazed in the sun on the small strip of sandy shore or on the rippling waters themselves. Hot from lying on a raft in the sun, we would slip down into the murky waters to find the cool lake water near the bottom, water that was cool even in July unlike the ocean waters at the beautiful South Carolina beaches I frequent now.
Food was secondary in our concerns then, but it tasted better in the slightly fishy river breeze than anywhere else we might be. Mostly it was just tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise tracks on your chin and red juice dripping down your still-wet from swimming elbows. Sometimes we added bologna (which we pronounced baloney) to the tomato sandwiches—not the other way around, mind you—but then we always had to sing the song, My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R; my bologna has a second name, its’ M-A-Y-E-R. We chased our sandwiches with Cokes icy from the Styrofoam cooler and slightly melted Little Debbie oatmeal cakes.
“Now you kids know you cain’t go swimmin’ for at least thirty minutes after you eat,” was closely followed by our moans and grunts of complaint. In those days before Nutri-System and Weight Watchers, that was the only thing we feared about food.
Sometimes we spent the night. Not that we ever really camped. Camping requires gear: tents, sleeping bags, Coleman stoves. We took a change of clothes and maybe a blanket or two. After swimming all day, the adults crashed in the car while the kids (luckier still) slept on the hoods and roofs of the cars, falling asleep next to our cousins, who were also our best friends, with the last image etched onto the backs of our eyelids being the twinkling stars in the purply-black night sky above.
The next mornings were mist shrouded river banks, orange sun sneaking peeks between the full leafed limbs of the deep green forest on the opposite bank, and groggy kids shivering around the fire while the adults cooked scrambled eggs, grits, and toast over the hastily constructed grill of a metal rack laid over the rocks surrounding the flames. The aromas of breakfast cooking in the early morning lake-dewed air were sure to rouse any late sleepers.
This was the rhythm of lazy summer weekends. Weekends before sunscreen or cholesterol worries. Weekends before the river banks became the homes of choice for the Charlotte elite. Now, when I go back, almost every square inch is staked and claimed. Half-million dollar houses occupy lots where we camped. Access is restricted to those with property deeds or boats, something we never could have afforded when I was young. But the river will always exist for me, floating in the memories of cousins, sunburn, and tomato sandwiches.
Left Wanting More—A Review of Stephen King’s On Writing
I had decided ahead of time that I would not like Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. After all, I had never read a Stephen King novel. I have seen some of the movies and was scared out of my seat, so I imagined the novels (always being better than the movies) would leave me sleepless for weeks afterwards.
Part memoir, part writing how-to, this book reads like a novel, a quick peek into the life of a successful writer. Whether or not horror is your genre of choice, you must respect King’s success as a story teller. His faithful followers and his millions of dollars testify to his abilities to weave a tale that leaves one wanting more. After seeing the hand come out of the grave at the end of Carrie, even I wanted to peek between my fingers at the sequel I was sure must follow.
Like Carrie, I left On Writing wanting more. King gives us just a tease of his childhood, enough to think Oh, that’s why he is so strange, but not enough to get the complete picture.
The how-to writing guide shocks with suggestions to throw out adverbs (can he really throw out a whole part of speech?), use fragments, and create single sentence paragraphs—all the things that would have gotten you an “F” in Freshman Comp class. His editing section, showing the before and after of some of his work, reinforces the fact that he really does “kill his darlings.” Any would-be writer will empathize with King when he recounts his times of the dreaded writer’s block. In a funny scene with his wife, he reveals that even he, like most writers, is “needy” for acceptance. Above all, King drives home the point that a writer must be truthful, polite society be damned.
On Writing provides poignant glimpses of King’s personal life, his struggles with alcoholism and drug abuse as well as the accident that nearly killed him. He worries that he is telling too much, but in my opinion he did not tell enough. Even though he makes reference to his novels and how they reflect his life, I sensed a shield that he had built around the toughest times in his life, blocking us out, keeping us at arm’s length.
One might think that reading a how-to book written by a famous author would be dry and uninteresting, but On Writing is anything but that. Written with clear concepts, easy to understand language, and plenty of wit, it is a page-turner in its own right. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go check out a Stephen King novel from my local library.
Part memoir, part writing how-to, this book reads like a novel, a quick peek into the life of a successful writer. Whether or not horror is your genre of choice, you must respect King’s success as a story teller. His faithful followers and his millions of dollars testify to his abilities to weave a tale that leaves one wanting more. After seeing the hand come out of the grave at the end of Carrie, even I wanted to peek between my fingers at the sequel I was sure must follow.
Like Carrie, I left On Writing wanting more. King gives us just a tease of his childhood, enough to think Oh, that’s why he is so strange, but not enough to get the complete picture.
The how-to writing guide shocks with suggestions to throw out adverbs (can he really throw out a whole part of speech?), use fragments, and create single sentence paragraphs—all the things that would have gotten you an “F” in Freshman Comp class. His editing section, showing the before and after of some of his work, reinforces the fact that he really does “kill his darlings.” Any would-be writer will empathize with King when he recounts his times of the dreaded writer’s block. In a funny scene with his wife, he reveals that even he, like most writers, is “needy” for acceptance. Above all, King drives home the point that a writer must be truthful, polite society be damned.
On Writing provides poignant glimpses of King’s personal life, his struggles with alcoholism and drug abuse as well as the accident that nearly killed him. He worries that he is telling too much, but in my opinion he did not tell enough. Even though he makes reference to his novels and how they reflect his life, I sensed a shield that he had built around the toughest times in his life, blocking us out, keeping us at arm’s length.
One might think that reading a how-to book written by a famous author would be dry and uninteresting, but On Writing is anything but that. Written with clear concepts, easy to understand language, and plenty of wit, it is a page-turner in its own right. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go check out a Stephen King novel from my local library.
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