Tag: family

Legacy Writing 365:8


“Knock the L out of Hitler”

There are so many reasons I have strong emotional reactions to this photo.

On the back, my mother has written, “WW2. Bill with his half track in Louisiana on his way to the big war.” I wish all the family photos came with such precise descriptions to help me fix them in time and circumstance. This picture was taken long before she met my father, and one thing she probably liked about it was that he actually looks like a man in his early twenties. In fact, when Tom saw this photo, he said, “He looks so young!” because usually he says, “Your father always looked old, no matter what age he was.” When I think of all the things Daddy saw and lost in that “big war” he was headed for, I understand why he aged. And why his sleep remained troubled the rest of his life. He loved the Army, just as he loved all the careers he had, but it wasn’t love without a price.

In the coming year, I’ll probably share several photos showing signs my father painted. He learned that trade even before he went into the CCC, because there he learned the skills that would later be part of his time in the Army’s Signal Corps. But when he left the CCC, he bought an A Model Ford off a friend and refashioned it to become his mobile sign painting shop.

The year was 1938 and I felt completely free and footloose. The depression was beginning to grind down to an end, and although there was rumbling in the Far East and in Germany that hinted of a possible war to come one day, I refused to be concerned.

One of his stories, about which he says “a small part…is true but most…is fiction,” allows me to see his world through eyes that have not yet looked on war.

So here he is, young, and with the brash personality troops would need to do the job that would land them in Normandy and send them throughout Europe. He has put his sign-painting skills to use, adorning the half-track with his promise to Hitler. So many vintage war photos show shapely women painted on the machines of war, much the way pin-up photos of beauties like Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, and Jean Harlow were pasted inside footlockers and lockers to boost morale and symbolize the life troops were fighting to return to.

I could write reams on the way the framing of one war as heroic and the viewing of another war as horrific created the conflicted baby boom generation that I was born into. I don’t know if all the men and women who go into war have the young eyes and bold heart of this one, but I do believe when they come home, they should have all the opportunities, respect, and assistance they need to find their place in the world again. Some are stronger for the testing; some are broken. They’re all our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters.

Legacy Writing 365:7

The best times can be the ones that happen without planning. The last winter before Tom and I were married, I lived in a rural area outside his family’s city. He was visiting them from Tuscaloosa for a weekend, and–a very rare thing–none of his siblings were home. A snow storm had been forecast. Since the South doesn’t have road equipment to deal with heavy snow, it’s best for people to load up on supplies and stay home. It was decided before the snow began that it might be better if I came into town to stay with Tom and his parents.

It turned out to be the most wonderful opportunity for the four of us to get to know each other better. To enjoy a world quieted by that blanket of snow. We talked a lot, didn’t really watch TV, read, probably played a game or two, worked together to cook the meals we shared and cleaned up after. Every woman should have such a low-key few days to relax with her future family without a lot of activity and distractions.

It had been kind of a running joke that I occasionally asked Tom’s father to do stuff for me–things I could have done for myself, but I’d get all Southern belle and ask him, and he’d say, “Yes, Miss Becky, I will come check your apartment for a snake,” Or, “Yes, Miss Becky, I’ll go car shopping with you.” My father had died only a couple of years before, and though no one could ever replace him, it was nice to know that a future father-in-law would spoil me a little.

That weekend, instead of making a snow man, Tom and his parents built a Snow Belle in my honor.


Tom and his mother with their version of Miss Scarlett.

Legacy Writing 365:6

A while back, my scanner stopped getting along with my iMac, so it hooked up with its old friend the PC again. Earlier, I went into the room where the PC resides to find and scan a photo for today’s entry. But as I was looking through a stack of pictures, I glanced toward the computer table and saw this:


Sun on scarlet ribbons.

It made me think about my mother’s old Harry Belafonte album. I loved to hear her and Debby sing along to it, and my favorite from that album was “Scarlet Ribbons.”

Sound technology is a wonderful thing, but some of us of a certain age can be transported to another time just hearing the snap, crackle, and pop of a needle on vinyl.

Today you’re welcome to time travel with me to imagine my sister’s pure soprano and my mother’s deeper tones accompanying the beautiful voice of Mr. Belafonte.

P.S. to my writing partners: You see how this kind of influence in my youth led to those “saccharine” endings? And who was it who said that, anyway?

Legacy Writing 365:5

Winnie and Robert–so young here, but when I knew them, they were old. They were tall and lean, both of them, and he was only a little stooped. They both had beautiful white hair. Although they were quiet, they were favorites of mine because they both always had a smile in their eyes. Truly, though, what endeared them to me was how they were with each other. She never needed a sweater that he wasn’t there to gently drop one on her shoulders. He never wanted for something cool to drink, because she put a glass next to him before he could ask. Whenever our large extended family was together, they would laugh at all the stories with the rest of us, but sooner or later they’d go for a little walk, hand in hand, quietly continuing a conversation that had begun more than fifty years earlier.

Winnie–Winifred–was the oldest of twelve children. Fourteen, really, but one was born dead and another died in infancy. My mother was the youngest of those fourteen. When Mother saw how I watched her oldest sister and Robert, she told me their story. They fell in love, and when Winnie was eighteen, Robert asked my grandparents for her hand in marriage. But my grandmother was pregnant with Uncle John. She said Winnie couldn’t be spared; she had to take her mother’s place supervising the house and the other children until after the baby was born. Robert promised that if they were allowed to marry, he would wait as long as necessary before setting up household with her. My grandparents finally agreed; Winnie and Robert were married in June of 1921. Uncle John was born in August. I don’t know when Winnie was finally able to go home to her husband, but as promised, he waited until then for a wedding night with his bride.

When Winnie died in Tupelo on an August day at age seventy-four, we could all see that Robert had lost half of his soul. The smile was gone from his eyes. No one was surprised when he died, too, before the year was over. My mother said Robert simply had no interest in living in a world without his Winnie.

Monster good Christmas

You know that old thing about how if a moth sneezes in Lampung, a hurricane blows a roof off a house in Tampa? Something like that, anyway. It’s true that you never know what all the cause-and-effect moments in your life will be.

Last Christmas, Lindsey mentioned that one of her young relatives received all of Mattel’s Monster High dolls, along with binders her family made including the dolls’ biographies. Most people know I’m not a fan of the Bratz dolls; I took a brief look at the Monster High dolls at Target, noted that their body and head sculpts were similar to Bratz, and thought no more about them.

Then one of my LJ friends told me how her granddaughter was intrigued by the fashions I was making for my Model Muses. After seeing them on my blog, this young lady decided to start sewing her own clothes for her Monster High dolls, and my friend linked me to some photos of her work. I love seeing kids get creative, and it was delightful to feel like I had a small part in that.

Because of her granddaughter, I took another look at the Monster High dolls and found myself being charmed by them. I saw a set of the Gloom Beach dolls in a store and was tempted to buy them. Then I thought: Why not put them on my Christmas list? It’s always kind of hard for me to tell people anything I want; I usually just wind up saying gift cards that I can use on the music, books, or art supplies that strike my fancy throughout the year. Maybe the Monster High dolls would be a little more fun for a gift giver.

My brother-in-law Michael drew my name, and he did get the dolls for me. His daughter saw them and loved one of the dolls in the set, which motivated her parents to embark on another shopping excursion. Because of two little girls she’ll never know, Abby now has her own Clawdeen Wolf. And nobody lost a roof.

Here are my Gloom Beach girls:


Frankie Stein, Ghoulia Yelps, Draculaura, Clawdeen Wolf, and Cleo de Nile. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be sewing for them…but I’m guessing probably.

Legacy Writing 365:2

When I was in the fifth grade, it was decided that the more musically-inclined students would put on some kind of spring concert. My sister was a singer who was always in choirs and choruses and she loved that stuff. I could think of nothing more horrifying than being on a stage in front of a bunch of people. People with eyes!* So when the music teacher came around to audition us, I had a plan. We sang as a group; she stopped in front of each of us to get a listen to our individual voices. I sang as poorly as I could; it didn’t take a whole lot of effort. And I DIDN’T GET PICKED! Success.

Only then the teachers weren’t sure what to do with us tone-deaf rejects during the times the other kids went to practice for their upcoming concert. My teacher, Mrs. Duncan, hit on a brilliant plan: Her leftovers would be in a play! How exciting! I would have lines to say in front of an auditorium of people!

Please reread my third sentence in the first paragraph.

That’s how I came to play “Dottie” in “The Picnickers.”

I still have a copy of “The Picnickers,” and I read through it before I began this post. The plot: Several girls decide to go on a picnic on a pretty day. They pack their picnic baskets and sneak off without letting the boys know, because:

Maxine: I’d like to know if they ever ask us to go on hikes with them.
Helen: I should say they don’t.

and

Mary Lee: We’ll show them that we can get along without them once in a while.

(Yeah, fist pump, Mrs. Duncan, if in fact you wrote this play.)

The girls get lost a few times, but finally find the spot they’re looking for. They play a few games; Mary Lee, obviously conflicted, periodically says how much more fun they’d be having if the boys were there. A few pointed comments are made about Betty’s hunger, and they won’t leave her behind when they go to the spring to get water because, as Helen says, “There wouldn’t be anything left to eat when we got back.”

(In a few decades, Mrs. Duncan, you’d be in big trouble over the whole young girl/body image/eating disorder thing.)

While they’re gone, the boys show up. Miffed about being left out, they switch out the girls’ picnic baskets for other baskets filled with turnips and carrots, raw potatoes, and stones. The boys then hide. When the girls get back and open the baskets, even Betty suffers a loss of appetite.

At this point, one of the boys emerges from the woods disguised as a gypsy (“gypsy” not having been replaced with the more aptly named “Romani”). Here’s where my willing suspension of disbelief switches off. A gypsy? Because the woods outside AnySmallTown USA are crawling with gypsies in gypsy clothes. And of course a group of girls would totally talk to her and let her tell their fortunes, as well as agree to give up some of their food if she does a magic spell to get their lunch baskets returned. This shit would never fly today, when Maxine would whip out her cell phone and have the police there to arrest the pagan child predator in nothing flat.

But I digress. The gypsy taps on a tree three times, the boys appear with the good food, “Tom” is revealed to be the gypsy, everybody laughs, eats, and they live happily ever after–or so I assume, because the last page of my script is missing.

Regardless, my real issue with this play is that my character Dottie is critical, bossy, and doesn’t deserve the totally suck-up fortune she gets from the gypsy (Tom obviously has a crush on her).

WAY TO TYPECAST, MRS. DUNCAN.


Me, bottom left.

*Line stolen from Rachel on Friends.

Oh, Christmas tree

One year, Tom’s parents didn’t take down their Christmas tree until Easter.

I may be exaggerating.

I’m not sure how long my parents left their trees up every year, but it’s always vaguely been in my head not to put it up before mid-December and not to have it up past New Year’s Day. I think Lynne’s tree was up this year by Thanksgiving: shocking! And mine is still up, and it’s January 2. Tom and Tim were both away for several days while Kathy S babysat me and a house full of dogs; we stayed up watching movies and talking every night, and I took a lot of naps and entertained dogs every day. This all means we’re a little behind in getting Christmas out of the house. Today, instead of being industrious, Tom would rather relax and catch up on his DVRd shows before going back to work, and I’d rather watch this entertaining documentary Puterbaugh recommended (Bill Cunningham New York–streams on Netflix) and take pretty photos like this:

So the heck with it. Where is it written that a house must be undecorated by a certain date? Are there Christmas police who’ll issue a citation? Will the dogs sleep any less soundly with all these festive Christmas lights sparkling around them? Is my sluggishness why people think the Mayan calendar says WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE?

The piece of Dove candy I snagged on my way to the computer told me:

Tom’s parents were right all along.

Legacy Writing 365:1

You may have noticed that my masthead changed with the new year. Since the Magnetic Poetry project has come to an end, I wanted to take on another year-long project. My conditions: It has to be uniquely mine, and it has to involve writing. My blog readers (and I thank EVERY one of you, especially when you take the time to comment) seem to enjoy it when I dip into my past for material. Since I have about ten zillion photos in the archives that include many of my mother’s photos as well as mine, and a seemingly infinite amount of memories, I hope to combine the two on my blog each day.

My relationship with memory has a certain poignancy. I have no children who will say, “Tell me about that time…” or “Not this story again…” as I often did with my own parents. They were both storytellers, so it seemed particularly cruel that both of them suffered diseases that rob the memory: my father’s Parkinson’s disease, my mother’s Alzheimer’s. However, though both of them had moments of confusion and disorientation, they could be gently guided into sharing their long-term memories until shortly before they died.

In a way, my novels are my children. They get sprinkled with bits of stories from my own life and the lives of people I know (or have known): meshed, reassigned, shortened, made better, made worse. Whatever works to breathe life into the characters. When these stories are read, they’re filtered through everything a reader believes, likes, distrusts, yearns for, laughs about, despises–the whole gamut of that reader’s experiences are sitting in his mind and heart.

In essence, all writing is collaborative. We write everyone and everything we’ve known or wished we knew. We work with editors and friends and critical readers to shape and refine our stories. And then our readers rewrite our stories to fit into their unique perspectives.

Over the past year, I’ve read a lot about the process of memory, and its accuracies and inaccuracies. I’ll try to be accurate with both the photos and what I remember.


When I was going through pictures to create the new masthead, I found this one. I correctly identified: SOFTBALL! I don’t know how my father, a good softball player on winning teams, produced me. The Brides and Kathy S try to get me to come to their games, and I always babble things like “softball trauma,” “junior high nightmare,” or a simple shrieking, “NOOOOOOOOOO.” I’m pretty sure there was never a worse softball player than my early teen self. Even after I was finally schooled on the basics–a base? a shortstop? a strike?–I was hopelessly inept.

Keep your eye on the ball? You keep YOUR eye on the ball and make sure it doesn’t come anywhere near me. I closed my eyes when a ball came from the sky when I was practically in the next county, which is where my “team” in P.E. sent me to get me as far from the game as possible. If a ball did manage to turn itself into a rookie-seeking missile, it went through my hands, through my legs, or hell, I don’t know, through the fabric of the space-time continuum.

And batting: OMG, the nightmare that was batting. You are supposed to stand there while someone hurls a ball at you! A ball that can hurt when it hits you! I just closed my eyes and hoped it would somehow dematerialize before it came near me. Needless to say, I never heard or felt that alleged satisfying crack of bat meeting ball. Or got to run to first base–though I think I may have walked a time or two. All of this, of course, to the taunts and jeers of the opposing team. And my own team. And possibly people brought in from biology or civics just to watch me. Which, praise the spirit of whoever is the softball equivalent of Babe Ruth, my father never saw. He never had to know the shame of fathering Jacksonville High School’s WORST Softball Player.

Kathy S looked at this photo and said they don’t make bats like this anymore. They do still make great softball players…I’ve heard.