legacy writing – Page 23 – beckycochrane.com

Legacy Writing 365:203

One of my favorite Christmases ever.

It’s kind of crazy, because I was dating a Terrible Someone who actually resented that I was able to spend that Christmas with my family (our relationship ended not long after that). The Famous Musician who had been my crush since I was a wee teen died while I was at my parents’ house that December. And I’d just been…”released” from my job and wasn’t sure how I’d pay rent or tuition.

BUT…when you are with people who know and love you unconditionally, who always give you safe harbor, and who make you tear your tonsils out laughing, who gives a crap about all that other stuff? You set the timer on your camera, run to join your family, know that nothing that can be bought, nothing that can be under the tree on December 25, can ever measure up to the magic of this moment captured. Even if you do wonder when you get your pictures developed how that big gold bow ended up on your brother’s head.

Legacy Writing 365:202

On Friday afternoon, after months of calls for submissions, reading manuscripts, talking to writers, edits, more edits, more emails, and…well, more edits, Tim and I were finally able to have the exciting discussion we’ve been anticipating. I wrote down the names and themes of the sixteen stories that we’ve accepted for Foolish Hearts: New Gay Fiction on squares of paper, and we arranged, discussed, and rearranged them into our table of contents. Then I put them into one big, beautiful draft:

Now we’ll do a last read-through, incorporate a few final edits from one of the contributors, and get the remaining two author bios in there. Tim will finish his introduction, I will finish my afterword, and we’ll ship this baby to Cleis for final approval. Once we have the official “go,” we can share the table of contents with the world. I know the authors involved are looking forward to that.

When we did Fool For Love, we got in the habit of calling the contributors anthology brothers. One gratifying aspect of that is how they’ve sought each other out when they’ve traveled to New Orleans, New York, and beyond. Several of them have developed relationships in which they pass their works in progress to each other for feedback. They read, encourage, and advise–because though the act of writing is a solitary one, the art of writing requires an audience.

All this has made me look backward to some of the lovely moments I’ve experienced with Fool For Love’s writers.

Rob Byrnes with ‘Nathan Burgoine in New Orleans in 2008.

Tim with Trebor Healey in New Orleans in 2009.

I don’t have a photo of our meeting with Rob Williams in New York in 2007, so I just shamelessly stole this shot of him from his blog.

Mark G. Harris with Tim in Houston in 2008.

David Puterbaugh with me in Houston in 2010.

Josh Helmin with Tim in Houston in 2011.

Michael Thomas Ford wasn’t in FFL, but we shot this photo in New Orleans of him with Greg Herren, Rob Byrnes, and Tim for Houston’s OutSmart Magazine. They didn’t publish it, but we aren’t mad at them, because they regularly support and feature gay fiction and gay writers.

Me with Jeffrey Ricker, Tim, and Jeffrey’s partner Michael in 2009 in New Orleans.

Tim with Paul Lisicky in Houston in 2008.

Tim and me with Felice Picano in New Orleans in 2011.

There are four FFL writers and one editor included in this group in New Orleans in 2009: the kind of shenanigans I want to get up to for future photos with the contributors to and readers of Foolish Hearts. I love writers.

Legacy Writing 365:201

My mother had a favorite expression which was all the more annoying because of how often she was right to use it: “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.” The event she drew from to illustrate it happened when she was probably about the age you see her in this photo (I don’t know who those other kids are; she’s the one standing by herself to the right).

She hated green beans. At least she insisted she did, though her mother would remind her that she wouldn’t even try them. When her mother or older sisters cooked green beans, Mother would be so vocal with her complaints that she was often sent away from the table so the rest of the family could eat in peace. She won–she didn’t have to eat green beans–but she lost because she didn’t get to eat anything else, either, like biscuits dripping with butter and molasses, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy–you get the picture. Her mother would tell her, “Dorothy Jean, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

One day Mother walked into the kitchen just before the midday meal to find the food keeping warm on the stove while everyone was off taking care of other things. She spied the dreaded green beans in a pot, walked over to them, and thought to herself, I’m not eating them and nobody else will, either. She plunged both hands into the beans and began squishing them between her fingers, turning them into mush.

She thought she heard one of the boys coming and knew the fastest way to get rid of the evidence was to lick her hands clean. She braced herself for the horror of the taste and stuck her fingers in her mouth. Then it happened: the worst possible thing. She loved them. She grabbed the pot and a spoon, sat at the table, and ate every one of those green beans.

It was a great comfort to me that Mother, too, knew the annoyance of a mother who was often–okay, pretty much always–right.

Legacy Writing 365:200

This week I had the pleasure of getting some one-to-one time with Jess, my nephew-by-choice. It was so great talking to him. For some reason, after he left, I remembered a night when Jess was about the age he is in this picture:

Matt, Jess, and a child whose name I don’t know.

Lynne was driving us somewhere, and Jess and Matt were in the back seat. I don’t remember if we were trying to decide where to eat, but the two boys suddenly began singing, “Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut. McDonald’s, McDonald’s.” I didn’t realize at the time that this was a song of many verses (here’s a version that includes a Ferrari, and there’s another variation with Jabba the Hut). I guess it started as a Scouting song, and in 2003, long after Jess and Matt sang it, a band called the Fast Food Rockers recorded a version of it. Who knows why Jess and Matt’s rendition shows up in my brain from time to time, but we ended up ordering pizza at The Compound after its most recent occurrence as my ear worm. Pizza Hut should pay kids for their promotional work.

I used to wonder, as I was growing up, how it was that teens I met from all over the country knew the same ghost stories, the same songs, the same Hollywood gossip–especially stuff that was too racy for TV or print media so had to be spread by word of mouth. It’s easy in the Internet age to understand how information–and misinformation–spreads like wildfire via email, Twitter, Facebook, youtube, etc. Still, even before technology, urban legends and things you wouldn’t repeat to your grandma managed to find their way into our lives. I still know that Comet makes your teeth turn green; that if teens go parking, the guy with The Hook will show up; and rock stars control us with subliminal messages. None of that stuff bothers me; if I need backup, I can summon the alligators from the sewer.

Legacy Writing 365:199

If only Lynne and I weren’t a mere thirty-five years old, we might have spent the Summer of ’69 this way:

We might have stayed up all night secretly talking on the phone by stretching the cords as far as possible toward our bedrooms. I could usually get away with this because of where our second phone was situated, but the princess phone Lynne used had to cross the hall from her parents’ bedroom to hers. The base was stuck in the hall, and the curly cord to the handset snaked under Lynne’s bedroom door. When Elnora (her mother) woke up from her pre-bedtime nap on the couch and walked down the long, dark hallway to go to bed, she’d trip on the phone, cussing as she caught her balance by grabbing the walls, while the handset would be jerked from Lynne’s grip and slam against her closed bedroom door. This was my cue to hang up, sneak our phone back to its stand, and go to bed, while in her house, Lynne would immediately jump into bed and pretend she’d forgotten to hang up the phone before falling asleep hours before. I doubt Elnora was fooled.

Mark Lindsay in the magazine photo I pretended not to be insanely jealous that Lynne owned.

I remember the closet in Lynne’s parents’ bedroom as being huge, and tucked into one corner were several brown grocery bags full of romance novels that Elnora and her friends passed among them. That summer, while Lynne mooned over pictures of Mark Lindsay and his pony tail, I was devouring one or two romance novels a day. If she got bored, Lynne would reread her Archie, Casper, Richie Rich, and Little Lulu comic books. Sometimes she could talk me into walking to town–it wasn’t much of a town, but we still found plenty of mischief to get into.

The one constant was the radio. Whether it was our transistors, my parents’ big console stereo, or the radios in the cars that took us to and from each other’s houses, we always listened to WVOK-AM out of Birmingham. (When it signed off at night, we became contortionists with our transistors to our ears trying to pick up WLS out of Chicago.) Taking a look at the old WVOK Tough Twenty Surveys, the mix of music amazes me. In one afternoon, we might hear the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Herman’s Hermits, Tom Jones, the Grass Roots, the Archies, Dionne Warwick, Ray Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, the Bee Gees, Henry Mancini, Marvin Gaye–we were the market for the music of anybody we might find on the pages of Tiger Beat, 16 Magazine, and Teen Beat. WVOK’s morning show was hosted by Joe Rumore who played oldies and sometimes music with a country influence between Sweet Sue and Golden Eagle Table Syrup ads. By the time we were fully awake and on the phone or being chauffeured to the swimming pool, Don Keith was DJing, and later in the afternoon, we’d listen to the melodic voice of DJ Dan Brennan.

It was also Dan Brennan who introduced WVOK’s Shower of Stars shows. Every one of these that Lynne and I were taken to by her mother and/or sister in Birmingham, we managed to find someone who could get us backstage. I have so many autographs from those shows. And when Lynne was old enough to drive us herself, we collected a few not-for-the-blog stories along with our autographs. We had a blast. We saw Tony Orlando when Dawn was just hastily assembled backup vocalists so he could tour after his first hit record. We saw Neil Diamond before he was uncool and then cool again. We saw Bobby Sherman, who we cared nothing about, and Pat Paulsen, the first comedian to run a satirical campaign for president (imagine–if he’d beat Nixon–Smothers Brothers in the cabinet instead of those thugs we ended up with!), and the Carpenters–who wouldn’t want to remember getting to hear Karen Carpenter sing in person? Most especially, we saw our favorite bands, Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Grass Roots, which is what branded us teenyboppers by the boys we knew, who were into much cooler music. Whatever. It was all about the crushes, and our walls were plastered with our idols’ faces like the young teens who loved Sinatra and Frankie Avalon before us, Wham!, New Kids on the Block and Hanson after us, and Bieber today. Long may you pop your bubblegum and sing along, ‘tweens and teenyboppers.

Legacy Writing 365:198

I first began playing Yahtzee with Lynne and her sister Liz in the months and years after their mother died. Drawn closer together by that event, we formed many of our “friend traditions” then: making bad home movies, baking wonderful holiday goodies, taking road trips to Atlanta and Birmingham to shop, haunt record stores, and see concerts. And then there was Yahtzee, where we honed our table repartee to the point that all one of us had to do was look at the others with a certain expression on her face, and someone would mutter, “I know, I know…” and finish the sentence with the intended insult.

Those days meant I’d already played with the fiercest of opponents by the time Debby and her friends began visiting us in Houston. But with her posse came a new language–for example, when rolling the five dice, Connie would shout, “Yahtzee!” then sadly comment, “Not-zee.” After her rolls, Debby would say, “Holy shit the bed Fred.” Dottie was adept at “assuming the Yahtzee position,” which meant magically trying to roll a Yahtzee by imitating the manic expressions of the family pictured on the Yahtzee box as they watched someone roll the dice. My mother wouldn’t play with us–games brought out her paranoid conviction that we were all out to get her, including the dice–and Tom just tried to breathe through the cigarette smoke.

I would laugh at their comments and stories until my face hurt. We called Connie “Trailer Trash Connie,” a name she embraced with gusto. Dottie would be all quiet and sweet until out of nowhere she’d crack us up with a stream of profanity like I’d never heard–even when I knew hard-livin’ cowboys on the rodeo circuit.

The house was filled with raucous laughter, smoke, and great scents from the kitchen. Off of The Compound, Debby and her friends were always in search of The Perfect Margarita or a good night of bingo.

And trips to Galveston. It didn’t matter if it was bitterly cold November, we always went to Galveston to walk the beach or Christmas shop on The Strand.

Connie, Debby, Mother, and Dottie in Galveston

I miss these crazy girls.

Legacy Writing 365:197

Legacy Writing 365:196

If I were as cool (but please, not as weathered) as Keith Richards, I could articulate all kinds of credible reasons why Elvis Presley was The King. But the most authentic, rock-and-roll Elvis was way before my time; even movie Elvis was. The Elvis most recognizable to me was Vegas Elvis, the man wearing white jump suits, lots of jewelry, paranoia, and sycophants. Sometimes I look at early photos and I can’t believe how beautiful, open, and innocent his face was because the images I knew best are from the years just preceding his death.

Terri’s wearing an Elvis T-shirt, but you can’t really see it in this photo.

Here, Daniel’s wearing it, proving she’d give her son the shirt off her back.

Not being one of the cool Elvis fans, what I love best are the ballads that came between his blues- and rockabilly-based early years and his easy-listening latter years. I think “Can’t Help Falling in Love” is a favorite, followed closely by “Love Me Tender.” If I really had to pick my favorite Elvis song, it’s one that was sung much differently from the way he sang it. Different, in fact, from any version of it I’ve ever been able to find.

In the kitchen of the house Terri and Daniel are photographed in front of (above), I often heard my mother sing a slow, sad, definitely non-polka rendition of “Wooden Heart” while she cooked or did dishes. It’s a version of the song that can never exist anywhere but in my memory, and I often sing it when I’m driving–though Mother, at least, sang it in tune.

Elvis 68 Special (Hasbro, 1993), Mattel’s Barbie Loves Elvis (2011), Teen Idol Elvis (Hasbro, 1993)

Maybe you’ll see this Barbie, renamed Priscilla for obvious reasons, modeling a future Becks design. Mattel created her outfit from an album cover:

Legacy Writing 365:195

When I’m cooking, it often seems like there are a whole lot of people in the kitchen with me. I don’t mean physically, because as most people will tell you, unless someone has a job to do, I don’t want ANYone in my kitchen, and I’m always driving out people and dogs with commands and threats.

As I began preparing fresh okra today, I thought as I always do about Jane Jane, pictured below with Papa.

While she cooked, to keep me out from under her feet, Jane Jane would give me the peelings and snippings from her vegetables in a big bowl and put me on the back porch. That way I could play “cooking” to my heart’s content, and she could keep an eye on me through the screen door without worrying I might get into something I shouldn’t or get hurt in the kitchen. Long before I ever ate okra, I played with it.

To say I was not an adventurous eater as a child would be an understatement. I liked what I liked and wouldn’t try anything else. Dislikes included all breads, many vegetables, and the usual weird stuff like beets, liver, and brussels sprouts. So it wasn’t until I went to college and met Debbie (who became my roommate multiple times during undergraduate and graduate school), that I would try new things. She persuaded me to try boiled okra in our dorm cafeteria.

When I confessed to Granny, pictured below with her great-granddaughter Jennifer, that I’d eaten and liked boiled okra, she cooked me a skillet of fried okra. Mercy, it was SO good.

There was no way to avoid it–I had to admit to my mother that after all those years of shunning her okra, I’d decided I loved it. She taught me to cook it.

Those of you who like my fried okra owe a debt to the women above. Still, I know there are okra haters among you. You’re in good company. Guinness, who’ll eat damn near anything, rushed into the kitchen earlier when the end of a pod of okra rolled off the counter and hit the floor. She sniffed it, laid down next to it, and ignored it, as if to say, “You got anything better up there?”

Legacy Writing 365:194

Back in 2000, it took us a while to figure out that our little girl dachshund Stevie had gone blind. That was because she adapted so well that we missed all the signs until one day when our friend Amy came over. She knocked and both dogs ran to the door barking. But even after Amy came inside, Stevie continued to face the door and bark. It hit me all at once that her vision must be wonky, and when I started testing her, I realized she might be completely blind. A visit to the vet confirmed it.

We felt guilty that we’d missed the signs; Stevie handled it much better than we did. Still, everybody worried about her, especially her favorite person in the world, who came to visit her that spring. She spent all her time in his lap or next to him on the couch or on the bench outside. He even got her to play fetch by tossing a rawhide bone in a way that enabled her to hear it when it landed. We rarely played with her with toys, because she tended to get manic and obsessive about them, but it’s a favorite uncle’s prerogative to indulge a niece, right?

You must have guessed that it was Uncle Tim with whom Stevie shared such a special bond. And even though Stevie’s gone now, and Tim hasn’t worn this color nail polish in years, nor would you ever see him with a cigarette these days (three years and counting!), he’s still pretty much the favorite person of every dog on The Compound–resident, visitor, or foster.

That’s why he’s the Dog Whisperer.