Kindness of Strangers

Has a stranger in another city or country ever shown you a kindness? This was the question on NPR today. It didn’t take me long to come up with an instance. I’m sure there are more, but this is a favorite.

My husband, two small granddaughters, daughter-in-law, and I were cutting it close. My niece’s reception dinner somewhere in the wilds of Texas back roads was starting five minutes ago. We spied a country bar and pulled our purple rental car over. A patron staggered out. Jerry rolled down the window and asked where the VFW Hall was. The short, boney man straightened his posture and his Stetson. Strenuous effort to widen his eyes seemed to signal his body to slump. He held onto the car and puffed his chest out, widening his eyes again.

“Yessir, be glad to help you.”

His face rearranged itself into a wide smile, deepening the lines in his ruddy cheeks. He pointed first one way, then the other, finally settling on a direction.

“Go straight on down the road a piece till you see the Lone Star sign, take a right—no left—cross over the railroad tracks, go about five more miles down the dirt road to your left and it’ll be on your right.”

“Much obliged,” my husband said with a smile. He’d learned Texas lingo years ago.

We pulled out of the bar parking lot and Jerry immediately turned right.

“What are you doing?” I said.

Jerry made a quick left into the parking lot across the street from the bar, into the crowded VFW parking lot.

My daughter-in-law loves to tell people that Texans really are friendly and helpful—even when they have no idea what they are talking about.

Have you been shown kindness from a stranger while on vacation or just away from home? I’d love to hear about it.

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Witness for the Prosecution

I’m in the “air lock” room, waiting for everyone to get in and fill the elevator-size space. Even in dim light, I know it’s untidy, well used. A fat electrical cord stretches across the black floor.
“When I open the door,” the Director says, “follow me, watch for cords.” The next room was dark, too, but opened to a stage flooded with blue lights. In the ninety-four-year-old theater, constant current activity apparently cloaked the expected smell of antiquity. We followed the director across the stage to the opposite wings.
“You will wait here until time to enter. Remember if you can see the audience, they can see you.”
How did I end up here? My friend Sheryl, a mystery writer, and I came to see Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. Out of my program fell a jury summons? I, along with five other audience members, would spend most of the play on stage as jurors. “These are NOT speaking parts,” the director emphasized with a smile. We would sit in the jury box the rest of the play except for a fade out when the scene would be briefly switched. We had watched the first act from comfy theater seats.
The Wayne Densch Performing Arts Theater is in downtown Sanford, Florida, a small town on Lake Monroe, and north of Orlando. Charming, cozy, comfortable and small-town friendly, it is a jewel in the historic town. We walked by art galleries, quaint shops, cozy restaurants and an open farmer’s market on the way to the theater.
My fellow jurors were great fun, improvising “non-speaking” ways to relate to the audience, but in the end, we followed the rules. We were older except for one young, high school student with a spiked, blond hairstyle. He takes acting classes, so backstage was probably not new to him. He volunteered to run back for the water bottle I left in the lobby during recess and offered me his chair backstage, winning big points for the younger generation.
Another in the young generation was the actor who played court clerk. After the play was over, bows were taken and curtains closed we exited the jury box. The clerk was there to take the hands of ladies and help us down. Perhaps he’s a method actor who really gets into his parts, but I think he was just a well-bred young gentleman.
The actors were lined on both sides as we left the theater, happy to shake our hands and talk.
Did I forget the play? Not intentionally. It’s just that my “role” added such a dimension to the experience. The actors were all local and amazing, so much so that it was easy to forget they weren’t real as they pleaded with the jurors.
The Director asked us after the play if we figured the murderer out. I did. But I missed one clever clue Miss Christie slipped in. He also told us she added to the ending of the play because she thought the murderer got off too lightly in her story.
Some days are absolutely magical. This was one of them.

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Friday 56

Dust Tracks on a Road

Zora Neale Hurston

Page 55-56

“Having finished that and scanned the Doctor Book, which my mother thought she had hidden securely from my eyes, I read all the things which children write on privy-house walls. Therefore, I lost my taste for pornographic literature. I think that the people who love it got cheated in the matter of privy houses when they were children.”

This is a meme from “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” blog.

Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
(If you have to improvise, that’s ok.)
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it)
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.
*It’s that simple.

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TEXAS SURPRISE

I was in the window seat, first row behind the bulkhead on Texas-bound Southwest last weekend when the darling(!) flight attendant grabbed the carry-on at my feet.

“I must stow this overhead until we reach 10,000 feet. Then I get it for you.”

I was begging, arms outstretched, but he is fast. “But my Kindle is in there.”

“You’ll have it back in a few minutes.”

A few minutes turned into an hour and a half. There was no let up in turbulence. No drinks nor snacks nor bathroom trips—nor Kindle. The elderly man in the middle seat and his wife next to him would be my only source of entertainment while we gyrated through the spin cycle. Her only comment before she leaned back and handed him over was, “He’s a talker.” She forgot to say, “and spitter.” He was very nice, and happy to share with me his every ailment and every ailment of friends and family.

Finally my Kindle was delivered to me, along with juice and peanuts and crackers. During the final strap down for landing I grew more interested in the couple to our right talking to the attendants. They were adventurers heading to Big Bend Park for a week. He used to sing, he said, all over Europe, mostly Italy, mostly opera. And then he began to sing in his beautiful baritone. I gasped and said to no one in particular, wish he had done that the whole trip. Wife of spitter leaned forward and said, “ME, TOO!”

This was my first flight after turning seventy-five and I enjoyed getting to leave my jacket and shoes on at the TSA screening. I had learned from the website that they make the determination about your age visually, so it was a bit disconcerting that no one questioned me. However, in San Antonio, the first agent asked for my driver’s license and another stopped me after the naked scan and pointed to my shoes. I told him my age, and he checked where the first agent had stamped my boarding pass, and said, “And I was going to ask you out.” I suggest they place at least one Latino man at every screening station. They know how to make you feel good.

The following day forty or fifty close friends and family gathered in a private room to surprise my adorable niece on her fiftieth birthday. The restaurant in New Braunfels is a converted post office filled with charm. Brenda said later she was surprised, but thought something was up. When I stepped from behind the person in front of her and her blue eyes grew wide and mouth stopped working, I knew her daughter had pulled off one surprise.

My sister and I were escorted to the party by her first and second ex-husband. He claims he was drunk the second time and thought she was another woman. That’s the kind of family I come from.

Once the cat was out of the bag, Brenda and I could spend time together—and we did—along with four of her grandbabies, my sister, niece, nephews. . . you get the picture.

At my sister’s I had tamales for breakfast—eight of them, and I’m not sorry. Then there was my nephew Anthony’s amazing venison jerky. Who knew I liked jerky? Good wine. Oh, and even Strawberry Boones Farm Brenda and her high school friend brought “for old time’s sake.” Let me tell you, it still tastes good.

Once I made it back to my home Tuesday I had one hour to shower, dress and get to the monthly writers meeting, and made it. I got home a little more than twelve hours after leaving Texas that morning, but it was all worth it.  

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STUCK IN LOVE

“Oh no! I’d never spend a few years writing a novel,” Josh Boone said.
He was doing a Q&A at a screening for his soon to be released movie, “Stuck in Love.” Some of the invited writers gasped. Did he just say that? So screenwriting is easier for him than a novel? Interesting.
That was only one of the gems we picked up from the experience. Fern Goodman, Larry Leech and I were glad we made the effort after receiving an invitation though Florida Writers Association. Craig Evans, publicist, thought writers would enjoy the film because “Stuck in Love” is about a family of writers. Greg Kinear is the award winning novelist, and his son and daughter both write. The daughter’s boyfriend even writes. Quotes from well known authors are peppered throughout the movie, including one by a favorite of mine, Flannery O’Connor. The son’s (Nat Wolff) fascination with Stephen King is a feeling most of us share about at least one particular writer. There was so much to identify with whether you are a writer or reader.
Yes, the movie is about young love, but not exclusively. Somehow they made a movie all ages can relate to.
Josh Boone and Nat Wolff were charming at the Q&A. Josh even gave us a peek into himself with confessions about why he wrote certain scenes and created the ending he did. They were warm and funny. If we get a chance to attend another screening we certainly will. Movies have to start with a script, and there is so much to learn from a creative mind like Josh Boone’s. Writers, next time you receive an invitation like this, GO!

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MENTAL WORKOUT

It’s the only thing that works for me – visualization. When I really don’t want to go to the gym and even putting on workout clothes to shame myself doesn’t do the trick, I think of the pole vaulter. He stands there with pole held in starting position. He’s all dressed and ready to go, but not yet. First he visualizes himself springing into that first step, then the next and the next and finally he sees himself planting the pole and rising in the air. You see the mental preparation in his eyes as they switch focus. And then he takes off.

 

That’s exactly what I have to do. I see myself getting my yoga bag ready, putting it in the car, backing out of the driveway, pulling into the parking lot, checking in at the desk and entering the darkened yoga studio. I CAN DO THIS! And it usually works. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all that visual preparation burned calories and built muscles? No, for that we have to spring into that first step. 

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Fences Make Good Neighbors?

I am spoiled. For almost thirty-seven years I’ve enjoyed a bucolic view from my large living room window. Behind my solid wood, vine covered fence another home has for that time either been occupied by quiet people or vacant and crumbling. No more. Now it hums with chain saws, thuds with hammers, vibrates with rap music.

Did I mention the Vegas light show? Okay, they aren’t neon and don’t flash, but new ones seem to go up each day, as do out buildings. Another new roof is taking shape today. Soon, there won’t be an inch of lawn in that plot of almost an acre. The trees are long gone.

The first construction was an eight foot solid wood fence for all but a small strip right behind my house. Next a screened pool enclosure. Some time in there the private dirt road leading to the house was paved. The road dead ends at the fence in my side yard.

I gave their landscaper permission to cut the limbs on my trees that hung over the fence. It’s the law, so I get no points here. I did allow him to come in my yard and cut the errant limbs back to the trunk. He kindly offered to pull potato vines and take down a little bamboo. That sounded fine until I see about a fifteen or twenty foot swath of cleared land this side of the fence. But this is bamboo. That won’t last long. I’ve always hated the invasive stuff, but now am happy for a buffer.

I know they got the house for a song, but somebody has money to burn. It needed a new septic tank and water supply for starters.
Who are these people? I don’t know. I see people on the roofs a lot, but don’t know if they are workers or live there. Property records show it owned by an LLC, which owns property all over the U.S. and the Cayman Islands. So no name to call, no way to discuss things unless I climb an eight foot fence or scale the solid electric gate that blocks their drive. This is a compound.

A cop early on stopped them from throwing trash over the fence. Then a couple of weeks ago I called again. I refused to be run out of my house a second time because of a loud party. That day the music was loud enough for to hear over the leaf blower a guy was using on the roof. Guess he never heard of earphones. My house was vibrating so badly with the rap beat my cats hunkered in the hallway as they do for a thunderstorm. Earlier neighbors two blocks away told me they were hearing the music. I don’t think the sound lowered when he finished with the leaf blower. It stopped abruptly, though, about 9:15 p.m. when the cops arrived and I haven’t heard it again, but who knows.

I should be happy they have fixed up the abandoned property, and cleaned up the mosquito breeding pool, but I long for the day I looked over the fence and saw only trees, heard only birds and the rustling of leaves on the trees.

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FWA Writers Conference 2011

Writers who need writers are the luckiest people in the world, and I just spent three days with about six hundred writers, agents, publishers and editors. At the core they are all writers. I can’t tell you how many times we talked for ten or fifteen minutes before I discovered the writer was also one of the above. Each time I would think, but these are nice people, they actually want to find authors to represent or publish! Where are the ogres we are so afraid of? As a matter of fact, probably a third of those I talked with at the table or in the hall turned out to be there presenting, interviewing, and actively looking for talent. Someone remarked it was the only conference he had been to where presenters, exhibitors and member mingled. Come to think of it, that has been my experience, too.

I’m hesitant to single anyone out because there were too many contacts to mention all, but you know I will. One of the first I met was Lynn Price, Behler Publications, sitting next to me at lunch. She is an award-winning author as well. She would give the rousing closing keynote speech Sunday. More about Lynn later.

Saritza Hernandez was just another fascinating writer who turned out also to be an e-pub agent with L. Perkins Agency. She served on the experts panel discussion, which was worth the price of the conference.

While getting a breath of fresh air on the patio, someone spoke to me in a soft, lilting Southern voice. She asked the usual, “what genre do you write?”. I gave the elevator pitch I have been formulating, “Short stories, Southern literature mostly.”
She told me she writes Southern novels, and had a new release, “Momma’s Comfort Food.” It’s a novel, but peppered with food and recipes because readers want to know how to make the dishes that figure in the story. We talked about Southern food and the tendency of those not from the South to not realize this is how we REALLY talk, think, and turn a phrase. After that Rhett LeVane could not hide her excitement about a Southern novel (Catfish Alley) of a new author she recently reviewed for Southern Literary Review. Be still my heart! So after Googling Rhett, I must add several of her books to my Kindle library, as well as the new novelist she highly recommends.

Joan Levy and I have a habit of snagging solo conference attendees and bringing them to our table before they can think. After all, that’s how we met. One of the first was Cristina Kessler, writer of nine children’s books published by Penguin. She inserts various African and other languages into the stories so the children can learn a little of another language. Cristina and her husband lived in various African countries for twenty-eight years while with the Peace Corp and Care America. They live in the Virgin Islands now.

This is where publisher Lynn Price comes in. She was at our table again sitting next to Cristina. She has asked to see her new travel guide and a couple of other young adult books of hers which are now out of print. I’ve heard several stories of this nature that occurred at the conference. It doesn’t hurt that Cristina’s book won first place in RPLA for non-fiction travel.
At closing ceremony Cristina won free registration for next year’s conference in the drawing today. She was on the fence about next year, but not now. Is it luck or did she make her own luck. Maybe a little of each.
Linda terBurg, what a warm, interesting person. Linda is a marketing specialist I had the opportunity to sit by a couple of times. Her presentation was inspiring. If only I had something ready to market.

I know I am sprinkling in a mix of writers and professionals, but that was the nature of the conference. Kate LeSar is an instant friend type. She was published in the collections book and won an RPLA award. It was great to celebrate with her at our table. Kate has trained nonliterate midwives in Afghanistan, taught health care workers in Calcutta and run a nursing home for Armenians in Boston. We had a lot to talk about there.

I have to stop somewhere, so it will be here. At the awards banquet they called the name Helen Parramore for an RPLA award. I know her! Well, not really. I have yellowed copies of her “My Word” columns (longer letters to the editor) from years back, but we’ve never met. She’s a retired educator is all I know about her besides what she reveals in her op ed pieces. I’ve been her biggest unknown fan. Today I searched for backs of heads (which was the only view I got of her last night) and of course, checked name tags. I ran into a couple of people who know her. It was one of those “she was just here” things. Alas, we never connected. I think she will get the word though that she’s a rock star to me. If I remember right, she moved from the house with the purple door, but I hope her new home has one, too. It suits the Helen I know and don’t know.

Come to think of it, a purple door suits most writers I met the last few days. Until next year. . .

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No Stone Unturned

Note to self: next funeral you attend look around for visual markers. How far is the burial plot from the granite bench? The mausoleum, the white structure—anything? If you do not, I promise you will not go back in the rain, carrying an umbrella and the deceased’s favorite yellow roses and find her in less than half an hour. I know, I know, you aren’t thinking about that when you are burying your friend, but location will become important later. Trust me.

 

In the old days, stones were creative, artistic, monumental, or just small and respectful, but they were unique and easier to spot than flat granite and bronze plaques. You can’t stand in one spot and scour the horizon for a name or shape. No, you must walk in the wet grass clippings, and dare I say it, walk on graves. You try not to, but the head and foot of the gravesite become merged into the next occupant. Finally, I’m ashamed to admit, you just wander without regard to tradition.

 

You are so clever at first. You look for two stones, one for her, one for her husband. When that is fruitless, you look for a spot missing a stone by an older plaque because there has not been long enough to put a new one for your friend. Finally, moist and hot from the misty rain, you just wander. You even call your friend’s name and say, “Damn, it Gloria, where are you?” Then you see a wide stone with her last name spread across, her husband’s name on one side with dates and hers on the other without. One large stone was not even in your bag of tricks, but there it is. So you call the friend who came with you and the two of you finally plant the roses in a vase. You fuss at your deceased friend a bit for hiding and messing with your head as she was prone to do, wish her Happy Birthday and recall what a kooky, special person she was.

 

All the while, you are making a mental map for next time, where to stop, which tree to line up with, how far in to go – what you should have done at the funeral had you been thinking straight. So this is fair warning. Heed it or not. And if you do, you have my admiration. If not, I might see you wandering out there among the flat grave stones.

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Final Thoughts on Anthony Trial

I was once one of two holdouts on a felony jury. In another felony trial I was among the eleven who agreed. Presentation of those trials took hours and we had to return the next day to finish hearing evidence on at least one. The witness list was in the teens in the Federal case, two or three on the other. Our deliberation took almost as long as the trial, half a day at least each time. Both were years ago, so my times aren’t exact. My point is the proportion of time hearing testimony to time deliberated was about equal. The Casey Anthony trial lasted about six weeks. The jury deliberated eleven hours.

 

In the trial where I was a holdout I was certain the defendant was guilty, but so much conflicting testimony and alternate theories were presented that I could not be sure. I had reasonable doubt that the crime might have been perpetrated by another. So we talked, and talked, and talked. Finally another juror recalled testimony he thought pointed undisputedly to the defendant. I had not heard that. Neither had the other holdout. We asked the court clerk to let us see the testimony, thinking someone would just read it to us. Instead the court was reconvened, we all returned to the places we had been hours before, and the clerk read the portion we asked about. We adjourned to our room, voted and delivered a unanimous decision. We had all listened, but it was so easy to miss something important. At that time no notes were allowed either. Only two of us missed the key element.

 

The other case was similar, except that after hours of discussion someone mentioned particular testimony. The lone holdout said she had not heard that. The courtroom was set up again and the court reporter asked to read the testimony in question. I read the defendant’s lips as he said to his attorney, “I said that?” The vote immediately after that was unanimous for guilty.

 

While I totally respect the Casey Anthony jury and know what a gut wrenching job they had, I have to wonder at the brevity of their deliberation. You writers out there know that you may think a story or novel complete many, many times, but a critique group or editor will dig deeper and see something you missed. For that reason, as much as I hate to criticize a jury, I am afraid they didn’t dig deeply enough. Perhaps a few more hours, or days in this case, of discussion would have satisfied many of their doubts. But what is done is done. I can tell Juror #3 wishes she might have been able to connect more dots and perhaps she could have had those twelve have had a longer discussion. But maybe not. Remember all of us heard much more than they did both on court TV when the jury was out of the room and in the three years prior.

 

In the elevator after a trial it is sometimes hard to suppress the tears even when you feel you have made the right decision, so I get it. The jury is to be thanked for sacrificing weeks of their lives for justice. I just hope that was the end result.

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