Gone So Long and Gone and Going On

I started this as a post for social medial, but it didn't quite seem right for that. Maybe it's a prose poem. Maybe it's just a few thoughts at the end of a week, an OK week except for contemplations. 

But then those matter don't they? They affect well being. 

Talking about them is supposed to do some good. 

 I’ve been gone from where I used to live a long time, almost a quarter of a century. A moment in a book I was reading reminded me the other day I ought to try again to find out what happened to this one girl I used to know. We knew each other as kids and in high school, rubbed each other the wrong way frequently, but co-existed well all in all. 

Funny the little things that trigger memory. The book had an incident about a swimming pool, and she and I were in the same circles that went swimming when we were 10 or so.

I had learned when her mother died that she had preceded her in death sometime before the internet documented obituaries as well as they do now, except maybe behind paywalls. 

I thought a fresh Google might let find out what happened to her. I didn't get an answer. But that led to the discovery of another person who passed, then another and another. 

That on the heels of learning a while back of a friend 30 years gone I just hadn’t heard about.

I need to stop looking and counting. 

One girl, I couldn't tell you the last time I saw or talked to her, but her passing made me sad and made me keep reading Legacy. 

One in the mix was a guy I hadn’t thought of in years and years and years, but when I saw his obit I remembered this one time a friend and I went with him and flew this plane he built—long, long before drones.

A piece fell off while his remote-control plane was in the air. He managed to land it without destroying it in spite of the fact that it was an aileron he lost, a piece pretty important to control. 

We joked about insurance. As he loaded the damaged plane into the back of his car, he said: “Yeah, I need `a piece of the rock' for my plane, too.” It was a spin on a slogan for Prudential many might not recall. 

As I read of his passing, I learned he turned that passion for building into a successful small business and made that how he spent his time until… 

Made me look more at one of the others. She was a parallel friend, someone from the schoolyard you'd say hey to or chat with if you crossed paths back then. You can look at some timelines now and get reminded in small ways they did the same things you did back when with a different set of friends. 

And she went on to a career and other things until circumstances, and possibly some bad decisions, kicked in. 

Trying to find out more, I learned of another friend who preceded his mother in death. That's all her obit said.

It's made me think of fond moments with each of those seven gone that I've learned of in the last few years.

Apparently origins and specifics of the quote are disputed, but I'll go with the variation attributed to German poet Ludwig Jacobowski that I found. It seems to fit best:

“Do not cry because they are past! Smile, because they once were!” 

 Maybe so. I'll remember that and go on trying to create new moments. 

 Zevon nailed it. "Enjoy every sandwich." 

And a paraphrase from that first quote above is sometimes mixed with a passage from Dr. Seuss, I'll keep in mind too. 

 “We’re off to great places, so let’s be on our way.”

A Bit of Memoir - C. Dean Andersson, John Steakley and Self-Promotion

I've mentioned not loving self-promotion, but I'm also aware repetition is necessary on a project so I share where I can. It's in marketing textbooks, but I got a personalized lesson once upon a time.

I guess that makes this a story with foreshadowing and everything.  

The late great and wonderful C. Dean Andersson (the 𝘏𝘦𝘭 trilogy, 𝘐 𝘈𝘮 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢 and much more) and his wife Nina Romberg aka author Jane Archer, once told me of doing a mall signing with the late John Steakley of 𝘈𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘳 and 𝘝𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦$--the one made into a movie by John Carpenter--fame. 

Steakley's father was a car salesman, so when someone was dismissive of the work on the signing table, he rose and followed the guy all the way down the mall loudly hawking the work with a continuing spiel about the virtues.

So flash forward a while later, Steakley was master of ceremonies or toastmaster at a con I was attending, okay it was a Coast Con in Biloxi, Miss. Early '90s or so. There were these big gatherings of con attendees and guests on opening night in those days. 

A comic I wrote, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬, was the new thing I had out in the moment so when Steakley introduced me, I mentioned that. 

"What was that title again?" he asked, tipping a microphone to his lips then pointing it back at me.

 "Er, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬." 

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 you say. Interesting. So everyone should know about 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬?" 

"Sure, it'd be nice." 

"Excellent, so what was that title again?" 

I said it a little louder and with more assurance: "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬." 

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬. Well great. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬!" 

He kept the riff going a while, proving everything Dean had described, repeating 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘬 often and loudly until he finally clapped me on the shoulder: "That's what you have to do. Keep saying it, my friend." 

I smiled and sat back down.

Wish he and Dean were still with us.

A Big Hand for the Little Lady and an Old Household Movie Viewing Mystery Solved

My wife, Christine, loves The Odd Couple original film, something about the combo of Neil Simon's humor and Jack Lemmon's performance as Felix. Anyway, it was streaming on Pluto the other day. I pointed it out, and she settled in to watch the what was left.

And Walter Matthau on screen suddenly reminded me of a conversation with my dad years and years ago. The, I guess, mostly forgotten comedy western A Big Hand for the Little Lady with Henry Fonda, Joanne Woodward as the the "little lady" and Jason Robards came on TV, probably on NBC. This would have been the very early '70s.

As the show neared its conclusion, my dad said he'd seen it before. "But it wasn't with Henry Fonda."

An ad for the upcoming broadcast of Cactus Flower popped on the screen about that moment with a tight shot of Walter Matthau's face. "It was that fellow there," he said. 

Seemed weird, but we chalked it up to an odd coincidence or something like that and moved on.

But Walter Matthau--busy with a different set of poker buddies--was on my screen again all these years later via the Internet, which we didn't have in 1971. I thought, why not check it out? Maybe my dad had a point.  

The IMDB entry simply credits Sidney Carroll as the screenwriter, though there are mentions in the trivia of it originally being written for TV along with allusions to an alternate title or two. Big Deal in Laredo et al.

 

Let's Go the the Wiki
I moved on to Wikipedia, and gained clarity. In 1962, Big Deal in Laredo was produced for television as an installment of an anthology called The Dupont Show of the Week. It earned Emmy nominations including one for Matthau. There's even a press photo of him in character out there for purchase.  

Son of a bitch, my old man was right. It's a little thing, but that brought me a bit of joy. The TV show would have aired a month after I was born. 

My old man was a route salesman for a wholesale grocery company. When he came home from work after driving all day from mom-and-pop grocery to mom-and-pop grocery in rural Louisiana, he still had an hour or two of making changes to his price book, a heavy, leather bound thing with semi-circle holes punched for easy removal and replacement.

He would have been working on those changes or pricing order tickets from his customers as we watched anything. That was probably how he watched The Dupont Show years earlier and with a newborn in the house, more focused on the storyline than the brand umbrella. 

It's nice to have little things mined out of the memory, reconnecting with little moments from life flowing along. You never know what's going to matter. 

Some triggers on a quiet Sunday afternoon are good ones. 

In the Arm

I was able to get my first vaccine shot this past week. I have to keep reminding myself I've taken a step. 

I'll feel better after the second shot and the wait for immunity to kick in is up, but I do feel a bit more upbeat, maybe lighter than I realized I wasn't. 

I had grown numb to the sense of existential dread we've been enduring for a year. 

I felt some anxiety leading up to the shot. It was never about the stick. I think I feared the appointment wouldn't hold, that somehow there'd been a mistake and a kink in the supply chain would force a further wait.

I'd been qualified for a while to receive in Virginia, but it was feeling like the day and the opportunity would never come. 

It all went smoothly, though. The pharmacy I went to had things planned well, and I had only a three-minute wait for software to allow me to check in precisely 15-minutes before. Even with Siri's assist, it's hard to calculate drive time. I damn sure didn't want to be late, either.

The guy giving injections asked which arm. 

"My left is to you," I said. 

"It can be in either."

I told him left was fine. I had no side effects on this first one other than the sore arm everyone reports.

I'm not sure how we--all of us--will remember the day as time passes, but it will perhaps be one of those moments we look back on as this long slog becomes a blur somewhere behind us.

My list of things to do after is limited and infinite. 

I'd always had the notion seeing the next Bond movie in the theater might be something to look forward to. I realized if all goes well with the second shot and a two-week wait, the planned release of Black Widow would come just as my immunity should kick in.

Then the date of Black Widow was moved to July, so almost certainly that will be a possibility if local theaters open.

Beyond that, dinner out, visits here or there with less concern, the grocery story. Christine and I have been doing curbside pickup. Browsing in the store and planning meals accordingly seems like something that will be fun. 

Beyond that, what will normal be? I'll have to see. But one step closer's not too bad. 

Playmate - A New Short Horror Mystery Story Now Available in Dark Dossier Magazine

Not long before I left Florida for my current home in Virginia, I went into my kitchen for my morning coffee. Some of you, especially if we're Facebook friends, may know how important that is to me. Let's call it a sacred rite. 

The previous evening, I'd poured out the remaining bird seeds from an old bag onto some paver stones for whoever wanted them, birds and beasts alike. I was in that "everything must go" stage of moving. The furniture was already gone, I was working on boxes for a desk and sitting in a lawn chair. I had one other lawn chair destined for Goodwill. That was for my cat Ollie in the moment.

Anything left in the house was going to have to fit into my car for the trip north, so I was purging.  

I hadn't thought about our friend the opossum as liking bird seeds. But who had pulled up a chair to the paver stones and tied a napkin around his neck but one pale grey marsupial. 

Fair enough, I thought. The seeds were for anyone.

But an eerie sensation crept over me as I sipped and did a partial turn from the window. Something struck me as strange. It was in that uncanny valley of not quite right.

I stared a little longer and realized two possums, as we say in the South, were enjoying a birdseed breakfast and angled so that they were hard to see and distinguish in early morning light.

That brief, eerie feeling of criss crossed bodies, visible limbs and pale faces made me wonder what I'd feel like if I looked out to see a disheveled person crouched among the elephant ears and other semi-tropical plants?

What if it was a person too frightened to communicate, but who would accept food left outside in a Playmate cooler?

A few elements from inside reality and out began to converge along with urban myth, and my story "Playmate" was born.

It's available in the new issue of Dark Dossier magazine, No. 56. You can order from Amazon if you want a Kindle or print copy, or you can read it free on the publication website. 

 

The White Koi - A Poem Memoir in Free Verse

 

The White Koi 2007 

One of the koi 

Has all-white scales.

“He’s an albino,” an old woman says. 

She sits in a wheelchair 

Having found her way to the pond

On her own. 

“I think it’s just a white variety,” I say.

“The eyes are not pink.” 

Why does it matter? 

Why do I need to correct this 

Old woman I don’t know? 

She’s here just like I am 

Escaping the nursing home’s confines 

Where antiseptic smells

Fail to mask underlying odors. 

Defecation and death. 

Escaping the boredom 

And the waiting 

For one or the other

To catch up. 

I’ve brought my mother 

Pushed her wheelchair. 

Alone, she would not find the will or the way. 

She is indifferent to the 

Fresh air, sunlight, the koi pond. 

We might as well be in the place’s 

Unused Library, the shelves 

Lined with Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. 

Donated and warehoused because 

They don’t have further value. 

My mother’s decline was signaled by

Repeated questions 

And lost emotions. 

She showed no reaction 

At the news my father would die. 

Showed no interest In being by his side, 

Her husband of 49 years.

As he slipped away. 

Her memory has been edited. 

Condensed. 

I have no patience

With falsity. 

Not a good trait 

For this current role. 

Still, I correct genetic misinformation 

About the white koi. 

It’s not deficiency

But editing, called breeding. 

And tell my mother 

Her mother is not forgotten

Waiting in a hot car. 

She’s gone.

We remain. 

And I correct, though I can’t put back. 

I strive to make here 

More than a warehouse

At least.

For a person. 

If not for abandoned books. 

And a koi that the service 

Couldn’t place in ponds

Of more vocal customers 

In search of vibrant joy.

Photo by Stacey Gabrielle Koenitz Rozells from Pexels

There's Just Something About A Snow Day

The weather forecast made it sound iffy, but I walked into the home office this morning to find Christine peeking out the blinds. I thought she might have heard something like a dog howl, but she quickly announced we had snow and some of it was sticking. 

We have quite a bit in the vicinity of ye olde town home apartments this morning. 

Not an unpleasant way to begin the day.  

Zoë Moonshadow (Feline) Settles In

It's been a while since we've had a new cat in the household. As I've mentioned in one spot or another, Oliver Littlechap's death in 2019 ended a feline era stretching back to 1997 when Christine and I adopted Daisy and her brother, Cleo.

All of our cats lived out their lives with us, and in later years, they craved warm laps and companionship. Mostly warm laps. 

Zoë Moonshadow is about five and still has those bursts of energy that send her streaking across the living room up the stairs, around the second floor and back again in a heartbeat, with a thunder of footfalls that sound like a herd of wildebeest. She sits on laps but briefly before she's off on other business.

She's settling in with us and seems to like us. There is a bit of unwinding yet to do, though. One two many strokes of her head and coat results in a warning bite. Not too hard, but not a play bite either.

The humane society noted she'd been terrified of large dogs in her second household. Christine likens her situation now to PTSD. I've noticed Zoë's muscles tense as she cocks an ear to an unrecognized sound, as if a dog's approach might be imminent. 

Daisy never knew that kind of fear, but she had her own agenda early on, cuddling was a small part of it. You took affection when it came your way and let her move on when she announced the time for new business.

I'm reminded now of that time. 

I suspect in time we'll get longer, lazy lap sits, but there's no need to rush that. We can spend time in play and hijinks.

Christine read somewhere that Russian Blues like feathered toys, so we grabbed a card of those when we bought her a bed and scratching post. They proved so popular they quickly disappeared. Tucked away in a summer shoe or some other hiding place found and forgotten. 

I bought a few more and a feathered toy on a stick that proves a joy. She chases, nabs if lobbed in the air and if a toy misbehaves enough it gets a pummeling with the hind feet.

In the absence of toys, she likes to hop on the bed and paw wrinkles in the blanket. They seem alive to her and in needed of subduing. 

 "I'm so glad we got her," Christine said one Saturday morning as wrinkles were trapped beneath paws. 

I was reminded that cat ownership often involves sharing the world as much as immediate bonding, watching habits and instincts at work. Coping with a fearful moment if a dog strays too close to a window. Supplying food of course. Seeking to mute some instincts, of course.

With the world made small by pandemic, limited to the walls of home more than ever, having a friend sharing the space expands the universe. 

It Was Still There

I know a lot of people cried on Wednesday. I was teary-eyed pretty much from the time the band tuned up until the ceremony wound down on Inauguration Day, but when Lady Gaga sang the national anthem and hit "our flag was still there," a great torrent of tears spilled down my face. 

It was, honestly, the best rendition of the hard-to-perform song I've ever heard, delivered with just the right nuances. 

I noted the moment on Facebook because I guess I felt the unexpected relief so many have spoken of. It was a rush, a knee-weakening feeling, an exhale. Everyone's called it an exhale too, so nothing profound there, but it fits.

Sometimes I fail to note to myself how stress is affecting me, a remnant of "be a man" admonitions from my old man, I guess. He was stoic in the face of pain and adversity. I inherited some of that, though it's tempered by my mother's emotional traits. 

But those words and the way Lady Gaga delivered them and really the whole song began to unwind the coil of tension that had wound tighter and tighter as the events of Jan. 6 unfolded.

We've never seen the flag or the capitol threatened in that way, and though they're symbols, they're powerful symbols and they matter. The flag's been co-opted in many cases, but it is our flag, not just the flag of those shrillest "patriots" who cloak themselves in it. 

It is our flag, and it was threatened. They tried to replace it with Trump flags. 

They tried to replace it with Trump flags.

They tried to replace it with Trump flags.

Trump flags.

But they failed, and the assault on democracy abetted by the worst of our leaders, the most cynical, leading blind followers, failed. 

They failed, and amid all the tumult and the horror and the death, we got an inauguration and a reminder of who we are. When Vice President Dan Quayle walked in I cried too. First of the high office holders, a member of the opposing party, representative of an administration with a leader who's passed on. President and Mrs. George W. Bush followed then the other ex-presidents. It was an important show of who we are, a democracy with procedures and symbolic gestures, the true patriot's dream.

And she nailed it all in that lyric. All had been threatened, all that we took for granted for so long, all that had been routine, pedestrian, everything was revealed to be so fragile. 

But it was still there, still in place, ragged around the edges, perhaps, strained, still imperiled, but still there. 

And maybe for a little longer. 

Home For the Holidays - Mining Moments

 The holidays seem vast and brief at the same time. I always feel a little tinge of something when I'm putting away Christmas decorations.

I open a box to put something back and find an item I tucked away in November when I took everything else out. And it hits me that the time has passed quickly, as all time does. It immediately feels as if it was long ago the boxes were put back in storage and as if it was seconds.

I had a nice holiday season with my wife Christine, and it did stretch a bit in spite of the flash feeling. I watched a lot of movies, of course. We're working to stay safe and sane.

Happiest Season on Hulu caught my interest early on because it was not just another Christmas movie. It's LGBT-themed and semi-autobiographical for writer-director Clea DuVall, and I thought it was fun and equally poignant in its exploration of people finding their true selves while coping with family pressures.

Christine and I watched and liked The Queen's Gambit together,  at the same time everyone was. "You always have liked smart girls," Christine reminded me. 

I got on a Bond kick later in the season. Friends were rewatching and a common podcast led to several concurrent purchases of the Nobody Does it Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond. 

Several Christmases ago, a lot of Christmases actually, I got boxed sets of the films up through the Pierce Brosnans. (Later, as they came out, I got Blu-Rays of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.) During the holiday break that first year of ownership, I rewatched most of the flicks starting with Dr. No and enjoyed the disc extras with each.

That was long enough ago, the new viewing experience was fresh.  

Doing that again was a different but fun experience, and afforded a bit of "where was I when" thinking. The first ever Bond on my radar was On Her Majesty's Secret Service. 

My mom got her hair done in a hair salon across from the theater in the little town where I grew up. One of the younger stylists mentioned the film and that a new star was taking over. I remember looking out the window at the poster of George Lazenby on skis. Didn't  actually see a Bond other than the David Niven Casino Royale until Man With the Golden Gun, though I recall ads for Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die. I can't recall ads for You Only Lives Twice, but it open roughly the same time as The Dirty Dozen, for which I saw ads on TV and in magazines. I went to see that with my dad and my uncle. My uncle feared I wouldn't sit still for a feature film, but I did, half of it on the upper edge of a theater seat because my weight didn't push the folding cushion down. 

SEE ALSO: The Red Cardigan

Back to Now
In the mix this season, I kept up with The Mandalorian though there were still a few spoilers in spite of everything. You can't watch fast enough. When I saw You-Know-Who's Instagram post of himself going Shhhh, I knew what that had to mean. Clearly, as I just noted, you gotta watch it when it drops. 

I fit in a Christmas Day showing of A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim as well, the classic 1951 rendering that holds up so well. It was a nice alternative to Bells of St. Mary's or It's A Wonderful Life, both of which I love but also have memorized.

We got enough cold in Williamsburg for it to feel like the holidays, though it deterred walking a bit too, which Christine and I enjoy.

Christine and I fit in a few walks to look at decorations in spite of the cold, and we got to see the Saturn/Jupiter alignment, though with streetlights and surprisingly busy sidewalks, we didn't get quite the view we were hoping for. Part of the time I thought it might be distant radio towers we were seeing before deciding that had to be the view. So it goes.

We adopted our new friend Zoë right before the holidays as well, so part of the time we enjoyed the journey of her feeling more and more at home. I put Band Aids on a few bites and scratches as she was getting comfortable. 

I also spent a good bit of time shaking out shoes and looking under furniture for feather-tailed toys she enjoyed but had a tendency to lose. 

Nothing profound here, just a few notes so that I'll remember later, because with my friend Lee's death, I've realized how much days can blur together and how hard it can be to mine moments from memory. 

Once that wasn't as hard, but there were fewer years to look back on. Now there are more with more thoughts crowding the attic.

Memory and Loss

 I've been in a remembering mode for the last few days. I guess my last post on "A Christmas Memory" touched on that. Maybe it's the holidays or just COVID times. My cousin, who is deeply immersed in family history, sort of fueled it further with a Merry Christmas email that mentioned places my mom and grandmother lived before my parents were married.

That sent me to Google Street View to check out my childhood home. It's still there, though looking different on a little street across from the high school in my home town. The siding's new along with a few other features, but the back porch with its red brick steps and ornamental iron posts looks the same. It's only four or five steps, but it seemed mountainous when I was a kid.

It's hard to describe how looking at a recent photo makes me feel. It's a bit bittersweet, though that's not quite the right word. It's just a rush of emotion and memory.

I can recall the guy down the street got a pirate costume one Halloween, just one of those crappy, in-a-bag jobs with the shiny fabric they call vintage these days. I remember him before Trick-or-Treating hanging out and climbing onto that irorn work with a toy hammer and declaring: "Me gonna fix this ship."And I remember sitting on those steps and reading Superman No. 199 in which he raced The Flash. 

So that's the place I was in when I got word last night one of my old friends from high school and college days passed away. Not the kid in the pirate suit. The segue's a little awkward. 

This guy's name was Lee. 

I immediately thought of him calling and waking me up on what would have had to have been June 1, 1984. I'd started working the 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift at the newspaper, so an early call was like the middle of the night. I grumbled, but then I realized Star Trek III: The Search for Spock opened that day and we needed to find out how things turned out with our favorite Vulcan. 

Seeing Trek was a tradition. We'd been Trek fans a long time. We'd been friends a long time. He lived around the corner from me, and we rode bikes as kids. 

He'd actually been the one to purchase the Star Trek Concordance, which was a handy guide in the days before the internet. Gaming was on a Commodore 64, by the way. We explored Zork and other worlds of Infocom. 

We actually missed seeing Star Trek II together because he was running late, and we couldn't get into an opening night showing. I saw it the next day with my girlfriend at the time. She was not a Trek fan. Her friend, who did get in the night before, had been saddened. "Paula said somebody died." Yeah, that spoiler was on Lee. 

We got past that, and we continued to see movies during our early working life.

I'm not sure when our paths diverged, but over time we drifted into different circles. He went back to school, I got married. He later worked in IT at the company where my wife worked, so I'd hear of him a lot more than I saw him, then I left Central Louisiana.

We caught up on Facebook a couple of years ago. He found me, and we kept in touch via posts. He'd moved to Baton Rouge for new IT jobs and was active in a church music program. He'd always been in choir and played the piano well. 

I noted his occasional post about bad service at a quick stop or other steps along his path, noticed not too ago he was dating someone. I was happy for him. Saw pics at a high school reunion I didn't attend because of COVID. He was there in the mix of old friends. 

I shared a meme about Louisiana foods not too many days ago. How many have you had? Along with a lot of other people, he responded adding a quip, a familiar Cajun exclamation. Not something that warranted a response by me in a long thread, but a reminder he was out there living his life. 

Then word came he'd had a heart attack in his home. Someone I didn't know remembered him fondly. 

And suddenly 30 years are compressed, and I'm contemplating, amid this year of death and chaos, yet again how fast it all seems to have been when you look back.

And you start mining your memory. Yep, we saw Raiders together, my second viewing. Dune, Never Ending Story, Krull. All early '80s. 

Okay there were films and dinners. Was he in that mix of friends discussing 30's onslaught? When did we go our separate ways. 

Couldn't tell you. 

But he scored 22 out of 23 dishes on a New Orleans food test. Which one was he missing? Shrimp BBQ or turtle soup?

Ayeeeeee. I should have asked when I had the chance. 

Favorite Short Stories - A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

I read "A Christmas Memory" first in junior high. 

It was assigned reading in our textbook. I didn't know who Truman Capote was yet. My Weekly Reader neglected coverage of the Black and White Ball and didn't review In Cold Blood. 

It was just another story in the reader back then, but Capote writes in that little tale of an elderly cousin who was a friend to him in his childhood. 

As I was growing up, my grandmother, my mother's mother, lived with my family. She was my babysitter when I was little since my mom was a high school teacher.

The relationship between Buddy, the narrator, and his cousin reminded me of my relationship with my grandmother. 

She was as much a friend as a guardian. She worked hard to keep me from killing myself, but she didn't worry much if the afternoon movie was playing Them or The Incredible Shrinking Man. 

She told me stories of her youth, an early bad marriage, an early widowhood in a second, happier union. She was an ally against my mom who'd inherited a strict approach from a Baptist minister grandfather even though we were Methodists.

My grandmother cooked though she didn't have the inclination toward fruitcakes exhibited by Buddy's cousin. I don't remember a signature dish.

I do recall her liking Delaware Punch, a soft drink. It's all but gone I read the other day. I haven't seen a bottle in years. But at a little grocery store back in the day, we'd slide bottles out from the case-style soft drink machines where the bottles dangled inside and cool air rushed up when you looked in.

The family lore held, since she'd lost a son to a heart attack two months before I was born, that taking care of me revitalized my grandmother.   

She took me to kindergarten on Fridays until I went every day the following year. We took a cab driven by a guy who looked to me like The Skipper from Gilligan's Island. She dressed up for those occasions, wore a hat and waited for me at the bottom of a flight of stairs outside the classroom. 

My grandmother was still alive, still living with us when I read A Christmas Memory for the first time. She'd live three, maybe four years longer. Happily at that time in my life years didn't tick past like seconds and certainly not like the blur 2020 has proved to be.

But even then, in reading, I could see that the world was finite. The story offered a bit of a bittersweet portent, especially when it reached this passage:

"...more and more thirteenths are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather."

I guess in some ways, the tale prepared me even as it celebrated the relationship of Buddy and his cousin. My grandmother passed away the day after I finished my first year in high school. I always suspected she held on to let me finish final exams.

I picked up the boxed 1966 edition of the story for probably a dollar years later at a library book sale. I keep it around for Christmas re-reads. It triggers good memories. 

Pandemic Walks Part 3 - Another Walk at York River State Park - Williamsburg, VA

We took another walk at York River State Park. After just a few weeks, the marsh grass had browned and more leaves had fallen though a good bit of color was still on display, and the sky was very blue on a crisp November morning.

Open air at any time during a pandemic is welcome.

I don't know that I have profound thoughts beyond that, but it's good to remember what's just a short distance from home.

SEE ALSO: PANDEMIC WALKS PART 2

Click for larger images.

New Resident - Miss Zoë Moonshadow - Russian blue mix

My wife Christine began studying the Heritage Humane Society's website a short time back, feeling possibly ready to adopt a cat again. 

Oliver Littlechap passed away a year ago. Some of the pain of loss remains, and his absence has been apparent during quarantine. The empty spot, where he sat at our back door looking out, has been a regular and the most-obvious reminder. 

But we've reached a point of mostly thinking back fondly, warmed by his memory and the joy he brought. He was a gentle, good natured soul even though he was a fierce hunter when we lived at the edge of a wooded area in Texas.

We've always been happy too for the time he got to be the center of attention after cats older than he and higher in the pecking order of cat society crossed the rainbow bridge. 

As she perused cats, seeking the temperament that might match our own--and be right for our furniture--Christine realized it was proving a bit difficult and that Oliver and Ashley, the last two arrivals in our household found us. 

Oliver ambled about with other neighborhood cats until he discovered our back patio might be a spot for an occasional treat and Ashley was blown into our yard in Texas by the outer bands of Hurricane Rita. He was hungry and plagued by earmites, blind in one eye, and easily a good fit in our household once he decided he'd make us his own.

Christine weighs decisions with extraordinary care anyway, so candidates in search of a forever home required deep contemplation.

SEE ALSO: DIAL M FOR MONTY

In a field of much need, with many deserving, something about a small Russian blue mix kept drawing her attention. Wide-eyed and a bit nervous in photos, reports indicated the 5-year-old dubbed Keesu was sweet natured but reeling from her experiences and life in a kennel.

She'd belonged to one service member who'd re-homed her when a deployment notice demanded it. Keesu wound up with the humane society because her new owner was deployed as well without the time for finding yet another home.

Keesu had done well with other pets though she had been terrified by larger dogs. 

Christine and I donned our masks and went for a visit. The kitty was in a cat bed inside her cage, draped with a comforting curtain. The staff had been doing all they could to keep her calm and comfortable.

She emerged slowly but greeted us pleasantly and rubbed her head against her bed much the way our tom Monty greeted us on a pound visit in Central Louisiana. 

She won our hearts in an instant, but we had learned on the way in someone previously had expressed an interest. Protocol dictated 24 hours for a decision. I hesitated to get too attached to her on our visit, given our relationship might be brief.

We went back home, and I felt more anxiety than I had expected. A few minutes with her had been all it took to confirm Christine's instincts in reading about her and studying her website pictures. 

Happily the call came early the next morning, a Sunday, and we made arrangements to pick her up that afternoon.

She spent time under our bed once we brought her home, a little longer not venturing from the bedroom, taking her meals in the master bathroom. 

But gradually she began to spend more time with us and travel a little further and a little further outward until she made a trip downstairs to visit Christine at her makeshift, quarantine-time office on our dining room table.

SEE ALSO: MONTY MEETS BIGFOOT

In a little more time, her name emerged. We suspected Keesu might have come from a figure in Elder Scrolls, a visual match for her grey features. But she wasn't responding to it. Not always an indication in cat life, but a fresh start seemed warranted and the humane society staff had thought a new name should be fine.

Something elegant and maybe Jazz Age, Christine suggested, but Zelda Fitzgerald's tragic end dissuaded that first notion. Zoë--"life" in Greek--slowly processed as a possibility. 

Life seemed a good and appropriately ironic fit for a cat of ash color in the midst of a pandemic, a burst of new energy in our world, a more permanent home for the new feline friend. 

And Cat Stevens tunes hit the soundtrack of our lives, triggered by a cover version of "The Wind" on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie. 

Moonshadow followed and became an earworm, and obviously the surname of a grey "leapin' and hoppin'" new resident, a new wind for the soul. 

Miss Zoë Moonshadow.

 

Pandemic - The Walks Part 2

 

My wife Christine and I moved to Williamsburg in 2019. We'd planned to travel more in the state this year. Those plans got a little upended. 

SEE ALSO: PANDEMIC - THE MEALS

But since outdoor activities reduce stress and are reduced-risk, we've been trying to do a little more in that vein. 

The other morning we put on our hiking shoes and headed out to York River State Park. It's not too far, temps are dropping just a tad, and it was a road not yet taken. 

It's a road with a great deal of variety, especially since it borders the York River, as the name suggests. 

The river's history is ancient and fossils, shells and shark teeth can be found on the beaches, along with other interesting fare including periwinkle snails amid the marsh grass.

SEE ALSO: PANDEMIC - THE WALKS

It brings that sense of awe that comes with the brush of an ecosystem that's alive yet linked to thousands of years of befores.

In the autumn it makes you think of the cycle of decay and renewal. 

And the memories of things lost and yet alive within us. 

 

And a reminder that as winters approach, there is something beyond the cold, something to wait for and reach toward. 

Pandemic - The Walks

When my wife, Christine, visited Williamsburg in the fall of 2018 for a job interview, she found the area bathed in an array of colors we hadn't seen for a while in Florida. It was an array we actually seldom saw in Louisiana or Texas. 

My point of comparison, at least from what she described, was a view of the area around Nashville in the late '80s when I flew in there for what was then the World Horror Convention. The view as the plane dipped toward the airport was amazing. 

A late summer dry spell and a few other factors delayed the change of leaves last fall, so we saw some color change but not as much as either of us had hoped for.

Late summer 2020 proved rainy. I guess the year has that going for it at least, and in these pandemic times, outdoor activities, at least, can be enjoyed without as much risk or worry as a trip to the grocer.

SEE ALSO: PANDEMIC - THE MEALS

In just a few paces from our place in the New Town area, I've been a bit amazed by the display, even on a foggy morning.  

It's a mix of red's golds and oranges I wasn't expecting. 

Did I mention the orange?

Reds were actually the first change I noticed driving by. They are reds so red. 

And the gold and brown...

It's been pretty astounding to step out the door and walk a few paces. 

It's soul-restoring in a bleak year. We've been through a lot. Am I optimistic yet of a time beyond this moment? Maybe not yet optimistic, but hopeful. 

RIP Oliver Littlechap AKA Oliver Orange Cat AKA Sad Orange Kitty

I wasn't the biggest Game of Thrones fan, but I was engaged enough to keep up with it and certainly to feel the elation in Arya Stark's great moment as she restated the caveat from her childhood in a final episode.

What do we say to the God of Death?  

"There is only one thing we say to death. Not today."

For the past several months, that's been on my mind as Oliver Littlechap showed signs of decline. 

He was the third of four cats who came into our lives beginning in the late nineties. He arrived in 2005, was hanging out with some other neighborhood cats.  I was on my back porch slipping a treat to a neighbor's cat I had a bit of a relationship with and feared wasn't well cared for. 

When Oliver saw a treat, he wandered my way and looked at me hopefully. My first thought was to shoo him away, but he had a look that later earned him the nickname Sad Orange Kitty, and I'm a softy. Over a period of weeks after that, he worked his way into our lives without trying. He was an outdoor cat a while. Then an indoor-outdoor then...

He became the last feline standing a couple of years ago when Ash aka Ashley passed away following the deaths of our original cats Monty and Daisy. "It's his time to be the only cat," we said. "His time." He'd earned his spot at the center of our attention and our world. 

We'd long battled allergies with Ollie. He was FIV positive and we struggled most to control rhinitis, but when antibiotics did their work, even as recently as January, he'd sprint around the house and bounce from windowsill to furniture. 

More recently, other signs of decline had arisen, most notably weight loss. We'd had discussion. The day will come...

Yet we managed his symptoms and saw great days for him. He climbed into moving boxes and supervised as I prepared for our furniture for a move from Orlando to Williamsburg.

When he joined Christine in our new apartment, he was doing so well she feared he'd draw the ire of neighbors as he strolled through the place caterwauling.

That energy faded a bit, but he remained affectionate and close.

A while back, he climbed onto the sofa with me and I realized his pupils were unnaturally large. I knew from our other cats that meant a blood pressure spike. As with all things of that nature, something's causing it.

But what do we say to the God of Death? 

I took him to the vet and got him started on blood pressure medicine, and we got retinal reattachment that restored a good bit of vision for him in spite of those strained pupils. 

Then there was weight loss. The vet okayed Fancy Feast a couple of months back, and he ate joyously and we fed him freely. 

He also regularly took his place on my desk, my lap or at my side waiting to have his fur brushed, and all in all, he felt good. He slept occasionally on Christine's pillow. 

Last Christmas.

But nature will have its way in spite of all the management you do, and in spite of all the "not today" admonishments.

I went downstairs yesterday to find him lying on his side. He'd sleep that way sometimes, but I sensed something wasn't quite right. He didn't rise to wait at the edge of the kitchen for his breakfast.

At first I thought he wouldn't awake at all, but then I realized he was experiencing some distress, that he was weak. I thought it might be low blood pressure, so I fixed some Fancy Feast and helped him sit up. He devoured it. I remembered with a bit of guilt the time I considered shooing him. At least now, one of the last things I could do for him was give him food, food he enjoyed.

But he couldn't manage to keep himself upright. Christine and I got him on a cushion between us and kept him comfortable. I answered messages and emails, waiting until I could call the vet. Who knew Facebook battles could  be a bromide?

It kept my mind busy and off the inevitable. In a way I didn't want the vet's phones to kick over from the answering service to the receptionist, but the time had to come. I asked to bring him in. They said come on. Back of your mind, you think, maybe there's a shot, an IV drip, a pill.

And eventually the vet--a very sweet lady who'd traded off on his care with his primary veterinarian--eventually the vet--though not in so many words, though not wanting to step in for the God of Death said--Today.

He was fading by then, but she gave us a blanket, and we sat across from a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, the Brother Sun, Sister Moon saint. The Brother Dog, Sister Cat guy. The patron saint of nature and animals and little cats.

We sat with Oliver on both our laps and stroked his fur like we did on a thousand nights as we read or watched TV. 

Then he quietly left us. But we sat for a while.

Stroking his fur. Touching his head, remembering. Feeling sad but also thankful that he had been in our lives and part of lives for such a long, long time.

An early Oliver memory

Wane - a poem

Wane

Leaves take on new beauty:
Harbinger of demise.
Verdant energy fades.
Edges curl.
Ribs show.
Essence crumbles
To brown fragments:
Remains and companions
To the memory of the green,
The love of the whole.

Thirty Devilish Years of Azarius!

I waited with a bit of trepidation the year my novel Azarius was in development. I'd sold it myself with a query followed by a complete manuscript, "over the transom," as they used to say, after an agent failed.

I'd fumbled my way along with Writer's Market and Writer's Digest and observation of what was on the bookstore shelves. Edward Lee's Ghouls alerted me that Pinnacle Books was alive again after Mack Bolan jumped ship for Harlequin, so I addressed my letter To the Editor of Ghouls. I'd read Stephen King had once sent a query To The Editor of The Parallax View. That must have been for the novel Rage and not Carrie, but I'm not sure. 

As a newbie with just a few short stories published in literary and little magazines, I had little say in the cover art, and there'd been a good bit of negative buzz about crass paperback covers with skulls and demonic children.

The Postman Rings

When a packet arrived unexpectedly in the mail one morning with a stack of cover flats, I was relieved and elated. The lettering was foil embossed but in a cool way, and the image of an eye in a broken mirror, mined from the book's pages, seemed perfect and subdued at the same time.

It's hard to believe that was 30 years ago.

Early 2019's been hectic for me with a move to Virginia, so it took a phone conversation the other night with Wayne Allen Sallee, author of The Holy Terror, Rapid Transit and much more, to note the anniversary year had arrived. It's the 27th for Holy Terror. 

It seems long ago and like yesterday. 

It started with a bad dream on the heels of three private eye novels I'd never felt were quite good enough to ship out plus a coming of age novel with crime undertones.

Letting Go of I

I switched over to third person from first and found it freeing, and the words flowed. A hundred thousand or so hammered out on a Commodore 64 in the wee morning hours after working a 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift at the newspaper where I was a reporter. I've always said past midnight was a good time to be writing a horror-mystery.

I had to take vacation time to do the edits requested by Ann LaFarge, who'd found it in the slush pile. A New Orleans-area murder-for-hire trial had been relocated to Central Louisiana, and I drew the straw of covering it. It was interesting but also a distraction.

Azarius Lives!
Crossroad Press re-issued Azarius a couple of years ago as I was rolling up my sleeves and preparing to devote my writing time to literary short stories.

The ebook edition cover was designed by David Dodd who does most of the covers for Crossroad . I was really pleased when it arrived in my inbox, bypassing the postman.

David had found a different but equally intriguing way to represent the novel's central, deceptive presence, leader of a horde of fallen angels all eventually confronted by a young reporter.

It touched off what I've come to think of now as the Aimsley Cycle of novels, all set in the fictional Louisiana city Aimsley and its surroundings where events traditionally supernatural and otherwise abound.

Looking back, that led to an interesting life for me.

I'd have never taught without Azarius, I'd never have made as many friends as I have around the world, never have bounced around as much. It's all a blur of course.

And happily you can order here or via the Crossroad Press website.

A Scotland Tour: The Hermitage Walk

When we first talked of visiting Scotland, I thought of castles. I like castles.

I like touring ruins really, looking at fragments of the past, imagining with awe the reflection of a thousand years. I incorporated Irish ruins Christine and I visited on another trip into a novel, and I thought more ruins would surely inspire fresh ideas.

Yet as we made our way along our tour, things other than castles kept capturing my attention. Things older I suppose.

Near Dunkeld, we stopped at The Hermitage, a path created by a duke in the 18th century on behalf of a bard named Ossian, apparently a blind bard, though the epic poems attributed to him were penned by a later writer named James Mcpherson.

I got kind of a non earworm as I walked the path under towering fir trees, struggling with a misremembered lyric because I kept thinking I was in a forest cathedral. It's Dan Fogelberg's "Longer" I was trying to summon up. That mentions a "mountain cathedral," I think.

But forest cathedral applied with a sunny Saturday afternoon's rays filtering through branches and leaves. While the trail is old, the forest had a primeval feel. That's the real connection the Fogelberg tune makes, a "forest primeval."

It was an accurate one there amid ancient trees and stones erupted from somewhere deep in the earth.  And just like being on the deck of a ship looking across a vast ocean, everything else seemed far away, not gone but compartmentalized for a while.

We made our way over a stone bridge and on to Ossian's Hall overlooking a waterfall on the River Braan, listening to roar of the water flow over more of those ancient stones. 

And we sat on stones as well and contemplated for a while and felt our calm restored in spite of the turbulence of the universe. There's more in the world than we sometimes see. 

It's waiting silently, while the things that clamor for our attention fill our view.