The Stone Catchers

      When I was in the fifth grade, in 1969, my school in Miami, FL, was integrated.  I remember standing in front of the school on that first day and seeing parents picket with signs that read “GO HOME!”, and “GO BACK TO YOUR OWN NEIGHBORHOODS”.  These signs were referring to the African American children who had been bussed in just that morning to “our” neighborhood.  I remember feeling confused about why the Cuban parents, among the whites in that picket line, were telling the black Americans to go home.  They were home.  It was the Cubans who were on foreign turf.  My mind had a lot to process at ten years old.  But one thing I was sure about was the fact that the angry parents – both Cuban and white American – were the ones scaring the peewally out of the children.  Us kids weren’t frightened of each other.

     Earlier in that decade, about five hundred miles north, in Jacksonville, FL, a teenaged African American girl named Eloise Oliver (a.k.a. Kitty Oliver), cleaned a teacher’s house on the weekends in order to save enough money to see the Beatles in concert.  The only problem, though, was the town council (all white, of course), said that the “colored folks” weren’t allowed to attend.  HOWEVER, the Beatles put their very influential foot down and said that either African Americans could attend or there’d be no concert at all  Thus, the concert took place, much to the delight of Kitty Oliver.  She was an only child, used to doing things alone, and going to that historic concert was one of those things.  She said that after all of the brouhaha about the integration of the concert, she saw only two other black kids there.  I think it’s a reasonable guess to say that there weren’t more because of fear of retaliation from the whites.  Imagine the ENORMOUS courage that those few African American kids must have had to go to that concert, risking God only knew what just to see four long-haired British boys twist and shout.

     Fast-forward twenty-five years, and that little white girl – yours truly, who stood in front of that newly integrated, picketed school – met that courageous teenager of yesteryear, who had braved dirty toilets and backward-thinking prejudiced white folks to attend the Beatles concert.  Kitty and I met through mutual friends and we hit it off immediately.  The very next week, we went out on what we laughingly call “our first date”, which was to a museum and lunch, and we’ve never looked back.  She’s been my best friend for over twenty-five years now.  And she’s far more than that: Kitty is now Doctor Kitty Oliver, and a journalist, book author, professor and singer. But, the impacts of those turbulent years of her childhood instilled an undeniable cause in Kitty: She became an oral historian, earning a Ph.D. that focused on race and ethnic communication.  Among all of her credits, accolades and accomplishments, CNN chronicled her innovative cross-cultural intergenerational race and ethnic relations dialogue work in their series,”Black in America”. 

     Funny thing how life can bring things full circle.  It just so happened that one of the articles Kitty wrote about seeing the Beatles caught the attention of a friend of a friend of a friend of producer and director Ron Howard (a.k.a. Opie, of The Andy of Mayberry Show, in the 1960’s).  Mr. Howard was producing a movie about the fifty years of the Beatles, and Ron’s “people” contacted Kitty, and asked her to come to L.A., to be interviewed as part of the documentary film.  She is now an integral part of the movie, “Eight Days a Week”.  Kitty just returned from London, where the movie premiered, and she hobnobbed with the likes of Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney.  (Who’s laughing now, you 1960’s town council good ol’ boys?!)  Kitty is successful.  Kitty is glorious.  And Kitty is a stone catcher.

     This morning at church, our very hip, compassionate and wise young minister, Jeremy Troxler, was courageous enough to talk about the racial tensions that are causing such upheaval, discord and division in our country.  More fuel was poured onto this ongoing fire when another young black man, Keith Scott, was killed by a police officer a few days ago.  This time, it hit even closer to home; in Charlotte, NC, just two hours from here.  Our little town, Spruce Pine, has seen its fair share of racial divide, as well.  Just ask any old timer if they remember how the blacks were beaten and run out of town after a black man assaulted a white woman in this community in the 1920’s.  We’re still hard-pressed to see many African Americans in these parts, and that saddens me. 

     Reverend Troxler told the story of an old African American woman who hung around a courthouse everyday.  A black lawyer, who was Harvard educated, was beckoned over to her one day.  She told the attorney that he looked like he needed a hug.  The attorney took her up on her offer.  In talking to her, he learned that her son was killed years before and she was at court everyday during the trial of the young man who’d killed her child.  Even though she was overcome with grief, she was still able to see that the perpetrator’s family was overcome with grief, as well.  They hurt, she realized, just as badly as she did.  She said she decided then not to cast stones at others anymore.  No more judging them.  No more hating them.  Instead, she’d do what she could for them.  After all, we’re ALL just human beings, she said, suffering our own injustices, pain, trials and tribulations.  So, she “quit throwing stones and started catching them instead”.  Maybe by doing so, she’d make a difference in people’s lives, she thought.  And, so, she’s at that courthouse everyday to offer hugs to anyone – ANYONE – who might need one.   At the end of Reverend Troxler’s sermon, I looked around.  People in the congregation were in tears.  Most, if not all, had heard his message loud and clear:  Let’s stop throwing those stones and pick up that catcher’s mitt instead.

     The way of doing that may not always be clear.  But, stepping out of our comfort zone might be a beginning.  Instead of shouting negatives at protestors in protest lines, maybe we should serve on a soup line instead, offering words of compassion and hope, or just a simple smile to someone who desperately needs one.  Perhaps we might help with a reading program for those who are trying to learn English as a second language, or help bring supplies to storm-ravaged areas.  In these ways, there are many opportunities to meet a wide variety of people, people from all walks of life, and from all parts of the world.  People who seem so very different from us.  But, we just might realize that they’re really not.  We might actually find that we have more things in common than we ever thought possible.  I’d be willing to bet the last dollar in my pocket that the majority of them love their friends and families just as much as we do.  And that they know what heartbreak is, and exhilarating joy, disappointment and insecurity, frustration, and… 

     All things considered, we still have a long road to travel, and many bridges to build.  Perhaps our best hope of doing so is to understand that fear is the cause of most of the bad in this world.  And, sometimes, you just have to say the heck with it, I’m not going to let fear stand in the way of something that might be really good, perhaps great, amazing even.  Taking the risk might be VERY well worth it, indeed.  Just ask Kitty, and the Beatles.  If you ask me, they need to start a new band: The Stone Catchers.

    

Another Day in Paradise

     I was at my Rotary meeting yesterday and talking to a good friend of mine who is also a Floridian by birth but not by heart.  Both Bill and I agree; we should have been born in the mountains.  He was talking about drinking his coffee in the morning, enjoying the country-quiet, with his dogs sitting on his chair with him (another thing that connected us as friends), and how grateful he was to be in this beautiful place.  We both left corporate life behind, including the stresses associated with it, and we couldn't be happier we did.  It's a gentler life, this one.  And it somehow feels safer.  Well, it did until my yard man called me on his cell phone as he was leaving last night and said he killed a good-sized rattler on the road right below my house - the same road my husband was walking our Bassets on just a couple of hours before.  Now, for those of you who are a tad (or a lot) heated because he killed that rattler, I offer my deepest apologies.  However, I'd have added a bonus onto his check had he killed that deadly viper prior to my writing his check out.  Don't get me wrong; I LOVE animals.  I just don't love those that can kill me with one bite simply because I get too near it on a dark country road.  So much for paradise!  I must say, living in the suburbs of Florida, I didn't have to contend with rattlesnakes.  Oh, I know they were probably around, as were the water moccasins and alligators, but the roads, sidewalks, condos and shopping malls encouraged them to move on to more secluded places.  And I now live in one of those secluded places.  In all fairness, it is we who have invaded their space - not vise versa.  And while I believe in "live and let live", not all creatures - humans included - do.  And that's when a lawn man can become my hero.

     I have lived through hurricanes Donna, Betsy, Cleo, Irene, Katrina, Andrew and Wilma, to name a few, and after surviving winds of 220 mph (the wind gage at the University of Miami, two miles down the road from my house at the time, registered that wind speed during hurricane Andrew), you'd think a little ol' rattler wouldn't bother me at all.  Well, it does - and more so than a category 5 hurricane.  At least I've got warning when a storm is going to strike, unlike a snake.

     Another thing that takes some of that "gentler, kinder place" feeling out of living in the mountains is the fact that in just a few months, I'll be dealing with snow and ice on the road.  I'd still take that over a rattler, though.  But, to my friends living in non-snowy and icy places, I cannot emphasize enough the terror that is stricken within you when the weather man warns you of black ice during your drive to or from work.  Fortunately, my work keeps me safely planted in my brand new office chair at home, but there are still times I have to be out and about in it, and that's when I realize you can take the girl out of Florida, but you can't take the Florida out of the girl.  I guess (no, I know), I'm a bit of a control freak, and I do not like the sensation of sliding OUT OF CONTROL on an icy road!  No, I do not. I want to control my speed, movement and direction, and there's no chance of that when you hit ice.  That's when my praying gets real serious and I making bargains with God that I'm sure He doesn't take too seriously.  In the meantime, as I careen down my beloved country roads in January, my friends in Florida will be playing golf in tee-shirts and turning their faces up towards a warm winter sun between shots, thinking to themselves, "Ahhh, now THIS is paradise," especially since some of them are transplanted New Yorkers, who know all too well the dangers of living in those winter dangerlands.  Hence, that's why they can be found on the golf course in Florida, in January.

     The bottom line is this: Most every place has its own kind of paradise, as well as its own set of rules.   And we have to accept them and live with them (except if it's a rattler, then it's a fight to the death).  We have to conform to the whims and "wilds" of Mother Nature, after all, she's in charge (which just made my toes curl as I typed that fact).  If we're wise enough, or brave enough, or old enough, we realize that, and we go with the flow, enjoying the best that nature has to give, and learning how to endure the worst, knowing that it, too, shall pass.  It will, it always does, we just have to wait for it.  All things considered, there's a little bit of the good, the bad and the ugly threaded throughout life everywhere, and that's what makes it all so interesting.  But, just to be on the safe side while trying to convince myself that it's all so interesting, I'm putting snow chains on my tires, loading my shotgun for snakes, and watching the weather man religiously.  I'm taking no chances.  Even in paradise.

Tomorrow is a big day

     I'm having my first book signing of my first women's fiction book.  Up until this point, I've been a children's book author but decided several years ago to give this new genre a go.  "Giving it a go" really should be rephrased to "stop and go".  After numerous rewrites, and countless rejections by agents, my book was finally picked by a large publishing house (sans the agent route).  It's been a long haul, and I'm as excited as all get out - as they say here in the south.  There was another reason that this has been a "stop and go"  journey, other than rewrites and rejections, and that's because I couldn't even figure out what to write for a long time.  The drought finally broke though, and the creative juices flowed like a storm-fattened river.  However, I know all too well the frustrations when you feel creatively brain dead, and I blogged about it a couple of years ago.  Now, on the eve of my new book's debut, I'd like to re-share that blog.  I hope that it might give a little encouragement to those suffering from creative brain blockage.  The good news is that it will pass.  The bad news is that blockages return.  It's just part of the writing process.  And, yet, we writers wouldn't think of doing anything else, would we?  Somehow I feel that the letters S & M apply here.  So, without further adieu, here's my blog from that most frustrating writer's block time.  Happy reading, everyone.  And happy writing, too.

                   

  

That Not-So-Dry Spell

     I was thinking today about that 5-year period when nothing of mine was published.    It felt like such a dry spell.   I’d once read somewhere, “Just keep writing.”  So, I kept writing, even when it didn’t seem like it was amounting to much.   My agent at the time wasn’t able to get anything of mine picked up, which only confirmed that which I’d started to believe; my writing had hit the doldrums.   But, as painful as it was at times, and as monotonous as it had become, I kept going to my computer almost daily, working on those things which I’d started, or I started something all together new, and, still, nothing was published.  I honestly felt like none of my work had much color, brightness or substance to it anymore.
     As with everything in life, all things come to an end – both the good and the bad.  And after a 3-year go of it with my agent, it was time to part ways.  We did so amicably, and, I have to think, not without a little regret and sadness on both of our parts that maybe, in some way, we’d let each other down.  But, it was time, and I walked away with my tediously worked-on, sick-of-looking-at-you manuscripts, and tried to figure out where I should go from there. 
     Almost immediately, I was in touch with a wonderful publisher who wanted to see my work, and, needless to say, it was in her “In Box” that night.  She called me a week later and told me she’d like to publish 3 of my children’s stories, as well as my first adult manuscript.  Of course, I was elated.  After we hung up, I sat back and thought, “Wow!  Four books to come out in the next 2 years!”  And then it dawned on me:  From all of those endless days at the computer (when I felt like my writing was about as interesting as a manual for a new refrigerator), without even realizing it, I’d compiled quite a nice amount of work –  work that was good.  Good enough to be published.  And it seemed to come together without my even realizing it.
     Today, as my husband gave our 3 Basset Hounds a bath in our yard in sultry, 95-degree weather (yes, even in the Blue Ridge Mtns. of NC!), I noticed our wilting Hydrangea bushes.  We’re in the midst of not just a scorching heatwave, but a dry spell, too.   And then I saw it:  Nestled among some of the brownish-green, parched Hydrangea branches were some very brightly colored, fresh clusters of flowers, bringing great beauty to the bush – and my yard.  As a matter of fact, the more I looked, the more lovely ones I saw.  My bush was alive and well, and blooming quite nicely, indeed.  Standing too close to it, everything seemed to be dried up and fading.  But then I stood back, took a good look at the bush again with all of its many glorious blossoms, and realized that, all things considered, this dry spell of ours really wasn’t quite so dry after all … just like those 5 years of my work.

Many Muses

     In late July, in the town of Spruce Pine, NC, situated along the rambling Estatoe River, with 100 year-old active train tracks weaving along side in perfect harmony, was the Rotary Club’s first annual BBQ & Bluegrass Festival. My job, as a Rotarian, was to sell food tickets, so all day long I briefly chatted with scores of people who packed the tiny town’s main street.

     It’s an amazing world we live it. And the people we share this world with are an amazing lot. I met all kinds from everywhere: The quintessential nuclear family with mom, dad, and the 2.5 kids. (Yes, there really is a .5 child. You should have seen the teeny tiny ones being maneuvered through the crowds.) There were also plenty of elderly folks with walkers, canes or significant others whom they used as human canes, and I particularly admired them. Advanced age and physical limitations did not limit their presence or fun that day. There were a fair number of good ol’ boys and good ol’ girls, and the not-so-good-boys and the girls who love them. There were tourists with their tell-tale brand new stiff “I Climbed Mt. Mitchell” tee-shirts and mud-free hiking boots. There were people with wads of cash, and those who stood off to the side to count the change they could pool together to buy a ticket for one plate of BBQ to share. There were cloggers (mountain style jig dancing), and musicians on dulcimers, guitars, banjos and fiddles. And there were craft people hawking every kind of art imaginable; from flat work, ironwork and woodwork, to handmade quilts and “Welcome to our cabin!” signs and birdhouses. And, of course, there were the stars of the party; the BBQ cook teams and vendors. All of these many different and wonderful people, with their many different reasons for being at the event, bring me to the point of this blog: I was in the midst of enough material from which to glean a thousand stories.

     If a writer or artist of any medium is feeling very uninspired, or “flat-lined” as I refer to it, then just go to a festival or fair. There you will find an abundance of muses, for everyone has a story to tell if you just give them a spec of time to tell you a little bit about theirs. Not enough people do that – ask someone what their story is. We’re so self-absorbed. Or maybe we feel like if we ask a question or two, that’s asking one too many questions and we’ll be thought of as being nosey. I’ve rarely ever found that to be the case, though. When I ask someone about what they do, where they’re from, or how they ended up on the same street as I happen to be on that same day, I find that people are only too happy to tell me. Reason: People like to talk about themselves. They think their story is interesting, and the fact is that usually at least some part of it is.

     Perhaps we ought to spend less time looking inward for creative inspiration, and spend more time looking outward. All things considered, we live in a wonderfully rich world, full of the greatest inspirational resources: each other.

Color My World

     I love autumn. And it’s not just because of the changing colors or the first chill in the air. It’s all about the joy of settling down, becoming quiet, becoming still. It heralds in that special time – that time between September and February – when I give myself permission to not have to be out and about, doing a million things or be at a dozen different places in a day. It’s a time when my participation in “things” can begin to fade and drop down – just like autumn leaves.

     During the summer, I get very involved – too involved – with club activities, events, and people. Living in the mountains, we know that the “doing” season doesn’t last all that long, and so we cram as much in as is humanly possible before the “down” time between the months of March and September. Although March is a wishy-washy month. You just never know what it’s going to give you. And being a Capricorn, I prefer that you definitely know how you feel about things, what you’re planning on doing, and how you’re going to go about doing them. I’m not too fond of March’s attitude and behavior, if the truth be known.

     My husband loves to garden, so this time of year, although beautiful to him (not to mention we’re both glad that football season has started), also marks the beginning of the end of his growing season, “fun in the sun” season, and golf. That is the only fly in the ointment to me; the fact that my husband won’t be outside and out from under my feet as much. When the cold winds blow, he comes inside, just like the ladybugs. I’ve tried to get my husband involved in a hobby, namely pottery making, and though he had great potential, he just couldn’t stop thinking about next year’s garden and staring out the window. His mind wasn’t on pots but potatoes. Ah, well, you can lead a horse to water… The saving grace was the tractor I bought for him several years ago, complete with snow-blade. Now, when the white stuff accumulates, he gets out and clears the roads. Which gives us both a chance to clear our heads.

     When the smoke is curling from old cabins’ fireplaces, and the fog swirls and mingles with it in a beautiful early morning dance, I grab Mama’s old olive-green sweater and stand out on my deck appreciating it. I play a game of looking for new colored leaves that have changed overnight, and I listen as the squirrels squabble over chestnuts and walnuts in my thick woods. Before long, the leaves will intertwine with the smoke and fog, then they’ll fall gently to the ground and create a magnificent carpet of color. Ahhhh. Who doesn’t love that? All things considered, it was a good “doing” time. I got a lot accomplished. But now it’s that other time.

     Out on my deck, I sip the remainder of coffee in my oversized mug, and go inside to close out the world. Then I open another world all my own. A world in which I control the board like a chess match: I begin to write.

One Passover Night…

     There are many horrifically graphic and disturbing specials on TV right now as we mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. As hard as these programs are to watch, we need to, otherwise we won’t learn our lessons from one of the darkest times in history. Instead of sitting comfortably in our warm homes watching the horrors, we may end up living the nightmare again. Let us not kid ourselves; persecution to the point of genocide is still happening far too frequently all around the world. We have yet to learn our lessons. Perhaps it’s because as we freely move through our days and nights, doing most anything we please, eating what we’d like, sleeping warmly in a bed that isn’t crowded with 7 other starving and ill people, it’s easy for us to sweep that unpleasant business of concentration camps and mass extermination right under the rug and out of our minds. I’m guilty of it, I’ll admit.


     Most days of the year, I don’t give the holocaust much thought, however, there are times when I do. It may be brought on by someone talking about a kosher dinner, or it may be brought to mind when I hear the name Lorraine, and then that Passover night so long ago, when I was just 11, comes to mind. I wrote a piece about it a few years ago, and it seems like the perfect time to add it to my blog. So, in memory of all of those souls who walked into the death camp and helped the place live up to its name, here is the article, Perls of Wisdom. And to Lorraine, and especially her mother, Mrs. Perl; thank you for sharing such a dark time with me, while sitting in the comforts of your modest home, as we shared your wonderful dinner. Your story has lived in my heart for 45 years, where it has been carefully and thoughtfully brought out and looked at from time to time. It touched me beyond words, but because of yours, I write children’s stories today of love, tolerance and respect for each other and each other’s differences. So, all things considered, 2 hours at your dinner table shaped a lifetime of trying to build bridges between people, and for the gift of your story, I shall always be thankful. And the greatest thing I can do to reciprocate is to never forget, and I pray that the article attached may help that be so for others, if only in a small, small way.