I admit to being a colored-pencil maniac. They are like oil colors. You lay down the dark hues first and overlay the lighter colors on top. I need to learn how to photograph them more effectively, but here are some of my best.
The Girl with the Red Bird (1993)
In the Land of Maxfield Parrish
The Boy with the Bugle (1994)
That Night in Saqquara I Was Taken By Surprise (1992)
The Wings of Imagination
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I have started work on the next novel which I will call The Bicycle-Wheel Genius. It takes two of the important supporting characters from my novel Catch a Falling Star, and weaves them into a story that can only be called a prequel-sequel to the previous book. It begins when the characters first meet and become friends. It incorporates some of the events from the alien invasion in Catch a Falling Star, and it concludes the incredible story of a friendship between a really nice mad scientist and the only son of a rural English teacher.
I have included here the first two cantos of this humoresque hodgepodge novel so you can get a sense of how truly awful the whole thing is going to be. (If you choose to skip this first-draft nonsense, I will completely understand. Not forgive you, mind you, but understand.)
Canto One – In the dark corners of the house in 1984
The stupid boy was easily followed home. When he patted the little Pomeranian dog on her fuzzy head, he entered through the back door, unlocking it with his key. He went in to make his afternoon peanut butter sandwich, stupidly leaving the door unlocked. The man in black couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
The strip of bacon the man in black offered to the canine moron was soaked in a fast-acting, taste-free poison. The barker was silenced. The man in black quietly slipped into the house. Standing in the back entryway, he could peer in and see the stupid boy bending over the peanut butter with the knife in hand. The boy was handsome in a way. He had his father’s stupid blond hair and myopic eyes. The glasses on his little face were thick enough to magnify his blue-gray eyes. He had that same owlish look that the genius father always wore. But he had his mother’s lovely mouth and the same child-like oval face that always made his mother seem so appealing, so girlishly lovely.
As the man stepped into the kitchen, the boy looked up startled.
“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked. “You look like some kind of burglar.”
The man in black grinned. He whipped out the chloroformed cloth and pressed it over the mouth and nose of the boy. The stupid boy melted into his grasp. Swiftly bound and gagged, the boy was left tied up in a chair at the kitchen table. Now, the real work could begin.
The basement door was the first obstacle. It had a keypad lock. The man in black dusted the key pad with fingerprint dust. He could easily see the four keys that the genius always pressed. He remembered the pattern of code entry he had seen the genius using a hundred times from afar. Two in the upper corner, the one and the four, the key in the middle, the five, and the one at the bottom, the eight.
It worked! With a snap-hiss the electronically sealed door opened. Down he went into the lab.
The small safe was still open. Leave it to a genius to be sloppy about replacing paperwork and locking it up again. He never re-locked the safe upstairs with his wife’s jewels in it. Why would this safe be any different? The safe-cracking tools could be left in the old black pocket!
Inside the safe, just where he’d been told it would be, was the manila envelope marked Tesla Project. He took it out. It was worth a fortune apparently. Soon he would have the whole pile of money the ambassador had offered him. The man in black licked his lips. He stuck the envelope in his pocket.
Next would come the cover story. Yes, the experimental prototype sat on the table where the ambassador’s advisor had said it would be. How did the advisor know so much about the crazy genius? He had never been at any of the family reunions. The man in black smiled to himself. Easy enough to do. He used his lighter to start some of the papers on the table burning. He added some more flames to the nearby desk. Then he turned the prototype on.
Electricity began to shimmer and shine, crawling over the surface of the silver metal ball. Tiny electrical bursts that looked like lightning arced out over the table and connected with some of the water pipes overhead. The fire began to blossom faster than the man in black had anticipated. Time to get out, or be immolated too.
At the top of the stairs he was horrified to see that she was there too. She was bent over the boy, trying to untie him from the chair.
“Leo!” she said. “What have you done?” Her beautiful brown eyes were filled with horror.
It was a real shame. He hadn’t expected her to get there so quickly. He had intended for the boy to be the only one caught in the “accident”. Ah, well. He wasn’t actually Leo anyway. Leo was dead. He only looked like Leo and had taken Leo’s place in the family for a time. He hit her with a violent blow to the temple and she crumpled.
The flames were roaring up into the kitchen from the lab. The place would go up quickly. In his haste to leave the conflagration, he failed to notice how her hand, as she crumpled, had managed to clutch at his pocket on the way to the floor. He hadn’t noticed how the envelope had been dislodged by her fingers and also knocked to the floor. As he strode swiftly out of the house, he did not realize that his prize had remained behind to burn with his innocent victims. The perfect crime. He would never be suspected. But he would never be rewarded either. He was congratulating himself as he slipped away from the blazing inferno, his handiwork. And everything that mattered to the genius was on fire. A whole world was passing away.
Canto Two… Norwall, Iowa, population 278, 1988
Norwall, like many small towns in Iowa, had not changed more than a particle or two a year from about 1919 to around 1982. It had a main street. The houses were done mostly in the Victorian style, with its various porches and bay windows and corner tower-like structures. It was a sleepy-quiet little farm town where practically nothing ever happened. It was mostly set up for farm business. There was a grain elevator at the west end of Main Street, and a lumber yard at the southern end of Whitten Avenue. It was not unusual to see tractors parked in town along with the family cars and farmers’ pickup trucks.
Tim Kellogg had been born in the Belle City Hospital in 1978, and had lived in the town of Norwall all his life. He would’ve been bored to tears early on if it had not been for the Norwall Pirates. They were the local 4-H softball team, but they were also the greatest secret club and eternal fraternity of liars that was ever put together on a boring Saturday afternoon in Iowa. They had an interesting oral history. It was rumored and asserted by former club members that once they had chased a werewolf and defeated him even though he had killed an old church lady and a local minister. They also supposedly fought and defeated an undead Chinese wizard once, though details about that one were far more likely to change from tale-teller to tale-teller.
Not only was Tim a member of the club, but he was second in line to be grand and glorious leader. His older cousin Valerie Clarke was the current leader, but she was in high school now and so beautiful that she couldn’t help but always be busy with boys. Soon the club would be handed over to him, and no more girls would be members, possibly for eternity. This was an idea of no small attraction to Norwall boys who were less than enthusiastic about having a girl for a leader. You really couldn’t walk around the clubhouse naked or fart as much as you wanted to if your leader was a girl.
And Tim was very definitely looking forward to getting to know the mysterious new neighbor on Pesch Street. In the very house next door a man with thick glasses and eyes like an owl kept bringing in the most fascinating stuff. Computers, the big mainframe sorts of computers, fish tanks, hoses, machines both sleek and junky whose purposes were totally mysterious. And there were so many bicycle wheels! Bicycle wheels, gears, flywheels, chains, and driver cords. What did this man intend to do with all the wonderful junk? It was fuel for the wildest of speculations from the Norwall Pirates.
Tim rode up to the grocery store on Main Street and sat there on his bike in the middle of the sidewalk waiting. His best friend and fellow Pirate, Tommy Bircher, rode up also and grinned a silent greeting. Tommy was only a month younger than Tim, but was also different in that he had not lived his whole life in the little Iowa town. Although his grandparents, uncles, and various other relatives were rooted here, Tommy’s father and mother both traveled to distant places in pursuit of their business interests. Albert Bircher was an executive officer in a large Chicago-based business. Tommy and his family had moved back to Norwall only temporarily two years ago. Tommy had spent three years of his ten living in France.
“So, Tim, you got it all figured out yet?” Tommy grinned puckishly.
“Oh, you know… yes. The gossips in this town know everything about everybody, and all the gossips talk in the Post Office. We just hafta go there and listen.”
“That could take some time.”
“Yeah, but it will be worth it. We gotta find out somehow.”
“Okay, you’re the boss.”
Together, the two infamous Pirates stealthily walked over to the Norwall Post Office between what had once been the grocery store and what was now and always had been the fire station. They parked their bicycles in the fire station bike rack. They went in nonchalantly, trying to be nonchalant like they really belonged there, and hoping they really knew what nonchalant meant.
“Hello, boys,” said George “the Salesman” Murdoch, Post Master and gossip aficionado of the highest order.
“Uh, hello,” said Tim, trying to cover for both of them. He quickly looked at the wanted posters and missing children flyers on the medium-sized bulletin board near the East end of the counter.
Marjorie Dettbarn and Wilma Bates, two of Norwall’s middle-aged church ladies were there trading juicy stories and other tidbits with “the Salesman”.
“You know, George,” Wilma was saying, “the police really should be looking more carefully at the backgrounds of people like that.”
“Why do you say that, Mrs. Bates?” asked the Post Master with a sly grin.
“You know his wife is dead. They say it isn’t out of the question that he might’ve murdered her.”
“You’re so right, Wilma,” said Mrs. Dettbarn. “He’s such a suspicious-looking character. He never seems to hear you when you say hello.”
“Yes, “said Bates, “always has his nose in some book or other.”
“Do you ladies say hello to him a lot?” asked Murdoch the Post Master.
“Oh my, no,” said Mrs. Dettbarn. “I said it once. That’s all the chance a spooky young man like that really needs, don’t you know.”
“Yes, yes,” said Bates, “I never spoke to him at all. You can’t be too careful around a person like that!”
“Oh, you are right there,” said the Post Master. “He gets a check from the government twice a month, and numerous ones from different corporations. I think he may be quite wealthy in many ways. Who knows how a person like that earns so much money. Probably something suspicious, I say.”
Tommy and Tim were both wide eyed as Tim nudged Tommy towards the door.
As soon as they were outside, Tim nearly exploded. “A murderer! And lots of money coming in all the time!”
“Yeah, he could be a professional killer who works for the government!” gushed Tommy. “Oh, but who were they talking about?”
“You poophead! They were discussing my new neighbor, Orbit Wallace!”
“Orbit Wallace?”
“Well, something like that! The new guy that moved in next door.”
“Hey,” said Tommy, “maybe we should go stare at his house for a while!”
“Yeah! Great idea!” said Tim.
So the two Pirates were now on a mission to catch the hired killer red handed. Tim had visions of apprehending him literally red handed, with blood dripping from his fingertips. Red handed in the worst possible way.
*****
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Ancient Aliens Theorists assert that Zeus and Poseidon were actually powerful alien beings who came to Earth and presented themselves as gods. I now know this to be true, because I have run afoul of an old Greek god with a foul temper and a vengeful spirit. Umussnago Pastus is the ancient Greek god of the traffic light, and for reasons unknown, he has decided to do to me at least as much damage as Poseidon once did to Odysseus.
Now, the reason I have to worry about Umussnago’s foul humors is that I am a city dweller. I live in Carrollton, on the Western side of the Dallas part of the DFW metroplex. My teaching job, however, is on the East side of Dallas in Garland. That means my morning commute (which I must begin at 6 o’clock A.M. to avoid traffic) is liberally blessed with 45-plus stoplights. Depending on what circuitous, weaselly route I must follow, I can pass through the jurisdiction of as many as 52 stop lights.
A stop light, for you country bumpkins who have to face only one or two in your entire town, is a hideous time-consuming torture device. They were invented in the late eighteen hundreds by the British, particularly on engineer named J.P. Knight, who apparently knew in advance that they would one day inflict far more harm and mental duress on the rebellious colonies than they would on the honorable homeland. A four-way light, which almost all of them are in the Dallas area, can force you to sit for as much as four minutes. I have a morning commute that at its absolute best takes twenty minutes to travel by car while following a safe speed limit (actually with Texas drivers, anything less than twenty miles per hour over the limit will get you killed from behind… killed by car crash, too, not just by sixgun). Four minutes multiplied by fifty-two stoplights is… a major commuting problem.
Those of you who managed to stay awake during high school math class already see that by the statistical probability of hitting red out of three whole choices should not cause me to sit and percolate at a red light for the almost four hours of extra commute time that this makes possible. However, I have, in fact, counted forty red lights in one drive five different times. How many times have I had forty or more greens, you say? Never. This led me to suspect that old Umussnago didn’t like me. But a number of other factors encountered time after time, have led me to believe he positively loathes me.
If you are approaching a green light, especially a stale green light that you know is soon going to turn yellow and then the deadly red, you can increase your speed and try to skate through the intersection on yellow. Does this work for me? Ah, no. Umussnago will somehow make the yellow light into a super-short nano-second flash so that you end up driving through the intersection not on yellow, but on red. Why is this a problem? Red-light intersection dashes equal a three-hundred to four-hundred dollar ticket. And there is almost always a lurking cop to see it. If not the cop, there are those insidious intersection cameras that snap a quick video of you committing the capital offense of red-light violations. Try arguing with a Garland or Richardson or Farmers’ Branch traffic court that you didn’t actually violate a sacred red light! They have the video. I have paid enough tickets that I start slowing down to a stop while the light is still green.
Then, too, if you think you can’t make it through the intersection on green, or at least yellow, before you contemplate the stop, you have to remember the average Texan driver behind you is thoroughly convinced that he is going to get by being the last car to zoom through as the light is changing to red. He is, in fact, speeding up behind you as you make the horribly unwise decision to stop. You are going to die. Umussnago is pleased by this.
People who ride with me comment that I must have the most incredibly bad luck with stop lights of any human being on Earth. They see how I go from one light turning from green to red and trapping me for the maximum stop-light sit-time to the next where exactly the same thing happens, to the next, and the next, and… well, this just gets ridiculous after a while. Apparently no one but me sees him sitting up there laughing at me. Umussnago Pastus, Greek-dang god of traffic lights!
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Stuart West’s Young Adult novel, Tex, the Witch Boy, is a very engaging murder mystery that takes several unusual turns. Unlike most stories of the supernatural, the monsters are not the evil creatures of the night, but the evil creatures of the high school locker rooms and hallways. Tex and his friends are the outsiders, the loners that have to band together and help each other against brainless beefy bullies who use their athletic gifts to torment and even attempt to kill the story’s heroes. Tex has a very unusual set of skills to apply to the problem. It turns out that he is a witch. And with the help of his witch-mentor, a crazy blue-haired old lady named Mickey, Tex might just be able to solve a murder, save the girl, and help his friends through mysterious magic powers. It is an engaging whodunit that will have you doing what I did, turning back the pages and re-reading to find those clues that I so very cleverly missed altogether. You need to read this book. And if you have a teenager at home, you need to make them read and enjoy it too. Better yet, forbid them to read it. That will help them enjoy it all the more.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B3U5OWU/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img
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I was once an avid reader of the Sunday Funnies. I loved the madcap world of Dogpatch, Lil’ Abner, Mammy Yokum, and all. I also loved Pogo and his creator, Walt Kelly, but I’m sure you probably realized that already. I believe I basically grew up in Dogpatch. Rowan, Iowa is a small rural farm town. Romance is basically a matter of running away from the girls and eventually tiring out enough to get caught and married. I was a good athlete as a kid, probably why I didn’t get married until I was thirty-eight. More than one of the old church ladies was a Mammy Yokum. They fought the good fight for what is right by using a fast fist, a good dose of tonic, and an imperious, “I have spoken!” I married a woman like that. I had a Great Grandma that even looked like Mammy Yokum. There was more than one Hairless Joe hanging around town with a mind fixed on Kickapoo Joy Juice. There were even a few Shmoos. I was basically Joe Btfsplk with the little stormcloud forever above my head. I was in love with the only girl in town who looked like Daisy Mae, and I was chased by at least two different Sadie Hawkinses.
I used to read Al Capp’s strip on the front porch. It was my personal get away. We had an old student desk taken from the ancient Rowan School House. It was placed on the porch, in a corner by Mother’s German pump-organ, the one willed to her by her Great Aunt. There I would giggle about Abner’s spoonin’ and swoonin’ adventures. I remember when Frank Frazetta would draw Daisy Mae and the beautiful but smelly Moonshine McSwine. Man, I loved those curves! I didn’t realize then that the strip was portraying my own love life so subliminally. (I know there’s a better word than that, but can you say parallelly?) I didn’t like to think about romance other than to comment in front of girls that I hated girls and would not ever be trapped by a girl. That was all a lie, though, a big front. I secretly adored Alicia Stewart and she was my perfect Daisy Mae. So perfect, in fact, that I was embarrassed to even be in her presence for a moment. She would always wonder why I blushed so much. I never told her ( in an Abner-like way) how I felt about her.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com
My Great Grandma Hinckley was every bit as furiously upright and moral as Pansy Yokum. She was the family matriarch, oldest living relative, and determiner of the family’s opinion on practically everything. She even wore red and white striped stockings once in a while, a matter of shameless pride in the face of the pervasive Methodist Puritanism that surrounded rural people. She had cures and remedies for everything that went in the face of my mother the registered nurse and all her book learnin’. In fact, she was such a believer in Vick’s Vapo-Rub that she even ate the stuff. She would come to our house to clean, purify, and straighten up not only the house and all its furniture, but our young and unruly souls as well. She stood for no nonsense. And, although no one ever tested her, she ruled with an iron fist.
Now, Hairless Joe was actually the opposite of hairless. He didn’t have eyes behind that sheepdog haircut of his. He goofed off up town, greeted everybody at the cafe, and, although most thought him worthless and foul, everyone greeted him in return. There was a major difference, though, between him and the comic strip Joe. No Lonesome Polecat, his little Indian friend. There was no sidekick to throw horseshoes into the Kickapoo Joy Juice to give it more kick. He went through life alone.
There were a lot of Shmoos in town. They were dangerous. They made you believe that you didn’t need jobs or money. Of course, they didn’t make you believe it through magical Shmoo power. They were more like my Dad, industrious to a fault. They did everything for you, paid for everything, and never taught you how to do things for yourself. My Dad, who had been a professional truck driver at one time, tried to teach me to drive, but after the third near-fatal wrong turn, he would end up leaving that hair-raising experience to high school driving instructors. He figured he had enough hair already and didn’t want to look like Hairless Joe.
Certainly that finally brings me back to the topic of me, Joe Btfsplk. I am the unluckiest man in the whole of Dogpatch, if not the world. Every intersection I drive up to yields an instant red light. The little storm cloud above my head is constantly raining on me. I’m given to long streaks of bad luck. My best efforts often come to naught. Still, like Joe, I keep my chin up. One good that comes from always expecting the worst is that I am never surprised unless it is a pleasant surprise. The bad things I am prepared for, the good ones I welcome.
Anyway, I used to imagine myself a resident of Dogpatch, USA. I was a good, wholesome youth with a world of promise before him, just like Lil’ Abner. I think I am still a resident, only now, I’m not Abner any more. My oldest son, Dorin, more of a naive fan of the Fearless Fosdicks of the world, and I am now more like Pappy Yokum, listening meekly to Mammy’s commands until the time comes when I am needed to step up and be the mouse that roared.
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This is a picture of the main character of my not-yet-published novel, Snow Babies.
I have a terrible feeling that I have become a liberal. Born and raised in Iowa, I probably should not be such a thing, but I cannot help it. And the most frustrating thing is, I have not changed very much at all. In the 70’s I originally identified myself as a Republican. My parents were Republicans, good old-fashioned Eisenhower Republicans. Practical, pragmatic, determined that the world would continue to be a better place for the next generation than it was for the last. Liberals were the communist-sympathizing loonies that needed to be made fun of, like George McGovern. Liberals were other people besides the people I knew. They lived in other towns. Unfortunately, the world began changing.
It started when the morality of the Republican Party came into question with Watergate. I actually defended Nixon at the start. Nixon began as an Eisenhower Republican. Heck, he was Ike’s Vice President! But then it began to come out that the new Republican Party was not playing by the rules any more. They were willing to cheat! I was shocked. I didn’t know at that time that politicians and idealists were antonyms of each other. I identified the ground that I stood on as neither liberal nor conservative. I was determined to be a moderate. I believed the only way was the middle way.
So, I confess, I started calling myself a Democrat and I voted for Jimmy Carter in my first actual election. He was a moderate. Heck, Southern Democrats were almost the same thing as Republicans, weren’t they? How else could you explain Texas?
It was then that I began to perceive that the monkeys were actually running the banana farm. Ronald Reagan took over. And it was my fault. Carter lost favor with the American public when he refused to declare war on the Iranians during the hostage crisis. I failed to note that Carter was the only president in my lifetime that was not at war with anybody. I voted for John Anderson instead. In my defense, although he was a Republican, he was actually a moderate Republican. Such things still existed in the real world. And so, the Gipper won the presidency because I wasted my vote. Seriously, Carter lost out to Reagan and his “Voodoo Economics” because people like me didn’t vote for Carter. The election was that close. Reagan and Reaganomics took over. James Watt was appointed Secretary of the Interior. The administration wanted to change the rules so industry could cut down trees in the National Forests. The mantra was de-regulate, de-regulate! That means to take away the rules. That means that criminal business behavior was rewarded with profit, rather than punished by the government watchdogs. The Reagan administration took the watchdogs out behind the barn and euthanized them with a shotgun.
So, I had my hard-earned money in a Savings and Loan when the Savings and Loan crisis hit. I watched Oliver North become a celebrity as the Reagan Administration got away with murder in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was the beginning of the end for moderates. More and more the Republicans were about giving tax breaks to rich people. Because, of course, rich people are all naturally good and generous and the benefits will all trickle down. But the fat cats that were supposed to throw me table scraps became far too good at pigging it all down. Nothing fell from the table.
As a Texas school teacher, I saw educational reform start with blaming the teachers for all the problems with Texas education. They all said, “You can’t solve education’s problems by throwing money at them.” I really wonder how they knew that. I don’t remember any attempts to throw money at the problems schools were facing. They gave idiot tests to teachers to weed out the ones who were too stupid and illiterate to teach. When the majority of us passed those tests, the Republican State of Texas decided to give students achievement tests so they could justify firing teachers when the students failed. Well, each time we began to help students pass the tests, they made the tests harder. In fact, they made them harder every year. It was like we were continually measuring our growth with an expanding ruler, a ruler that got so big so fast that at times it looked like we were shrinking. We struggled hard to catch up, and it reached a point in recent history where Republican Emperor of Texas, Rick Perry, decided he no longer needed a reason. He cut billions from the State’s funds for education. Many excellent and dedicated teachers lost their jobs. Art programs, theater programs, alternative programs were all tossed out in favor of just the basics… oh, and no one was willing to cut football. Football was safe! When the State budget short fall was no longer a problem, Emperor Perry was given the opportunity to restore the funding he had cut. Of course, he did not. Billion dollar rainy day funds are much more important than education. (He means education for poor people, by the way. He’s a strong supporter of public funds for private schools that rich people can afford to attend.)
Being conservative increasingly means having no heart, no love for your fellow man. Conservatives are against having a minimum wage, let alone increasing the minimum wage. That allows corporations to keep higher profits. It doesn’t matter that so many people now no longer have money to spend to fuel those profits. Rather than trying to expand the economy and make prosperity available to many more people, conservatives would rather squeeze every last drop of profit out of the masses before the masses finally starve. Instead of justice for all, conservatives are seeking justice for the privileged, and the rest of us need to learn our place. Heartlessness, greed, arrogance… I don’t see much else in the way of qualities in the Republican Party. Where are the Republican moderates I used to admire? Where are the new Bob Doles of the world? What happened to Charles Grassley of Iowa, and John McCain of Arizona? Why did they stop being advocates of the common man?
Okay, I think it’s time I took a stand. Einstein said that it won’t be evil people at fault when this world ends, it will be the people who stand around and watched them do it. So what kind of stand am I going to take? I think we all have to decide if we are going to believe in something and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to back up what we believe.
I titled this awful thing Political Insanity because politics are driving me INSANE. People I believe in and respect tell me that George Zimmerman is innocent (even though he killed an unarmed teenager after being told by the police NOT to follow him) and if there are riots, they want the police to open fire and kill rioters. This is coming from folks who I have always respected for their Christian beliefs. WAITAMINNIT! Christian beliefs! Am I insane? I thought Christianity was “turning the other cheek.” I thought it was “love your neighbor”, “forgive”, and “they will know that we are Christians by our LOVE.” I’m apparently wrong on all counts. The Republican Party, the Christian Party, says I am.
These people are saying that abortion is wrong. That it means killing children. I don’t disagree with that. But I also want our society to care about the children that already have been born. Why are these Christians talking about cutting funds to education here in Texas where we are already near to last place in national rankings? Why are they trying to close the clinics that also provide birth control to the poor, and pre-natal care? Every baby has a right to life until they get born, and then they are screwed apparently.
As far as I can tell, there is no loony liberal left wing any more. Moderates who used to be the center, are now the far left. So, by remaining a moderate, being dedicated to the “middle way”, I have literally been forced to become a liberal. If caring what happens to the poor, especially the working poor, and the mentally ill, and the sick who have no health insurance, and teachers like me who have to consider quitting because the atmosphere in schools is turning so toxic, political, and polarized, if all of that makes me a liberal, then okay. I will be a liberal. Conservatives are conservative because they want things to remain the same. If times are good, everyone should be a conservative. But if times are as bad as I think they are, then everyone should be a liberal, because liberals are called liberals because they are looking for wholesale change. Like most sharks, if we liberals don’t keep swimming against the current, we are all going to suffocate and die.
Sharks, monkeys, and loons… donkeys and elephants… politics has all gone to the animals. Either that, or I have gone politically insane.
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My newest novel is called Snow Babies. It is not published yet, but I am not worried. It is the best thing I’ve ever written, and it will endure even if no one ever lowers themselves to actually reading it. The portrait here is the main character, Valerie Elaine Clarke, the most beautiful girl ever born in Norwall, Iowa (the fictional version of the town I grew up in, rural, farm town, population 275). She and her mother have moved to town and left farming behind because Valerie’s father… shudder… lost the farm for unpaid FHA loans, and then killed… but you don’t want to hear about that. She is a vibrant, sassy, and open-hearted girl living in a 1984 world of skateboards, rock and roll, and stupid people that do all kinds of stupid things. Right before the December blizzard hits, she sees a homeless wanderer, a hobo, on Main Street. The guy doesn’t know a bad storm is coming. He wears a jacket made of crazy quilt material, all colorful patches and quilted stitching. Valerie can’t let the poor man freeze to death, can she? And her and her mother live in a modest three-bedroom home even though there are only two people living there. She will ask her mother if they can take him in during the storm, and maybe asked if she can keep him.
Silly, right? I’ve told people that this is a comedy novel about freezing to death, complete with clowns. But, to be honest, it’s probably more about not freezing to death, and how a small community can come together to face a big problem, namely, a killer of a blizzard. So, if you like comedies laced with tragedy, filled with bad snow metaphors, and stupid people doing stupid things with consequences both good and bad, then you should be looking for the novel Snow Babies… or running away screaming… I know it’s one of those.
I included a shot of my latest paffooney held by my daughter, the Princess. Valerie is a combination of a girl I grew up with in Iowa, a girl I once taught in a small town in Texas, and a certain young lady who gets referred to repeatedly as “the Princess”.
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I haven’t posted yet this week because I was in a blue funk about finances and the general rottenness of life. I have worked incredibly hard as a teacher for thirty years, and all I have to show for it is a mountain of debt and more bills than a flock of flamingos on steroids. As a writer I have been paid twelve dollars so far for my writing. Considering the time and effort and expense Let me tell you first what it means to be a Mike. Mike is not actually the name that my parents gave me; that was Michael. Mike is not the way I think of myself, because that would be Mickey. Mike is simply a state of mind. It is a practical-as-dirt sort of down-home-country-boy and slightly-redneck-though-not-really-prejudiced state of mind. Mike is a farmhand name. Mike is a practical, no-nonsense, fix-the-tractor-and plow-the-dang-field sort of name. Mike recalls two-fisted Mike Hammer and many other two-fisted Mike-isms from pulp fiction, TV, and other blatantly two-fisted sillinesses. A Mike is a guy in a white t-shirt to show off muscles and almost-muscles. A Mike is a well-named action hero from the comic strips, or a thug from the comic books, and tends to have a crew cut and less brains than any Brian, Al, or Chet. In Dr. Seuss, Mike rides on the back of the ole bike so he can push it up hill. (At least they LIKE their Mike!) Mike also has an impishly playful side as we can see in Mickey (himself) McGuire and even Mickey Mouse. If you tell a Mike, “An asteroid is about to hit the Earth, and we are all gonna die!” he will answer, “Okay, but I’m gonna give it a good punch in the nose first!” (I know an asteroid has no nose, but it is what gets said anyway, because, well… I’m a Mike, that’s all.) So being a Mike is probably not such a bad thing to be, as opposed to being a Gary or a Stan. I could live with it, but I am not completely a Mike. I am developing definite Bob tendencies. Bob-ism has just got to be explained at this point. Being a Bob is something the world barely tolerates, but desperately needs. Bob is NOT practical. Think of Bob Denver or Bob Keeshan. Bob is not wise. Think of Bob Barker or Bob Dole. You don’t laugh WITH a Bob, you laugh AT him. Bob Newhart never laughs at all, and he is definitely a funny ole Bob. Bob does not give in to hardships. Bob endures. No matter how many times Bob falls on his face, landing in Mary Ann’s coconut cream pie, or loses an election to some dang Democrat, or gets ping-pong balls dropped on his head by Mister Moose, Bob still keeps right on going and doing all sorts of Bob things. Bob is capable of sacrifice. Think of what Bobby Kennedy did for equal rights and to organized crime. And think of the price he paid for doing those things. (Yes, I know we’re talking “Bobby” here. Little Bobby-boy. But Bob is to Bobby as Mike is to Mickey.) There is something admirable about being a Bob, even though there’s also something rather sad about being a Bob. My Mike-muscles are sagging down into Bob-like table muscles now. My Mike-like sarcastic wit is now becoming more of a Bob-like roll of the eyes. People are not laughing WITH me any more, they are laughing AT me. And, Bob-like, I am relishing it. People are always ready to put up their dukes and take a swing at Mike. Just ask Mike Tyson. But a Bob is not nearly so tempting a target. People tend to feel sorry for ole Bob, because, well… after all, he is a Bob. So, from now on… put me down as a Bob. It’s a whole lot easier than trying to “Be like Mike”. So, now I’m sure you understand my cloying self-pity and recent lack of wit. It has to be as clear to you now as it is to me. The cause of all my troubles has been being a Mike. To solve my problems, I will just be Bob. |
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The day before yesterday I completed the book Snow Babies. This is a novel I have been working on and off on since 1978. It is a comedy about orphans freezing to death in a blizzard. Not really funny you say? Not packed full of yucks because of the orphan-dying thing? Well, needless to say, no good comedy is free of tears, just as no tragedy works without its lighter moments and occasional jokes. And did I tell you there are clowns? I promise you clowns.
Now, if you are honest about it, you know clowns don’t all come in face paint. Some are ordinary bumblers, schmucks, and goofy guys doing the bumbling, schmucky, goofy things that bumblers, schmucks, and goofy guys do every day. You will notice them as easily as you notice them in Shakespeare’s works because they are always the ones taking the header center stage. If you can’t tell the clowns, then maybe in a future novel I will put them in face paint.
There are scary things too in a good comedy. I have witches, snow ghosts, and mysterious strangers in my story. It’s part of that Midwest heritage where we Iowegians go slightly insane because of the long cold winters and the lack of citified entertainments. Give a yokel or a hick from the sticks enough time to sit and diddle, and you will get weird stories. How else do you explain how a dude from Kansas named L. Frank Baum could come up with a wonderful world like Oz?
So now that I’ve told you all these wonderful, interesting, and goofy things about the book I just wrote, let me pop your bubbles with the publication pin. I have not got it published yet. And I am looking for a better deal than last time around, because it’s an even better book.
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Catch a Falling Star 