It is generally true that any kind of artist, whether they make portraits, or paintings, or novels, or poems, or photos of landscapes, or photos of cats, is making a self-portrait more than anything else. It is true that no matter what form an artwork takes, you see it from the perspective of the artist. You are shown what they see. You are led to think their thoughts. Characters in books are usually telling at least in part, the author’s life story. That’s why I use so many real people that I once knew to model the people in my stories and drawings upon. You must write about what you know, and your own self is what you know best. This Paffooney of young Milt Morgan is a picture of me. It actually looks like what I once looked like. Milt as a novel character thinks and acts as I once did. Anyone that knew me fifty years ago will tell you how much this looks like me. Of course the number of folks who knew me back then continues to seriously dwindle.
Tag Archives: paffooney
A Bit of Him, a Bit of Them, Plus a Lot of Me
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Holiday Scenes
Having been a Jehovah’s Witness for a good part of the last twenty years, I am not in the habit of thinking holiday celebration. But they have moved on without me. I am a bah-humbug door-knocker no longer. So, I guess it’s time to recall how much this time of year used to mean to me. I searched my writing. So far the only holiday scene I have written is from Snow Babies. The characters in this scene are all severely snowed in and the electricity is out. They have decided to pass the time by putting up the Christmas tree without lights. The blizzard rages. It is an intense time where survival is not guaranteed. Hence, the need to remember the season.
Excerpt from Snow Babies.
Canto Seventy-Three – A Red, Green, and White Christmas Tree Block
The thing about the artificial Christmas tree, although it was plastic and solid forest green in a very unnatural way, was that it did look pretty good when you put all the right pegs into all the right slots and got it standing up by itself all full and fluffed out and green. It looked like a real tree… maybe… a little bit.
Denny handed a frosted red ball up to Valerie. Because she commanded the heights from the stepstool, she got to place each precious glass or plastic ornament. The Clarkes had a full string of bubble lights, but since the electricity was still out, Val didn’t see any reason to place the thing. The red ball went on the spot near the center front where Valerie had hung it the two years previous. The only difference was… well, the difference was… yes, the difference was… that Tommy Bons, all attitude and dirty blue jacket was standing in the spot where… you know, the spot where… the spot where someone needed to stand to catch Valerie if she overbalanced and fell towards the tree. The place where last year… her father stood.
Pidney was watching with some concern. “Why are there tears in your eyes, Val?” he asked stupidly.
“Well, I… no reason.”
Tommy caught her flitting glance with his steady blue gaze. He looked deeply into her eyes. Then, she saw what she never expected to see. Tears stood in his eyes too. Without saying or hearing a word about it, he understood. He knew. She could see it in his eyes. He knew what it was. He hadn’t just lost his father. Both of them. At once. In a car crash. Like Ponyboy in the Outsiders. Jeez she loved that book.
“You gonna put up the Santa thingy?” Pidney asked.
Mary Philips pulled the Santa thingy out of the box. It was made of Styrofoam balls, red felt, white cotton fluff, and black button eyes. And when she turned it over, on the bottom, it said, “to pretty little Princess, from Daddy Kyle.” The tears came like rain. Valerie crumpled into Tommy’s arms, weeping desperately.
“I… I don’t understand,” said Pidney. “I thought putting up a Christmas tree was a happy thing.”
Valerie had both arms wrapped around Tommy, squeezing the juice out of him, and crying like her heart was breaking. No… not breaking… broken. Shattered into little shards of glass, and scattered like snowflakes on a December morning.
Wordlessly Mary showed Pid what was written in black felt-tip marker on the bottom of the Santa thingy.
“Oh,” said Pid. “He made that himself, didn’t he?”
Valerie couldn’t answer. She sobbed like she could barely breathe.
Dennis limped up to Pidney and stood beside the big dumb oaf. He reached his small hand out to Mary, and she put the Santa thingy in it.
“This is really neat,” he said. “It’s like the ones my grandma made for me with Styrofoam and knitted all the clothes for and stuff. I wish I still had those.”
Valerie slowed the tears for a moment and looked at Dennis. He was a really cute little boy when you looked past the crooked little legs and the thin frame. And he had such a darling and gentle manner about him. He made you want to hug him until all the juice came out of him too. She loosened her death-grip on Tommy.
“He bought a stupid little crafts book,” said Valerie. “He was gonna give it to me along with the cabbage patch doll he bought. Then he decided to make that silly little Santa man from one of the craft patterns in the book. He did it all by himself, and gave it to me as a surprise gift. He did all of it. He did it all by himself.” It was the first time she had told that story to anyone. It was the first time she’d even remembered about something he gave her since… Well, it was a silly thing, but she did love it. “Can I have that?” she asked Denny.
“Sure,” he put it in her hands with a puckish smile.
“I think it goes near the top this year. Not in place of the angel, but right near her, to keep her company.”
Valerie got back up onto the stepstool and placed the Santa thingy near the top at just to the left of center. She looked at it and began to smile.
“Yep,” said Tommy, “the tree looks pretty stupid without lights, but that looks just about right to put it there.”
Valerie laughed at him.
Pidney moved over beside Mary and put an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m really not as dumb as that, you know.”
“Yes you are,” whispered Mary, “but we love you anyway.”
Valerie heard that, and laughed all the harder. This Christmas tree thing was going to continue to hurt. And Pid was pretty dumb sometimes. But Mary was right. It had to be said. Valerie loved him anyway.
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My Imagination has Wings
I am certainly not bragging. I have a too-vivid imagination, and sometimes lose track of what is real and what is fantasy. In my current novel-in-progress, I just wrote about kids believing they have used fairy magic to turn a favorite teacher into a swan. (I told you I would work that German Schwan thing into my book.) So here is a brief Canto to show you how that went.
Canto Twenty-Six – In Miss Schwanneke’s Music Class
Miss Swan was busy in the gym, so it was no surprise to Blueberry and the other Norwall kids in her first period class that she was running late. Blueberry decided to use the time to work on the goal of making students believe in fairies. She was armed with a folder filled with colored pencil drawings of fairies. She had carefully crafted them from the descriptions Garriss had given her during those long nights when she was too excited to sleep anyway. Working on the fairy project helped take her mind off the terrible conflict brewing with Tim Kellogg. He had been so mean since his best friend, Tommy Bircher, had moved to Chicago. She was sure the only reason he was being that way was because she was so deeply in love with Mike Murphy, and Mike was Tim’s replacement best friend.
“Those are neat pictures, Blue,” said Bobby Niland, a Norwall farm kid.
“Thanks. Share them around. It will help people believe in fairies.”
“Aw, you Pirates have such weird ideas. Nobody is gonna believe in dumb old fairies!”
“Bobby, you are a Pirate, and you’ve seen Garriss, the fire wisp. How can you not believe in fairies?”
“You guys get me all worked up, talking to the empty air, and I start to see things that aren’t really there. Tim just made up the little fire guy. You know he is always making up all kinds of elaborate lies, and making us believe them.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Hey! I like this one with the pretty naked lady with the white wings!” Bobby showed the drawing to its creator.
“Garriss says that one is a storybook named Odette. She’s an immortal fairy princess because of the tale of the Swan Princess.”
“Huh?”
“The story of a princess cursed to turn into a swan by day, and can only be a woman at night.”
“Oh, that’s a neat story. Too bad it isn’t true. I’d like to see a naked lady turn into a swan.”
“Well… Garriss did teach me Odette’s spell. He claims it can turn somebody into a swan.”
“Oh, neat! Who can we change?”
“But, Bobby, you don’t believe in the fairy stuff. You just said so.”
“Yeah, well… How about Miss Swan? Her name makes her perfect for the spell!”
It was obvious that Bobby was hot to see Miss Swan naked. He was secretly in love with her, but he drooled over her so openly that everyone from Norwall who really knew him, knew that secret too.
“You know her name is actually Schwanneke, right? Swan is just a nickname.”
“Ah, come on. You said you want me to believe.”
“Well, I don’t want to hurt Miss Swan or anything. She’s a nice teacher.”
There was general restless talking in the classroom. No one was trying to sing any of the pieces they had been learning in class. And no one was paying attention to Bobby and Blue. Blue pulled out the white feather.
“What’s that?” asked Bobby. “Is that part of the spell?”
“It’s the focus item. You have to give it to her and say, Möchten Sie einen Schwan zu werden?”
“What’s that? Pig Latin?”
“German, I think,” Blue answered. “The fairies seem to use German more than other languages.”
“Cool.”
Bobby made Blueberry teach him the words again and again until he could say them correctly. In the meantime, Miss Swan came in with something of a cold. She was sniffling and sneezing. Bobby, excited beyond measure, ran up to her, holding out the white feather.
“Möchten Sie einen Schwan zu werden?” he chanted.
“What?” Miss Schwanneke, the vocal music teacher, took the feather. She suddenly looked ill, as if a cold wind had blown in and frozen her very soul. She put a hand over her mouth and ran out of the room.
Everyone began asking each other what was happening, and of course, nobody knew. But two Norwall kids, Bobby Niland and Blueberry Bates, stood staring at each other with white faces. Thirty minutes of rampant speculation, rumors of the teacher’s death in the bathroom, and the eventual arrival in the classroom of a substitute had Bobby looking whiter than a ghost. Blue didn’t feel very well herself.
“Well, class, the period is almost shot,” said Mrs. Thompson the all-purpose substitute teacher. “We will just kinda sit here and wait for the bell. Sit down and be good for a few minutes more. At about that time, they began to hear a ticking sound at the window. Meghan Baumgartner was the first to see it.
“Miss, miss! There’s a big white bird pecking at the window wanting to get in out of the snow!”
Blueberry and Bobby looked at the same moment. It was a huge, white… swan.
Bobby’s pants were immediately soaked, and he, too ran out of the room.
*****
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Miss Morgan’s Class
I am busily working on my novel, The Magical Miss Morgan. I would very much like to finish in November, but, at less than half way through, I don’t think it is likely. It is a novel about being a teacher. It is about both classroom magic, and dealing with the magical legacy of having a brother who is a wizard. So, this example Canto is telling about sitting at the teacher’s desk after class, talking to a “real” fairy. In the Paffooney, you see Miss Morgan with two students who are also Norwall Pirates, Blueberry Bates and Mike Murphy.
Canto Twenty-Three – After School at Miss Morgan’s Desk
Francis sat in the chair behind her desk and stared into the open planner spread out in front of her. She still had two days to get the following week’s plan accomplished. It was, however quite blank. For the last half hour she had done nothing but stare at it and think horrible thoughts about Six-Three.
“Please, dear teacher and storyteller,” said Donner plaintively, “respond that I may know you are unharmed and not mentally damaged.”
“Oh, hello, Bug. I’m okay, but I have had a very bad day.”
“What’s the matter?” the little insect-man had fluttered down to her desktop from somewhere above.
“Oh, sometimes students and their parents make me question if I’m in the right profession.”
“You are a lore-mistress. What higher calling could there be?”
“I just mean that I hate being in a job where you have to deal with willfully ignorant people.”
“I know what you mean. Dealing with Garriss and his brother Torchy is like that. No matter how many times you show them how to put out a campfire, they just seem too stupid to get it right.”
“No, Bug, my problem is not really like that. Cutie and her mother are not stupid. They are both quite bright. But they have a reason to not understand what I am trying to explain to them about my curriculum and my teaching methods. They want to set me up as a problem to be corrected, and so they refuse to see that my teaching methods are not the problem.”
“I have listened intently to the lore of Bilbo. I don’t know exactly what kind of fey creature a Hobbit truly is, but the world you describe… the world of Bilbo… is very accurate from the viewpoint of the fair folk. Tellosia is just like this Middle Earth you tell the young ones about.”
“Oh, heavens! I hope that doesn’t mean there are dragons flying around Belle City somewhere!”
“No, no. Dragon flies aplenty, but no dragons for at least six hundred years.”
Francis stared at Donner with a look that would’ve stunned any human student. Dragons? Really? Even six hundred years ago? Donner was completely oblivious to her disbelief. But maybe that was a good thing. If there were a dragon, maybe her disbelief could kill it and save the world.
“How did the mission we sent Garriss on turn out?” Donner asked innocently.
“Tim Kellogg took him to Norwall, just as we discussed. He gave your little fire child to a sweet little girl named Blueberry Bates. She is making drawings of him to pass around school and talk about fairies being real.” Francis frowned at the bug. “But tell me, Donner, can Garriss really teach the girl a spell to set someone’s underwear on fire?”
“Oh, yes. That is a simple glammer with pixie dust and the right tinder.”
“Oh, that is not good. I need to head things off again…”
It was almost too much. Her brother’s legacy of magic and the Pirates’ liars’ club made her life unnecessarily complicated. She and Jim needed to sort out how they were going to deal with Krissy, and on top of it all, Mrs. Detlafsen was intent on making a political issue out of Francis’ teaching style.
“If you are worried,” offered Donner sweetly, “I can teach you a spell to make a rain cloud hover over someone’s head. A nice big ten inch cloud… six gallons worth of rainwater… and you can make it rain on whichever person you need to soak. That should put out any fire that Garriss started.”
“Is Garriss hurt by water? Can it extinguish him? Hurt him in any way?”
“Magical water applied in the right way can snuff out a fire wisp, if you do it right. But Garriss is no beginner when it comes to magical fire… or even magical water.”
“That’s good. Tim’s little band of Pirate maniacs probably won’t kill him, then.”
“Believe me,” said Donner, grinning, “If my people haven’t been able to snuff out that fool in the last century, with all the reasons they have for trying, your young pie-rats don’t stand a chance of doing it.”
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A Better Version
Never quite satisfied, I put a head on the horse and re-positioned the focus element of the picture.
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Space Pirates
I enjoy science fiction almost as much as I enjoy humor in both my reading activities and my writing. My goal has been, since reading Douglas Adams’ wonderful trilogy, or quadrilogy, or possibly quintology of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to write such an opus. That is the real reason my first published novel, Aeroquest, exists. Sorry about that. First novels are often a bizarre over-reaching, trying to do too much, shooting in too wide an arc, and getting totally lost in the tangle of plot, character, and purple paisley prose that characterizes a novelist’s obsession with his own inner eye.
Swashbuckling space-pirate teenagers are the students in my teachers-in-outer-space epic, Aeroquest. It gives you an idea about how silly the entire project really is.
My novel is a total mishmash of things from Star Wars, the Marx Brothers movies, Star Trek, Dune by Frank Herbert, old Flash Gordon serials, Indiana Jones, Tarzan, and several things like Nebulons (the little blue alien people) that I made up from my own Saturday-afternoon childhood daydreams. Parts of it are actually funny, I think, like the part about flying out of jungle danger by levitating with an anti-gravity bustier one of the characters wears because of her overly-generous up-front endowment. But parts of it are incomprehensible and sad. And not sad in a good way.
But I am seriously planning to rewrite the awful thing and get it published with a better publisher. I have worked a little bit on doing a graphic novel of the thing. I have my doubts, though, that I have enough drawings left in my arthritic old fingers to accomplish that part of the daydream. The world needs space pirates, especially now when an evil empire of the wealthy elite has taken over our world and threatens to crush us economically under its heel. Pirates rise up to take what they like from forces that outnumber them. They do the Robin Hood thing, taking from the rich and giving to the poor… er, or possibly keeping it for themselves. I mean, if they are the poor, then that’s okay, right? So, I have shared a Paffooney of some of the student pirates from my totally awful first novel, talked up the daydreams and fool’s hopes in my ill-fated novel Aeroquest, and acknowledged that you should never, ever pay the bloated price the cheap-o publisher with no editors on staff charges for the whole mess. Wait til I get it rewritten. It will probably be even more horrible.
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More Playing With Black and White Backgrounds
Here is the result of taking a section of my big black and white background and inserting a bit of color. New pictures out of old ones. Can I cheat at the art thing or what?
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Midterm Elections
Politics is, unfortunately, a game with rigged rules that you and I need to win, but have only a snowball’s chance in H-E-double-hockey-sticks of winning. Why do we need to win? And why can’t we? It is a matter of how government serves us and who it really belongs to. It is supposed to work democratically, enacting the will of the majority for the general welfare. It is supposed to belong to the American people who vote to make it so. Unfortunately, the Dark Side of the Force has waxed powerful and Darth Dick Cheney and his apprentice Darth Elefans (possibly the Sith Lord name of Ted Cruz) have taken power. The government has become a fascist oligarchy with Sith Lords and corporations enslaving the masses, crushing the middle class, and stripping us of every benefit our tax dollars are supposed to be paying for.
I know that sounds like I am a liberal, and many of my Republican-leaning friends in both Texas and Iowa cringe at the sound of it. To them “liberal” means bad and “conservative” means good. They have all stopped reading this before it reaches this sentence. But to me, liberal simply means that I care. I want to see government help people even if that means that I have to make personal sacrifices to do it. Conservative seems to mean more and more that such a person is only interested in protecting themselves, their profits and their prejudices.
What, you may ask, am I basing this judgement on? I look at what happened in this week’s election. Republicans won a majority in the Senate and retained their majority in the House. The Republican winners have expressed the belief that the Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare, needs to be repealed. That basically means that because the Insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment manufacturers make higher profits doing things the old way, they want to take away the insurance that so many people now have that they didn’t have before. In other words, profit is far more important to them than people’s health. These victors have also expressed the belief that global warming and climate change are a hoax, or simply untrue. This means that they reject the scientific evidence that confirms its existence. Science must be wrong because they don’t accept that the recorded facts are true. In other words, they find it more profitable to be stupid and block any attempts to regulate or slow down the highly profitable gas and oil industry. These winners have also stated that the debt and deficit that this country is burdened with (an artifact of a previous Republican administration) needs to be lessened by taking away food stamps, medicare, medicaid, and other social benefits, programs paid for by our hard-earned tax dollars and meant to benefit those among us who fall on hard times or have a need many times created by the wealthy upper class who paid billions of dollars to buy elections and have no need of these services themselves. If we were to return to President Eisenhower’s ninety per cent tax rate on the wealthy, the Koch Brothers and the Walton Family of Wal-Mart heirs could easily reduce the deficit themselves.
We deserve to benefit from the government we paid for. The majority of all taxes have been paid by the middle class and the poor since the Reagan Administration. The wealthy have gotten tax breaks and moved their money off shore or out of the country for too many years. They can now legally (thanks to the Supreme Court which is tilted to the conservative side) buy elections with unreported dark money that corrupts not only Republicans, but Democrats as well. We are left with no one to represent our interests. We are at the mercy of heartless, Dark-Side masters. Whatever can we do?
It is a time for heroes. Senator Al (Han Solo) Franken retained his seat in Minnesota, winning more strongly than he did the last time. There are progressives alive and well and joining the Rebel Alliance in Minnesota. Princess Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks out with authority from Massachusetts (Alderaan) in defense of women’s rights, our right to affordable education, and fairness in politics. And our best hope lies in Senator Bernie (Luke) Sky-Sanders, the Independent Jedi from Vermont. He wields a light-saber tongue that lashes out at the Koch Brothers and their election monkey-madness with dark money. He fights for income equality and the middle class. He may yet bring balance to the Force.
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Troll Treasure
Here is an old Paffooney revisited. Here Prince Robin leads a team of adventurers deep into the darkling wood where they find and take on a troll. The two dwarven filchers are no match for the man-beast, but two of the rogue’s well-placed arrows bring him down. And the treasure is magical and valuable beyond their wildest dreams. But is that an evil glow on the diamond known as the troll’s heart? Will it corrupt the beautiful young rogue? I simply do not know.
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Working With Miss Morgan
Here is a sample from my work in progress, The Magical Miss Morgan.
Canto Nineteen – The Ghost House after Dark
“Bobby couldn’t make it,” said Frosty Anderson. “He says he had chores.”
“We all know he’s afraid of the dark,” said Mike Murphy, lighting another candle.
“We shouldn’t make fun of him all the time,” reminded Blueberry, sitting next to Mike. “It’s hard to get out of the house after dark to come here to an abandoned cellar in the middle of a junk yard.”
“Okay, we already know what Miss Morgan says about that,” said Tim. “We have more important business tonight.”
“Worth getting grounded for a month for?” asked Mike.
“Yes.”
The children all leaned toward Tim as he sat conspiratorially in the middle of the candlelit cellar of the ruined house. Everyone wanted to know what the big reveal was going to be, and Tim was loving it.
“So what’s the big deal?” asked Frosty.
“You know the project about getting kids to believe in fairies?” said Tim.
“Yeah,” said Mike and Frosty as Blueberry nodded.
“There is a secret reason that Miss Morgan needs us to do that project.”
Tim picked up a shoebox and placed it on his knees in front of him. He slowly lifted the lid.
“So? An empty shoebox?” sneered Mike.
“Oh, my!” Blueberry’s eyes got as big as Tim could ever remember seeing them.
“This is Garriss,” said Tim simply, “he’s an elemental fire fairy.”
“I’m a Wisp,” croaked the little naked fire man.
“Cool!” gasped Frosty.
“He looks more like hot,” noted Mike.
“Is he real?” asked Blueberry stupidly.
“Don’t you believe your own eyes?” asked Tim.
“Don’t be rude to the beautiful young lady,” warned Garriss.
“Can I hold him?” Blueberry asked timidly.
“You’ll burn your hands,” said Mike.
“No, you won’t,” said Garriss. “I am more than willing to be held by you, Pretty Miss. And I promise, you can’t be hurt by my magical fire.”
Blueberry put out her open palm, and the little man formed of fire stepped gingerly into it. The girl lifted him up in front of her face.
“You’re made of fire… And you’re naked,” said Blueberry.
“I am a magical being,” said Garriss, “and I need you to believe I am real, for I will not continue to exist otherwise.”
“So,” said Mike, “you are only real if we believe in you?”
“Yes,”
“If I say I don’t believe in fairies, will you die?”
“Can you see me standing in front of you and still say you don’t believe?” asked Garriss.
“Good point,” answered Mike.
“If we are going to help the fairy people of Tellosia,” said Tim, “I had to show you they are real. We can’t risk showing the real fairies to everyone, though. We have to come up with ways to make people believe without actually showing them.”
“Why can’t we just show everybody?” said Mike. “We could take a picture and show everybody!”
“Please, don’t do that,” pleaded Garriss. “Someone might disbelieve their own eyes, and then I, and maybe others, would actually die.”
“Oh, we can’t let that happen!” cooed Blueberry. “Garriss? Will you let me draw your picture with colored pencils?”
“I would be honored, my lady.”
“This is all just too wonderful to be real,” Blueberry said.
Tim nodded in silence. They would generate the belief that was needed, Blueberry’s drawings would do it, if anything could. That girl could really whip pencils around and make good art.
“We have to swear a Pirate oath,” said Tim. “We all swear to make people believe and keep the real fairies safe from discovery and death. If we fail, then may our human hearts shrivel up and we all die an untimely death.”
“I swear it,” said Blueberry.
“If Blue does,” said Mike, “then so do I.”
“Me too,” said Frosty.
“And you have my word on it too,” said Garriss.
Tim grinned an evil grin. This was gonna be great.
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Catch a Falling Star 