memories

books / Friday / history / memories — Comments Off on James and Willie and me
20
Jan 17

James and Willie and me

You go through your young life in Illinois and enlist the Army right out of high school at 17. By the time you are 20 you have fought in Guadalcanal, been wounded and learned both your parents died while you were away. You go AWOL three times before, finally, your bouts of drinking and fighting become too much to overcome, you get discharged. And then you write classics like “From Here to Eternity” and “The Thin Red Line.” That was Jim Jones. Later still, he was also a journalist covering Vietnam. And I bring him up to you because he was a friend of Willie Morris, that Mississippi scoundrel who was editing Harper’s Magazine by the time he was 33. They become such good friends that Jones asked Morris to finish his last book for him after he died. And he did, “Whistle” became the last of Jones’ war trilogy, and Morris wrote the last three chapters in 1977-78.

Two decades later Willie died. He’d been teaching at Ole Miss after he moved back from New York and had compiled and released a book of his essays that I’d find in a bookstore. I wish I could remember which one. It doesn’t matter, but it probably does. Either way, Terrains of the Heart he wrote at Oxford and I bought it in Alabama, quite literally because of the cover.

And this was a great choice. Willie, like all gregarious storytellers, was pleased to hold court in the warm embrace of a room of people that loved his stories. Willie, like the best storytellers, could make a place come alive and — no, that’s not quite accurate. Willie Morris, who was concerned about entropy and stillness and mortality and life could make the South hum. He could bring the sweet smell of the South to your mind, through your nose, and the dew in the fields to your heart through your toes. And Willie taught me the second thing I learned about writing. The first was that if you can figure out how to bring a smell into the story you’ve done some serious writing. And the second was I wanted to teach myself how to write like Willie Morris.

I tell you this because on this day, every four years, I think of a conversation Willie Morris recounts of his friendship with James Jones:

Morris

Who knows what all we’ll think four years from now, or at any time in between, but that’s an important observation to keep in mind.

family / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off on To fine Southern ladies
12
Jan 17

To fine Southern ladies

We were standing in a viewing room in this fancy Texas funeral home. Fanciest one you’ve ever been to, probably. My mother and stepfather had let the grandchildren in. There are four of us. I was the step-grandchild and the oldest and whatever else I was and I was standing back there behind the grandkids as they looked at their grandmother. I watched them thinking whatever they thought as our folks left the room and after a while I finally said this thing that I’d been thinking about all day.

The thing I’ve learned in the last few years is that the thing about grandmothers, or any person that has that much importance in your life, is that no matter what has happened or what will happen or what you might imagine for yourself later, they are still there. She’s still around you and with you. The things she tried to teach you and the good times she showed you and the lessons she really hoped you’d learn, they’re all still there. She’s always still going to be with you as an influence and a guide. That’s the great thing about the people that are important to you. They always stay with you. There comes a time, in your own time, when that occurs to you. And that is a really, really, really comforting thought.

It had come to me just today. It had taken me almost two-and-a-half years to figure that out and I think I needed to hear it as much as I wanted to say it.

grandmothers

Two of my grandmothers. (The way my family tree works I’ve had a handful of amazing grandmothers and great-grandmothers.) Dortha, my step-grandmother, is on the left. Bonnie, my mother’s mother who remains one of the most important people in my life, and impacts all of my big decisions, even still, is on the right. This was taken on a trip they made with my folks to the Butchart Gardens in Canada in 2014.

I wonder what flowers they might discuss now.

memories / Tuesday / Twitter — Comments Off on “We, the People, give it power.”
10
Jan 17

“We, the People, give it power.”

I was in a newsroom the night President Obama was elected. It was my first fall working with students. I had to gently suggest a way they could cover, and perhaps localize, such an historic moment as a presidential election. Journalism is an art and a craft and, sometimes, a learned thing. And, looking back, there was a lesson in that for me, too.

I was on our sofa when the president delivered his formal farewell. It was long, which is usual for him, longer than it had to be. But it was the president doing what he has become known for. It’ll be judged against others tonight and tomorrow and over time, and like all things presidential, that will tell the tale. But, tonight, it was an event, which is what they were after.

family / memories / Monday — Comments Off on We danced, she smiled
9
Jan 17

We danced, she smiled

She always smiled.

adventures / friends / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off on In exotic Milford, Connecticut
2
Jan 17

In exotic Milford, Connecticut

We met some friends for lunch today. He’s a fireman. She’s a counselor. Also, they are parents, and they brought their kid, who is adorable and interested in pointing at people. They told us of their 2016 real estate horror stories, which were so bizarre and bad we didn’t even tell any of our tales from last year.

And we have some tales, mind you. Tales involving buyers who didn’t understand the concept of boundaries, a realtor who was either a compulsive liar or losing her mind. Tales involving people showing up at inopportune times, and not taking the hint. And we sold our house in less than a week. These are some write the real estate commissioners and complain sort of tales. But our friends’ tales were better. Or worse? Worse. Definitely worse.

Anyway, we had lunch at SmashBurger:

The place where they make burgers like most other places and charge you a bit more. And then they drizzle a little oil on their fries and you think This place is brilliant!

Also, it is the place where the shift leader has to come out and make an announcement that everyone that ordered milkshakes is going to have to wait about 10 minutes because it is just her and three other people working today. They’d been open for an hour.

But the point was visiting and seeing the kid and not so much worrying about burgers or milkshakes we didn’t order. It was cold and wet and raining and it was a good day for friends. We also went to a mall, which is something people seldom say anymore, I gather. We walked into the mall itself through one of the anchor stores and one of the employees there was saying to a coworker that they’d been busy today, but it didn’t especially feel that way. Anyway, we went to a makeup store, which was perhaps the busiest place. It is colorful and full of smells and you can buy a charcoal face scrub product for $47 a pound. I thought about making a video out of it, but remembered I did that in the same store last year:

Which, I suppose, makes this an annual pilgrimage now.

And I took a few pages out of a children’s book, Yellow Copter and cleaned them up. I like these scenes where there is a lot going on:

The theme of this book, if you are like me and unfamiliar, is that the school goes on a field trip and, somehow, the teacher gets stuck on the ferris wheel. Cranes can’t reach her. Jets just zoom on by. But a little yellow helicopter comes to the rescue.

This is the guy on the crane. His original message says something like “Hold on, teach!” I’m going to repurpose it with other positive messages, like this:

I mean, a guy on a crane is holding a sign out there for you? How can you not be encouraged?

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