March (I mean April) 29, 2011: Aptly Time To Bitch

Here is my latest update on Spring Work in eastern Washington:

Maybe we are in Fall Work instead of Spring Work - which I've already told you are capitalized in our neck of the woods. It is April 29th, although it feels more like March. It has snowed all morning, it is freezing cold, and the wind is blowing like crazy. I had to put another bag of pellet's in a stove that is normally clean and hibernating this time of year. I had to turn the heat lamp back on for the outside cat, and on top of that our new piglets have runny noses.

Additionally, the boys and I are supposed to be getting ready for Bloomsday, but the thought of training down my dirt road (or as I'm calling it today, my mud hole) in this weather is absurd and just begging for pneumonia. Therefore, this morning, after bracing my face against the wind for the past week just to make a feeble attempt to stretch my legs before Bloomsday, I instead made myself a large banana waffle and loaded it down with butter and maple syrup. I poured a large mug of steaming hot coffee and I sulked all the way to my cubby hole to write instead of run.

Until tomorrow's update~

Why Am I Liberal? (Part 1)

              I get asked this question a lot, usually with a sneer and a confused blink. Sometimes I have to look down and make sure that I still have my clothes on. I’m usually taken aback for a couple of reasons. First, I find the outright question rude. My grandparents and my parents always taught me acceptance. Don’t ever invite yourself to a party, don’t stare when a special needs person is nearby no matter how curious you might be, and above all do not discuss money, religion, or politics – especially in company other than family. Second, I usually fail to provide a good answer because I rarely have a witty, one liner that stops any further inquisition into my unorthodox view of politics and life in general. As a writer, I’m expected to not only have one-liners flowing from me like fresh water from a spring, but I’m also expected to have knowledge of the subject I am discussing, especially when it directly relates to myself.

            I grew up in Tekoa. It is a small town in Eastern Washington. The population at last check was just over 800 people. I now live just outside the neighboring town of Oakesdale, population around 400 souls. I think it is fair to say that small towns in general have a reputation for being more conservatives than large cities. In working with that assumption, I think it is also safe to say that in our neck of the woods, Tekoa is considered more liberal, and Oakesdale more conservative. I grant that that is a generalization, but I’d venture a guess that many of my neighbors in both communities would tend to agree.

            Growing up in Tekoa I cannot recall ever being asked about my religion or my political views. Frankly, I assumed that is because my grandparents had gotten a hold of most of my neighbors and friends and instructed them on proper manners, just as they had me. However, in Oakesdale I have had a much different experience. I have been asked to attend church on numerous occasions, one time with the suggestion that we should go because our mass quantities of children would look so darned cute in the Christmas play. In addition, it has also been suggested that I, and one of my children pray in public. I have been blessed I don’t know how many times – and all of that is fine with me. A good blessing has never hurt anyone as far as I know.

            I have smiled at it all and declined politely, not only because they are my neighbors and friends, but also because I really enjoy hearing about different beliefs and seeing those beliefs shine in people that I want to know better.            

            When I was a teenager, my favorite song to sing around the fire at church camp was “Pass It On.” To this day I still sing it, even though I no longer have the beliefs that I once did. I like that my neighbors trust me enough to share and “pass on” their beliefs to me, and my curiosity at their conviction almost makes me want to agree. I really like these people and seeing them socially on any day of the week would be a welcome visit.

            However, agreeing to attend their church would also be hypocritical, and as my parents and grandparents taught me, an affront to the honesty that binds any relationship. For myself, I figured just keeping silent about my “difference” was good manners. 

            I was okay with that, right up until one cold and windy fall night in 2009 when a local police officer came to my house to have a chat with my husband. Apparently, there had been some discussion about a sign nailed to the fence that surrounded our barn. The officer had been known to drive by our house on occasion because he lived nearby. Often, he would wave and I would wave. It felt good having a man of the law close by. I often told my kids that if there was ever a fire, ever a problem, feel safe because he was just right down the road.

            I had no idea what he and my husband we talking about in the driveway, and I almost went out to offer the man a beer. He was in civilian clothes after all, and had rarely slowed for more than just a wave. I was intrigued as you can imagine. However, a few days prior to the visit I had burned some yard debris on a windy day, and had been very thankful that he had not driven by. I assumed that he somehow found out about it, and that he was here to give my husband a friendly warning about my carelessness. Of course, that was not the case. He just wanted to chat with my husband about that sign.

            Apparently, there had been some talk about the blue and white sign. Some even assumed that it might have been a mistake, or even a joke. It wasn’t. The sign was in our support of Barak Obama and Joe Biden for the upcoming presidential race.

            From what I learned after my dear husband walked through the door shaking his head, the officer wanted to know whose sign it was. My husband told him that I had put it up, and the officer kindly suggested that Wave consider telling his wife to take it down. It was subtle of course.

            “Well, you don’t support him, do you?” the officer asked.

            “Well, my wife really does. I haven’t made a decision yet.”

            “Maybe you should take the sign down until you do.”

            “Well,” my husband said. “You’ll have to take that up with my wife. It’ her sign.”

            All of this was true. We had had some lively discussions in our family about who to support since Senator Barak Obama first started showing up in the news a couple of years prior.

            I could not believe it, or at least I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to throw a fit, stomp my feet and march right over to his house and give him a piece of my mind about democracy. I even suggested sneaking over to his house in the middle of the night and sticking the other ten signs I had all over his yard. But my husband, always the level headed on, reminded me that he was only one person.

            I stewed and muttered something for a couple of days about freedom and acceptance and our forefathers until I finally calmed down. I hoped he did not represent the feelings of all of my neighbors.

            Interestingly enough, I was shocked to learn that he did represent more than I knew. Not that my other neighbors, who had apparently be taught some manners by their parents and grandparents as well, would ever suggest that I take the sign down. But, some were certainly curious, if not outright appalled that I believed the way I did. From one friend, I heard that she was surprised. She just didn’t know I was a Liberal.

            Up until that point, I had actually considered myself a Democrat. But Liberal? As a wordsmith I had to say, I really liked the sound of that better. To me it sounded like branching out into a smaller more dedicated, more knowledgeable faction of the Democratic party, which had for some time seemed to large and indescribable to me.

            My friend, whom I learned that day, clearly understood her own conservative political stance, apologized as well for a remark that she had made about the future president in front of me.

            “That was rude, and thoughtless,” she said. “Knowing you as well as I do, I should have known right away that you were a Liberal.”  

            “He’s not my family,” I laughed. “You can say what you want. It probably won’t change my opinion, but you never know.”

            Since then, more people have asked the question that started me thinking today. “Why am I liberal?” I, like most people on either side of the razor wire fence that seems be dividing this country today, I doubt have taken the time to sit down and really think about it.

            …stay tuned for Part Two of “Why Am I A Liberal.”

             

Easter...three days gone and counting

I got a small twinge of excitement when I saw the spray truck bounce down the driveway. Five minutes later I heard it rumble back. The farmer turned it off and walked away. Now, what's up with that?

Spring Work Begins...Not Really

            How long does it take you to get ready for work? An hour in front of the mirror? A week to prep for that big meeting? How often does your stomach get tied in knots in anticipation for a big day on the job? Once a year? Once a month if you’re really lucky?

            For wheat farmers on the Palouse it takes about six months. In November they sow the winter wheat into the fields, and then put everything to bed. They leave the fields hoping and praying for a thick blanket of snow, not only to cover the small tender sprouts of wheat that may have popped through just after planting, but also so that they can snowmobile.

            In general, this is their vacation time. It’s the time when they sleep in, they play, they actually see their families, and remember what it is like to sit down to a good hot meal with their wives and children. This lollygagging atmosphere in the home of a farm family lasts in most cases until after Christmas, sometimes New Years Day.

            But then something changes. No, it’s not in the meals that are cooked, or the time the farmer still tries to ride out with this family. It’s in his eyes. It’s the way he stands in the window with his coffee and stares out at the snow. Now, instead of racing out in the snow like a kid out of school for a snow day, he grumbles something indiscernible. You smile and note the date on the calendar, and the conditions outside. It’s snowy for sure, but there is also a ray of sunshine that has broken through the clouds and illuminated the crystalline snow.

            “What’d you say?”

            He turns around and looks at you as if he just realized that you were in the kitchen with him, like you have been for the last two months at breakfast time.

            “Huh?” he says.

            “What’d you say? You said something.”

            “I did?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Oh.”

            He takes another drink of his coffee and then sets the cup on the counter. He stares at the shimmering snow again. The movement on the ground is taunting him. He feels a movement in his blood something akin to the dancing crystals on the ground. He turns back to you. The look itself is a question, but you know better than to answer it. You take a drink of your own coffee hiding the knowing smile on your face.

            “I’m going out to the shop?” he says.

            This should be a statement, but those six words are full of a thousand questions that you hope he will not articulate. Can I go out there? Will you be mad at me if I go back to work already? Is it too soon?

            “I saw the lights on in the neighbors shop yesterday,” he says.

            “Did you?”

            “Yep.”

            There is a pause. You wait intentionally, not breathing for fear that he will see that as a sign that you disapprove of his suddenly adrenaline rush.

            “Yeah,” he says. “Heard at coffee the other morning that they are almost down getting their tractors ready.”

            “That so?”

            Pause again and a longing look back out the window again. This time it is most likely for dramatic effect for your benefit.

            “I haven’t even started on mine,” he notes.

            “There’s still lots of time,” you say.

            You say it because he needs some conflict in his thought process at this point. It’s the time of year. The farmer’s brain has been on pause for too many months now. He has been father, husband, devoted handy man. His mind has been a peace for too long and he is antsy for a challenge.

            “I don’t know,” he smiles sweetly back at you. “Remember the engine problem we had on the red one last year?”

            “No,” you say.

            “Well, I do,” he says. “I’ve been thinking for a few days now that I need to get on that.”

            “Well, why don’t you?”

            The starting line tape has been cut. Permission has been granted. You can practically see his jugular vein pounding with excitement.

            “You think?”

            “Sure,” you say. “What can it hurt? The kids are in school. I have some work to do anyway. Go. Get out there. Turn your music on. Clean things up. You’ll feel better.

            “I feel fine,” he says. “I’m fine.”

            “Oh, I know,” you say. “Didn’t mean you weren’t.”  

            “You sure it’s okay?” he asks again.

            This time, he has turned from the window completely and already taken a step toward the door.

            “I mean, if you want to do something together.”

            “No,” you say. “I’m fine. Tell you what? You go, and I will make us some lunch. If you’re done by then we can have lunch together. If not -”

            Before you finish your sentence he has his hat on his, one arm in his coat and he is already out the door. You sit back, take another drink of your coffee and loudly, like you have been waiting for three months to say it you say: “Thank God!”

            That is how winter goes on a wheat farm. We are now deep into spring. It is a wet spring. It is a cold spring that does not allow for exercise, playing outside, camping, or working the soil. The tractors are ready. The sprayer is ready. The trucks are ready. Even the combines are ready for harvest.

            We always hope to be in the field before Easter. Easter was on Sunday April 24 this year. It is one day shy of being the very latest day that Easter has ever landed after the solstice. The next time Easter will be this late will be on April 25, 2038.

            Yesterday, the Monday after Easter I flagged the tractor out to the first field. Our hired man was in it for one hour, dodging the mud holes, before he was rained out. If I ever thought my husband was antsy before, I was wrong. Just having him walk in the door brings a cold wind and a tension that could break those windows he stared calmly out months ago. Therefore, I think this is a good year for a diary, and each day I will try and keep you informed. 

We would like to announce the newest upcoming edition to The Warwick Family

Ha! Scared the tar out of our family and friends. No, it's not that. We finally figured out how to control that! No, it's the piggies! We are getting our pigs tomorrow. I am more than certain that there will be a story  to tell...

A Spontaneous Weekend Adventure...Warwick Style.

            Warwick weekend adventures always start out the same. The curtain draws away on two people staring each other down across the kitchen table. There are 48 hours tick, tick, ticking away on the clock on the stove, no plan, and an overly stimulated six year-old boy staring desperately up at his parents. The boy has a look in his eye that clearly states that he’s about damn ready to take the lead in this.

            One of the parents speaks.

            “What do you want to do?”

            “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

            The boy waits, a bead of sweat falling over his eyebrow.

            “I asked you first,” the husband says.

            “But, I decided last time.”

            “Either way. I asked you first.”

            An audible sigh is breathed just three feet up from the floor. The boy grabs a grapefruit, a cutting board and a small knife. He walks over to the table and melts into the chair. School is over. His brothers and sister, all older and more independent, have already started their week-end plans and here he sits. Again. He decides to dig in to the fruit to wait them out. This scene is familiar to him. It is just like the last time his parents tried to plan a spontaneous adventure.

           My husband and I have been together for years. These mini-adventures are not new to us. Nor is our inability to plan them together. This weekend, along with two other weekends during the year, holds major significance to us. No it’s not Memorial Day, nor is it our anniversary, or our child’s birthday. It is simply the last weekend before Spring Work. I say that with a capital S and P because Spring Work is the beginning of our busiest time of the year on the farm, and it is also the last opportunity that we have to be spontaneous for a very, very, very long time.

            Therefore, we wanted to get started planning straight away. During the week prior we mentioned it in passing – but not yet in front of the child.

            “Any ideas, dear?” I ask.

            “Camping?” He offers tentatively.

            “Sure. Maybe you should check the weather.”

            “I did. It looks okay so far.”

            “Great.”

            By Thursday, I realize that my husband has been thinking about this a great deal because he has decided to come into lunch and address the subject head on.

            “We need a plan.”  

            “I thought we were camping.”

            “Oh yeah. Well, of course, but where? I mean the weather’s not looking good.”

            “I thought you checked that.”

            “I did.”

            “You said it looked fine.”

            “It did, here. But it’s not so great in the mountains.”

            “We’re camping in the mountains?”

            “Well, unless you want to camp in Lewiston, but I know you hate camping in the city, so I just assumed that was out.”

            “Well, I do hate that.”

            He waits, tossing the ball of suggestion in my court.

            “How about south?” I smile.  

            “That’s Lewiston,” he clarifies.

            I’m pretty sure he knows what I mean. I meant even further south. I let it go.

            “Well, Lewiston is fine with me if that’s where you want to go,” I concede.

            “I told you to decide,” he smiled.  

            “But I decided last time.”

            Lunch is OVER!

            By Friday at 1230 PM, lunch has been eaten in silence, and we both know that we have a very big problem. No longer can we decide separately on this issue. We have to find a way to gel these plans together between the two of us, and ASAP.  The school bus will be here anytime and our son will be fired up and wanting to know when we are leaving and where we are going even before he even hits the front step.

            “How about Seattle,” my dear husband quickly says. “We can get a hotel, and we could go to dinner at The Crab Pot. We could get fish and bring it home.”

            At this point I’m counting the words he has just spewed out. He’s added like 25 words to this conversation, so I know this suggestion is now a subject of serious consideration.

            “Seattle’s good,” I say. “But it will be a quick trip. You know how you hate long car rides.”

            “Oh, I’m thinking of leaving tonight,” says he.

            “Really,” I laugh, looking at the clock. “And you just decided to tell me. The other kids won’t even leave tonight until 6:30.”

            “Yeah, I know,” he shrugs. “And Jack is counting on camping.”

            I nod my head, but hold my tongue. I like Seattle and my dear husband knows it. I like fish, and we have not had a lot of it lately. And, I love The Crab Pot. I laugh. He tossed that damn ball back in my court with a carrot attached. Damn, he’s good. 

            “So, what do you think?” he asks.

            “I wonder how were going to pay for it?” I say. “I can’t pull two nights stay in a hotel plus fish and dinner out of my budget.”

            “Oh,” he says.

            Game changer!

            The bus has to honk its horn because neither of us noticed it was there. As I run for the door I hear him call after me.

            “I’m going to finish my chores. I’ll be in within one hour and we’ll make a decision.”

            “Okay.”

            Suddenly, with the thought of one little boy between us, we are again on the same team.

            However, six hours and two beers later we are still sitting across the table, starting at one another while our son cuts up his grapefruit and patiently waits us out. No one had packed. Not for sun, not for snow, and certainly not for Seattle. I’ve made no food for camping, nor do I even know if our sleeping bags are clean. No wood has been chopped for a campfire. No hotel has been accommodated. I'm about to break out a bottle of rum and build my own fire out back!

            “How about Quinn’s Hot Springs,” I add hopefully.

            “No, it’s too late now to drive that far.”

            I slap my hand on the table and start laughing.

            “That’s not as far as Seattle,” I say.

            “Yeah,” he says, “but there’s no point in adding more options to this. We have enough already.”

            “Then let’s go to Lewiston,” I say. “It’s only an hour and a half away. I’ll be fine camping there. And Jack just wants to camp.”

            “Okay, but we’ll have to leave in the morning. I don’t want to set up a tent in the dark.”

            “Okay, fine,” I agree, happy to just have a plan. “Tomorrow morning it is.”

            I look to my husband, thankfully that we have made a plan without giving up, or worse, getting in an argument over who was trying to meet the others needs more.

            “Should I make food?” I ask. “Or are we just going to stop at the store. I baked chicken for dinner. We could throw that in the cooler. And I could make potato salad.”

            “Let’s just stop. It’ll be easier that way.”

            “Cool.”  

            By 830 on Saturday morning, I’m still in my jammies and have only had a half a cup of coffee by the time my darling has the car packed.

            “By the way, did you put that pop on the shelf in the garage?” he asks, stuffing the car full of camping gear.

            “Yeah,” I yawn. “I put it in there last fall after we were done camping. I was trying to keep it from the kids.”

            “It froze over the winter and exploded on our tent.”

            “Oh, crap. Can we still use the tent?”

            “We’ll have to,” he says. “We have nothing else to sleep in.”

            I tell Jack to load his stuff in the car, and I start packing my own. My husband comes in the house and I tell him I’m going to shower.

            “Shower? We don’t have time for that.”

            “We'll make time,” I tell him. "It's Saturday for goodness sake." 

            “You seen the roasters dear?” he calls while I’m washing my hair.

            “No. Have you checked the camping shelf?”

            “Yeah, not there. I checked the camper too.”

            “I’ll look when I’m done.”

            “How much longer? We need to get this show on the road?”

            As long as I want, I mouth to myself. It took a whole week just to get this far!

            “I’m almost done,” I say sweetly.

            I wash, dry and race out to the camper, eagle-eying the minutes that are passing on the clock. I know he’s got 9:00 A.M. on his silent radar. If we don’t leave by then the whole weekend will be rushed and ruined. I found the roasters. They were in the camper on the floor, right where they always are.

            “Don’t forget flashlights and batteries,” he says. “Oh, and a lighter. Do we have newspaper for starting a fire?”

            I gave up the coffee and have started counting his words again. One hour later we are in the van, with a sticky tent, some sleeping bags, no food and a very excited little boy. We are only three miles down the road when my husband realizes that in his desire to get this weekend rolling expediently he has forgotten to eat breakfast and totally spaced packing his own clothes.

            “Where’s that chicken?” he smiles. “I’ll just eat that.”

            “I left it in the fridge.”

            “What? Why? I thought we made that for camping. ”

            “You said we were camping in the city. You said we’d just stop at the store.”            

            “The city? See. I know it.  You don’t want to go there. Where do you want to go? I’m open for anything. Just tell me.”

            The curtain closes on a small boy, playing with his beanie babies in the backseat, rolling his eyes and sighing audibly.

~Postscript~

           

            You, the reader, exhausted and now completely cured of any desire to camp this summer, are asking yourself, when pray tell are the other two week-ends in the year that are so super stinking important to these people for their spontaneous weekend adventure? The next one is the weekend just before Harvest, and the other one is just before Fall Work. And yes, we are already planning. Both of us, separately. Our son has already made plans as well. Only he's made plans with another family.  

Tomorrow..

Three states, two turkeys, one grizzly and a yurt. How the Warwick's roll on the week-end.

Trailer Tippin in The Varmint Liesure World

            Sadly, our family and friends have a secret. I’m not sure if our neighbors have started to notice yet, but something happens here at our house on Friday nights. Cars can been seen driving in after the sun has set and most normal, rational people have gone to bed. Only a few people know about it, and even less have actually had the courage, dare I say the guts, to participate. Those few know who they are, they know why they come, and I’m certain that they would not like me letting their little secret out of the bag.

            And, I wouldn’t, if it hadn’t started effecting our daily lives, they way we see the world, the new philosophy with which we rear our children. We are not necessarily proud if it mind you. And I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart. All it takes is making the mistake of being our friends, or showing up here at the wrong time of night. You might be mistaken in what you see. It may look like a friendly little get together, but as you will understand when you walk in the door -which from some reason now has to be hooked back on its hinges - there are some sick and twisted paraphernalia sprawled out on our kitchen table. There are people in straw hats, and some with no teeth. Suddenly, you begin to understand that this is anything but a normal friendly little party. This is war! A Trailer Park War!

            We warn you now, just like we warned our friends and family. You may come as yourself, but when you leave something will have forever changed in both you and your children. You long to be someone different, not only in our house, but even in yours.

            That night, you dream of being a Swashbuckling Cowboy, or a Bad Ass Biker Couple. You want to try just one night as Starla, the Chain Smoking Stripper, and you suddenly realize that you are, and possibly always have been, The Redneck Family with 6 Kids.

            The next morning, you don your best work clothes, only to realize that for some reason, when you were putting on your makeup, you absent-mindedly blacked out your front tooth with your mascara. You laugh a little and blame it on the Beer Beer you drank at the Warwick’s, now nicknamed in your mind, The Dump View Chicken Neck Korral.

            As you drive to work, you suddenly see that you have brought something with you. No, not your kids new pet Opossum that you unexpectedly have this odd craving to grill up for dinner that night, but you’ve brought your camera too. You try to deny it at first, and pretend that life is back to normal. You have your coffee, just like you have every other morning, and you turn on the radio only to find out that you now listen to country. And not just any country, but the old stuff with twang.

            You smack your lips and pick up the toothpick you used to harvest the roasted ‘coon from you teeth last night. You start pickin’ again and find a leftover. At this point you are a little shocked, but sadly, alone in your car, you are not ashamed. You start chewing on the meat, no longer counting calories. Instead you are trying to decipher what part of the animal that was. You remember Wave, The Bar B Que King, grilling up the gizzards of the 'coon, that his son kept referring to as cute little Ben. Wave roasted the feet too. You didn’t want to try one. You said no politely at first, but there was just something about that smell, and the fact that everyone else was already in line with their paper plates that called to you. What if there wasn’t enough to go around? You got in line too, and you feared what it meant.

            But, this morning, you know the truth. You know who you are now, and you know why you brought the camera.

            You sit up a little straighter in your seat, and put a fist out the window to signal to the Long Haul Trucker who just passed you by to give you a honk. He does, and you are now certain that you just passed Wheeler Turnin. He’s single, middle aged, and you know full well that you would hook him up with Burnice, The Hot Flasher if you only had a hitch up card. “She’s so hot…she can grill a cheese sandwich just by holding it in her bosom.” You like Burnice, but you remember that you like Anita Break, The Single Mom with Kids, just as well. She’s only one age group away from Wheeler, so she’s fair game for a hitchin’ too!

            And then you see it. You know now that you will be a little late for work, but who cares. You can only imagine what your friends at Dairy Aire’ Flamingo Estates will say when you bring that little token of camaraderie to the war next Friday night. They’ll say, “It’s time to go Trailer Parkin’!” If you had a Thief in the Night card, you’d do it too! You’d “steal that trailer and add it” to your own park. But then you realize that you've hit the mother load! For a moment you can’t even believe it, so you take in the rest of the surroundings.

            This is not just any trailer, or trailer park you are looking at on your normal way to work. This trailer stands on matching cinder blocks and has only been painted two colors. It looks like a place for Uncle Clem, the Local Tycoon, or Jerry Attrick, the Frugal Millionaire. And why? You know why. They not only have pink plastic flamingos lining their walkway, with they have garden gnomes too! You don’t mean to, but you have to do it. You hop out, and take a long stride. You picture yourself like The Pizza Delivery Gal, Tipper or Dye. “She’s faster than a jackrabbit on Red Bull,” or Robin U. Blind, The Kleptomaniac. He’s single, young and male, and “Robin is so bad…he’d steal a widow woman’s lap dog.”           
            So, you do it, not because you want to, but because you have to. For the sake of your friends, for the sake of your honor…not that you have any anymore. You walk up to the edge of the sidewalk, keenly aware of the multitude of landmines along the driveway. You instantly comprehend that this could be the trailer of the Pit Bull Puppy Farmer, Pervis Scruggs. “He turned 21 in prison, but he’s out on parole.” You get as close as you can, and then bam! You snap a picture of the lighted flamingos that adorn the front of the trailer. That’s it!

            You did it! You got it! Initiation complete! You are forever one of them now! Sadly, you understand what you have become, that there is no going back. You know who you are …and possibly who you’ve always been. You are trailer trash and you now have your own picture of just exactly what you did on the way to work the next morning to prove it! You will be the envy of all next Friday night, and the target for everyone as well!

            You drive off with your prize, wishing you had had the courage to knock on the door and ask just where they found such magnificent creatures as those lighted neon pink flamingos. Oh well, you think. Baby steps!
           You have all week until the next game night at the Warwick's; a whole week to think of new amenities to go with it; a mud bath for the kids, Friday night Jell-O fights for the ladies, bathtubs full of plastic flowers that you hope will entice the residents from other parks to come and live at yours! Thankfully, you have all week to think of a name for it as well!

Incoming tomorrow...

Trailer parkin...you know who you are and yes, there will be pictures.

Writer's Block

Today's place of insiration

 I’ve been working on two novels for three years now. One is Young Adult. The other is Women’s Fiction. Every day I sit in my living room for four hours and pound away on the keys, amid fielding phone calls and questions, the hourly beep of the washing machine, unsolicited texts, the Seventh Day Adventists doing the Lord's work at my doorstep, and my own devilish procrastination. Maybe a snack will help, or a ten-minute break, or starting completely over, or pushing headlong on through type-o’s and all. Nothing really has.

            Behind me I feel the pressure of those who desire - either out of loyalty to a local or hopefully because I actually have talent– another book like my first one. I so want to give that to them. I can see the bold features of my characters and smell the cool earth beneath their feet. I can hear the robins in the background and see the house that they live in. I am given the rare gift of being able to sort through their problems like some ethereal psychotherapist who wants to be their friend. But, what I have to possess in order to make my readers relate to my characters as deeply as they, themselves, relate to their own friends (or if I'm truly lucky, make them hate them as much as they hate their worst nemesis) is inspiration.

            That, in my wonderfully warm living room is what I am lacking. I’ve seen that couch so often that it has lost all beauty to me. I know the people who sit on it, and am too accustomed to the stains in the floor. Inspiration for me comes from changing scenery, something so new that it may be a path trodden heavily by another, but it holds a mystery for me.

            So, I have wandered away, outside my living room, onto roads I have driven and paths I have walked before. They might be slightly familiar, but alone I see them with a different eye.
There are ducks in the pond below me. I have seen that pond before, but I've never stopped long enough to see that there are so many cattails. They alone bring me bring me back to my youth. They remind me of days at the Rock Crusher where the local neighborhood children and I would have cattail wars, and spend countless hours making forts amongst the boulders that we might never return to.

            There is a mysterious house down there too, set against the backdrop of the most amazing forest. It is only minutes from my own backyard, and has probably been here for well over a half a century, but it is new to me. I can see the kitchen, where once there might have been bacon cooked so early in the morning, and up the road there is an old gunshot riddled “School Bus Stop Ahead” sign. Were there children who ran to it at one time? Did they carry lunch pails, or dine on school lunch? Were there school breakfasts offered during that area, or were the kids expected to be well nourished at home prior to racing each other to the stop?

            And where are they now? Did a mother, in a dress or in cool lots, tend to that garden as the earth was just awakening in the spring? Do the worms still wriggle in the earth waiting for the first plantings of potatoes and lettuce only to wonder where all the commotion has gone? Was their a father who lit fires in that crumbling fireplace at night?  Was the atmosphere tense, cold or warm and full of laughter?

            There is mystery in the house. Probably not for the people who lived there, but now, standing alone and in danger of dilapidation, there is for me. I have always wanted to get lost in story, in mystery, and adventure. With every day outside as a child, feeling the cool spring air on my skin, or wiping the sweat from my heated brow only to find a outdoor faucet on a neighbors house to drink from, I found both adventure and inspiration. What I see today is that to find adventure, you must first be adventurous.

            Every day I will try and find inspiration, and maybe someday it will lead me to you; the ghost who waits for an ear who will listen; the character whose story needs told.