Category Archives: Memoir

In Praise of Bridge Builders

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Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.

Fannie Lou Hammer (1917-1977; Civil Rights Crusader)

My life has been filled with people who have helped me succeed. People who have helped carry me over. I like to think of them–collectively–as my bridge builders.

BRIDGE BUILDERS–MY PARENTS AND MY SIBLINGS.

My parents, of course, started building the bridge upon which I still trod. They gave me life and empowered me to live mine to the fullest. They provided forever-tools–always to use, never to lose, ever. As a coal miner, my dad lived the life that he worked, and he preached it. As a preacher, my mother lived the life that she preached, and she worked it. They taught me to work hard at and see to the finish anything and everything that I started, fully believing that all work has dignity. They taught me the difference between working for a living and working for love. They taught me to appreciate, value, and celebrate diversity. They taught me to embrace and accept everyone along my way. And, yes, they taught me that with an education I could be whatever I wanted to be and go wherever I wanted to go.

My five brothers and sisters played critical roles, too, in constructing the bridge that has served me so well. Since they were older, I didn’t always understand the full dimensions of their lives: restaurateur; sales person and caregiver extraordinaire; medical technologist; mechanic; and post mistress. Yet, whatever they were doing always impressed me and sent me chasing my own dreams.

BRIDGE BUILDERS–MY EDUCATORS AND MY BENEFACTORS.

Growing up in the coal fields of Southern West Virginia, I was blessed to have some of the best educators in the world. They knew the subjects that they taught, and they taught those subjects with passion. Perhaps more important, they loved their students and took personal interest in us. They were living witnesses: we could transform our lives through education just as education had transformed their lives.

My third grade teacher at Shady Spring Elementary School stretched my bridge by introducing me to Robert Frost’s poetry. I fell in love–and remain in love–with poetry, and Frost remains my favorite poet. Bridge work continued as other teachers pulled me toward Scripps National Spelling Bee Competitions and Voice of Democracy Competitions. And I will always remember the teacher who got me hooked on the parts of speech and sentence diagramming. She knew that she had unleashed a wild child in love with the power of language.

My teachers at Shady Spring High School lengthened and strengthened the bridge still more. One showed me that powerful writing and hefty revision go hand in hand. Another helped me realize that typing and bookkeeping were solid backup skills that could open other career paths if my dream of going to college had to be deferred. And what a critical expansion my high school biology teacher provided by welcoming me and several other students to crash his desk every day at lunch, day after day, week after week, semester after semester, from our sophomore year all the way through graduation. Those lunch-time conversations were far more important than any lunch before or since. He gave us his time. He gave us himself.

As high school graduation approached and going to college became a reality, benefactors stepped up to help build my bridge. My parents and siblings didn’t have a lot to give, but what they had, they gave. Similarly, the citizens of my hometown set up a scholarship fund to help college-bound students buy freshman-year textbooks. I was one of the first recipients. That $150 check meant my future to me.

My professors at Alderson-Broaddus University added wonderfully rich dimensions to the bridge. Most of them lived on campus–on faculty row–and our classes were so small that we were often their dinner guests. They helped me see the human side of the presumed academic ivory tower that years later I would strive to model. My advisor, though in her fifties, finished her doctoral degree while I studied under her and served as her Work Study. She gave me an appreciation of lifelong learning. Fortunately, too, benefactors made it possible for my life bridge to continue growing. Their endowed scholarships helped me fulfill my dream of becoming a college English professor.

As a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, phenomenal educators continued to enrich my life and build my bridge. I’m thinking of my advisor who turned me on to textual bibliography. Another professor introduced me to Mary E. Wilkins Freeman–the ongoing focal point of my scholarly research from then until now. I’m recalling the professor who lectured, literary work in hand and not a lecture note in sight, with fiery passion and exultant joy. He allowed himself to be slain in the intellectual moment just as my mother always allowed herself to be slain in the spiritual moment. Through his teaching, I saw the best of both worlds–his and my mother’s. I had a vision of the educator that I would strive to be.

BRIDGE BUILDERS–MY COLLEAGUES AND MY FRIENDS.

Just as I was blessed to have bridge builders throughout my educational life, so too have I been blessed to have them in my professional and personal life.

I would not be where I am today had it not been for my supervisor at the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. When I was a summer intern in his Division of Two-Year Colleges, he was the one who suggested that the Library of Congress might be the perfect place for me as an editor. He was the one who nudged me to Capitol Hill to submit an employment application.

Without his influence, I would never have had a twenty-five year career at the world’s premier research library.

During that career, I worked with the best professionals in the federal sector. They were awesome bridge builders for me and countless others. One–a pioneer in library automation, at a time when computers were still called machines–helped me move up from being an editor in the MARC Project to being an editor in the NUCPP-Pre-1955 Imprints, the bibliographic wonder of the world. Another made me believe that information is never lost: painstaking and dogged research can always lead to its discovery. Another made me believe that I had it in me to be the Training Coordinator for the United States Copyright Office. Then he led me from there to being the Director of the Library’s Internship Program and from there to being Special Assistant for Human Resources, giving HR advice to department heads throughout the Library as well as to two Librarians of Congress.

After I crossed the bridge from the library side to the academic side at Lord Fairfax Community College, I was blessed to have still more bridge builders in my life. The biggest, perhaps, was the selection committee that recommended hiring me as a professor of English, thereby making my third-grade dream come true. Later, another bridge builder challenged me to teach dynamic 8-hour classes on Fridays and Saturdays. Another graciously asked me to co-advise the Alpha Beta Omega Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa–the International Honor Society of the Two-Year College. Other bridge builders challenged me to teach without walls: Virtual Learning. Still another, without books: free Open Educational Resources personally curated and designed by me. Then there was the seminal opportunity to co-author and edit the college’s report for LFCC’s Reaffirmation of Accreditation, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Add to that team teaching Leadership Honors Seminars and English Honors Seminars and co-presenting at conferences with mathematicians, artists, and psychologists. And I will always remember the growth opportunity afforded by co-chairing the Developmental English Curriculum Team charged with redesigning Developmental English across the Virginia Community College System. Other bridge builders–colleagues, deans, vice-presidents, and presidents–championed me so successfully that, from time to time, I was in the limelight at the college, state, and national levels.

Fortunately, close friends have been there with me throughout my crossing–giving the support that only friends can provide. The “You can do this” pep talks! The “You did it” celebrations. The listening. The sharing. The “Here’s a tissue” followed by “Better now?” The emailing. “What? You kept them all? Guinness Book of World Records? No way!” The texting. The calling. The nothingness. The silliness. The everything-ness. All the things that nurturing friends do…just because that’s what friends do.

BRIDGE BUILDER–MY SOULMATE.

Words cannot describe one of the most important bridge builders in my life: my soulmate, my late partner. Allen journeyed with me across a large expanse of my bridge, quietly adding key components along the way. Gourmet cooking. Gardening. Hiking. Biking. Together we made the journey from who I was before, to who I am now. Together we witnessed the power and depth of love through surrender. Together our hands clasped tightly one another’s, one last time, as he crossed his own bridge into eternity.

BRIDGE BUILDERS–MY GOLDEN YEARS AND BEYOND.

Today, I am in awe. I am standing on the bridge that others built for me, still strong after seven decades. I am standing on the bridge that others will continue to build for me, including my executors who will pay my bridge forward by strengthening the endowed scholarships that Allen and I envisioned and established.

Looking back, the distance from where I started–the coal fields of Southern West Virginia–to where I am today–the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia–is not that far: fewer than 300 miles. But the joys and triumphs that I have experienced while journeying across the bridge exceed by far the wildest dreams of my wild imagination.

Looking ahead toward my Golden Years–whatever they are; whatever they bring–I step forth confidently. My bridge is strong. My bridge is sturdy. My bridge will endure. Those who built my bridge made it according to the best specs.

Looking ahead further still to that time when I will cross from my earthly bridge into the Great Beyond–whatever it is; whatever it brings–I hope that all of my bridge builders will be there to welcome me. My Soulmate/Partner. My Colleagues. My Friends. My Educators. My Siblings. My Parents.

What a great gettin’ up morning that will be as I rejoice in singing the praises of my bridge builders, the ones who carried me over.

Special “Bridge” Post Coming Your Way on Thursday, March 31

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Let’s jump right in!

WordPress

I love a good challenge, and I could not resist the one that WordPress tossed out for the month of March:

Each month, we’ll be bringing you a single word that serves as a prompt for your writing, your art, your coding — whatever it is that makes you, you.

For March, the WordPrompt is: BRIDGE.

Use that word as a jumping off point to publish a new post, whether you’re a lifestyle blogger or a foodie, a photographer or a poet.

The word bridge alone was enough to captivate me, but the word combined with the photo (below) made it a real jump-off challenge.

Come back this Thursday, March 31, to see where the WordPress bridge took me!

WordPress: March WordPrompt Photo

Get Behind Me, Satan!

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“We kids were usually out the door already, long before my mother sent the Devil on his way with the broom in her hand.”

My early childhood memories–I’m thinking now of my preschool years–are rich and vivid. My five older brothers and sisters would have been at school, weekdays, so I hung out with my mom, hanging on to every word that she said, especially when she prayed.

Her prayers were as beautifully worded as the verses in the King James Bible, which she knew forwards and backwards. Throughout the day, she prayed whenever the spirit moved her.

When my mother prayed–or, for that matter, when she preached–she never focused on the Devil. Instead she put the spotlight on the love of God.

Even so, she fully believed that the Devil was a real force to be dealt with, and she held him fully accountable whenever things went wrong.

When the forces of evil seemed to surround her and close in, she would rise up with the same King James linguistic power with which she prayed and preached, fully ready to take on the Devil who was causing her grief.

Big things. Small things. It didn’t matter. My mother was armed and ready for proper spiritual combat. She never presumed that she had the power to rebuke the Devil. She knew better. She always did so in the name of the Lord.

Maybe the special-occasion cake that she was baking didn’t turn out as it should. Into the trash it would go, all the while I could hear my mother saying, “Satan, you may think that you’ll keep me from baking this cake, but I’ll show you a thing or two! In the name of the Lord, get behind me Satan.” Then she would tackle a second cake.

Or she might be sewing costumes for a school play and the stitching wasn’t going the way that it should. “Satan, in the name of the Lord  I command you to get out of this house right now and leave me and my sewing machine in peace.” Afterwards, she would make that sewing machine sing.

On weekends, with all of us at home, the noise might hinder her from praying or from collecting her Sunday-sermon thoughts. “Satan, in the name of the Lord, go. Get out of here.” We kids were usually out the door already, long before my mother sent the Devil on his way with the broom in her hand.

To my young ears, the battles were real. Without a doubt, the Devil was right there in the room, with my mother looking him straight in the eye, determined to stare him down.

And it always seemed that her rebukes in the name of the Lord won. Peace and love and mercy prevailed, if not forever, then at least until the next battle.

Little wonder that I fell in love with one of her several Bibles: The Illuminated Bible (The Good Samaritan Bible), published in Chicago by John A. Dickson Company, 1941. It included not only the Bible but Index and Digest, Collation of Scriptures, Laws of the Hebrew People, Teachings and Sayings of Jesus Christ, Parables of Our Lord, Warnings and Promises, Concordance, Lives of Noted Bible Characters, Maps and Family Records, and, to my great delight as a child who had not yet learned to read: Through the Bible with Pictures.

Through the Bible with Pictures consisted of engravings, if not by Gustave Doré then definitely in his style. The green plate illustration of the Devil was the most frightening image that I had ever seen. It didn’t keep me awake at night, but it scared me to death, and the thrill was such that I kept coming back for more, over and over again.

Recently my oldest sister Audrey sent me my mother’s Dickson Illuminated Bible, used so extensively that the binding is gone and some of the preliminary pages are missing. Until now, I hadn’t looked at that Bible in decades.

My mother’s travels throughout the pages are still apparent.

Written in the margins of several surviving preliminary pages are faded pencil notes in my mother’s hand for a sermon beginning, “The old track walker waved a broken lantern to stop the train.”

Some pages are dog-eared, leaving me wondering: what verses captured her attention on those pages. On other pages, the verses are marked in large parentheses that I still recall as her signature notation.

Her travails and rejoicings are evidenced, too, by tear stains here and there, throughout.

As for evidence of my own travels throughout the pages of that Bible, I had hoped for some kind of childhood scrawl that I might claim as mine. I found none.

However, I may have found more. Something strange. Something surprising. On one of the pages in Through the Bible in Pictures, the lower right quadrant has been torn out. That’s the exact spot where the Devil always stood with his pitchfork and his long serpent tail, waiting for my return visits. I do not recall tearing out that image of Satan. But since I was the youngest and the one most fascinated by that image, I had to be the one who did it.

Who knows. Perhaps as a child, I simply decided to take matters into my own hands and rebuke the Devil in my own way by destroying his image once and forever.

“Get behind me, Satan.”

Heading Out

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My mother was always unfazed by my haircuts, however much they surprised (or mortified) her. She knew what many other mothers didn’t. In time, I would get over my cut and move on.

Hey, folks! I got my hair cut last week on Saint Patrick’s Day. No big deal. Right?

Wrong! It was a big deal for me. I hadn’t had a haircut since March 17, 2020, right at the start of our fractured COVID world.

When I got that haircut, I was as hopeful as every one else that COVID would fade away just as quickly as it had emerged.

But COVID continues to hang around longer than any of us expected. And you guessed it. During the last two years, my hair grew longer than I ever expected. No problem. I secured my little ponytail with a little rubber band, and it didn’t look too bad at all. Really. It didn’t. I kept the sides and top cut about as short as usual. I kept my hairline and neck trimmed, too. I did it all, all by myself.

With my new “do,” whenever I walked toward people, I always got the usual greeting. “Hey, how’s it going?” But as I walked past, I always heard, “Oh, my God! You’ve got a ponytail. It’s so you.”

As my ponytail grew longer and longer, I decided to play it up with colorful hair ties for my longhairs. Purple. Blue. Green. Rainbow. Bling blings. Psychedelic. Celtic. They were the Raddest. On any given day, I’d usually pick my hair tie to match my shirt color. From that point forward, “That’s so you” became music to my ears, always making me smile a little wider and a little longer.

Finally, the ponytail was hanging down below my shoulders. It didn’t look that long because my hair has some natural curl. But, still, it felt just a little too long. Since I didn’t want to cut the glorious mane that I could always feel but could never quite see, it seemed to me that a man bun was a perfect–perhaps even a trendy–solution.

Mind you: it wasn’t much of a bun: I’m balding on top and the rest of my hair is thin. What mattered was the simple pleasure that it gave me. Actually, it pleased me a lot, so much so that I had every intention of celebrating the bun with a pair of hair sticks, ideally a little pair of sterling silver chopsticks. Sadly, I could not find any that were short enough.

Nonetheless, my ponytail/man bun made me feel more Rad than I had felt since my twenties and thirties when my Scandinavian stylist Hilda always whipped out her long matches after cutting my hair and horrified me as she singed the ends to keep my hair from “bleeding” and to encourage it to grow. Before that my mother sometimes used nothing more than her fingers and scissors to give me a feather cut. Both my mother and Hilda had an easy job, because in those days I sported a full head of hair. How can any stylist go wrong? Hair. Glorious hair. Those were the days, my friends.

In college, I flaunted a pompadour. In high school, a ducktail. In grade school, a Mohawk, and before that a buzz cut.

My mother was always unfazed by my haircuts, however much they surprised (or mortified) her. She knew what many other mothers didn’t. In time, I would get over my cut and move on.

And so it was with my ponytail. I guess I got over it. Maybe. I’m not really sure.

But I am sure of this. I’m trying my best to believe–even if I can’t do more right now than give my belief an elbow bump–that what seems to be a sharp decline in COVID numbers, at least in the United States, heralds better days ahead. Hopefully, it’s more than a temporary lull before we move on to the next surge.

Either way, I’ll be heading out with a new haircut to greet whatever awaits us.

Baking Up My Past

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“If baking is any labor at all, it’s a labor of love. A love that gets passed down from generation to generation.”

–Regina Brett

Make no mistake: I love to bake! My earliest baking triumph was a total disaster. I was four years old. My mother turned me loose in the kitchen to bake a cake all by myself, as she pretended to busy herself in the adjoining room, ready to rescue.

Rescue? What on earth could possibly go wrong? After all, I had been hanging out in the kitchen since forever, watching my mom bake one delicious cake after another, one sweet, tasty day after another into oblivion.

But something went terribly wrong. I measured the baking powder incorrectly. Neither I nor my mother knew until batter oozed out the door of our South Bend, woodburning cookstove, onto the kitchen floor.

Then my mother helped me understand the companion joy of baking: cleaning up the mess.

More, she made me bold enough to give a botched bake another try! I have no doubt that my second attempt–that same day, of course–was a resounding success. Ironically, though, what lingers is the initial memory of cake batter oozing out onto the floor like lava spewing out of Mt. Vesuvius.

That first bake–catastrophic though it was–got me hooked on baking, and through baking, I discovered that cake is the way to everyone’s heart. It can also be a mirror into the past.

For example, my mother’s favorite cake was a twelve-layer strawberry stack cake, make (preferably) with wild strawberries. Her mother always baked it for mom’s birthday. Later in life, when I baked that cake on mom’s birthday, she insisted that mine was every bit as good as any that her mother ever made (even if my strawberries never quite measured up to the wildness of the ones that her mother picked each May).

As for my dad, his favorite was a yellow layer cake with apple butter not only spread between the layers but also slathered on the sides and top. The thicker, the better. It was his favorite, first because he enjoyed baking it, and, second, because it was a quick version of the more complex and complicated apple stack cake that he enjoyed as a child.

As for my two brothers and three sisters, I am clueless.

As for me, I may be clueless about lots of things in life, but I am never clueless about my favorite cake. It’s always the one smackdab in front of me, assuming, of course, that it’s homemade from scratch or the one that I’m planning to back next always from scratch.

My siblings must have their favorites, too. I could ask, I suppose, but that straightforward approach would give me straightforward answers. What’s the fun in that?

I prefer thinking and conjecturing and researching.

What cakes were the rage when I was born? My siblings? My parents?

Mind you. This is not original thinking at all. I have seen such articles before: “famous cakes the decade you were born.”

The thing is that most of those articles don’t focus on what matters to me: cakes before the 1950s. Apparently, people born before 1950 are no longer alive, or, if they are, they’re too old to be baking cakes!

Well, excuse me. I was born before 1950, and I’ll put my bakes up against the best!

So I decided to don my toque blanche and research cakes that were popular during the decade of the Fighting Forties when I was born! I have two older sisters and an older brother who were born in that decade, too.

I could simply tell you that desserts from the 1940s included Carnival Marble Cake, Magic Peach Cake, Mincemeat Christmas Cake, and even a Chintz Cake.

But my 1940s siblings and I, though born in the same decade (and of the same parents) are as different as night and day.

So I decided to see what I could discover about birth-year cakes.

1947 was my year. A Chocolate Weary Willie Cake seems to have captured attention. It might interest you to know that “Weary Willie” was another name for a tramp. (Well, excuse me again. I’ve been called lots of things before, but never a tramp. Having made that disclosure, I’m confident that you will check out the link to that recipe. However, would you refrain from doing so until after you finish reading–and liking–today’s post? Thank you in advance for refraining and for liking!)

Another 1947 cake was Jack Berch’s Mahogany Cake. Berch was a radio announcer who chatted, whistled and sang for audiences from 1935 to 1954. “Keep a listenin’ while I’m a whistlin” was his motto. I like the backstory enough to try that recipe.

Now let’s move back a few years to 1943 when my sister Judy was born. That year the Red Velvet Cake was a hit. The recipe had been around far earlier, but in 1943, Irma Rombauer’s classic cookbook The Joy of Cooking introduced the Red Velvet Cake to America.

The year before–when my brother Stanley was born–America was grappling with war rations, and many cake recipes called for cheap pantry staples and far less sugar. This was the year of the Victory Cake.

My sister Arlene was born in 1940, the year of the Do Nothing Cake: “easy, takes no time to throw it together, and is so delicious.” I’m sure that she will be quite insulted when she reads about “her” cake, because she is always busy doing something.

My two oldest siblings were born in the previous decade, the Threadbare Thirties following the Great Depression.

Little wonder that when my sister Audrey was born in 1935, an eggless, milkless Depression Cake cake was popular. Far better, though, would have been the Sun-Maid Raisin Nut Cake from the same year, with the recipe right on the back of the raisin box.

Moving back two years to 1933, when my brother John was born, a Chocolate Prune Cake was the favorite. If you don’t like prunes, you might try the Doberge Cake, also popular that year.

Since I started this post by talking about my parents’ favorite cakes, it seems fitting that I should end with something about the cakes that folks enjoyed during their birth decades.

My mother, Bertha Pearl, was born in 1912, the year that the Titanic sank. During her decade of the Nineteen Tens/Teens, lots of cakes were in the lineup. Chocolate Nut Cake. Sponge Cake.

But I think my mother would have given a nod to the Lady Baltimore Cake, described in Owen Wister’s novel, Lady Baltimore:

“‘I should like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore,’ I said with extreme formality. I returned to the table and she brought me the cake, and I had my first felicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore.  Oh, my goodness! Did you ever taste it?  It’s all soft, and it’s in layers, and it has nuts – but I can’t write any more about it; my mouth waters too much.  Delighted surprise caused me once more to speak aloud, and with my mouth full, ‘But, dear me, this is delicious!’”

Finally we reach 1902 when my father, John Saunders, was born, at the start of the Aughties decade. Among a number of other chocolate-battered cakes, the first recipes actually dubbed Devil’s Food appeared that year, “one in Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book, and the other in The New Dixie Receipt Book in which it was slyly subtitled ‘Fit for Angels’.”

Clearly, I could bake up my past forever, especially if I were to pursue cake backstories for grandparents, aunts, uncles, first cousins, and cousins twice removed.

Fortunately, I won’t.

But rest assured. I will bake all the cakes that I have mentioned, knowing that I will continue to learn an awful lot about baking. Who knows: with a little luck, I might even stumble upon a recipe or two worthy of sharing with others.

As I taste my way along, I will stack up a rich and multi-layered appreciation of my family’s past with every cake I bake … with every bite I take.

Two Ways of Looking at the World

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“Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes.”

Virginia Woolf (Three Guineas, 1938)

I live a quiet life. My days tend to have the same shape, with my activities anchored to specific times, so much so that at any appointed hour, I spring automatically into action. It’s similar, in many ways, to the meticulous scheme that Benjamin Franklin followed so faithfully and immortalized in his Autobiography.

A daily routine works for me as well as it did for Franklin. I swear by mine. Actually, I live by it.

Unlike Franklin, though, who got up at 5:00am, I tease myself (and sometimes others) claiming that I am a little more industrious because I get out of bed at 4:00am.

And, again, unlike Franklin, I start my day with robust physical activity rather than with passive–though well-intentioned–reflections about what good I shall do for the day, as Franklin did.

What Franklin did, of course, is all fine and well. But I prefer to engage in those reflections as I start my days–each and every one of them, seven days a week–by biking indoors for 20 miles.

As I bike, I listen to music. Not just any music. Generally, it has to be soul-filled Black Gospel music. But some White Gospel music slays me in the spirit of their singing, too, so those songs are on my biking playlist.

While biking recently, two songs by White Gospel groups caught my attention. In fact, those two songs got me to thinking about the importance of attitude in our lives.

Those two songs are at the heart of what you’re reading right now.

Both deal with the Biblical event recorded in the Gospel of John 11:1-44.

It’s the story of Lazarus. When he fell ill, his two sisters–Mary and Martha–sent for Jesus. But when He received word, He did not hurry to the side of His three friends. He remained where He was.

When Jesus finally arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus ordered that the gravestone be rolled away, and then He raised Lazarus from the dead.

Even though both songs celebrate the same miracle, each sees it through different eyes.

The first Gospel song is by The McKameys. They wrote the lyrics to “Right on Time.”

Their lyrics are consistent with the Biblical account. Having been sent for, Jesus tarried, Lazarus died, and they laid him in the tomb. And as they said their last goodbyes, they looked: coming down the road was Jesus, right on time.

“Right on Time,” the song’s title, is repeated five times in the lyrics.

“Right on time.” Five times.

There is in the McKamey version a celebration of the belief that the Miracle Worker knows our needs–whatever they might be–and that He will arrive to meet those needs right on time. His time.

It is a comforting way to look at the world.

The other song, it seems to me, sees the same Biblical event from a  slightly different perspective. It’s a song by Karen Peck and New River, “Four Day’s Late.”

In their version, when Christ arrives, Martha runs out to Him, telling Him that He could have healed Lazarus if He had gotten there sooner.

And then the Miracle Worker gets an upbraiding: “But you’re four days late and all hope is gone.”

Imagine that! He who had performed twenty-eight miracles previous to raising Lazarus from the dead was now charged with being four days late for His twenty ninth!

“Four days late” is repeated six times in the song.

“Four days late.” Six times.

In fairness to Karen Peck and New River, they use the “four days late” refrain to remind us that whatever we’re going through we should be mindful that the Miracle Worker will always be on time for us, even in those times when we think He’s late.

Nonetheless, “Four Days Late” seems more like a lamentation than a celebration.

Same Biblical event. Seen somewhat differently through different lyrics.

What it comes down to is attitude. On time? Late?

And isn’t that true with all of us? What’s our attitude as we look at the events in our lives? Right on time? Four days late? Either way, the outcome is the same.

Why not look at each day as a rich, multifaceted, unpredictable, right-on-time miracle?

Spaces and Habits of Famous (and Not-So-Famous) Writers

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I started working on something, and it was really bad. It was crummy. But I was really so happy just to be working on a little crummy thing. I would get home, and I would think, “It’s waiting for me. My crummy thing.”

Louise Glück (American poet and winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature), “The Poet’s View” (2014).

Writers’ lives have always fascinated me. Their writing spaces and their writing habits have fascinated me perhaps even more.

Some writers’ spaces make me feel right at home. I’m thinking of Albert Camus, Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, Jack London, Ray Bradbury, Wallace Stegner, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Carl Sandburg. Their writing spaces are filled with stacks of papers and books just like one part of my office. They seem to thrive on chaos as much as I do.

In stark contrast are the well-organized and sparsely furnished writing spaces of E. B. White, Edith Wharton, Edward Albee, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Bernard Shaw, H. L. Mencken, and Hunter S. Thompson. Their writing spaces are aesthetically beautiful, with everything positioned perfectly, but those spaces would be far too still–far too quiet–for me.

Interestingly enough, Maya Angelou doesn’t have her own writing space. She rents a hotel room in the towns where she lives. She goes there to write every day.

Angelou’s method would not work for me either. I couldn’t afford that kind of luxury.

Aside from writing spaces, writers have preferences about how they’re poised when they write. It might surprise you to know that not all writers write while sitting down.

Some stand. Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Philip Roth are a few examples.

Some lie down on their beds, notably Maya Angelou, Truman Capote, and Edith Wharton.

At least one writer dons his gravity boots and hangs from an exercise frame to think things out: Dan Brown.

What time of day do famous writers work?

Some are early birds. Toni Morrison (4am), Benjamin Franklin (5am), and Ernest Hemingway (6am).

Others, night owls: Franz Kafka and Charles Bukowski.

And what about daily writing quotas?

James Joyce prided himself on a well-written sentence. A good writing day for him? Three sentences.

Ernest Hemingway, 500 words. John Steinbeck, 1 page. Stephen King, 6-10 pages.

Ray Bradbury, a lot. One short story a week.

Henry Miller worked on one thing at a time until it was finished.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman worked on three stories at a time, on three different typewriters.

You’ve guessed it already. Famous writers are downright quirky.

But what about writers who are not famous? Are they quirky?

I can only answer for myself. I’m definitely not famous, but I definitely have one or four quirks.

Let me share a few of mine. I am doing so only because I casually shared one of my quirks in an email to a friend. Here’s what she wrote in response:

“I was interested in your note the other night about how you are now writing in bed! I have lots of questions! None of my business!  But I’m still interested!  

“On a laptop? Cup of tea by your side? Wine? Cocktail?  Pencil and paper? Do you rewrite as you go along or wait until the end?

“How do you label your docs?”

Before tossing my reply out into the world for all to read, let me put things into context.

My home is on a mountain top. My office is downstairs where I have sweeping views of the valley below and the mountain range beyond. Nearest the expansive window looking out onto my stone patio and my gardens below is my sparse desk with an HP All-in-One Computer and a lamp. This is where I do my professorial academic work.

To the back of my office is an old Shenandoah Valley farm table (bookcases on the side walls) with an HP EliteBook and a lamp. That’s the research end of my office where I’m currently working on a two-volume book tentatively titled Dolly: Life and Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. That part of my office is cluttered chaos, but I know what’s where.

Obviously, I need one dedicated space for my academics and another one for my research.

What I had not realized, however, until my friend asked about my blog-writing habits, is that I need a third area for working on my blog!

Here’s where and how I work on my blog. It’s what I shared first with my friend and now with you, my readers.

“What I am about to share will shatter your image!

“I am literally in bed, usually around 7:45pm, and I try to write until 9:30pm or so. This new routine–started just before Christmas–seems to give me a better night’s sleep, though I am now sleeping in until 5:30am.

“Yes, I have a cocktail: a Bunnahabhain Scotch, neat, waiting for me on the night table. No laptop. I’m doing the thinking, writing, revising, and editing right on my smartphone, while lying all comfy in bed. 

“No docs. I’m doing it all as drafts in WordPress.

“I find that having four or five different posts going at once lets me focus on what my mood requires.

“I’ve never written in this manner before, but I like it a lot. Actually, I love it. It makes me feel very much like a writer must feel. When I write now, I am done with the busyness of the day.  It’s quiet, and my mind just settles in peacefully on ideas and fooling around with words!

“So there! You heard it first right here! And what you’re reading here might well find its way into a future post. I just had an idea!”

Indeed, “the idea that I just had” is exactly what you’re reading now: a blog post sharing glimpses of the spaces and habits of famous writers and one not-so-famous writer: me.

What I didn’t share with my friend is this. The multiple posts that I work on–each in various draft stages–start out as little more than ideas, sometimes bad ones. To paraphrase Louise Glück, I say to myself as each day winds down and I get ready for bed: “They’re there. My crummy draft posts are waiting for me.”

Who on earth would have dreamt that writing could become such a comforting, lay-me-down-to-sleep bedfellow?

My Imaginary Guests

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I have a funny mental framework when I do physics. I create an imaginary audience in my head to explain things to – it is part of the way I think. For me, teaching and explaining, even to my imaginary audience, is part of the process.

Leonard Susskind

It seems to me that if a noted physicist like Leonard Susskind can admit to having a funny mental framework and imaginary audiences, a simple English professor like me can, too.

My funny mental framework is an occupational requirement when I do literature. I spend a lot of time exploring literary white spaces, I spend even more time reading between the literary lines, and I spend the most time helping my students develop their own funny mental frameworks.

My imaginary audiences are simply a carryover from childhood. Truth be told, my imagination is probably the only part of me that’s still in tact and in shape after all these years. I guess it’s a prime example of “use it or lose it.” Believe me: I’ve used it.

Indeed I’ve had to use it more than ever since Covid’s arrival a little more than two years ago, especially when it comes to house cleaning.

I had just as well tell you up front. I love a clean home, but I hate house cleaning.

It’s tedious. It’s odious. It’s repetitive. And worst of all, it’s never done. Just when I think that I have finished, I discover that I have to start all over again. Where on earth does all that dust come from? And who put all those streaks on my windows right after I cleaned them with streak free window cleaner?

It’s a good thing that my late partner, Allen, felt the same way about house cleaning. We both preferred cooking. (The heady perfume of Thai spices always out fragranced lemony Pledge.) Or gardening. (The wishful anticipation of spring flowers always out did our untidy offices.)  Or hiking.  (The quiet time with nature always out maneuvered the roar of the vacuum cleaner.) Or cycling (The revving up of heart and lungs always out powered mopping the kitchen floor.)

Yet we knew fully well that house cleaning was a necessary evil. So we faced it head on. Occasionally. But no more often than necessary.

We developed a foolproof strategy for keeping our home clean. Invite guests!

If the house didn’t need much cleaning, we’d have dinner guests.

If the house needed a little more attention, we would have overnight guests.

And if the house needed lots of cleaning because we had simply frittered away our spare time with silly things like cooking, gardening, hiking, and cycling, we would have weekend guests.

Never, absolutely never, did we ever let the house get to the point of needing so much cleaning that we had to invite guests to stay longer than a weekend. We took Benjamin Franklin at his word: “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.”

Whether our guests were with us for the weekend, for an overnight, or just for dinner, we knew that we would have a truly joyful time.

Equally important, or maybe even more, we selfishly knew that we would enjoy the spic-and-span home that preparing for company always brings, almost as magically as a self-cleaning oven–well, at least in my wired imagination.

But all of that was before COVID.

Since COVID, we’ve all had to change the way we live. But I’ll tell you one thing: COVID has not changed the way that I see house cleaning. It’s still tedious, odious, repetitive, and never-ending.

Actually, it’s even more so because since COVID I don’t entertain a lot, especially since winter has kicked in and since Omicron has kicked our butts even harder.

These are the times when I find myself summoning up my imaginary guests.

They’re helping me keep my home clean, the way that I like it to be.

I have lots of real cleaning strategies that I really do use when I conjure up my imaginary guests.

Sometimes my strategy focuses on who my imaginary guests are. If they’re family or friends or neighbors, I rationalize that they’ve seen my home clean at least once before so their memory of that memorable degree of cleanliness will no doubt equal my imaginative degree of imagination. In that situation, the cleaning doesn’t make me break out into a sweat.

But if my imaginary guests are my colleagues, I shift my strategy. They may or may not have seen my home before. And it really doesn’t matter because I know that they are as skilled in exploring white space and reading between the lines as I am. They’ll be exploring everywhere and looking under everything. In that situation, the cleaning makes me break out into a big time sweat.

Either way, just imagine the cleaning that I get done for guests who never come. That’s fine by me.  My home still gets cleaned.

Another strategy focuses on what parts of my home my imaginary guests might visit.

Dinner guests: Kitchen. Dining room. Living room. Guest bathroom. I can get those rooms readied up right fast. Done in an hour.

Overnight guests: Same as for dinner guests plus guest bedroom. No big deal since the guest bedroom is not used that often. Done. Add an extra thirty minutes.

Weekend guests: Same as overnight guests plus the entire rest of the house because they want to see it all. These imagined guests require me to roll up my sleeves and do some deep cleaning. Done, in just one day, but begrudgingly so.

Another strategy that I use to house clean for imaginary guests who never show up is perhaps my favorite though most feared

How soon will they arrive?

Tomorrow? Today? This afternoon? In an hour? They’re in the driveway? No way! OMG! The nerve!

Trust me. Panic can clean a house faster than any other strategy!

I can’t begin to tell you how much I treasure all of my imaginary guests–whoever they are, wherever they are, and whenever it is that they will never arrive. I bless each and every one of them for all that they’re doing to help me with my tedious, odious, repetitive, and never-ending house cleaning.

One day, though, they really might arrive. Oh, how I long for that day to come. Real guests in my clean home. For dinner. For overnight. For a weekend. (For longer? Never.)

When that time comes, I’ll be so proud to show off my spic-and-span home that my imaginary guests and I have maintained, waiting for my real, honored guests to arrive.

I’m a Spring Teaser

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“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

Charles Dudley Warner
(The witticism is often attributed erroneously to Mark Twain.)

I have been forecasting the weather forever.

One of my favorite “meteorological barometers” is the sky! I stare at it. I swear by it.

I especially swear by “Red sails at night, sailors delight. Red sails at morning, sailors take warning.”

Who would have thought that variations of that weather adage go all the way back to Shakespeare (“Venus and Adonis” [lines 453-46]) and to the Bible (Matthew XVI: 2-3)?

Be that as it may, it gives me lots of traction, especially when it comes to forecasting fierce thunderstorms and fierce snowstorms.

And that’s exactly how I like like my storms and my forecasts. Fierce.  “Fierce” may not be a crowd pleaser, but it’s a sure-fire attention getter.

Without doubt, forecasting the weather predates my modest efforts. It also predates Biblical weather forecasting by Lord knows how long.

Well, we do know that it goes at least as far back as 650 B.C., when the Babylonians predicted weather based on clouds and haloes.

Then around 340 B.C., Aristotle wrote his Meteorologica, a treatise about rain, clouds, hail, wind, thunder, lightning, and hurricanes. It remained the weather standard until the 17th century.

Fast forward from then until now. The advances are far too many for me to mention even briefly. Lucky me. Luckier you.

But there is one fancy scientific gadget for forecasting weather that stands heads and shoulders above the rest.

I mention it only because I own one. It’s a Fitzroy Storm Glass. A group of my creative writing students gave it to me years ago.

I wish that you could see it. I keep it in my kitchen on top of a fabulous antique corn sheller. About all that I can say for it–the Fitzroy, not the corn sheller–is that it’s a wonderful objet d’art, and it always draws attention to the corn sheller. (Other folks, it seems, are no more interested in a scientific approach to weather forecasting than I am.)

Nonetheless, I have a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting storms, particularly snowstorms.

If you want proof, ask around. Neighbors. Students. Colleagues.

Better still, ask my former and present college presidents. I always give a heads up when a snowstorm is headed our way. I want to make sure that the “college-closed announcements” go out early–preferably the night before–so that I can sleep in the next day. Ah! The exquisite luxury of getting up at five instead of four!

And if those folks won’t give me credit for my SnowCasting accuracy, let me just say this in self-defense. What I lack in accuracy I make up for in hype. I’m a snow-hype maximizer. Local grocery store chains love it when I get folks all cooked up over a storm headed our way. I’m the one who spurs on all the frenzied shopping that leaves all the shelves empty.

That’s what I’ve been told at any rate.  I hope that’s true, because then I won’t feel too bad when my forecasts are from time to time hundreds of miles or so off track or a few weeks behind or a few weeks ahead of schedule. They’re still good for the local economy.

If you’re wondering how I established my track record for weather forecasting and my reputation for weather hype, let me explain.

It’s as simple as I am. I use one of the oldest methods ever: patterning. I observe what’s happening in the natural world around me. Trust me: I’ve been around long enough to put two and two together and come up with lots of observations and patterns. Sometimes they’re about the weather.

Patterns are helpful–really helpful–in predicting the arrival of spring (Vernal Equinox) as I am about to do right here for 2022, soon and very soon.

However, before sharing those patterns and my prediction for spring’s arrival, there’s something that I simply must get off my chest.

I know that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on February 2, ran back inside, warning us all of six more weeks of winter, thereby putting his official arrival of spring pretty close to what it would be officially this year anyway: March 20.

But based on what I’m seeing in my local mountain patterns, I’m convinced that the famed Pennsylvania groundhog (Marmota monax) is wrong.

Actually, I’m so convinced that I have every intention of getting my own groundhog. Her full name will be one that regular folks can pronounce from one year to the next without having to consult HowtoPronounce. Hmmm. Edinburg Eve might be perfect.

Then I’ll set up my own groundhog club right here on my mountain, right in my own backyard! It would be locally significant, and it would draw world-wide media attention. (Note to myself: This is, without doubt, a perfect GoFundMe dream opportunity. Be careful not to share this idea with others. Someone will steal it for sure. This is hot. Really hot.)

Here’s how I know that Phil is wrong, based on six patterns showing up around here.

No. 1. When my witch hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana) blooms. I can always count on a bouquet by the end of February. This year, though, I gifted a neighbor with some blooming branches in early January. That’s a healthy month earlier than usual. It probably, perhaps, doesn’t mean a thing.

No. 2. When local striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) mate. Around these parts, they mate in mid-February, no doubt because of Valentine’s Day. This year, they’ve been at it since late December. They get so carried away by their amorous pursuits that I see them all the time, all on and all along the highways. Dead. That’s even more than a month early. It probably, perhaps, doesn’t mean a thing either, other than stinky dead skunks.

No. 3. When my mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) start courting.  Charlie and Alabaster took up here years ago, and they normally start their courting rituals in late February. But as I live and breathe, when I looked out onto my deck last week, there they were, feathers puffed and ruffled, cooing and wooing and strutting all around with no shame whatsoever. That’s the third early spring harbinger that I am witnessing.  It has to mean something.

No. 4. When robins (Turdus migratorius) return to the area. Although I have not seen a single, solitary robin yet, I have heard from my faithful weather correspondent in Strasburg (Virginia, not Austria) that robins appeared in her yard last week, a full month earlier than usual.

No. 5. When my tree peonies (Paeonia suffruticosa) start budding. They never bud until late March, sometimes early April. Guess what? They have swollen buds right now. One more piece of evidence. One more pattern.

No. 6. I saved the best for last. When the faerie ring (Crocus fatum) blooms. The same well-informed and faithful Strasburg informant just a few days ago informed me that her faerie ring is blooming. As proof that it was blooming on time, she shared a copy of the email that she sent me last year on February 9 announcing her blooming faerie. Oh, dear. Now that I’m re-reading her emails more carefully, it seems that her point was nothing more than the fact that her faerie ring is blooming right on time. Still, this piece of evidence could have been so strong and so convincing that I don’t have the heart to take it out.

Taken singly, the evidence probably, perhaps, might not mean anything. Yet I am mindful of the power of one.

Taken collectively, the evidence probably, perhaps, might mean everything. I am mindful of the power of many.

Before I make my declaration about spring’s arrival (which I am about to do), let me say succinctly, as is my custom to which you can attest, that my declaration is based on the full reckoning of all the scientific evidence, weather lore, and mountain patterns at my disposal, offset and adjusted as necessary to advance my own whims based on how the winds blow.

We are, as I have shown clearly and convincingly, one full month ahead of schedule in terms of the arrival of spring weather.

Yes: more snows will probably, perhaps, fall.

Yes: the innumerable meteorologists who are probably, perhaps, reading this post right now, hoping to strengthen their own forecasts and give themselves greater credibility (albeit stolen), are scratching their proverbial heads trying to make sense of it all. I wish them well.

But pay neither the snow nor the meteorologists no mind whatsoever.

What Mother Nature knows, she knows.

And has she not brought forth into full and plain view, for everyone to see and now to understand, evidence from a wide assortment of her best witnesses? She has.

Witch hazel. Skunks. Robins. Tree peonies. Faerie rings.

As you share this spring teaser with social media far and wide–and I hope that you will–remember not only to consider but also to credit the source.

You heard it first, right here. An early spring awaits us. I tease you not.

Running Reference

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When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Attributed to Mark Twain

We’re all probably familiar with Mark Twain’s observation that the older he got the smarter his father became. 

Ironically, no evidence exists that Twain actually authored the words credited to him far and wide, over and over.

Doubtful authorship, however, does not diminish the truth: we grow wiser with age. In our twenties, we see our parents differently than we did in our teens. Life experiences and hindsight heighten our perspectives.

Looking back on my teens, I never considered either my father or my mother to be ignorant.

But in my mid-twenties, as a graduate student, I had an epiphany not too unlike Twain’s.

Mine, however, was not about my father. It was about my mother. Let me share what I learned.

As a Pilgrim Holiness minister, my mother was well versed in the Bible, forwards and backwards. She loved discussing the Bible and the nuances of Scripture with anyone and everyone.

Sometimes, as a child, I was a silent listener as she talked with members of her own congregation, but sometimes with people from other denominations and faiths. Either way, everyone went their separate ways with a clear and deeper understanding through my mother’s insights.

Sometimes the Scriptural explorations would intensify, and the circle of friends would expect my mother to provide an interpretation of Scripture, right then and there on the spot. She was, after all, the minister.

But my mother would not be beguiled into answering what she did not know.

Her response in such situations lingers still, as I hear her saying in her characteristic, soft-spoken voice, “Let me go home and run reference.”

“Let me go home and run reference.”

And that’s exactly what she did, though, at the time–as a youngster–I had no idea what she was doing, exactly.

I never saw her do it. I suppose she did it privately in the few quiet moments that she would have claimed as her own throughout the day and night as a minister, wife, and mother of six.

After running reference, she always continued the Scriptural inquiry with her parishioners and neighbors the next day, and, sometimes, for days thereafter. That which had been confusing became coherent and intelligible.

What she had been doing became abundantly clear to me when I started graduate school.

My mother had been doing scholarly research. When she ran reference, she was consulting multiple Biblical commentaries, especially her treasured Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible, originally written in 1706. Her research brought informed clarity to her interpretations.

When she ran reference, she was–in her unpretentious way–conducting Biblical research right there in our Southern West Virginia coal camp. It was every bit as sophisticated as the doctoral research in American Literature that I would later chase up and down and all around the ivory halls of academe, at a major four-year university.

When I had that epiphany in my twenties, I can’t begin to tell you how proud I was of my mother for the scholarship that she had been doing all down through the years. I am grateful that I told her so.

I chalk up my love of research to my mother’s influence. Whenever I’m working on my own scholarly projects, I am always mindful of my mother.

And, to this day, I can still hear my mother saying, “I have to go home now and run reference.”