AKidAgain
Pick up and look into a photo album put together by your mother. It’s like finding a ticket to your past. I suppose if today you are young, you might say a video has the same effect, but I have been around for more than seven decades so the photo album is my ticket. At least it is one ticket I can use to carry me back to wonderful times of my youth. Fiction writing has the same result. Writers are told to write about what they know best. Recalling significant memories I find forces me to stop writing and to savor the life-shaping events. What a fertile field from which to write about a character of the same age!
How deeply attached can a youngster become to a pet? My uncle Dick’s words spoken to my dad speaks volumes. We can’t take his dog. He’ll hate us forever. My dad thought the city’s no place for a large dog. The farm is a better place. The hour before my family left the farm, my uncle saw me, face buried in the thick neck fur of my Belgian Shepherd. I was saying goodbye. I was crying. Thanks to Uncle Dick I enjoyed my dog’s company until he reached the age of fourteen. He was my best friend until diabetes forced me to agree to having him put down. For at least a year, every time I went biking alone, I missed him.
I don’t know how I would have reacted to my father’s insistence that “the dog be left at the farm.” Today I can guess. I’m afraid it would not have been one of my finer moments. As a matter of fact, I did guess. I put myself in the shoes of Amber, a young girl in my novel, Baggage burdens. Her father, acting on the advice of the vet, agreed to put Amber’s dearly loved horse to sleep. Amber missed her chance to say goodbye. Later, looking back at her emotional reaction, it is not something she was proud of. Her reaction is something that I can fully understand.
Writing other childhood scenes for Baggage burdens. gave me a chance to grab fall was fun. Fun often centered on huge piles (four to five feet high) of dry raked leaves. I can’t forget the neighborhood kids pedaling their bikes full speed into the pile of leaves. What a glorious spray! Oh, yes. I did that too. Then, at the park, the guys would jump into the pile of leaves, and stuff the leaves into the shirt or pants of whoever, rolled out too slowly. A wiener roast followed the raking. While we waited for glowing embers to roast our marsh mellows, we’d grab partially filled bags, weapons to whack each other. A friend raised a thick pointed branch to block my blow. The branch pierced the bag and flooded him with scratchy leaves. I doubled over in laughter until he crashed into me.
In writing Baggage burdens. I relive that fun in the life of Matt, who with his brother and sister rake up the fall leaves in their yard. Writing about those times is even more rewarding than looking in an album. As a writer I combine other similar events into one new terrific time.
“When did you plan on telling me that you killed my horse?” She leans forward as if to attack.
“Amber!”
“You couldn’t of called me first, couldn’t of given me a chance to say goodbye to Hoss? How could you? How could you?” Her angry words fire out like bullets from a machine gun. Her tone switches from anger to pain. Her words rise in volume.
“Amber.”
Joseph gets up to give Amber a hug.
“Don’t touch me,” warns Amber. She steps back. “You don’t love me. You don’t love anybody. Amber backs up again. “I hate you. I hate you,” she screams. Amber turns and runs to the stairs.
Joseph starts chasing after her, wanting to hold her, to explain, to apologize. He calls out to her.
She turns. Her anger stops him. Her pain burns fiery red. The need to spit out poison bites at her. Amber turns and charges up the stairs.
“Break time,” Jill announces. She hobbles to the house for the jug of lemonade and a package of muffins and oatmeal cookies.
When she sets them out on the patio table, her children are nowhere near. Shouts come from the garden. Upon investigating, she finds Amber and Sarah wildly throwing handfuls of leaves at each other. Then Amber charges Sarah, catches her, and promptly pins her to the ground. She begins stuffing leaves down Sarah’s cutoffs. Sarah’s screaming only makes Amber scoop faster.
In an effort to rescue her youngest daughter, Jill hurries past a small pile of leaves. As she does, the pile erupts, causing her to jump sideways and fall. Matt springs from the leaves and roars with laughter. He shouts to his sisters.
The diversion saves Sarah from her sister’s torture. As Amber laughs and points at her mother, Sarah quickly approaches Amber from behind. Grabbing Amber’s elastic waistband, she dumps a handful of leaves down her sweats. Before Amber can grab her sister, Sarah takes off. Jill’s mouth drops.
You dummy, she thinks as she watches Sarah race away.
Seconds later, Sarah’s desperation cry pierces the air. “Matt. Help.” A huge armful of leaves rains down upon Jill’s head, courtesy of her laughing son. Dry, crunchy leaves invade Jill’s mouth. It starts a bout of coughing. Jill rolls away as fast as she can. She sits up in time to witness a cloud of leaves bursting forward to greet Sarah’s charging sister. Within seconds, Amber locks a grip on Sarah. Matt bowls into the back of Amber’s legs, causing them to buckle. Amber drops to the ground. Sarah and Matt scramble on top of Amber. Sarah stuffs leaves into Amber’s T-shirt as if they are filling an empty garbage bag.
Jill watches the youthful energy exhaust itself. The once neat four-foot-high, twelve-foot wide mountain of leaves now resembles a pan of scrambled eggs. When the children’s screaming dies down, Jill announces, “Goodies are on the table.” Then she makes a speedy departure in case the children think she too should experience the leaves inside her clothes.
haiku capsule:
fall work––no problem
turn helping-out into fun
playful spirit wins
Nextblog: An Outsider
Order the e-book from kindle or kobo now or your soft cover from Amazon.
What memorable story can you share about when you were a kid?
I’d love to use it on my new website that’s being developed.
All comments will be entered for a draw on the Baggage burdens.companion novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment