Type. Window. Comprehend

When The Fate Scheduler died, he didn’t expect to find what he found. Of course, he didn’t expect to die in the first place, nor was he The Fate Scheduler at that time. He was merely a normal type of guy of an average age, living by himself after a difficult divorce and mostly bumping along the bottom trying to stay out of everyone’s way. He’d learned over the course of his life that he was happy and content to be by himself; not having to contend with the drama that comes from having people with their messy problems and issues complicating his neat and orderly existence. In fact, one of the primary reasons his ex wife cited for why she left him was that he reminded her too much of Felix Unger, the fastidious and somewhat prissy character from that old TV show “The Odd Couple”. He took somewhat offense at this as, although he was known to be a bit on the compulsive side when it came to cleanliness (whether it be his person or his surroundings), he did not view himself as prissy. Then again, she likely didn’t view herself as a bulldog, either; which is what he thought of whenever he saw her. This, and an overwhelming feeling of self-reproach. Not because their marriage had failed, but because he’d married her in the first place.

After he died, he was surprised to discover that he didn’t remember dying. He’d been standing in his small galley type kitchen in his compact one bedroom apartment looking through his collection of cookbooks, of which he had many. He’d been searching for one in particular, the one given to him by a co-worker last year at his company’s annual holiday party and gift exchange. Normally, he walked away from this exchange with something he considered to be pretty much useless; a huge bottle of some offense smelling aftershave, a quite horrid sweater (this turned out to be an unexpected bonus when he wore it to an Ugly Sweater Contest one of his few friends had, in July of all months, and won a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble), a box of stale Girl Scout Cookies and a collection of Christmas Tree ornaments which had the appearance of being made by either the giver’s three year old child or their dog, he couldn’t decide which. But, this particular time, he’d received the cookbook from her; one he could and would actually use as it replaced one he’d utilized so often that it had completely fallen apart.

It was interesting, he’d been musing right before he died, that someone he barely knew had somehow known what he’d most appreciate. Thankfully, thankfully; he’d not drawn her name in return as he would not have been as astute. Instead, he'd picked an office secretary who was kind enough to him and he’d spent sufficient time talking to in the break room to guess she’d appreciate a box of Godiva chocolates.

What did he know of her, this cookbook bestower? Only these few things: She sat in a cubicle next to a window several rows from his own. He found himself thinking of her at odd and random moments, despite the fact that he’d hardly spoken to her. Her ability to pick out the perfect gift was a wonderful thing about her that he did not fully comprehend. He didn’t think of her by her name but, rather, by her aroma; The Girl Who Smelled Of Pine.

Hay. Soar. Murder.

She edged out the door, hoping not to disturb her sleeping mother. The door squealed in protest; she held her breath and turned to glance back to see if this had awakened Mam. Poor Mam, she looked so dreadfully grey and tired lying there on the small cot. And old. She looked old. But, she was not awake, thank the good Lord. Elizabeth went out into the grayish late November afternoon, closing the heavy door softly behind her.

She made her way over to the barn, which loomed in front of her, dilapidated, sagging at its sides, but still surprisingly strong and erect for such an abandoned structure. And, abandoned it was; ever since Papa died and that one never-ending late summer/early fall three years ago when she and Mam attempted, fruitlessly as it turned out, to reap the harvest and keep the barn stocked with hay for their meager menagerie of live stock.

She wasn’t sure why she was interested in going to the barn; she hated the barn. Not just because it was a physical reminder of their failure; in fact, it had nothing to do with that at all. She hated it now because she used to love being inside its wall so very much. That was ages and ages ago, when she was a young and foolish girl of eleven. After her chores were done, after the mid-day meal was eaten and the dishes were cleared, washed, dried and put away into the old Hoosier pie safe; Mam would nod her head at Elizabeth, signaling it was fine for her to go the barn to explore, play and dream.

Now, as she wandered into its musty depths, she had to brace herself against the involuntary shudder that rolled over her. How could she have ever loved this terrible place? She closed her eyes against the rush of painful memories; those that had completely overtaken the pleasant ones from her girlhood. Overcome, she leaned against one of the empty stalls for support. She closed her eyes and could still smell the scent of long gone animals. Ghost horses. What were their names? She couldn’t recall.

The sound of scuttling overhead brought her back to the present. Her eyes snapped open and upwards towards the hayloft. She didn’t want to look there and it wasn’t for fear of seeing a rat or two. Yet, as strangely as she was drawn to the barn in the first place, she found her feet moving her towards the creaky ladder that led up to the loft.

As she climbed, she got a glimpse of the double doors at the far end of the hayloft. Amazingly, despite the multitude of storms they’d had over the past several years since the barn had been in use, they were still tightly latched. Still sitting on the ground next to the closed doors was her old beat-up steamer trunk, the one that had once belonged to Mam’s younger sister.

How she’d loved to kneel in front of that ancient thing, using it as a desk of sorts, and pretend she was a famous writer. She’d written a lot of silly pieces there, young girl starry eyed notions of adventure, romance and true love conquering all. Still, she’d also enjoyed the view from that vantage. She’d open up the doors and stare out at the great wide open; looking west towards the trees that stood silent sentry in the distance or glancing up into the blue skies while dreaming she was a mystical creature, a girl with wings, who could soar like a bird over Coozie’s Creek to the south.

Now, the trunk was covered with cobwebs and rat droppings.. And, all of those silly, silly dreams? Those stupid, stupid stories? The person that she was now, the woman that she’d become, looked back into the past and felt both scorn and an immense sadness for the young girl who had no idea what was to come.

She walked over to the doors, undid the rusty latch, and flung the doors open with such force that both doors crashed into the side of the barn with a loud THUNK that echoed across the quickly darkening evening sky. She approached the edge of the loft floor; as close to the gaping opening as she dared, and peered out. The view was still breathtaking. She could see miles in every direction. To the south, the glistening silvery trail of Coozie’s Creek. To the north, the spire of the town’s church. And to the west, just visible arising from the tops of the trees in the forest, wisps of smoke from the Childress’s cabin.

“That family”, Mam had declared one day when Elizabeth was still in the habit of playing with dolls on the kitchen floor while Mam fixed supper, “Is decidedly odd”. Papa, sitting nearby, grunted; whether in agreement, disagreement or just his Papa grunt which usually meant, “Yes, my dear”, Elizabeth never knew.

As her eyes grew accustom to the growing darkness, she watched the smoke from their cabin continue to drift up, up, up to where she couldn’t distinguish where it ended and the gloaming sky began. She stood there a very long time remembering what Calvin Childress had introduced her to in this very loft the winter after Papa died. Mam had been right; and Elizabeth knew now exactly how odd and how disturbed at least one of the Childress clan was.

As she recalled, her eyes narrowed sharply, and her thoughts turned to murder.

Mrs. B

Writing Exercises

Over the years, I've both attended classes and read books that purported to teach one how to write, or, if one already knew how to write, how to either instill discipline to the writing process, develop a personal style, publish something that's already been written, etc., etc. Like many explorations and excursions in my life, I would typically go gang-busters for a month or so afterwards, only to have the enthusiasm eventually peter out, to be replaced by some other new adventure.

This morning I opened up my Blog and was somewhat aghast to see I've not posted anything for almost two weeks and what I have posted in the last month or so has been relatively weak. In all seriousness, I do have things to write about; in fact, several things, many of which are in mid-production and floating somewhere on my hard drive. I also tend to wake up in the middle of the night thinking about a dream I just had and say to myself, "Wow, you should write about THIS!" But, by the time I get around to sitting down at my computer, either the ability to recall the dream or the desire to write about it has vanished; replaced by thoughts of "What is on my to do list for today?"

I do have many things I'd like to accomplish today; but, I told myself while out walking Lucy this morning that I'd allow myself until 10:00 am to "dork around" on the computer with email, Facebook, checking out various web sites, reading the morning paper, etc. After doing much of these things (except reading the paper), I clicked on my Blog and thus began this particular entry/train of thought.

My first inclination after seeing that my last post was Friday November 4th was to go to my stock pile of past writing pieces and post something, anything, that appeared (to me at least) to be relatively interesting. Of course, in fact, this is something like cheating; somewhat similar to someone using a picture from many many years ago to represent what they look like today. While browsing through these files, I came across a spreadsheet I haven't opened up in a very long time. The idea came from a class I took at Duke way back in 2004; a bunch of random words listed in columns. For the life of me, I can't remember now if the words are supposed to follow any sort of pattern and I don't know if I came up with them or they were provided by the instructor (likely a bit of both). What I do remember is, you're supposed to put each of the words on a slip of paper, put all of the slips into some sort of container, and, when you want to write but you are stuck for ideas, pull out two or three of the slips of paper and free write for fifteen or twenty minutes about whatever comes to your mind. So, pulling a few random words of my spreadsheet by way of example, I might end up with "Hay" "Soar" and "Murder" as prompts.

And, speaking of free writing, I also recall from a book I read that it is a MUST to sit down every day and simply free write. Whether it be from prompts or just what may be running through your brain, you must do it to keep in shape; similar to what working out at the gym does for your body. This is easier said than done; it's a challenge not to get distracted. Case in point, as I'm writing this, Mr. B just came home from his morning meeting and the dog is wigging out. He's going to come into the kitchen soon and start talking to me (I have 10 more minutes to go before it's 10:00 am!) and I'll, well, peter out.

I just remembered another writing exercise; it also uses prompts but instead of random words, the prompts are statements or questions, such as, "Your first car". Or, "What makes you happy?" I've actually written and posted quite a few pieces from this exercise but I think my stash of prompts has gone missing so I'll need to recreate them.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that, since I can't seem to come up with anything really fresh and intriguing to write about on my own, I think I'm going to go the writing exercise route on this Blog for a while. There may be some weird stuff that comes out of it, I'll warn y'all in advance!

Ok, time's up for now!

Mrs. B

The Forgotten Thought Place

Is there a place where forgotten thoughts go? These thoughts sit around in a waiting room, or, a holding tank; maybe something like a prison cell, waiting for the moment when, whomever it was that at one time thought them, remembers them once again? Does some sort of warden or jailer come into the cell and gruffly shout out, “You! “Forgotten Thought Number 7,821; otherwise known as “Hmmm…should I take an Italian class this year?” Get over, here, you’ve been re-thought!”

Can these forgotten thoughts only be re-thought by their original thinker, or, can they be re-allocated to another person that might have had that very same thought at some other point in time? Are there several of the same forgotten thoughts hanging out together in this cell? “That corner over there, that’s where the “Don’t forget to buy cat litter” thoughts assemble, and over there, those are the “What was I going to do when I got upstairs?” thoughts.”?

Or, is there only one of these thoughts in existence, such that, if that thought is occupied, it cannot be thought of at that same time by anyone else in the universe?

Are there possibly many similar thoughts, with, perhaps, slight variations in how and when they were thought? One might be a long, drawn out thought and another might be fleeting? One might arrive in the middle of the night, while another one materializes when one is shaving one’s legs?

Could the same concept go for long-forgotten objects? Is there a special holding tank for mis-placed people, places and things? Former co-workers? Ex-lovers? Your grandparent’s old farmhouse that you used to visit frequently but have long since let slip out of your mind? Pets you used to have? Books you read but don’t recall? Cars that your parents used to drive? Things that you put down and then never found again, e.g., earrings, half-written letters, the odd tube of lipstick, the little latch keys that are hung over the doorways to bathrooms so that little children cannot get locked inside them?

What about emotions? Haven’t you heard someone exclaim “That sunset was so awesome, I forgot to be sad!” or, “The situation was so absurdly funny, I forgot that I was angry!”?

Are “Sad” and “Angry” hanging out in a cell somewhere too? Sad is sitting over in the corner steadily weeping while Angry bangs on the iron bars demanding to be let out?

This cell (or cells) could be quite the interesting place to visit, or, it could be quite alarming.

Could you imagine walking into this cell and being simultaneously bombarded by all of your forgotten thoughts and misplaced nouns (people, places and things)? Come to think of it, this could be a new sort of capital punishment; death by all of the thoughts and nouns in your life that you carelessly forgot or misplaced.

Or, maybe that punishment would be more fitting if the condemned was attacked only by their forgotten thoughts and misplaced nouns that were mean, hurtful, shameful, scary, evil and sad?

Can you imagine what the enactment of your death sentence might be?

And, for those people that are, for the most part, honorable and decent and loving and caring, well, perhaps their reward is just the opposite. At their end, they will walk into a room full of their loving, generous, happy, sweet, warm and caring forgotten thoughts and misplaced nouns.

Maybe I’ve simply just described one concept of heaven and hell.

The Flower Picture

I stumbled across this (which I wrote in 2005) and just felt like re-posting it! Maybe because I was looking at the picture this morning and it brought this tale to mind.
Mrs. B

The Flower Picture

The Flower Picture is now hanging on the wall in our bedroom; I think it compliments the lavender paint.

When she gave it to me, Mom said it was an antique. Not surprising considering how many items in their grand house in Ft. Wayne were antiques (so many that when they moved, they held an estate sale; my dad chortled that they had sold a thousand pieces and made a bundle of cash).

Dad was obviously of the mind that there was no sense in hauling all of that stuff to North Carolina; Mom reluctantly agreed but I am sure she felt a pang as each item was carted off by its new owner. Not that it all went, of course. The Flower Picture came along for the ride from Indiana to North Carolina, having been claimed by me the previous Christmas.

We’d just barely arrived at Mom and Dad’s for the holidays when Mom presented me and my younger brother each with a small wire bound notebook. “Time to go shopping!” she exclaimed; while Doc and I gave each other puzzled looks. “We can’t take all of this with us to North Carolina so we want you to tell us what you’d like.” “That doesn’t mean you’ll get it!” piped in Dad as he popped a peanut in his mouth. “But, we’ll take it under consideration”. “Well”, said Mom. “What Dad means is that some of this we will want to hold onto and you’ll get it later, but a lot of it we don’t think we’ll need once we move into a smaller house.” “So,” continued Dad, “Spend the next few days walking around and looking at everything, write down what you want and then we’ll let you know if you can have it." "But", he said wagging a finger at us, “when we are ready to off load it, you’ll have to be prepared to come get it or else we’ll sell it!” “Well!” said Mom. “Who wants a snack? Mark, do you want a beer?” “Oh boy!” said Doc “Time for food pusher Mom to make one of her several hundred appearances this week!” But, we all grinned despite ourselves and eagerly succumbed to the pleasures of food and drink; made all the more enjoyable because everyone knows calories don’t count when you go home for the holidays.

Later, Mark and I spent some quiet time unpacking in the room we’d been allotted for the visit known as “The Pink Room”; so named because my mother had basically decorated the room with girly-girl accents; not everything being pink, but, a good number of the objects and furnishings were. Still, to me, it was warmly familiar as the majority of my girlhood rooms growing up had been premonitions of what this room eventually turned out to be. Being a bit tired after driving in the snow from North Carolina to Indiana, with two aged male cats in the backseat strongly expressing their displeasure at being confined in crates and hauled through windy West Virginia mountain terrains, Mark elected to take a short nap. Leaving him to his sweet dreams, I decided this would be an opportune time for me to wander around the house, small notebook in hand, jotting down what items in the house would be of interest to us.

Right off the bat I knew of several pieces that I’d like to have; mostly more out of sentimental value than anything else. First off, I wanted the large framed piece of stained glass that mom and dad used to keep outside in their backyard in Palos Verdes, CA. I had a particular fondness for the glass as it had hung over my head as I cut my wedding cake with my first husband. Not that I had a latent fondness for the first husband; just the glass. They now had it hanging in their sun porch; a wonderful spot for it as it caught the essence of the morning light. I went down to the sun porch to eye ball the glass; yes, I definitely still wanted it. I left the sun porch and went into the huge family room, admiring the 12’ Christmas tree and the amazing job at decorating it that my mother did all on her own (dad’s job being “limited” to dragging the thing in, setting it up, and stringing the lights). I wondered vaguely where she’d hidden the pickle ornament and half-heartedly searched the fragrant boughs of the noble fir for the gleaming green glass. I couldn’t find it, I never could. Not that it mattered as this honor would be left to one of my sister’s three children; whoever found the pickle ornament received a special present. It dawned on me that this pickle ornament procedure was not something we’d ever done as children; my mother must have read about it somewhere later and decided it was a nice added touch to the festivities.

I looked around the room to see if there was anything in particular that I’d like to have in my house. My eyes landed on one corner of the room where my mother had arranged a cozy nook where one might sit in the over sized stuffed green chair, place their feet on the matching ottoman, turn on the old-fashion Tiffany-ish floor lamp, and escape the bedlam of the holidays by delving into a book or magazine. Or a snooze. Thinking the lamp might fit in with our bedroom décor, I stepped a bit closer to admire it. I glanced up at the picture hanging behind the chair. As I looked at it, my mom came into the room. She stood behind me, a silent presence, but I knew she was there. “That was one of grandma’s favorite pictures” she said softly. I wondered why I’d never noticed it before. Certainly, I would have remembered it from the house I grew up in? “She gave it to me when we moved her into the nursing home” she continued, solving that mystery for me. “It used to hang behind grandpa’s chair, do you remember?” Try as I might, I couldn’t bring it to mind, although I do have one very strong memory of sitting in my grandpa’s lap, in his chair, and cuddling up to his smell of starched work shirts and freshly lit cigarettes. “Grandpa won that picture as a door prize at Voncastle Theater in 1939” mom said. “He gave it to grandma as a gift, before they were married”. “Oh, no wonder it was one of her favorites!” I replied. I peered at it a bit closer. Frankly, it wasn’t anything to write home about per se, but, it certainly wasn’t abhorrent, either. And, being over 50 years old, it was technically an antique. Maybe I should put it on my wish list. As if she could read my mind (and likely she can at times) my mom suggested that I put it on my list. “I think it’s time for it to move on to the next generation of Wooden women” she said as she smiled at me. “Grandma would like that”.

Mom walked away but I continued to regard the picture. As I stood there, I had what I like to refer as “A Helen Keller at the Water Pump Moment”; when all of a sudden, something that has been eluding your comprehension clicks into place, just like when Helen Keller, standing at the water pump with her teacher, Annie Sullivan, finally realized that the unfamiliar gestures that Teacher had been pressing into one of her hands was the name for what she was feeling with her other hand. It struck me. This wasn’t just a picture that had belonged to my grandparents; something to point to and say “Oh yeah, my grandpa won that for my grandma”; rather, it was actually something they’d looked upon. Maybe they’d even stood there together, admiring it after grandpa hung it on the wall. Perhaps my grandmother had slipped her hand into my grandpa’s, put her head on his shoulder, and thanked him for being the 50th person to walk through the door of the charity function that night. Or, could it be my grandma initially loathed the picture but tolerated it because my grandpa had been so sincere when he’d bestowed it upon her? And, as time went on, my grandma came to love the picture because it’d been around for so long; reminding her of happier times? Perhaps my grandmother held my mother up to the picture when she was a small child and introduced the different colors of the rainbow to her by pointing to one flower or the other and whispering “This one is white, that one is yellow, and this one is my very favorite because it is the bluest blue, the color of your daddy’s eyes”.

I decided then that I would very much like to have this picture hanging in my house. I wanted to look at it and be reminded of my grandparents. Grandparents are, at times, too easy to forget. Not for lack of love, but, rather, lack of presence. Of my grandpa, I have that one memory in the chair, strengthened by the involvement of smell. Sometimes, I think I remember more, but, in reality, what I am recalling is seeing pictures of which I was part of the scene but far too young to take anything away from it to bring back to mind later. So, I thought having the picture would bring me closer to him. My grandma, too, of course; but, it is my grandpa that I sometimes yearn for; despite the fact that I am 42 years old. I feel this way because of what I hear in my mom’s voice on the rare occasions when she talks about him. There are other memories, but, they are far too sad to think about overly much. Grandpa died of Alzheimer ’s disease on October 5th, 1975; my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary, and a little over two months before Doc was born. Doc got his nickname from grandpa; according to mom, her father was always known as “Doc”. Funny, but incredibly wonderful, how people can live on through someone they never met.

Sometimes It's Just Easier To Post Stuff I've Already Written!

Actually, I stumbled across this journal entry (as in from one of my actual journals) today quite by accident. For some reason, this particular journal (from age 41-43) was in a basket in the upstairs office (I usually move my completed journals into a big box in the garage; and, yes, they are all labeled with the age(s) I was while writing them. Very, very anal, I know).

Anyway, I liked this, so, here it is. This makes me wonder whatever little nuggests of Amy-wisdom are contained in that box out in the garage? Ha ha. At least I have years upon years of material for when I find myself stymied with coming up with something new to post here.

Mrs. B

10 August 2007

Been awhile, hasn't it? It's summer, it's hot; just not a lot going on worth writing about. Not that I haven't been writing, I have; but mostly on my Blog and a bit on "The Fate Scheduler" but not much. It's going to take me forever to write this book.

So, I am, at long last, coming to the end of this particular journal. Almost two years since I started it. Frankly, it's been a bit of a tough two years, which is amazing to admit given how cushy my life is now. But, there's been a lot of changes, both external to me, within me, etc. And it goes on.

I told Don W yesterday that we should be happy that we've had enough life to spill onto a page 2 or 3 of a resume. Along that train of thought, I feel lucky that I've had so much life experience to fill up over 30 years of diaries and journals. I am thankful I felt the need all those years ago to record my life (silly as some of those earliest entries were; boring as some of the latest ones might be).

I can go to the "Journal Box" in the garage, open it up, pull out a journal at random and instantly be back to that place and time; that Amy. As I read, memories of events I didn't write about come back to me as well. I can feel how I felt, be who I was; and, then, upon closing it, be grateful for who I am today and who I am yet to become.

For, another thing that keeping these journals has taught me is; I won't be the same person, exactly at the end of the next one that I am at the end of this one. The new, blank pages will be filled with experiences and events that I can't really imagine; nor, do I really want to.

One day, these journals will end when I end. They might sit moldering in their box forever, it doesn't really matter. Maybe someone will find them one day and make their way though them all. My life, in a box!

But, for now, it's time to sign off and go find my next blank journal.

Mrs. B's Book Reviews 2007: Finally Done!

Note: This is the final entry of a series I started on "that other" Blog. You'll have to turn turncoat and visit that Blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/empress5150

to read the other entries (assuming you haven't already read them, that is).

Here is my rating system:

Mrs. B’s Rating System
*****Absolutely Fantastic; one that I looked forward to reading and found every opportunity to do so. Was almost depressed when I finished it; I think most people I know would enjoy it.

****Really Good; but might have had some sort of disappointment to it (flat ending or cliché), or, the topic might not be universally appealing, that kept it from being Absolutely Fantastic.

***Interesting Enough; a good “vacation read” but not something I’d go out of my way to recommend; sometimes a “What was all the fuss about?” book will get this rating.

**Ho Hum; nothing great, nothing bad. Yawn.

*Throw it Away; made me want to scream and throw it across the room, it was that awful; one of those books that you get mad at yourself for wasting your time reading it when there are so many other books out there to read.

“Jolie Blon’s Bounce”****, Robert Lee Burke (Series; CD)
Yet another one from my step-mom; and, as it turns out, one of the best ones, too. Also as it turns out, this is part of a series about a troubled Louisiana cop named Dave Robicheaux. It is one of the ones in the middle of the series so I definitely didn’t have much perspective and I did find myself wondering, “Why doesn’t he expand on (fill in the blank)”? Well, because it had likely already been expanded upon in great detail in one of the earlier books! Still, even coming in mid-way, I truly enjoyed listening to both the book AND the excellent narrator (who apparently narrates many of Burke’s books). In this particular book, Dave Robicheaux and his partner are called in to investigate the rape and murder of a teen-aged girl. Almost immediately, a young black musician and overall no good-nik is arrested for the crime. Robicheaux thinks something is fishy in the Bayou and that someone else committed the crime. In the meantime, another woman; a prostitute this time, is brutally bludgeoned to death. Now he’s sure it’s not the crack-head black musician (since he was in jail when it happened) so he digs deeper and in so doing, crosses paths with one of the creepiest and most sinister characters I’ve ever come across in my readings. Like some of the other crime/mystery/detective stories I either read or listened to in 2007, this book had a lot of interesting characters, sub plots and story lines. However, there was just “something” about Burke’s style that I really liked. So much so that I’ll probably go back and read and/or listen to the Robicheaux series from the beginning (and thus find out some stuff that perplexed me) and continue on to the end. BTW, the title of the book is based on an old Cajun song called “Jolie Blonde”.

“Rhett Butler’s People”**, Donald McCaig
I absolutely loved Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind”. I suppose it is normal when one adores a book and its characters so much to want to find out “what else” happened to them. Of course Mitchell is dead and has been for ages. However, about 20 years ago, her estate, for whatever reason (likely motivated by money) authorized the authoring and publishing of a “sequel” to GWTW, the perfectly dreadful “Scarlett” by Alexandria Ripley. Believe it or not, they even made that missive into an even more perfectly dreadful mini-series (there is absolutely no way in hell anyone but Clark Gable could portray Rhett Butler and they got some has-been who’d played James Bond in one movie to play the role!) Anyway, a few years later, I read “The Wind Done Gone” which was somewhat of a parody of GWTH and certainly NOT authorized by Mitchell’s estate. Too bad they didn’t make a miniseries on that one because it was actually pretty darn entertaining (the story of Scarlett’s slave half-sister, who, according to the author, was Rhett’s REAL true love and who only referred to Scarlett throughout the book as “The Other”). Ok, so, late last fall, I saw the ad in The Wall Street Journal for this new authorized sequel to GWTH and got really excited. First off, because it was going to focus on Rhett Butler and secondly because it was written by a man who normally writes history books (so I figured it would not be a bodice buster and it would at least be historically accurate). Lastly, I wanted to read it when I was vacationing in Savannah (even though the character of Rhett was from Charleston, Savannah figures prominently in these tales). Man, was I sadly disappointed. Yeah, the story DOES focus on Rhett and Rhett’s “people” (his family, his slaves, his friends, his loves) and there are SOME interesting twists on the characters and how “certain things” came about (the origin of the yellow sash Scarlett gives Ashley Wilkes is one example) but, in general, it wasn’t that great. Not awful, but not what I had hopes for. And, I couldn’t even look forward to a potential miniseries for, who in God’s sake would play Rhett Butler? My recommendation is to pass on this and read or re-read “Gone with the Wind” (and perhaps give “The Wind Done Gone” a whirl).

“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”***, Carson McCullers
The Kid had to read this book for her 10th grade English class last fall. She somewhat complained about it the entire time, but, when she was done with it, seemed to want ME to read it, too. So, why not; it’s a classic of sorts and takes place in the South. Plus, I have to admit, I was intrigued to find out what sort of stories kids are reading in high school these days. This is the last book I read in 2007; finished it on December 30th. Boy, was it DEPRESSING. I mean, brutally depressing. I didn’t really care much for the story (the impact a deaf mute has on several members of an impoverished small Southern town) but I do have to cede that the writing was absolutely excellent. Especially given WHEN it was published (1940) and the age of the author at the time she wrote it (23). So, I asked The Kid after I’d read it what she really thought of it; she basically said it was well-written and sad. True enough. I asked WHY her teacher selected this particular books to which she replied, “They want us to read books that the kids in public school don’t read”. Hmmm. There are some disturbing themes/scenes in this book and I wonder how her teacher led the kids through a discussion on some of these topics? In any event, I wouldn’t really recommend this book unless you simply want to read something that is extremely well written and extremely depressing.

Summary
All in all, I read or listened to 32 books in 2007. Many of them were by authors who I’d read previously (and in many cases, I preferred their OTHER books). A lot of them were part of a series and several were books I probably never would have read had I not listened to them. Of these, I discovered a few “new” authors (new to me, anyway) that I’ll likely keep reading/go back and read some of their previous books. There were also a few books that I’d really been looking forward to reading that ended up disappointed and one or two that I didn’t really want to listen to or read but did and was hooked. In looking back at my ratings, close to half (47%) were middle of the road three stars, 22% were five stars, 22% were two stars, 6% were four stars and only one book was a complete and total stinker at one star! I’d really be interested to know if, as a result of my book reviews, did any of you read any of these books and/or decide to steer clear of others?

Mrs. B