A Southern Missive

I love a Southern summer. Yes, it gets warm, but the heat is far better for me than our cold, wet winters. As a youngster, I used to dream about snow and cold. I read books on Arctic camping, and researched the Native Americans who lived in the Arctic and SubArctic. My short story, “Ghost Fires,” is a story set in Canada, in the land of the Cree, and is a result of an idea and my research. That story won first place in the Hemingway Short Story Competition a few years back. But I digress–back to the topic of summer.

The South is so alive in summer–and I love everthing about it. I have memories of hot, muggy, July nights, lying in bed next to my little brother at my grandmother’s house in Ivanhoe, Texas, listening to the small oscillating fan, to the owls, whipoorwhills, and other nightbirds. I remember looking up at that sky, blanketed with all the stars I couldn’t see in Dallas. Maybe it’s these memories that make me love the summer. Perhaps it’s because summer is when I get a short vacation away from teaching apathetic kids and task-master administrators. I do know that my writing always experiences a great surge of energy in the summer. I think that’s the main reason I like summer–I can give my writing more attention. I can travel (if I have any money) and research and read. I love to sit out on my patio with coffee in the morning and iced tea in the evening and read, write, or just sit and daydream. I lived in northern states twice in my life–four years in northeast PA and two years in White Plains, NY. Those were good times, and I was fortunate to be around a lot of good people, and I learned much, but I missed the South. A few years ago, a good friend gave me Willie Morris’s, North, Towards Home. It was a good read. I guess many Southerners have moved north and adjusted, but I don’t think I could ever live anywhere but the South.

I recentlly discovered a technique, probably others have used it, of teaching students how to write original poetry. You choose a song you like, and you write a poem that follows that song’s rythym and rhyme scheme and tone if possible. It seems to work, at least for me. After I did this, I thought about how many great songs have used previously written melodies. The Irish were quite fond of doing this, I know. Just an idea, and I hope it helps.

School is officially out. It takes me a few days to slip out of the numbness teaching high school inflicts. I spent today doing chores, work on house and yard, etc. Tomorrow I should be ready to attack my writing in a fury.

This next week is my last week of high school. If you’re wondering what the last week of high school is like, here’s a description of the rural high school where I teach in Bastrop, Louisiana.

We had 7th period final exam last Friday. I had one excemption due to high scores on the GEE test we take here. All the others took it, and amazingly all passed it. Monday, we have 1st and 2nd period exams; Tuesday, 3rd and 4th; Wednesday, 5th and 6th. That’s the first half of the day. After the kids leave at lunch, we work in our rooms, grade exams, and average grades. Thursday and Friday are work days for teachers with meetings and taking care of our check-0ut list, many of those tasks are moving rocks. These make the myth of Sisyphus very relevant to teachers. School is starting earlier (again). We have to show up on the 8th of August. That leaves a 10 week summer. Three of those weeks I’ll be in workshops: An AP course so I can teach gifted AP, and two gifted symposiums. I am scheduled to teach two night classes at the community college here, and I hope for another at ULM where I did adjunct work for 11 years before I was a Katrina victim due to budget cuts. I’ll be tired, but teachers are usually tired anyway, and it’s better to be tired with a little money, than tired without it. Like the Bible says in Ecclesiastes, “Money answers all things.” (It really does say that).

The remaining weeks I intend to write every day, travel some, take care of the chores and family matters that have been neglected through the school year. Seven weeks of free time sounds like a lot, but since, like most teachers in Louisiana, I’m a nine-month employee, there’s not a lot of money to do much. However, I like having the extra time to do a push on my writing. I intend to finish my Western this summer. I’m about thirty thousand words into it now. I also need to do some more short stories, more poems, enter some writing contests, and organize my writing area. I have a few thousand books, and I need to organize the piles and shelves. I also need to throw away a mountain of paper. I know I should have been more disciplined and gone through them as I went along, but it seems I was always in a time bind. I intend to do better next year.