A Southern Missive

I’m getting so much work in Texas that I’m thinking of making a sign to hang on my door saying, “Gone to Texas.” Evidently after the Civil War,  many tacked signs to their doors with the initials, G.T.T.  Texas, having successfully resisted Yankee invasion, had not suffered the economic hardships many states had. The Federal government’s scorched earth policy, its war against the civilian population of the South, and the oppression of Reconstruction had so ruined people’s lives that they looked to Texas as an opportunity to rebuild their lives. I know my Confederate ancestor was one of these. He left Alabama and moved into East Texas. I’ll have more on him in a later post.  At any rate, it looks like Texas is going to be a target state for me, at least as long as Monroe (ironically/sarcastically called Funroe by some) is my anchor city. I really must make arrangements to get to the East Coast.

This has been a marvelous trip. Things accomplished:
1) I set up a program and a book signing with the Texas Civil War Museum for Saturday Feb. 16. I spent about 3 hours touring the museum and studying its displays. This has to be one of the finest Civil War museums I’ve ever visited.

2) I met with my contacts at the Region XI Education Services Center, toured the facility, and discussed future opportunities.

3) Met with the director of the Azle, Texas Public Library and introduced my books and program.

4) Met with the manager of the Barnes & Noble in Downtown Fort Worth and talked about a signing there in January or February.

I was also able to eat at two famous Fort Worth eating establishments: Risky’s Steak House in the Stockyard section of town and Billy Miner’s in Sundance Square. Downtown Fort Worth was beautifully lit for the holiday season, and I heard a school choir doing Christmas carols and was able to see a movie: Love in the Time of Cholera.  Good movie overall, but I would have lost many of the subtle nuances and symbols if I hadn’t read the novel first.  After I view it again, I’ll post a little review of it.  I’m surprised at how much I love Fort Worth. The city is much easier to drive in than Dallas.

I’m headed back to Monroe this morning in just a little while. I have a few chores to do and must prepare for my signing in South Louisiana tomorrow. The rest of my month is booked solid. No free windows of time. I used to have free windows of time in the days when I was a slave to the school system.

My friend Michele, a wonderful gifted teacher and very talented writer who is in Egypt attending a conference,  sent me a text message yesterday.  She said, “Sitting on the Nile, listening to Faith Hill and the call to prayer.” She’s always been able to spot the ironies of life. I’ve always had a fascination with the desert. (Is that my just desert?) I hope she’ll write a entry for this blog concerning her trip.

I’m in the Fort Worth area today, working with  media, school, and library contacts for my book signings and programs, making some book sales, and doing some exploring. I’m sure I’ll have some good stories to post. I also am supposed to meet with the Texas Civil War Museum folks to talk about a program there and to introduce them to my books.  You can learn more about the Texas Civil War Museum here:  http://texascivilwarmuseum.com/Programs.html

North Texas . . . What a prosperous area! So different from North Louisiana. I know I say the same thing I travel anywhere else: That’s an indication of what?  The weather was perfect yesterday driving in, and looks like it will be the same today.  I’ll be back in Monroe on Friday, and then on the road again early Saturday morning for Cherry Books in Thibodaux.  Today I decided to post a short story, sort of auto-fiction, that was published a few years ago. The title is “Like a Good German Soldier.” It was published in Alternative, a literary journal of Eastfield Community College, Mesquite, TX, Spring 2001.

LIKE A GOOD GERMAN SOLDIER

ONE MAY AFTERNOON I WAS PLAYING WITH MY WORLD WAR II TOY SOLDIERS ON MY FRONT PORCH.  I wove a jeep and a tank through elaborate battle-lines of German and American soldiers, and as usual, the Americans gave the Nazis a beating.
My father opened the screen door, stepped onto the porch and carefully maneuvered his way through the carnage of my battlefield. “Come on, son.” He walked toward our next door neighbor’s house.
“Yes, sir.” I scooped up my armies and threw them into their cardboard shoebox and trotted after him.  Barefoot, I hopped across the sticker-filled scorched grass, taking care not to step in the black-dirt cracks which often served as trenches and bomb craters in my war games.
I followed him up to the door.  After he rang the doorbell, a man appeared. He was younger than my father, with a blonde crew cut and ice-blue eyes.
“Yes,” he said, with a thick accent I had only heard on Hogan’s Heroes.
“I’m Amos,” he said, “and this is my son, Eugene.  We live next door and want to welcome you to our neighborhood.”
He smiled and opened the door. “Please, come in, and thank you.”
A very young and pretty woman sat at their dining table reading an issue of Life Magazine.  
“I am Rennicke,” he said, “and this is my wife, Erma.  We are from Germany—from Dresden.”
“I’m from West Texas, myself,” my father said. “Eugene here was born in Dallas.”
“Please sit at the table and have some refreshments,” Erma said.
“That’s mighty nice of you,” my father replied.
Erma stepped into the kitchen and returned with bottled Cokes and a plate of cookies. My father took a long swallow of the Coke.  “Ain’t nothing like a cold Coke on a hot day. It gets real hot here in Texas sometimes.”
“Dresden could be warm at times as well,” Rennicke said.
My father nodded. “Reckon so. I hope you like it here in America. My wife always wanted to see Germany since her grandparents came from there. I had a couple of uncles who saw Germany in World War II.  I was drafted the day after the war ended and sent to Alaska.”
On the wall hung a picture of a German soldier in military dress.  I rose from my chair and stepped closer for a better look.
“That is Rennicke,” Erma said.  “He was sixteen when that photograph was taken.”
“You were a real German soldier?” I asked.
“Yes. Like your father, I was drafted,” Rennicke said. “But I did not fight Americans.  Germany sent me to the Russian front.  Amos, what duty did you have in the army?”
“They made me a clerk,” my father replied.
“I was a photographer.” Rennicke stepped to a bookshelf and picked out a photo album.  He laid it on the table and opened it. “See?”
“Cool!” I said.  I could hardly believe my luck. A ten-year-old like me getting to meet a real Nazi. And he had war pictures!  This was even better than the last neighbor’s South American monkey.  I scanned the room searching for swastikas and scooted my chair closer to the table so I could have a better look.
Rennicke slowly turned the pages, talking about each picture.  Occasionally he would ask Erma how to say something in English.  Most of the photos were of soldiers marching through deep snow, bombed cities, and battlefields strewn with dead bodies.  On the last page, he pointed to two very dead Germans, lying side by side in their greatcoats, their arms stiff and reaching into the air.
“They were my best friends,” he said.  “We grew up together.  We were so young, but we were good soldiers. We knew the war was lost, but what could we do?”
I saw tears in Rennicke’s eyes, and Erma reached over and patted him on the shoulder.
My father nodded. “It’s always hard on a man to lose a friend.”
When our visit ended, my father invited the couple to come over that night to listen to country music and to enjoy a Mexican dinner my mother planned to prepare.  They thanked us and we excused ourselves.
As we walked home, my father said, “I know he was a Nazi, and you know my uncle was killed by one of their snipers, but I reckon we can’t hold that against Rennicke and Erma, so you be real nice when you talk to them.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.  As my father ruthlessly punished any mistreatment of people generally, the thought of abusing our Nazi neighbors had not entered my mind.  My father’s punishments were few, but memorable.  Probably brutal enough to cause any Gestapo agent to nod in approval.
Later that afternoon, Clifton Ray came over to see me.  As usual, he was loaded down with equipment for our war games.  He handed me one of his wooden toy rifles with a roll of caps, and we divvied up the dummy grenades he had purchased at the Army and Navy surplus store.
I snatched the German helmet. “I want to be the Germans today.”
“Why?  You always make me be the Germans,” Clifton Ray said.
“I just want to be the Germans today.”
“You’ll lose.”
“I know.  This time, let’s pretend we’re in Russia.”
“Where’s Russia?” Clifton Ray asked.  “Ain’t in Mexico is it?”
“I don’t know where it is, but it’s got lots of snow.”
We played until dark, tossing grenades and sniping at each other from prone and standing positions.  As mother called for me to come inside and clean up for supper, Clifton Ray jumped from behind the bushes and fired the final bullet of our conflict.  I died—dutifully and dramatically—like a good German soldier.  Clifton Ray saluted me, gathered up his arsenal, and walked home.  The German helmet still on my head, I rose from my imaginary death-bed of snow and saw Rennicke on his front porch with a camera.  He took my picture, nodded, then stepped back into his house.

Here is a short story I wrote sometime ago. It’s about 900 words. Sort of on the silly side, but then sometimes we just need to laugh.

A GIFT TO CHARITY

Charity whirled the chair around so that Mrs. Sutherland faced the mirror. “There Mrs. Sutherland! You look fabulous! As the Bible says, ‘If a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her.’ This hairdo is my specialty. Someday, I’m going to own my own salon, and do nothing but Christian hairdos! Just like Saint Martin!” She kissed the small rosary hanging from her neck and sent a silent prayer to the saint’s icon taped to the mirror.

Mrs. Sutherland’s face revealed no emotion—none at all. With her fingertips, Mrs. Sutherland gingerly touched the tip of the foot-high beehive. Then her jaw dropped, her teeth clinched and ground, and a primeval sound, a high-pitched whining scream, erupted. “I look horrible! Johnboy! I should sue you!”

Johnboy, owner of the Le Jolie Blonde Beauty Salon, replied, “Oh, Mrs. Sutherland! You are such a tease. I’ll be right there. Johnboy to the rescue!” He laid down his scissors and comb, then patted the shoulder of his customer. “You sit still, honey, and let that solution do its work.”

Charity admired Johnboy. Extremely talented and confident, last year he’d nearly won the Golden Scissors Award. He cut a striking figure with his platinum blonde hair in a fashionable coiffure, his black silk shirt, black Armani leather pants, and Driving Mocs. However, upon seeing Mrs. Sutherland’s hair spiraling up in a tall beehive, he placed his hand over his heart. “Oh, my God! Charity, where on earth do these bizarre ideas come from? She looks like Marge Simpson!”

“More like the Bride of Frankenstein!” Mrs. Sutherland said as she clawed at the plastic protective cape. “Johnboy! I’ll never return to your salon again! Needless to say, I’ll not pay for this!”

Johnboy followed as she fled the salon. Charity heard Mrs. Sutherland’s sobs mingling with Johnboy’s pleadings. “No accounting for taste, I guess,” she said.

When Johnboy returned, he collapsed in one of the chairs in the waiting area. The receptionist hurried over and fanned him with an old copy of Glamour Magazine. When Johnboy revived sufficiently, he yelled, “Charity, I want to speak to you. NOW!”

Charity cringed, but walked over. “Yes, sir,” she said.

“Charity, I’ve tried to overlook your past shenanigans, but I can’t afford to lose any more business because of your ineptness. You’re fired!”

“Fine! I’ll take my client list and just start my own beauty shop!”

“Charity, you signed a no-competition clause when I hired you. They’re not your customers—they’re mine! And thank God they are! Do you realize how psychologically damaging it is to ruin someone’s hair? Of course you don’t! You ruin somebody’s hair every week with these new, wild hairdos of yours! Now, leave my salon!”

Crushed, Charity sobbed all the way home. She knew she was an excellent hairdresser. More than that, she hated the idea of losing her clients. She had worked so hard to build up her list, and now Johnboy would get them all. Then, she had an idea of how she could get her client list back. At midnight, she drove back to the salon.

Charity sighed. Breaking into a building always looked so easy on television! But she had been teasing the door lock with a bobby pin for almost ten minutes and it didn’t show any signs of opening. The ocean surf pounding in the background drowned out any clicks that she thought she was supposed to be hearing. Suddenly, the door flew open, she fell forward with a grunt, and there she stood a man, standing behind her chair and cutting Johnboy’s hair. “Come in, Charity,” the man said. “Your client list is on the table.”
“Do I know you?”
“My name is Martin.”
“Saint Martin de Porres,” Johnboy added in a giddy voice. “The Patron saint of hairdressers!”
“You’ve been drinking again, Johnboy. A saint? He doesn’t even have a tonsure!”
“Monks have tonsures, Charity, not saints, silly girl!”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Oh my God! So much has happened! First, Mrs. Sutherland called. It seems all her friends love what you did with her hair! Then Martin visited me tonight. He knew I actually fired you because of jealousy, and he pointed out that he had given you a special gift, just like he had given me, and that these new hair designs you’ve been using actually came from him. Please, forgive me. If you want your job back you can have it, but Martin thinks you are ready to go out on your own. If you do, I’ll front you the money to start your own salon.” Johnboy studied his reflection. “Excellent technique, Saint Martin. I can see why you’re our patron saint.”
“Thanks! As a barber in Dominican monasteries, I picked up a trick or two. So, Charity, it seems your prayers are indeed answered. You will soon have your own salon and much business will come your way. That is, if you want.”
“Yes, I do. Thank you.” Again, Charity kissed her rosary and sent a silent prayer of thanks to Saint Martin.
“You’re welcome,” Martin said. “Go home, Charity. Johnboy and I still have a few things to discuss so he can win the Golden Scissors next year. Besides, you’ve got a salon to plan.”