My first best friend

was Sally Walton (left, on Easter, 1956 at 7613 Gilbert St. Philadelphia).

When I was five, a girl finally moved onto our street in Philadelphia. She had brown hair and gray eyes and was beautiful. She liked all the things I liked.  People used to call us the Bobbsey Twins.

I bossed her around mercilessly. (She was tolerant of bossy friends)

 Her mother served us pretzels and pepsi, which I found amazing. We made tents that went on for miles. Her mother had trunks full of costumes we liked to dress up in. We did all the things girly girls did in the fifties. She was good at the hula hoop and skating. I was good at hopscotch and jacks. We each had a Ginny doll. Hers was pristine. Mine was so messy it had to be replaced. We had sleepovers. We were brownies together. She was a Methodist. I was a Lutheran.

In sixth grade, we finally landed in the same classroom. Oddly, this was the beginning of the end because she had built up a group of classroom friends and so had I. It was hard to separate home from school.  Doris got her attention at recess. Ruth had mine.

When we went off to junior high school, I found more new friends and so did she. I should have kept in touch with Sally Walton. I wonder where she is now. Happy and healty I hope.

Who was your first friend?




Such glamor inside our teensy row house. We are six.




The boy is my brother, Jeff. We are at the zoo and I remember this day.

Mississippi Goddamn

For me, this is the greatest protest song ever. 

We just spent three days in Mississippi visitng Megan, who is there for a year as the John Grisham writer-in-residence.  She is ensconced in a terrific apartment right on the square in Oxford. She is thrilled at the caliber of students in their MFA program and happy to be amongst writers like Ace Atkins, Tom Franklin, Chris Offut, Jack Pendarvis and others.

Mississippi is like another country to me. Oh yes, Oxford is somewhat like most flagstaff univeristy campuses in some respects, but where else on a lovely Sunday morning would you hear a young man say to his dog,

"Roscoe, what do you feel like doing this afternoon? Should we get ourself some ducks."

It took me a minute to suss out he was talking about hunting and not pet or grocery shopping.

Highlights of the trip: having drinks with Ace Atkins and Jack Pendarvis at a terrific bar. Jack is a writer on the show ADVENTURE TIME and wonderfully funny. I have enjoyed his blog for years and it was a treat to meet him and talk about some of his favorite subjects.

Driving to the famous Taylor Grocery for dinner and being told the wait would be in the neighborhood of three hours. I have never seen tailgating at a restaurant before this.

Drving to Greenwood (and look at that sky) and having lunch at the Crystal Grill. Fried oysters and fried green tomatoes with coconut cream pie for dessert. Seeing a bit of the Delta and the cotton crop.

A football game with LSU filled the town for three days. Marching down to the Grove on game night to see the thousands of tents set up for the tailgating there. The co-eds dress better than any girls in the north. Flirty skirts, I think they call them. And Ole Miss won unexpectedly.

Visiting Rowan Oak, Faulkner's home. Is there a more famous writer's house in the country? It manages to be modest and grand at the same time--much like the writer.

Going to Big Bad Breakfast with Jack Pendarvis and his wife, Dr. Theresa Starkey, who's as sweet and interesting as her husband. How I wish I could take her course which compares seventies films to fifties films.

Getting to see Phil and Megan watch two Tiger games together. I often see Phil and Josh share games but rarely Megan and Phil.

This is my second MS trip. The first time we drove down the Trace to Natchez. The people are so polite, helpful, kind. And yet. Mississippi Goddamn.

Grandparents

We got to spend a few days with Kevin this week. He is growing up so fast now. We took him to the historical museum, which we enjoyed more than him. I think if they had a display on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he would have been very happy. Instead it was subjects more interesting to adults.

I have no digital pictures of my grandparents so this will have to suffice.  I remember saying this week that I used to watch the Harlem Globetrotters with my grandfather. I only had one set of grandparents and he died when I was twelve.

If I have one childhood memory of a joint activity with my grandmother (who lived until I was in my mid-forties) it was of her making doll clothes for my Ginny dolls. She made them by hand and they were gorgeous. I sat at her feet and watch the dresses take shape. She even managed a cowgirl outfit when I wanted her to ride horses.

What memory do you have of something you did with a grandparent (if you were lucky enough to spend time with the,)

PS: NEAW is NEW for the new way the TMNT are now drawn.

I wish I were the kind of woman, like the one on the street right now, who is walking her dog wearing a yellow slicker with matching hat and boots instead of setting out in my regular fraying jeans and an old jacket with an umbrella that turns inside out. Perhaps her boots are too much so I would go with green wellies.
I wish I were the kind of woman who had a dog.

I wish I were the kind of woman who hops in her car and drives across the country, alone and fearless, to help Sandy victims, visit a pueblo, learn to make sourdough bread, get out the vote for President Obama.
I wish I were the kind of woman who drove a car.

Or I'd like to be the kind of women who can walk steadily in high heels, who learned to draw a perfect line on her eyelid at sixteen, who knows that the dress with the animal print that the clerks at Lord and Taylors call the Lion King dress, will not be a good choice for my daughter's wedding.
I wish I didn't have shoes, blouses, pajamas and a coat with an animal print in my closet.

I wish I read 450 books a year like Sarah Weinman. I can tell myself that I get more out of the 100 books I do read, but since I could not give you the plot of ones I read six months ago, this is not persuasive.

I wish I were the kind of person who did not create excuses to eat.
Like it really doesn't count if you eat standing up so go ahead and grab a piece of angel food cake as you walk past the box. Or that bread is so thin, three pieces of French toast will be the same calories as two. 

I wish I didn't feel compelled to report on the night's sleep I just had. And I wish Phil didn't feel compelled to tell me about his dreams.
They are so much more exciting than mine.

I wish I was finishing the story I am stuck on instead of telling myself that stream of consciousness writing can open up those brain passages.

And I did just think of an ending.

Thanks for listening.

How Do You Feel on Waking?

Clarification: I don't actually experiences nausea, I experience terror. Sorry.

I was watching a trailer for a new documentary called BRIEF ENCOUNTERS. The film maker said he woke every morning feeling sick at his stomach. I have never heard anyone else say this, but I wake every morning feeling sick at my stomach. It's not stomach related--it's non-specific fear, I think. It is not based on bad events ahead or behind me. No matter how great the day might be, I awake feeling sick at my stomach. It disappears after a bit.I've been up fifteen minutes as I type this and it is mostly gone.

I have been told it is a brain chemistry thing but I wonder how common it is.

How do you feel on waking?

Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels

Shotgun Honey brings out its first collection of stories: BOTH BARRELS. Lots of fun with my story "How to Launder a Shirt."

OFF THE RECORD: AT THE MOVIES

47 short stories, based on classic film titles...

Following the Spinetingler award nominated 'Off The Record', the charity anthology featuring stories based on classic song titles, comes the highly anticipated sequel.

This time, inspiration arrives in the form of classic film titles. With an introduction penned by Chris Ewan and featuring some of biggest and brightest names writing today including...

Will Carver, Steve Mosby, Helen FitzGerald, Adrian McKinty, Matt Hilton, Stav Sherez, Claire McGowan, Sean Cregan, David Jackson, Mel Sherratt, Nick Quantrill, Maxim Jakubowski, and many, many more...

47 writers from around the world. All coming together to raise money for two children's literacy charities...

In the UK, National Literacy Trust.

In the US, Children's Literacy Initiative.

From Crime to Fantasy, Taxi Driver to Weekend at Bernie's, there's something for everyone in this collection of 47 short stories.

And all proceeds from the sales of this anthology go directly to charity!

My story is called MERMAIDS. And it is definitely not based on the Cher movie but rather on an experience of my wild youth. 

When Your University Is Out to Get You.

Wayne State University is one of three research universities in Michigan. It has a student body exceeding 30, 000. It has a medical school, a law school, a business school and all the rest of the accoutrements of a major university. It educates many first-generation college students. With its urban mission, it is never going to have the graduation rates of U of Michigan, but tap anyone in southeast Michigan on the shoulder and it is likely they or their family members got a degree of some kind at WSU.

At the same time, the administration has always been at odds with the faculty-dating back to the eighties and a particularly contentious President. The administration sees faculty as employees, not as the bedrock of a university. Not what a university is about.

There are more administrators than faculty and the number continues to grow. As faculty take flat salary increases, the administration averages 9%.

Most, not all, of the faculty is productive. My husband, for example, has written 14 books, over fifty articles (each over 20 pages and in major journals) dozens of book reviews, presented more than a hundred conference papers. He has won awards for his teaching and research, been awarded a Distinguished Fulbright award and so on. Many faculty members have similar records.

Now the university has turned its contract negotiations over to a law firm known for an intolerance of unions. Negotiations have begun with the strong suggestion that the administration intends to possibly eliminate tenure, reduce health, eye and dental care, cut salaries, fire faculty and staff at will. The elimination of tenure would be a first in the country. It is hard to explain tenure to people outside the profession, but if you can be fired without cause, you cannot just go down the street and find another job. Universities don't work like that.

Why not fire professors making high salaries and replace them with recent Ph.Ds? Or how about going to an all online institution? Or use adjuncts to teach every course?

Can you imagine what the chances are that this university will be now be able to attract any quality professors or researchers in the coming years. Detroit is a hard sell anyway. This will make it an impossible one. And all of this comes with a strong union in place although the state's attempts to make this a "right to work" state may abolish it.

Even if this is just a negotiating ploy, the damage to the university's reputation and its ability to recruit top-notch people is permanent.

I always thought that a university had a soul that a corporation didn't share. That educating students was its primary mission. Obviously that is no longer true at Wayne State. I used to be proud of my state and the university where we worked. All of it is gone.

Wayne State's motto, on billboards everywhere, is AIM HIGHER.

INDEED!!

A clarification from a better informed source.

While striking out the Board Of Governors Statutes on de-tenuring, which include peer review and due process, the administration team did not strike out Academic-freedom Statute, even though the very statute (Appointments, Tenure, Employment Security Status, Termination and Dismissal Policies and Procedures) they want eliminated states, "Tenure is a means to certain ends, specifically 1. "Academic freedom."

The most important thing about universities is academic freedom. Without the freedom to explore alternative modes of thinking about the world, whether in politics, philosophy, literature, or science, we stagnate and ultimately wither as a society, as a species. To put people on a regime of quantified "production" as if they were turning out cars destroys the intellectual enterprise of a university and damages our students and our future. Not that for a moment we're arguing that people making cars should make less than a living wage with benefits that allow them to live a middle-class life.

Phil's April Garden

Visiting My Grandparents

Lynnewood Gardens

I recently read a story about a girl visiting her grandparents and liked the idea of writing about visiting mine. My grandfather would have been 114 this week. This remembrance just covers the years I knew them.

The years before are worthy of a noir novel. I kid you not.

From 1941 until about 1953, my grandparents, Clarence (Chick) and Dorothy (Dot) lived at Oak Terrace Country Club in Ambler, PA, where my grandfather was the manager, a job that had belonged to my father until he was drafted. This caused some tension between them over the years.

During their years at Oak Terrace, my grandmother didn't have to cook at all. She got to serve as a sort of Grande Dame, which suited her perfectly. The owner of the Club was the husband of her best friend, which worked out well too. She was able to dress for all of her meals, served in the main dining room or on the terrace. She greeted other diners, sitting at the head table.

But things changed when I was five (no one ever told me why) and my grandfather returned to architecture, a profession that never earned him much of a living. They moved to Lynnewood Gardens in Elkins Park, Pa, about fifteen minutes away from us. He specialized in designing churches and synagogues.

Unlike grandparents today (ahem!), my grandmother was stricter than my parents. I would usually stay for a few days and was expected to entertain myself without getting dirty or breaking things. I was expected to keep my nails clean, my hair combed. My brother's visits were usually separate from mine since their place was so small.

The good thing about Lynnewood Gardens was that it had a lot more open space than our row house in Philly. It also had play areas for kids. It was here that my grandfather taught me how to pump a swing. We also spent a lot of time looking for four-leaf clovers. We both liked to roll down the huge hill that ended at the playground. He was a rotund man who most often wore Bermuda shorts, socks and sandals. He liked to sit on the floor and if urged, he would draw for me.

At dinner, he ate a small dish of canned French peas with the rest of his meal every night. I never saw the attraction and wasn't made to eat them. Their apartment had just one bedroom and I slept on a daybed in the living room. The shadows on the wall at night were different from the ones at home and no one would get me water if I yelled. They pointed out they were too old to have their sleep disturbed. I could tell this was true by their joint snoring.

His favorite dessert was a Duncan Hines spice cake with chocolate icing. Dinner was unfailingly a piece of meat, a potato of some kind and a vegetable. Although my grandmother was a better cook than my mother, it was a close race.

The only books in their apartment were the Readers Digest Condensed books although my grandfather held a master's degree from Columbia University. They both liked to play cards and we would do that at night as I got a bit older. My grandmother made beautiful clothes (by hand) for my dolls. My grandfather encouraged me to talk about adult things. We never left the apartment complex that I can remember. When I visited, it was there I stayed.

Their favorite TV shows were Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, and Bonanza. In the daytime, my grandmother watched THE EDGE OF NIGHT, and an ongoing argument until my mother went back to work, was which was better that or THE GUIDING LIGHT.

When they moved into the apartment, they had no furniture so they bought it all new. It was the mid-century look that's become popular again today and I have some of it still. They liked to have parties and serve highballs and dance. Those country club days were never far away.

My grandfather died of a heart attack in 1960. They were returning from the movie PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES. I was home watching THE TWILIGHT ZONE-the one where Burgess Meredith breaks his glasses at the end.

After that my grandmother lived down the street from us for eight years before marrying again. Although it was one block away and she was only in her fifties, no one ever thought of her walking down the street to visit us. Someone always picked her up. Still the grande dame.

Was visiting your grandparents similar to this?

The Things We Carry

Check out the second story, an excerpt from the Cash Laramie series with a Nik Morton penned episode, on FIRES ON THE PLAIN.

(Not our hallway)

We recently redid our front hallway and the job necessitated taking down a lot of stuff and storing it for two weeks because it was a dusty dirty job. When the time came to restore order, it seemed like a good time to sort through the accessories, artwork, books, and plants and discard some, bring some new things into the room, change the look. Update the dining room on one side of the hall and living room on the other. Perhaps have a more minimalist look.

I was very surprised to find how many items, we disagreed on. Paintings I liked, Phil was tired of. Plants he liked were dull and messy to me. He was sick of a quilt I hung in the dining room and found no charm in my magic ball that changes colors. He was tired of the vases across the fireplace, I thought a lot of the books could go upstairs or better still to a charity. He wanted to bring back a ceramic piece we had over the fireplace a few years back. None of this amounted to a fight (okay, maybe the quilt did) but we seemed to have very different ideas of what to change.

Would this be true in your house? Do you and your housemate differ on how the rooms should look. Most of you men could probably care less, but would you let your wife pick the paint color and hang the paintings without any input from you?

Is redecorating as combative as putting the lights on a Christmas tree used to be?

How Long Did You Know Your Spouse Before Marrying?

I am often taken aback at how quickly people got married several generations ago compared to the time they seem to spend together before marriage today. I know of engagements that last years after relationships that lasted years.

We met the summer of '65, weeks after I graduated from high school and married in January of '67. No one told us this was a short engagement although they did remark we were awfully young.

How long did it take you to tie the knot if there is a knot? From the first date to the wedding--how long was it?

Nostalgia Index

If 10 indicates you are consumed with memories of the past, and zero represents the past is dead to you, where would you put yourself on the scale and what in particular ties you to the past? Or doesn't.

I'd say 6.5. And it would be memories of old movies, books and TV shows rather than people or places.

Phil picks 3. I'd better not leave the room.

Happy Anniversary to the World's Best Husband

Forty-five years ago, a nineteen year old girl and a twenty-two year old boy got married. Our courtship was short and we really didn't know each other the way couples today seem to after prolonged relationships. He was beginning graduate school and in those days, that was a good reason to get married--so we wouldn't be separated. We both like to read, see movies. That seemed like enough at nineteen.


Phil has never said a mean word to me. Not once. I have never gone to bed angry, sad or worried about anything to do with him. He has been my biggest bolster, my best friend. When people comment on the success of our marriage, it is truly because of Phil, the biggest blessing in my life. I am just the free rider on this journey.

Ten Things I'd Like to See Retired in 2012

1. The Kardashians-even though I am not quite sure who or what they are.
2. Any play or musical with the word "Nun" in it. (Nothing against a serious look at a nun, just these insipid shows).
3. Al Sharpton as a TV host
4. Netflix
5. GOP debates
6. Discussion over whether Zooey Deschanel or James Franco are cute or annoying. I vote ANNOYING.
7. Attempts by Amazon to take over the world.
8. Real Housewives from anywhere
9. Man v. Food and Dinners, Drive-in and Dives. (Sorry, Phil)
10. The one-percent.

Adding: British royalty and the New York Times insistence on only showing high-priced fashions, homes, food, marriages. Do they think only the wealthy peruse their pages? I may be just getting started.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? WHAT HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH OF?

TUCSON

Just booked a trip to Tucson to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary in January. What books have you read set in Tuscon or Arizona that would enrich our experience? Any advice on sites we should see or good restaurants. Thanks!

The Inheritance

My children are comfortable in a lot of places. Between them-- a courtroom, a classroom, a tennis court, a conference room, city streets, entertainment venues.

Where neither seem particularly happy is in nature. We never took them camping or went on hikes or did much of any outdoor sport. Ice skating was all about the cocoa. They were suburban kids.

I feel we let them down in this area. I doubt either of them could name a tree or plant or bird they came across outdoors. Our one attempt to fish ended up with swimmer's itch from parasites in the lake.

I went to camp as a kid and was exposed to some of this and my husband grew up in the country and did all those country boy things. But the little we knew, we failed to pass on.

What did you fail to introduce to your kids? Or what did your parents not introduce to you? Do you feel you missed something important?

Pictures of Phil's Garden

I cannot take any credit at all for this. But I do point out weeds.

COLUMBUS QUILT SHOW

These were some of my favorite quilts at the National Quilt Show, which I was able to attend in Columbus. There were many gorgeous traditional quilts but these caught my eye.

I also watched an enormous Gay Pride parade, simultaneously watching city workers trying to obliterate painted swastikas from the sidewalks.
I saw THE WIZARD OF OZ on a big screen at a fantastic vintage theater (The Ohio), visited the Warren G. Harding and James Thurber Houses, visited the art museum, a topiary modeled on SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, and met the fabulous Naomi Johnson. I am ticking you people off one by one. No one will escape my stretch and only death will deter me.

My one grievance-how can I travel without packing? When I add up the time spent packing and unpacking, figuring out what to take, where to put it, what suitcases to use, it's nuts.
Do you dread packing as much as I do? Do any of you men pack for yourself. I have been persuaded that it's my womanly duty.