Another Vivid Snapshot...

I was going to start organizing a collection of poems I wrote as a teenager. I was looking for one particular one. It was an assignment for, of all classes, the Glee Club. Our Glee Club wasn’t anything like the modern Glee Club featured on prime time television. No, a stocky young woman who wore dated dresses and very little makeup taught our class. She had very rosy cheeks, a warm welcoming smile, and she cared about her students. Back in 1969, it wasn’t all about showmanship; we wore choir robes (in our school colors of emerald green and white), we stood very still, we were focused, and we sang. Period. Today, I don’t remember if it was her first year teaching at the high school I attended, only because, it happened to be my first year at a new school too.

The reason I was looking for this particular poem is because it was the first poem I read that evoked physical emotion as I read it. I barely could finish the last few lines. In between, the black mascara streaking down my face and trying to get a grip on my runny nose, I looked up to see tears welling up in several of the other girl’s eyes, including my instructor’s. It was a lengthily poem with two voices, one of a son, the other was his mother. It was written in letter form, the gist of the poem goes like this…the son joins the service, Viet Nam was the senseless war going on, the son asked his mother if…I lost a leg/legs…if I lost an arm/arms…her reply was, “I will always love you.” The poem ended with the loss of the son’s life and the mother’s mournful words.

If I hadn’t lost someone I loved, and another I cared for, to the meaningless and pointless Viet Nam War, maybe it wouldn’t have affected me so much and read the poem without a hitch. On the other hand, I was always terrified about being in front of the class…no, I’m sure the reason was the latter. I never did find the poem and I don’t know why I felt like I needed to find it today; I haven’t thought about it in years. But, the vivid snapshot of that memory was with me today, I only wanted to validate it.

Each, and every time I sit down to write, I discover something new about myself, and about others. Some days, I get off track like I did today. The story I am writing features a character that came back from Nam and hurt someone he loves horrifically, it triggered the memory of my choir class being in the school library…the nervous me standing in front of the class behind a podium, my sweaty, shaking hands holding my handwritten poem, all eyes upon me.

My mind works like this all the time. It gets me from sunrise to sunset every day. The unconscious part of me knows more about me than the conscious mind will ever admit. Writing for me, is like dreaming, then, I start thinking. What if I suddenly saw my life from a different perspective? What if I had a real glimpse of the face behind the mask? What if I really saw the one I may have forgotten, the one I have lost, or the one that made me afraid? Would I still like me?

Writing has become an adventure into the unknown, like opening Pandora’s Box. It stirs up old forgotten memories, sometimes making me feel anxious or exposed. Other memories, the pleasant ones, the snapshots of wonderful moments, those are the ones I sometime carry through my written words. Something important lies hidden—something that matters inside that my pen must unleash—something that will be revealed, on another day…

Peace...

A Day on the Road...

Yesterday, we took a “skip day” and went on our weekly bike ride in the mountains of North Carolina. Every time we go up, we try to explore different winding back roads. The kind of back roads you wouldn’t want to break down on. I’m not saying this because of the old scary notion the movie Deliverance put in your mind about southern back roads, “Paddle faster, I hear banjo music,” but because they are desolate, miles from the nearest home and unlikely to get a cell phone signal.

It’s hard to think of banjo music and breaking down when it’s the perfect temperature, the wind is at your back, the sun is in your face and warming your bare shoulders. What I did think about was, moonshine. I envisioned the hills filled with copper stills and bootleggers, and the pesky revenuers sneaking through the underbrush ready to demolish the still with a pickax.

The term moonshine goes back to a time when folks avoiding liquor authorities made their own booze by the light of the moon. This illicit spirit has also been called mountain dew (yes, you now know the soda reference), and white lightning. The term “moonshine” has a romantic, naughty ring to it that reminds you of two strappin’ good lookin’ boys in a souped up orange car called the General Lee helping out their poor old moonshinin’ Uncle Jesse.

Moonshine’s mystique is drawn in part from the danger people associate with it, but it’s reputation as an illegal and potentially hazardous elixar has little to do with why it is on the verge of earning mainstream respectability. It has less to do with mythology than drinkability.

Most do-it-yourselfers, stick to traditional recipes. The basics: boil the corn and let it ferment a few days. Then cook the "mash" in the still. As the vapors cool inside the contraption, alcohol runs out. A few make it from granulated sugar instead of grain.

The advise anyone will give you who brews it or has drank any amount of it will tell you, "If you take a big sip you'd have about three steps where you'd have to sit down or fall down.” At 190 or 200 proof, the brew has a bad kick. A little more than a big swig, you could instantly become knee walkin’ drunk, and we know depending who you are, that may not be a pretty picture!

It doesn’t matter to some that much of it doesn’t taste good or doesn’t have much taste. It’s like drinking EverClear, with an aftertaste somewhere between hominy, and stale wet cardboard. It’s one of those experiences one can't turn down, once.

We pulled into a one-pump station to gas up. A friendly old timer with a spirited sense of humor was drinking a tall glass of sweet tea in front of the old station and country store. We struck up a conversation as we drank our icy Mountain Dew’s about moonshine and some of the notorious bootleggers of the 20th century. He remembered a story of a young local moonshiner and a revenuer, “The young moonshiner told of how a tax man came up to him asked him where his family was. "At the still," he said. "Then he told he'd give me a dollar if I took him to the still," said the moonshiner, from Roanoke. The revenuer said he'd give him the dollar when he got back. "I had to tell him, 'Mister, you ain't comin' back.”

We laughed. He also informed us, moonshing was a serious business and Franklin County, NC has never been much ashamed of its long association with untaxed liquor. He went on to tell us about NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Junior Johnson was from this area and before becoming a racer he hauled moonshine on these very same mountain roads. I verified that when we got got home on the Internet and sure enough, he did, in an article written by Al Pearce:
“NASCAR Hall of Fame driver and team owner Junior Johnson won 47 poles and 50 races in his 11-year career, but he staunchly refused to go road racing until 1965, the year he quit driving. Johnson said this about his one start at Riverside, Calif.: "That place was right up my alley. I was driving for Ford, and they kept trying to get me out there because I was familiar with roads. (Before becoming a racer, Johnson hauled moonshine on mountain roads in western North Carolina). But I wouldn't go because" its right-hand turns "exposed the driver to the wall.”

I’m sure there are more NASCAR drivers with the same history as Junior, and there’s still a whole lot of moonshin’ goin’ on in these parts of the South. With the biggest issue being, the state/federal misses out on taxes that it would collect through a legal purchase.

It was great conversation with the old gentleman and it was the icing on the cake of a perfect mountain ride. Until next time…Peace.

Today's Thoughts...On Writing

I read a story that was published on a social network recently. It was about an incident that happened when this person was a teenager. I knew the people involved in the historical account and I was disturbed that something so personal was shared without theirs, or their family’s permission. I questioned the motives behind it, and even they thought it was an innocent reflection, it helped me think about my own boundaries, my own ethics of writing. I do not write, even in my own journal, about any of the painful aspects of the lives of my adult children or friends. I may note some publicly known fact such as a serious illness, or some joyful achievement or even a funny episode in family life. Even for that, however, I ask their permission. Their lives are sacred and have no place on my pages. Other people in my life, however, do sometimes find themselves on my pages. They are fictionalized so much that only the person in question might guess. I have changed the gender, age, description, and place of residence; I have altered histories, and distorted the truth on purpose, all for the sake of disguise.

On the other hand, my life is an open book. Someone someday, may read it, whether it’s published or not. There are some things that I do not write anywhere, not even in my journal. Everyone’s boundaries are their own, what would be intolerable self-revelation to one person is of no consequence to another. I know the danger of keeping a journal; someone may know who I really am. Or, more accurately, someone may know who I am in the moments I am writing, and mistakenly think I am like that all the time. Because sadness drives me to write on many occasions more than celebration steers me, someone reading my journal would conclude I am sad much more of the time than is true.

From the time I was nine years old and wrote my first poem, writing has been the way I survive. It has been my “art” form and it was the way I fit in. Franz Kafka said, “Writing means revealing oneself to excess.” I strive to leave judgment to others and try to be as honest as I can. In one way or another, all writing is a confession. Confession or vulnerability masked and revealed in the voice of words.

I know that my writing has drawn people to me, and it has pushed people away. I know that the “me” revealed on my pages is not always the “me” that is seen across a table at a local pub or deli. I know that some of my friends can’t deal with the more complicated “me” they meet on my pages. I can’t help that. They can understand or they choose not to, it’s their choice.

Peace...