Last night’s WPCA-FM broadcast of my stories featured Holding The Fort, a tale found in The Second Gathering Of The Break Time Stories and as an ebook in Four More Break Time Stories. The setting: Fort Thomas, Arizona. The characters: the narrator and Oral, both of whom were Vietnam era Army drill instructors, and Oral’s young wife, Janet. The issues: small town racial attitudes between Whites and the Native Americans living on the reservation adjacent to Oral’s ranch. I’ve had one person who heard me read this story in public ask me to do a follow-up on what happened to Oral and Janet, so some people do track with this story’s characters. I take that as a good sign.
That brings up something for me as an author and that is, for me at least, while I may think a story is good, it takes other people saying so to validate my opinion. Until I had some public appreciation for my stories, I hesitated to put them in front of critics. For example, The St.Paul Pioneer Press’ Mary Ann Grossmann has seen only my latest book, the Six Short Stories volume, because I didn’t have the courage to send her the two Break Time Stories volumes, which also had printing problems in their first editions. I’ve had enough experience now to be confident about what I’ve done. In any event, the stories are out there, for better or worse, and my hope is that people will enjoy them.
No snow yet. It has been unseasonably warm with little moisture lately. Fire danger warnings are out. Cabin people that come here for the weekend don’t know about the restrictions and that makes things dangerous. They love to have an atmospheric campfire going and all it would take is a spark. I remember what it was like to evacuate the Laurel Canyon fire back in about 1958-1959. I was a kid, rattled by the desperate honking of the cars lined up behind my vapor locking car as we lurched down the hills to the Sunset Strip. It was no fun. Behind my home now lie acres of woods with dry leaves and just to the north of me lives an elderly couple with mobility issues that would have problems if they had to quickly evacuate their home. There is a possibility for rain this coming Saturday.
Daylight Savings Time ended last weekend and this is the first year that the change has affected me negatively. This year I find the change physically hard. Perhaps that’s just part of getting older.
This Sunday I’m taking the service at Wolf Creek United Methodist Church. They broadcast services on You Tube, so my mess-ups are out there for people of the world to see whenever they like.