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Ha! Looks like Gary likes women. I like Gary.
Truth be told, I Knew a Man …
… and the man grew up in poverty during the depression. He protected his mother and little sister from his father’s outbursts.
I knew a man.
In the late 1930’s and early 40’s, he had two role models, two men he looked up to.
One was William H. Govan, the “water boy” for a small town football team. The “Negro” man, who served in WWI, showed compassion for the young kids, gave them doses of support and kindness, showed them how to stand up for themselves, and when they grew old enough to fight in WWII, he wrote to each and every one of them.
I knew a man. And he told me, “H. Govan was one of the best men I ever met.”
The second person he looked up to was his grandfather, a true Texas cowboy who could roll and light a cigarette with one hand while leading a string of 18 horses into town. Because of his grandfather’s teaching, this man learned to be a cowboy. So I painted his grandfather’s picture from a photo and gave it to him.
When the man joined the Army in 1942, he became a boxer. I painted this from a photograph.
Then, he met a woman, the love of his life. They had two children.
The four of them lived, loved and grew. Then, many years and anniversaries later, his wife died.
On this man’s death bed, I painted him another picture. I hung it on the wall next to where he lay, eagerly waiting to join his wife in the hereafter.
The man I knew said, smiling, “That’s me riding off in the sunset, ain’t it?”
“Yes, Daddy,” I told him.
“You gonna publish that book about me, No Hill For a Stepper,?” he said.
He’d read the draft and kept it next to his recliner in the family room for visitor viewing.
“Who do you think will play me in the movie?” He’d said it so seriously it made me smile and ponder at the same time.
Two years after he died, No Hill For a Stepper was officially published in 2011.
I knew a man. That man was my father. He wasn’t flawless. None of us are. But he told me stories, taught me how to throw a football, and when I was faced with a challenge, he said, “Hell, Carolyn. That ain’t no hill for a stepper.”
This man, Cono Dennis, is still one of the best men I’ve ever met.
Do I Look Different? It’s still me!
Up to now, I’ve ignored those who’ve said, “You need an author brand.”
An author brand? Like a tattoo?
But I’m still a WIP (work in progress), and will continue to be.
I honestly don’t know how to promote a product. Never have. At sixteen, I was hired as a telephone solicitor for a small local newspaper. When the voice through the receiver said, “not interested,” I hung up. I was supposed to continue with the written script of “what do say if they say no.” I interpreted this as, keep dogging them, pound them into the ground until their meatloaf starts to burn and they have to say yes.
Three days later, relief hit my young, growing bones like a hot bath.
So, I suck at self promotion.
I also have a nephew who is a social media savvy. And guess what? Now my page looks different and might continue with tweaks until I breathe out a “yes, much better!”
Be patient with me.
(By the way, that newspaper company went out of business soon after I was fired.)
Hyperbole
Death loves no one
Uplifting words.
Blog Envy
Feeling blog envy now. Going back to bed.
Daily Prompt: Bludgeon
This is what first comes to mind:
If we concentrate on the verb — “to force into something; coerce; bully,” then I think of politics and the media. Sad.
Who Needs to be a copycat when
… we can all be wonderfully creative?
I love diversity of all kinds. Diversity adds to our awareness. Besides, I live in Austin, Texas where our slogan is:
RIP, Leslie. You were a pleasure to meet.
photo by Steven Hopson
If you must be a copycat, copy the good in people!
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/copycat/ via @postaday
Eerie is researching an Insane Asylum
Beginning in 1889, the Southwestern Insane Asylum thrived in San Antonio. The facility occupied 640 acres and could hold 500 patients.
Excerpt from The Last Bordello:
“Ticktock, ticktock, they’ll put you under key and lock,” she’d said. Lucinda had made good on her threat.
Too skinny from institution mush, my skin peeled off a layer at a time. Curled on top of a thin, lumpy mattress on a rusted bed frame, I traced the scratches on the wall made by another’s bloodied nails, the dark red stains proof of another’s determination to escape a world unworthy of its inhabitant.
Earlier, the attendant had pushed my forehead back and forced open my jaw. Unnecessary effort on his part. The medicinal haze thickened. I found myself calm but without spirit.
Strange how I felt erased, yet without the rubber remnants to remind me I once existed.
Any bits of green paint that had remained on the wall, I peeled off the first day. I didn’t know if I had been there three weeks or three months.
The cell remained still, inactive, and almost empty. A bucket to catch my excrement. The bed, fetid like the bucket; the whole place a shit hole.
A cockroach scurrying across the floor would have been a welcome sight. Or a black widow working tirelessly to create a fine net to catch its prey. I stared at my idle hands.
I wanted to float outside where flowers bloomed, where the great oaks of San Antonio provided shade from the sun. The rattle of trains and trolleys would have been welcome sounds over the never-ending cries and moans of despair.
Despair. “Do not cry. Do not cry,” I told myself. But tears came anyway. It didn’t matter. If they heard, they never came.
My eyes blurred as if I were drunk. I trembled like the women escorted to surgery before their reproductive parts were cut away and discarded like the contents of my shit bucket.
I heard the click of a door key. It wasn’t mealtime. They had already drugged me. What did they want? Confusion—as potent as a heaping spoonful of laudanum laced with arsenic.
The attendant in white stood firm, stoic. “Come with me.”
Eerie indeed.
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 