Roland Yeomans’ Novel, Let the Wind Blow Through You, Free for Kindle

Roland Yeomans, as many of you already know, is a prolific and awesome writer. His poetic prose never ceases to amaze me.

Now one of his stunning novels, Let the Wind Blow Through You, is free for Kindle through Wednesday. It’s the story of Luke,  a Lakota psychologist, and Victoria, the dying love of his life and crime Lord of her state. How do you go on when the situation is fatal?  Luke uses the teachings of his Lakota grandfather in an attempt to live and die with grace.

 

 

I’m about to review this novel by Shelli Johnson that absolutely stunned me with its brilliant prose and gripping story. A self-published book that is perfectly formatted. A story that in many ways is like my own childhood, though mine wasn’t as tragic. An incredible story of family. Of “ties that bind,” and of love and redemption. I sobbed at the end of it – and I rarely cry. Life’s realities have made me tough. But this prize-winning novel – WOW.

As you know, when we self-publish we have to promote our own book. So here’s my novella - again. I haven’t yet done an official blog tour, so if any of you would be willing to let me guest post about it,  I would be extremely grateful!

I posted an excerpt of it in my last post. If you didn’t read it and would like to, here it is again. To those of you who have downloaded it to your Kindle, I thank you and hope you enjoy it. If you do, I’d really appreciate a review.

Excerpt from Imprisoned. A scene near the center of the story about how one woman, a Russian who came to America (to Salt Lake City), survived when her husband Jimmy kept her and her young son Denis imprisoned in his house. This scene is the lowest point in Svetlana’s new life, at what would be called a “plot point” in screenwriting terms. It’s a major turning point for her and her son.

As soon as [Jimmy] left for work, I layered me and Denis in as many clothes as I could. We had our fur hats and mittens, and two extra pairs of socks I stuffed in our pockets. I wrapped my beautiful wool shawl around my shoulders, grabbed a chunk of bread and put it in a sack with a package of crackers, took Denis by the hand, and stepped onto the porch. I made certain to lock the front door. I was never going to come back

“Where are we going, Mama?” Denis asked as we walked down the steps.

“We are going to Sugarhouse Park,” I said.

The sky was cloudless and blue, the air bitterly cold.

When we got to the park, we watched a few ducks waddle on the frozen pond. We fed them cracker crumbs, and ate some of the crackers too, and the bread. By five-thirty it was dark and we were the only ones in the park.

We were cold and hungry. I needed food so my mind would not feel so thin. Where was my purse? It felt like an electric shock through my body as I realized I had forgotten my purse with the money that was left from my two hundred dollars. I had no money with me.

“Maybe we should go back to Jimmy’s house,” I said to Denis.

He stiffened and cried out, “No. I’m scared.”

I was numb from exhaustion as I lifted him up on the park bench. I put a pair of socks on his hands under his mittens, and in the restroom scooped hot water from my hands onto his face. Then I washed my face and dried both of us with a paper towel. My head throbbed. It would have been warmer to sit on the restroom floor for the night, but I was afraid someone would come in and do something bad to us.

Outside, I sat on one of the benches under the star-flecked sky and put Denis’s head in my lap and my warm Russian shawl over his body. He closed his eyes. He felt warm in my lap, but I wasn’t, even in my fur coat.

He seemed to be sleeping fitfully, and I thought maybe we should go back to Jimmy’s house. And then I said a loud, “No.” But what should I do? I didn’t want to impose again on the Maddocks. Who could I call? But I had no money to call anyone.

Something, maybe a bad dream, startled Denis, and he opened his eyes and started to cry. I lifted him in my arms and started walking. “I am going to take you somewhere warm,” I said.

I had taken only a few steps in the direction of Jimmy’s house when it began to snow. Heavy flakes soon coated the ground, and I stepped carefully as I headed for the I-80 underpass. At the bridge I lowered myself, with Denis in my arms, and crouched against one of the cement pillars. He must have felt warm and safe against my body because within minutes he fell asleep. I also wanted to drift into sleep, but my fingers and toes were icy, and I shivered as I stared at the road that looked sleety in the light from passing cars. I was so cold I began wondering how it would feel to freeze to death. Suddenly I did not care if I did.

I huddled with Denis in my arms not far from the edge of the street. A lot of cars passed, and then I saw two huge bright lights in the dark. The eyes of a truck. Too hungry and cold to think rationally, I thought, This is my truck. One, two, three steps and we would be in its path.

Bestsellers in Marriage: one of my life’s little ironies.

Just discovered that my memoir In the Mirror is in the top 15 (as of this moment) under Bestsellers in Marriage on Amazon. That category makes me smile. In my case, it’s a bit ironic considering I’ve had two failed marriages (LOTS of laughter). But it’s still also #1 in the memoirs categories (Kindle Store, Biographies, Books), which makes me smile, too. If you type memoir without the “s” it’ll come up #3 in one of these categories. I’ll never understand the vagaries of Amazon ratings!

Then, there’s my self-published novella, Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova’s Memoir. I’m proud of this story too, partly because I learned how to get it up all by myself on Amazon. And I took it down several times to fix formatting and some other tiny errors because I’m a perfectionist and wanted it letter perfect. There’s no small or large press behind it. Just me. I didn’t do a blog tour back in November because there were so many other blog tours going on, so now if I want to get the word out, I’ve got to do it.

For those of you who haven’t yet read it: It’s not a How To book in the strictest sense. But it’s a HOW book. How one woman, a Russian who came to America (to Salt Lake City), survived when her husband Jimmy kept her and her young son Denis imprisoned in his house. Here’s a sample from it – at the lowest point in Svetlana’s new life; at what would be called a “plot point” in screenwriting terms. It’s a major turning point especially for her and her son.

As soon as [Jimmy] left for work, I layered me and Denis in as many clothes as I could. We had our fur hats and mittens, and two extra pairs of socks I stuffed in our pockets. I wrapped my beautiful wool shawl around my shoulders, grabbed a chunk of bread and put it in a sack with a package of crackers, took Denis by the hand, and stepped onto the porch. I made certain to lock the front door. I was never going to come back

“Where are we going, Mama?” Denis asked as we walked down the steps.

“We are going to Sugarhouse Park,” I said.

The sky was cloudless and blue, the air bitterly cold.

The Park in Winter: courtesy SkyT via Yelp

When we got to the park, we watched a few ducks waddle on the frozen pond. We fed them cracker crumbs, and ate some of the crackers too, and the bread. By five-thirty it was dark and we were the only ones in the park.

We were cold and hungry. I needed food so my mind would not feel so thin. Where was my purse? It felt like an electric shock through my body as I realized I had forgotten my purse with the money that was left from my two hundred dollars. I had no money with me.

“Maybe we should go back to Jimmy’s house,” I said to Denis.

He stiffened and cried out, “No. I’m scared.”

I was numb from exhaustion as I lifted him up on the park bench. I put a pair of socks on his hands under his mittens, and in the restroom scooped hot water from my hands onto his face. Then I washed my face and dried both of us with a paper towel. My head throbbed. It would have been warmer to sit on the restroom floor for the night, but I was afraid someone would come in and do something bad to us.

Outside, I sat on one of the benches under the star-flecked sky and put Denis’s head in my lap and my warm Russian shawl over his body. He closed his eyes. He felt warm in my lap, but I wasn’t, even in my fur coat.

He seemed to be sleeping fitfully, and I thought maybe we should go back to Jimmy’s house. And then I said a loud, “No.” But what should I do? I didn’t want to impose again on the Maddocks. Who could I call? But I had no money to call anyone.

Something, maybe a bad dream, startled Denis, and he opened his eyes and started to cry. I lifted him in my arms and started walking. “I am going to take you somewhere warm,” I said.

I had taken only a few steps in the direction of Jimmy’s house when it began to snow. Heavy flakes soon coated the ground, and I stepped carefully as I headed for the I-80 underpass. At the bridge I lowered myself, with Denis in my arms, and crouched against one of the cement pillars. He must have felt warm and safe against my body because within minutes he fell asleep. I also wanted to drift into sleep, but my fingers and toes were icy, and I shivered as I stared at the road that looked sleety in the light from passing cars. I was so cold I began wondering how it would feel to freeze to death. Suddenly I did not care if I did.

I huddled with Denis in my arms not far from the edge of the street. A lot of cars passed, and then I saw two huge bright lights in the dark. The eyes of a truck. Too hungry and cold to think rationally, I thought, This is my truck. One, two, three steps and we would be in its path.

You can find the novella here where you can also download a longer free sample.

And so  that you’ll have a warm feeling instead of a cold one from that passage, here’s a happier picture of Sugarhouse Park – in the “desert” city where I grew up.

Summer at the Park

Blogger Spotlights: Melissa Ann Goodwin & Susan Kaye Quinn

From the reviews posted on the author’s blog it’s obvious that:

• Children love this book.
• Adults love this book.

And I, a senior citizen, love this book.

I finished the last Kindle page of it two days ago and thought, “Wow.” It reminded me of a long ago era, when I was a teenager  in the 1950s, and read and reread and reread Miracle on 34th Street, never realizing at the time that it would be a “classic.”

I think Melissa Ann Goodwin’s story The Christmas Village will be a classic also – if it gets the readership it deserves. I hope it does.

It’s a time travel story, back to the past, that’s filled with surprising twists and turns. But I won’t say what they are as I don’t want to spoil them! Nothing was predictable, right up to the end. The other amazing thing about it is how Melissa used the past – 1932, the Depression era – to parallel the “present,” which is 2007.

This is the brief synopsis on Melissa’s blog: Jamie wished that he could live in his grandma’s perfect little Christmas village, and now that wish has magically come true. But is the village really what it seems? What stunning secret does it hold? And how will Jamie ever get back home? Join the fun, come along on the adventure, and find out!

IMO, it’s a wonderful adventure. The writing is perfect. Melissa is a master of both dialogue and description. Here’s a brief example that I like very much: Gray clouds had gathered overhead while they talked, erasing the blue sky and blocking the sun. Nothing particularly extraordinary – except … erasing the blue sky. I had never thought of clouds erasing the sky!

The dialogue is excellent. An example (at 57% on my Kindle reader):

Jamie and his friend Chris have just helped a hobo.

“That was nice of you,” Jamie said. “I was a little afraid of him at first.”

Chris said, “For all we know, a few years ago he could have been a successful businessman. Or a decorated war veteran. These days [the Great Depression] there’s no way to tell. Everyone hasn’t been as lucky as we have. I just hope he doesn’t use that dime to get swacked.”

“Swacked?”

“Snookered. Tanked.”

Jame looked at Chris like he was speaking Chinese. “You’ve never heard those words?” Chris asked. “Where are you from, the dark ages?”

No. Jamie is from the future, 2007. And the most interesting thing is, I’m thinking: This sounds like 2012!

That is what I love about this story. Melissa has done a stunning job of creating a story that connects past and present; that shows how we’re connected to those who have gone before us – ancestors, friends.

The real world is always in the background because as the story begins, Jamie’s father has just left him and his mother. But for a while we don’t know why, and that’s good. It increases the suspense, and makes the “magic” in the story so welcome. I love the magic in it, the kind of magic I believed in when I was a child – and in some more realistic ways still do.

That’s what I love about stories. In the hands of a great writer, they can take us out of the ordinary world and, at the same time, bring it into sharper focus – and leave us smiling whenever we remember it. I’m smiling now .

I highly recommend this delightful story that isn’t just for Christmas, but for anytime of the year – and for anyone who is young, or young at heart.

Go Here to Find Melissa, and all the places where you can buy The Christmas Village.
And she’s working on a sequel!

****

For Valentine’s Day, here’s an anthology of stories that includes one penned by blogger and young adult novelist Susan Kaye Quinn. The book will be in print later, but right now it’s free on Smashwords, and only $.99 on Kindle, a collection of romantic stories to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I just purchased it on Kindle. It will be interesting to read a story from a male POV. Raf is the narrator. Here’s a “peek” into the story, compliments of the author:

Every time I see her, she surprises me. Not in a charming or tantalizing way, although there’s no question she captivates me. She surprises me because there’s no whisper warning of her presence like with everyone else in Warren Township High, where the dull roar of thoughts from the throng of students in the hallway practically drowns out my own.

Not only is this an excellent example of Susan’s vivid writing, it is also an intriguing beginning. I want to read more!

This is what Susan’s says about the anthology: It includes my short story prequel to Open Minds called Mind Games: Raf, a regular mindreader, is in love with Kira, the only girl in school who can’t read minds. Raf struggles to keep his thoughts about her private, but secrets are something that only zeros like Kira can keep. As he works up the nerve to ask Kira to the mindware Games, his friends have other games in mind for him.

If you’ve read Open Minds … and want more Raf & Kira, this short romantic story from Raf’s POV is just the thing to snuggle up to for Valentine’s Day. If you haven’t read Open Minds … there are no spoilers in Mind Games, and it will hopefully lead you straight to wanting to learn more about Raf, Kira, and their mindreading world.

You can find both books on Susan’s blog where you can also read a sample of her full-length novel Open Minds that has garnered some great reviews. Way to go, Susan!

Update: Deadline extended for free copy of In the Mirror . . . and how to Live to 100

Yesterday I put up a long post, with excerpts and pictures, with the announcement that through today the memoir is free on Kindle.

In the Mirror: A Memoir of Shattered Secrets

Just got word from my publisher: it’s doing so well that we’ve extended the deadline. It’s now free through Sunday on Amazon.

This perks me up! And just as I found a list on the Internet that speaks to me. I’m going to do this!

It’s called How to Live to 100  – Starting Today. My mother made it to 97. If I have the genes for this, well, I’ll be glad since I want to be here, strong and healthy, to take care of my daughter.

It’s the strong and healthy that’s the kicker. So, here’s the list (go here for the complete text):

1. Learn from the pros:  . . . Think more good thoughts, drink enough water regularly, breathe deeply daily, walk regularly, and have friendships.
2. Be in good spirits: The most essential live-to-100 tip . . .  is recognize that you create your perceptions from the inside out.
3. Take anxiety and stress seriously: Don’t just tolerate feeling anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed all the time – find a solution.
4. Drink water: Start your day with 16 to 32 ounces of water. Fill your tank – your body – with water. If you think you’re hungry, drink water. We often confuse hunger for thirst.

I do know that when I’m not stressed out, I have more energy and the writing flows. What about you?

In the Mirror: A Memoir of Shattered Secrets Free for Two Days – Excerpts & Pictures

In the Mirror is free today and tomorrow on Kindle.

In the Mirror: A Memoir of Shattered Secrets

Here are some brief excerpts from it, if you haven’t yet read it, and some pictures
(from Google) of a few places where we lived.

My husband Larry got accepted to graduate school at the University of Connecticut the fall of 1968. “We moved east and rented a two-bedroom duplex, one of a circle of duplexes in Woodlawn Apartments off Bicknell Road. I loved the names of the roads. I loved the trees. Growing up in the Salt Lake desert I never saw so many trees . . .”

This photograph (from Google) is an autumn picture of Ashford Lake. Growing up in the Utah desert, I had never seen such autumn colors. We lived in the town of Ashford, and a husband and wife we knew from Utah were also graduate students at UConn. Larene babysit for me the night my son was born, , January 9, 1970, in Willimantic, Connecticut.

Ashford Lake, Connecticut

I have good and bad memories from our three years “in the woods.” I didn’t know why Larry wanted me to go for counseling with him. I didn’t know until after we moved back to Utah that it was on the UConn campus that he made his first “gay” contact.

The summer of 1971 we moved  back to Utah from Connecticut.

(From In the Mirror): We rented an apartment in Provo, and in the fall Larry resumed teaching at BYU, mostly freshman composition and introduction to literature courses. The following summer we bought our first home, a three-bedroom split-level in Orem, a fifteen-minute drive from campus. Housing prices were rising, but we had a mortgage locked in at two hundred twenty-four dollars a month. We would own our first home in 2003.
Not long after we moved in, Larry said he was seeing a counselor again.
“What‟s his name?”
“Roland Barker.”
“Is he off-campus?”
“No. He’s a counselor at BYU.”
“Can we afford this?” I paid the bills, but I hadn’t seen one from Dr. Barker.
“He’s giving me a faculty discount.”
He didn’t say why he was seeing him, and didn’t ask me to go with him.
*
He started going back to campus almost every day after dinner. The first Wednesday in December he didn‟t come home for dinner and didn‟t call. Twice I called his office. No answer. Finally, I fed the children and was rinsing dishes when he walked through the door.
“We ate,” I said in a tight voice.
“You don‟t have to wait for me.” His voice was tight, too.
“You didn‟t call. I wondered what happened. I was worried.”
He set his briefcase on the floor. I put my arms around his neck and tried to kiss him the way I always did when he came home, but his lips barely brushed mine. He pulled away and went to the refrigerator. Opening a can of Dr. Pepper, he picked up his briefcase and went upstairs. I finished the dishes and went down to the family room. The children were watching television. I sat beside Eric.
Two hours later the children were in bed, their doors closed. Larry was in our bedroom, writing in his journal. He didn‟t glance up as I passed the half-open door.

*

From the kitchen window of our three-story split level home, we had an awesome view of Mt. Timpanogos. (Imagine it covered in snow.) Our house would be somewhere off-picture to the right. From the Wikipedia in a section called An Icy Mystery I found this: “Mount Timpanogos displays many examples of textbook glacial processes and provides stark evidence of the sculpting power of moving ice. . . “

There were emotionally icy times for me during the ten years I lived in Orem, especially when Larry confessed that he had been having affairs with men. But my children didn’t know what he was doing, and were mostly happy until he left.

They didn’t want to leave Utah, but I did, and when I got accepted to graduate school in Virginia, I moved into a townhouse in Chantilly just off Route 50. Back in 1982, there weren’t as many street lights, or as much traffic, as there are in this recent picture from the Internet. Times have drastically changed in this city that’s about a fifteen-minute drive from Dulles Airport, the airport my ex-husband flew into when he came east on business trips.

Route 50 Fairfax County, Virginia

(From In the Mirror):

I hoped [the children] would soon love living in Virginia, but they missed Utah and their friends. They missed their father, but in a few weeks Larry would be coming east to conduct a writing workshop for Stanton.
*
Larry parked his rental car at our curb, and Eric rushed out to meet him. I hovered in the doorway, stepping back as Megan leaped outside and threw her arms around her father.
He smiled the thin-lipped smile I remembered so well, and said, “Hello, Ann.”
“Hello.” My heart pounded and my legs felt weak as I stepped back.
The children came in first and started upstairs. Larry paused in the foyer, squinting at me through his glasses. “You look good,” he said.
I had put mascara on my eyelashes and blush on my cheeks, makeup I rarely used. When we were married, he had wanted me to wear more makeup. Now, looking at him for the first time since we left Utah, I felt a bit foolish. Makeup wasn’t going to send him running back to me.
“Your beard looks good,” I said. He had grown one soon after he left me. There had been a lot of gray in it when we divorced, but it was grayer now. “And you’ve straightened your hair.” No more brown curls to hide the gray.
He nodded and glanced up the stairs.
“Come up here, Dad, and see my room,” Megan called out. She and Eric were waiting at the top of the stairs.
I went into the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice. My throat felt tight and dry. I swallowed some juice and sat at the table. In a few minutes I heard footsteps, and Eric came in the kitchen. “Dad wants to take us to the museums,” he said.
Larry and Megan appeared in the doorway. “Would you like to go with us?” Larry asked me.
“Come with us, Mom,” Eric said.

*

Those were difficult times – almost thirty years ago – though I not only survived but thrived from the experiences, many of which became scenes in my memoir.

Charlie Brown observed: “Adversity is what makes you mature. The growing soul is watered best by tears of sadness.” Thank you, Charles Schulz. I agree.

p.s. After a five-day successful free promotion of my novella Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova’s Memoir, it’s now $1.99 on Kindle.

Scenes on an Old Canvas: Traveling in the Desert – and “Free Book” Promotion

An Experiment

Like my friend and awesome fiction author and poet Jessica Bell (I love great poems, and hers are superb), I’m trying “the experiment”: My novella-length story Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova’s Memoir will be free today through Sunday.

Like Jessica’s poetry book, Twisted Velvet Chains, my novella is also in the KDP Select program. Jessica wrote a great analysis of this program and her results with it and with free promotion in her recent post.

Looking ahead: My bestselling memoir In the Mirror that many of you have read since its publication last May will also be free for Kindle two days next week. If you haven’t yet read it or would like to gift it to someone, stay tuned . . .

Scenes on an Old Canvas: Traveling in the Desert

Now to the first “scene” – in this case with a bit of an introduction – in what will be a weekly focus of my blog, as I announced in my previous post. I hope you’ll enjoy these scenes that might trigger memories of your life’s experiences. As someone once said, “Everything is in the past.” Another aphorism I like is, “We save things so we’ll remember who we were.” I write to remember who I was. And I love to read about who other fellow travelers were. That’s why memoir is my favorite genre!

***

I was born May 13, 1940 at St. Marks Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. I love this old building (found the pic on the the Internet, on Bing; the Internet is awesome!) It’s so much more picturesque, I think, than the “modern” building that replaced it.

The way it was circa 1940.

St. Mark's Hospital Today

I was born in a valley that thousands of years earlier was Lake Bonneville, “a prehistoric pluvial lake [a land-locked basin that fills with rain water during times of glaciation] that covered much of North America‘s Great Basin region. Most of the territory it covered was in present-day Utah, though parts of the lake extended into present-day Idaho and Nevada. Formed about 32,000 years ago, it existed until about 14,500 years ago, when a large portion of the lake was released through the Red Rock Pass in Idaho. Following the Bonneville Flood, as the release is now known, the lake receded to a level called the Provo Level. [Provo is the present-day home of Brigham Young University where I got my bachelor's degree in English.] Many of the unique geological characteristics of the Great Basin are due to the effects of the lake” (quoted from http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Lake_Bonneville).

I grew up in a relatively small modern city with a prehistoric past that was settled by my Mormon ancestors who crossed the plains, some of them with the first “saints” in 1847 in covered wagons.

1846 Winter Quarters. “An amazing part of the story concerns the roughly 3,000 Handcart Pioneers who during the 1850s walked from Iowa City to Utah (1,350 miles) pulling handcarts because they were too poor to afford ox-drawn wagons.”

I found this picture online of downtown Salt Lake City that’s close to the way I remember it from the 1940s and 50s.

This is the place that nobody wanted. This is the place that Pulitzer prize winning author Wallace Stegner wrote about in his book Mormon Country (published in 1942):

“West of Salt Lake City lies the wilderness beyond Jordan, fifteen miles of useless alkali flats bring you to the lake. Beyond the flats and the lake, which is not quite fifty miles wide, is the Great Salt Lake Desert, once the graveyard of western wagons. Its waterholes are seventy-five miles apart and its heat blistering. Its white wastes are as hard on the eyes as a snowfield….

“It was that desert which almost killed the redoubtable Jed Smith when he made the first crossing in 1827; it was that same desert which betrayed the Donner party, killed off their cattle, weakened them, slowed them down so that when they hit the Sierra they were too late to make it across….The Great Salt Lake Desert is somewhat tamed by now. Still, it will not do to thumb our noses too vigorously. That desert is as a dry, as hot, as endless as it ever was, and just as dangerous for a man afoot or on horseback….It is incredible that men should ever have tried to cross that stretch on foot or with wagons. The mind refuses to accept it–but they did.”

Incredible, I have thought in retrospect, that my brother would tempt the desert the way he did one summer in the early 1970s when I went with him and our parents to California. Danny drove our father’s 1952 Buick that he inherited from his father, a clunker of a car compared to today’s models, but very sturdy. However, it did get more than ten miles to the gallon, so it was important that we stop at every gas station as we traveled through the desert, especially since know how few or far between the gas stations were.

A 1952 Buick exactly like my father’s except for the color. His was a grayish-blue that he painted black sometime in the 1970s.

It was mid-summer, and blistering hot. I knew what dry heat was. It would get over one hundred degrees, dry heat, in the Salt Lake Valley in the summer. But that day in the Sierra desert, it was over 110 degrees – and that was in the shade.

My brother was in charge. I didn’t say anything as I sat beside him in the front seat. I didn’t want to be a nag the way our mother was. I kept glancing at him, and at our parents in the back seat, and wondering why Mama was silent. I kept expecting her to tell Danny he was driving too fast, or to watch for a gas station.

We both glanced at each other in surprise when our father peered over the seat and asked, “Are we running out of gas?”

It was usually Mama, not Daddy, who was the backseat driver, whatever seat she was in. But her eyes were almost closed and her head drooped to her chest. I knew how she felt in heat that was a heavy plank pressing down on me. There was no air conditioning in the Buick.

My brother blinked, and wiped his sweaty forehead with the palm of his hand.

“Are we getting low on gas?” Daddy repeated in a soft voice.

“What’s happening?” Mother said, her voice blurred in the heat.

“Nothing,” Danny said.

His lips tightened, and so did mine. The gas gauge was on empty.

“It doesn’t register right,” he told Daddy.

“Are you sure?” Daddy asked.

Was this true?

Danny began tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. My stomach knotted. “You should have stopped at that station back there,” I said in a very low voice.

“I know.”

“Do you think there’s a station soon?”

The road ahead gradually sloped to a curve in the road. Maybe there was a station around the curve. Maybe . . .

“I don’t know.” He yanked the steering wheel to the right and rolled to a stop. He got out and walked around the car then climbed back in.

“What’s wrong?” Daddy asked.

Mama’s head jerked, and her eyes opened. “Are we there?” she mumbled.

Danny started the car, steered onto the road, then turned off the ignition.

“What are you doing?” Daddy persisted.

“I’m coasting,” Danny said.

I clenched my fists and for a few moments closed my eyes, forcing myself not to think about what could happen if there wasn’t anything around the curve.

Suddenly, Daddy cried out, “Isn’t that a gas station?”

I opened my eyes.

Daddy was almost leaping from his seat, his head brushing the dusty roof of the Buick. I sneezed, and sneezed again as I stared through the hazy windshield. It looked like something down the road.

“It’s a station. I think it’s a station,” Daddy said, and in a few moments, “I think it is,” and again, “I think it’s a station.”

“I think it is,” Mama echoed

My brother’s head shook, and I sneezed again. My eyes watered. Sweat trickled down the side of his face.

We were surrounded by sagebrush. I knew how bitter it was. A few months earlier Mama had read that sagebrush tea was good for hay fever, and insisted that Daddy and I drink it. He did in a few gulps. He didn’t complain. I choked it down, and decided I’d rather have hay fever.

Sagebrush obviously flourished without much water beneath a hot, blue sky. We couldn’t. And we couldn’t get out of the desert without gasoline for the car.

Danny pressed his foot on the accelerator. The car sputtered and jerked, rolling to a stop close enough to a lone gas tank in front of a wooden shack. In the doorway of it stood a grizzly faced man in a pair of blue denim overalls, a bottle of beer in his hand.

He shuffled over to our car.

“We need gas,” Danny said.

The man hooked his free hand through his overall strap, peered at us, and said, “A car ahead of you took most of my gas. Can only give you five gallons, but that should get you to the next station.”

“That’ll do,” Danny said.

“Thank you,” said my father, and smiled. The man didn’t smile back.

Danny slid out of the car and approached him. My parents and I silently listened.

“I can only give you five gallons, but it’ll get you to the next station.”

I let out my breath in a relieved sigh, and got out of the car. There was no shade anywhere, except in the shack. Danny and I took several steps toward it.

“Nothing in there,” the man said.

We stopped. “Was the gas tank really empty?” I asked Danny.

“Yeah, it was. That’s why I was coasting.”

“Gosh, Danny, why did you do this? You should have got gas back there.”

“Yeah, I know,” he nodded, and ran his fingers through his damp hair.

Decades later, reading about Mormon Country via Wallace Stegner, I could empathize with those men in the 1840s and 50s who “walked all day or huddled all day in the pitiful shade of a wagon and then walked all night. They went without water for twelve, eighteen, twenty-four hours in a climate where water leaves the skin almost faster than a man with a hose could pour it into the mouth.

“They patched up wagon wheels whose hubs and spokes were shrunken and falling apart. They cut dying oxen out of the harness and went on. They shut their eyes to the curious ghostly dance of the little brown hills which heaves up off the ground and showed the sky under their lifted skirts. With their tongues like cracking leather in their mouths they staggered toward the nearest water, and some of them never made it.”

Some of them never made it . . .

I have never forgotten that summer in the Sierra Desert. In all my cross country travels, from Utah to Virginia, many of them with my disabled daughter, I remembered that summer in the Sierra Desert, and never let my gas tank get much below half full.

The desert goes on, and on, and on . . .

The Sierra Desert

Scenes on an Old Canvas – and don’t forget Celery Tree

The other day I read somewhere: “Stories are everywhere – especially in the past.”

When you’re as old as I am (I’ll be 72 in May) you have more past than future! And to paraphrase the late great Frank McCourt, the past is a goldmine for writers, especially a “colorful” past.

And so I’ve decided to start writing “scenes” from my childhood for part of my Wednesday blog posts. This will get me started writing about my childhood. We have to start somewhere.

We all began somewhere. My earth’s journey began on May 13, 1940 in a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Forties and Fifties. What an incredibly different world from today’s world.

There was the typewriter….

I found this image online of an old Underwood. This is it! This is the typewriter I practiced typing on when I was in eighth grade.

In my files I found something I wrote about it in 2003 just after my 97-year-old Mother died and my sister and I were cleaning out our childhood house and we found the old Underwood typewriter I had used when I was a teenager in the Fifties.

This typewriter is one of my childhood memories Why won’t this ribbon reverse and the left Magic Margin set? Plunk, plunk, plunk. I can’t hardly get my fingers to work. It’s so clumsy. How did I ever type 60 words per minute on it?  Guess I was much younger then and my fingers could run faster. Plunk, plunk. I now know why I couldn’t compose my stories on the typewriter. It was too plodding, and if I made a mistake it was trouble to erase it. So I had to write the story in longhand and then type it. Forty-eight keys on the typewriter. Forty-eight Keys was the name of a book I read when I was a teenager. I remember only the title, nothing else. What a spotty thing memory is.

This really isn’t a scene, but rather an introduction. The scene I wanted to post I can’t find, but I know it’s in a file somewhere. So, next week….first Scene on an Old Canvas.

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Speaking of memories, if you haven’t already read it, you might like to read some powerful memories of Svetlana Garetova. I dramatized her story in Imprisoned that’s available as an ebook on Amazon.  

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And don’t forget Celery Tree. This is the last week of Karen Gowen’s promotional tour of this wonderful “village,” a gathering place for Authors. I know she’s grateful for the response so far.