tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218258142024-03-14T01:02:03.218-07:00Finding Fair HopeLiving in Fairhope Alabama, writing books about it, observing the changes from a small Utopian community to an upscale shoppers' haven.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.comBlogger337125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-81934410727376343992019-05-29T06:25:00.004-07:002019-05-30T01:15:18.192-07:00Reflecting on Fairhope<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1b9IPdU5SFBSSnmXj1aNeiwbXpBci4h6c1IHCf2X0OJouAQiimqBhNouisk3SdwXiA_LCvyfg4Bei9WS2lOrBj6tEfrbSgDrdF3mFh1nWhGKmS9a7oyMu1XNJpKX-Hr3hOcAA/s1600/pier+st+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1b9IPdU5SFBSSnmXj1aNeiwbXpBci4h6c1IHCf2X0OJouAQiimqBhNouisk3SdwXiA_LCvyfg4Bei9WS2lOrBj6tEfrbSgDrdF3mFh1nWhGKmS9a7oyMu1XNJpKX-Hr3hOcAA/s400/pier+st+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I left Fairhope in 2007 and don't quite think of it the same way I once did. I've written several books about the town I knew and the town I remembered, and they are all available on amazon. This is from one with my all-time favorite title, <i>Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree. </i>I hope you find it interesting enough to look for my books online, or to contact me through Facebook.<br />
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"<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">There
is no question that today we yearn for something undefined. In Fairhope that
yearning is palpable. Perhaps the dreams of the early settlers are affecting us in ways we don’t acknowledge. In some instances they conformed to the outside
world, in some they did not. They had the blessing of a town in which either
choice was acceptable The comfort of this place enabled them to do good works
and influence coming generations simply by being themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"This
is possible for each of us. We still have our parks, laid out a century ago. We
have Fairhope’s legacy of dreams for a better world. We have the land the early
Single Taxers saved for us. And we have our own hopes for better things for
coming generations. The promise of Fairhope’s founders is the promise we share
in our own lives here. We know the potential and the magic of the place itself."</span></div>
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Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-47850958499192816422015-08-31T12:10:00.002-07:002019-05-29T06:08:41.072-07:00And a New Review<div style="text-align: right;">
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<span id="goog_1892457935"><b>Written by Fairhope native Natalie Green, now a citizen of Cincinnati who often thinks of home, a review of <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> with a personal slant</b>.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEXDnNkxYGsVatPqjGq3EjSwzL8HKAVkFcTMS0H_8qXafmroVec6vAbgDR4xcEa_rDV8JYtn8xjn1efY18h2FLIMwhfqdxPJm4_Ggz82iX-kIQNU7iQgmYUPUBohg5iz3FJ_R/s1600/newcover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEXDnNkxYGsVatPqjGq3EjSwzL8HKAVkFcTMS0H_8qXafmroVec6vAbgDR4xcEa_rDV8JYtn8xjn1efY18h2FLIMwhfqdxPJm4_Ggz82iX-kIQNU7iQgmYUPUBohg5iz3FJ_R/s400/newcover.png" width="308" /></a><span id="goog_1892457935">The year is 1921. A young teacher arrives in an improbable town of deepest southern Alabama. The young woman from Philadelphia is consumed with an idealistic educator's theories for a progressive school, where children are permitted to bloom in a non-traditional structure. The town is founded as an experiment on the somewhat socialistic economic theories of a leading thinker of the day.<br /><br />The teacher, an innocent born with a yearning for lasting depth and sincere joy in education, embraces the school and the town with an abiding delight. This is only the beginning of a succinct but rewarding novel that covers both the engaged, everyday lives of the town's citizens, and the underbelly of misunderstanding and suspicion that leads to such suspense as attempted assassination.<br /><br /><i>That Was Tomorrow</i>, by author Mary Lois Timbes, celebrates a mecca for artists and artisans, poets and prose writers, free thinkers, forward-lookers, and families, for whom the town serves as a magnet. With splashes of romance and excitement set against the beautiful Mobile Bay and its high-cliff settlement on the Eastern Shore, <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> explores the roots of a unique and somewhat mystic small town with a population just as individualistic.<br /><br />Phantasmagorical as <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> may seem, author Mary Lois Timbes has set it in a real town (Fairhope, Alabama, founded on economist Henry George's Single Tax theory), and a real school (the School of Organic Education, founded by pioneer Marietta Johnson). Both George and Johnson were internationally known at the time for their non-conformist stances on taxes and education.<br /><br />This is what is so absorbing about the novel: its reality. Novelist Timbes grew up in the town and attended the school -- far later than the years covered by the book, but with exhaustive interviews of early residents, she grasps the wondrous atmosphere and the soul of a place out of time and out of memory. Her evocative novel touches the heart in many ways, not the least of which is its improbable fact.<br /><br />When you read <i>That Was Tomorrow,</i> you will find yourself wishing you could have experienced such an incredible time and place. Fairhope is still there; it remains as the final town in the U.S. dedicated to Henry George's vision. Today, it serves as a destination for every sort of person with an artistic bent, from retirees to young families. The school where the young fictional Amelia King taught is observing its 107th year as of this writing -- a clear example of an extraordinary educator's mission.<br /><br />This admixture of fact and fiction pays great tribute to the inhabitants of an unusual town, which has continued to thrive by the efforts of many, including those of the author's.</span><span id="goog_1892457936"></span>Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-75738141356710104992015-04-28T06:05:00.001-07:002015-05-14T11:55:12.478-07:00Goodbye, Old Friend<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEindbl7jfw1eZNo0zj7tAuNfGzHlu6Z1ba8hecHvra2hyphenhyphenG8Mi_chhDzONgCyeO3L1h93myQjv5T7hoURz62mrTwrfDdTUpe4dCEUiAsBR0USUny342nz-kmi73XhpYdwkNWqDOK/s1600/966422_10200575054872059_1042894635_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEindbl7jfw1eZNo0zj7tAuNfGzHlu6Z1ba8hecHvra2hyphenhyphenG8Mi_chhDzONgCyeO3L1h93myQjv5T7hoURz62mrTwrfDdTUpe4dCEUiAsBR0USUny342nz-kmi73XhpYdwkNWqDOK/s1600/966422_10200575054872059_1042894635_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gardenias from Phil Brady's yard, a few years ago</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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I was shocked to hear that one of my oldest friends died a less than a week ago. Phil Brady and I had a date or two when we were in high school, and he was one of the good guys all his life. I would see him from time to time, usually when we had a mutual project, but I always liked him and somehow felt he would always be there. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2BuWcxdA8CMjqsV8MAASu7leJBXW0bbxemurlF8ZxjrVCX6ZHBJR_d_ChTkgSp9oF-PDqZDXO1yOtFEaHrR7XQU6XVLOkBpd5epWcqFSjJcflOqFx1O5yWIm3D7m0iurHSkUT/s1600/phil+brady.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2BuWcxdA8CMjqsV8MAASu7leJBXW0bbxemurlF8ZxjrVCX6ZHBJR_d_ChTkgSp9oF-PDqZDXO1yOtFEaHrR7XQU6XVLOkBpd5epWcqFSjJcflOqFx1O5yWIm3D7m0iurHSkUT/s1600/phil+brady.jpeg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phil Brady, 2013</td></tr>
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He had a big heart, a quick wit, and busied himself with the same kind of projects I did, so it was pretty easy to keep up with him. If he had been ill, and I surmise that he had, he didn't let on. A few months ago I emailed him when I learned of the death of an acquaintance I knew had been in his writer's group, and he responded right away. He had a good sense of the priorities of life, and he lived his life accordingly.<br />
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When I had my first job at the <i>Mobile Press Register</i>, Phil was soon working on the copy desk. By then he was courting the beautiful Catherine, who would become his wife, and finishing college at Spring Hill. He was a strong Catholic, with a questing mind and a commitment to his church and to learning all he could about its history and the history of the world as well.<br />
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Like me, he had a career in public relations and journalism, and he retired to Fairhope just about the time I did. There was a period when I was embroiled in the survival of the Organic School, and, although he had not been a part of it before, he studied the situation and met with me on several occasions to offer support and insights. When he read the two books Marietta Johnson wrote, he said this memorable thing, "The difficulty in articulating this philosophy is that at first glance, what she writes sounds simple and basic. But when you think about it you realize how profound it is." The difficult part was inspiring people to think about it.<br />
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He and I both wrote novels, interestingly, set in the year 1921. We did not confer on this, nor did either of us see this as more than a coincidence. But I think it shows something of a like mind. That year just seemed to exemplify a time when things were less complex, a safe place where we could explore conflicts beneath the surface of an imagined serenity. My book, <i>That Was Tomorrow</i>, dealt with Fairhope in its heyday, and his, <i>The Clarke County Democrats</i>, was about a minor league baseball team in Clarke County, Alabama. I was quite taken with Phil's book, even though my interest in baseball is limited. <i>The Clarke County Democrats</i> rightly places the game in a day when it was magical. I wrote a review of it on amazon, which I hope sells a few books for him still.<br />
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I'm disappointed that he never finished his grand opus--a book of Civil War stories, history, and mythology. I argued with him that the world did not need another book about the Civil War, but I understood his fascination. I too grew up hearing the Southern whitewashed version of history, but I felt burdened by it rather than challenged to retell it. I wish he had lived to see it published. I would love to talk with him about it. He had wonderful stories.<br />
<br />Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-87723719825307198202014-05-26T05:08:00.000-07:002014-05-26T05:08:20.256-07:00Moving Again<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-M7oJ4pwnbi8L_C6rA4cKniAN67HUt6GJP_w5nSwZcYqy2IsRrbmy85Kh2euGiDZYGtdfqMBF2HIxEZDBD0s4IJ80qA3Vn-IFcqQpziAIXHYI_uJhNjJbz6ZHGa8zXGDi_j9/s1600/Stockade+dist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-M7oJ4pwnbi8L_C6rA4cKniAN67HUt6GJP_w5nSwZcYqy2IsRrbmy85Kh2euGiDZYGtdfqMBF2HIxEZDBD0s4IJ80qA3Vn-IFcqQpziAIXHYI_uJhNjJbz6ZHGa8zXGDi_j9/s1600/Stockade+dist.jpg" height="306" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kingston, NY, Stockade District</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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No, the picture is not of Fairhope. I still visit Fairhope every winter for a month or so, but I have lived in the Northeast since December of 2007 and now am quite happily at home here.<br />
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First I relocated to Hoboken, and got very hip learning the local lore about Frank Sinatra and Chris Christie. Five years later my daughter persuaded me to move closer to her and I moved to New Paltz, NY, a fun and exciting town with a large branch of the State University and other points of interest. I love it, but the winter of 2013-14 was so brutal I was in Fairhope again for the month of February. When I returned it was still as cold as when I left, with snow and ice everywhere for a couple more months. I now own a snow shovel and a few encounters driving on ice (and the loss of a car as a result) has prompted me to supply my vehicle with snow tires.<br />
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But I love living here, and by the end of June I'll be in my own Queen Anne house in Kingston, the town where my daughter lives. I've started a blog--actually, I've had three other blogs since leaving Fairhope. For my Hoboken adventures you can peruse <a href="http://www.myselfinhoboken.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">"Finding Myself in Hoboken," </a>and then when I moved to New Paltz I recorded my experiences on "New Life, New Paltz" and now I've simply renamed the last one <a href="http://www.oldhouselife.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">"New Life, Old House."</a> I hope you'll check my "old house" blog and follow my adventures, or at least, now that you've found my Fairhope blog, that you'll scroll through the five years of posts about everything from the meaning of art to the history of Fairhope. I hope I continue to do as well for Kingston.<br />
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I've written two books about Fairhope, one focusing on the characters I knew as I was growing up (<i>The Fair Hope of Heaven</i>), and the other a novel about a young teacher in the 1920s who moves to the bohemian utopia that Fairhope once was, <i>That Was Tomorrow</i>. Both are available at Page & Palette in Fairhope, or online at amazon dot com.<br />
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I'm thrilled that you found my blog and I hope you'll enjoy it along with my others. Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-17185967941897170892013-07-17T15:43:00.001-07:002013-07-17T15:43:49.302-07:00Revisiting Heaven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrFg_CbiuHDQ67aGenSW8IBZUtNIwB3k-unVhNxD2hk1_c4Z7qDEtUA1XOndlkPZsYo39gca_CHCxWFUb857hYKmYGkz-j2Hk2uZo-g2TZejohIo-EITE-ZZUqwz30oKwlxgIp/s1600/Fairhope+Bay.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrFg_CbiuHDQ67aGenSW8IBZUtNIwB3k-unVhNxD2hk1_c4Z7qDEtUA1XOndlkPZsYo39gca_CHCxWFUb857hYKmYGkz-j2Hk2uZo-g2TZejohIo-EITE-ZZUqwz30oKwlxgIp/s400/Fairhope+Bay.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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I returned to Fairhope Monday for a business trip. The business was to promote my books about Fairhope: <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> and <i>The Fair Hope of Heaven</i>. It is not as peaceful as it used to be, but then, neither am I. I crowded my schedule with book signings, book talks, and meetings with various people who are interested in what I have to say about Fairhope's history and the story of the Organic School.<br />
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The first speech “Nostalgia and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That Was Tomorrow</i>” at the Fairhope Museum of History went better than I expected. Intrigued as I have been by a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/science/what-is-nostalgia-good-for-quite-a-bit-research-shows.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130709&_r=1&" target="_blank">recent article in the <i>New York Times</i></a> about nostalgia, I gave my description of it--including the diagnosis of cowbells causing brain addlement,
and how the young Swiss mercenary soldiers, missing their beloved homeland with its hillsides
of cows and the soothing sounds of the bells, might well have been perfectly
sane to yearn for a more pleasant time and place than war on foreign
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I read a little from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Fair Hope of Heaven</i>, about the sky and the stars, the Fairhope I remembered
fondly and the one I’d heard about from those who recalled the past. I read <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That
Was Tomorrow</i> about the young schoolteacher’s reaction to her first days in
Fairhope, with my descriptions of the Fairhope of the day, the unpaved streets,
the wandering children pulling satsumas off trees, the goats and chickens, the
occasional eccentrics saying hello. Time travel to "Old Fairhope" is always rewarding. My audience seemed entranced, and I was heartened by what appears to be genuine interest in the topic, one upon which I can expound for hours.<br />
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Today I spoke at the Marietta Johnson Museum about the Organic School and Mrs. Johnson's commitment to education reform at the beginning of the 20th century. A large audience, (large to me, anyway, probably about 40 at one talk and 30 at the other) was stimulated to ask challenging questions and kept me on my toes. At both venues I sold some 20 books total--and there will be many more sold at the book signing at the indie bookstore (Page & Palette) Friday from 1-3.<br />
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I'll wind up my trip Sunday with a talk at the Unitarian Fellowship, and return to Albany (NY) Monday. I am having a wonderful visit and expect more surprises in days to come.<br />
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Will let you know as they happen. </div>
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Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-889153873595165202013-07-07T05:11:00.003-07:002013-07-07T05:11:48.528-07:00Fairhope From HereFairhope is a world away from here, but I'll soon navigate that world and be there.<br />
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Where I am, New Paltz, New York, we call it a heat wave if we have three days in a row of temperatures over 90. In Fairhope, we called it summer--and it lasted from the end of May until at least the end of September. It was "cool" if the temperature went <i>below</i> 90. And humidity is another story. Summer is hot everywhere, but with humidity over 75 every day, it swelters in the South in a different way. I wasn't dry until I was in my 20s and moved to Atlanta. <br />
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I will spend a week in the heat and humidity of Fairhope, alleviated, I hope, not only by the ubiquity of air conditioning, but also by the joy of seeing old friends and talking with them about my book.<i> </i>I wrote<i> That Was Tomorrow</i> from the perspective of a young woman who moves to Fairhope from New Jersey in 1921, before there was air conditioning, and she is constantly struck by the oppressive heat and humidity. My daughter, editing and proofreading the final draft, said, "Mom, you use the phrase 'heat and humidity' way too often!" I found ways to change it a few times, but could not imagine someone traveling to Fairhope for the first time--from the Northeast--not being confronted with the phenomenon of the heat/humidity of the region.<br />
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<br />
<br />
This time it's me. I try to restrain myself when people here in New York State complain about humidity. They can't take it. After 19 years back in Fairhope I learned to. I've been away for a couple of years and usually have the sense to return in the winter months. But this is something of a business trip.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>That Was Tomorrow </i>is available in paperback, and I'll be in Fairhope from July 15-22 to introduce it to the town where it was born. My schedule is:<br />
<br />
2 P.M. July 16 -- Tea at the Fairhope Museum<br />
3 P.M. July 17 -- Book talk at the Marietta Johnson Museum<br />
1 P.M. July 19 -- Book signing at Page & Palette<br />
11 A.M. July 21 -- "Fairhope Then and Now" at Unitarian-Universalist meeting<br />
<br />
I can take the heat and humidity--thanks to air conditioning and the purpose of the trip. I hope Fairhope loves my novel as much as it loves Fairhope!Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-68212190374079412772013-04-11T05:35:00.002-07:002013-04-11T05:35:31.625-07:00A Life on the StageClayton Corzatte, an actor from Fairhope who died last weekend, had a profound effect on my own life and certainly on many others as well.<br />
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<br />
Happy-go-lucky as this picture looks, Clayton spent his life as a theatre actor, working in New York and in the regional theatre before Alabama Shakespeare Festival was even thought of. He had a shot at the movies, did a little television, but was more interested in living a life as an ordinary guy who just happened to be an actor by profession.<br />
<br />
As I remember it, he was in the speech department at the University of Alabama, majoring in Radio/Television when the television part was in its infancy, when someone said he really belonged in theatre. The director of that department was Dr. Marion Galloway, one of those old dragons whose name often comes up with Alabama actors of a certain age. Clayton was a gentle soul even then and he was warned, "Dr. Galloway will eat you alive."<br />
<br />
But he had found his calling, and he hit it off with Galloway, had some success in university theatre, then took off for Barter Theater and other venues that were beginning to spring up in the 1950s. When I was a teenager he was home from Cleveland Playhouse for a visit with his family and was persuaded to do a one-man show of monologues and poetry at the then-high-school auditorium. I must have had a driver's license, because as I recall I went alone.<br />
<br />
I remember sitting in total rapt attention to
Clayton reading, among other things, the works of Dorothy Parker. I'm
not just being nostalgic when I remember his performance. He read such
works as "The Waltz" and "Just a Little One" as a woman, and he was
convincing and downright brilliantly funny as well. I had never seen a
man playing a woman -- and it wasn't a drag show. He did this without
benefit of costumes or props. He simply became a woman. He even
performed the agony of "The Telephone Call," about a woman obsessed with
getting that all-important call (that is not going to come) from a man
who has loved and left her, and left me convinced she/he was brokenhearted as only a Parker heroine (and real women everywhere) can be. It was before we knew about "He's just not that into you," and long before the concept reached me, but the day was dawning.<br />
<br />
When I moved back to Fairhope in 1988 I asked Clayton and his actress wife Susan to help me with a fundraiser to launch Jubilee Fish Theater, which would be an Equity professional theater for as long as I could keep it going. They did some scenes that brought down the house, and Jubilee Fish became a local institution. They returned two years later for a program of one-acts and a question and answer session with the audience. He was as charming and unassuming offstage as he was talented. He and Susan were a delight to know.<br />
<br />
When I learned of Clayton's death I had the mixed feeling one often has. I wish I had known him better. I regret that he died of complications from ALS, which means he had a bad time it it in his last years. He died in Seattle, where he had worked at the Intiman Theater for over 40 years, keeping audiences happy while he and Susan raised a son and daughter and lived a real and full life on and off the stage. He played in virtually everything in the American repertory, from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams and Kaufman and Hart. He said about his life that he was lucky. That he was, and Fairhope and the country was lucky to have him.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-87563502887554751002013-03-30T10:59:00.001-07:002013-03-30T10:59:16.290-07:00A Positive Move<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm in a new place now, New Paltz, New York, a sweet little town with a major university, four distinct seasons, a vibrant population, one grown daughter and two teenaged grandsons. I retired in reverse--leaving Fairhope for fair hope and another shot at a different future.<br />
<br />
You may have been following my progress, you may not. I moved from Fairhope in 2007 to Hoboken, New Jersey, which I loved, and five years later am getting to know a different neck of the woods. My daughter actually lives in Kingston, and my grandsons are almost ready to fly the coop (the oldest is a freshman at SUNY Albany). I, on the other hand, am still in the process of finding fair hope and finding myself--writing books and blogs and learning to do better what I do best and doing my best to guess exactly what that is and why I'm doing it.<br />
<br />
I finished <i>That Was Tomorrow </i>about a year ago, published it in electronic format, and now am in the process of having it published as a paperback. The story is set in 1921 in a Fairhope, Alabama, that doesn't exist anymore--a utopian colony created to prove the theory of single tax, peopled with idealists and visionaries of many stripes, including the important personage Marietta Johnson, who is a key figure in my story. <br />
<br />
It's a story of a schoolteacher, a rather liberated young woman of her day, who moves to Fairhope to prepare for a career by working with the renowned educator. She takes her life into her own hands and women in the early days of feminism (and long before it was called that) were just beginning to do. She has a radical plan for her life, which doesn't include marriage--and she's willing to move into the adventure that was Fairhope of that time to experience life, romance, and self-fulfillment on her terms. I hope I capture the setting, the atmosphere, and the optimism of that time as I populate the novel with real and fictional characters who once lived there.<br />
<br />
I've revamped my website in an attempt to draw traffic, billing myself as an Alabama writer of some note (in fact, you might think this writer to be the second coming of Harper Lee). I hope I'll be forgiven the overstatement as the constant use of the phrase "Alabama writer" along with "Alabama book" was seen by my web designer as a way to optimize my search engine traffic. And <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> is without doubt an Alabama book by an Alabama author, however non-traditional and unexpected they may both be.<br />
<br />
Look for my <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/" target="_blank">website here</a>. Look for me in Fairhope sometime in early summer, to sign books and meet you--some as old friends, and some for the first time. I shall update the blog on the website at least twice a week, often weaving the phrases "Alabama book" and "Alabama writer" into the text, but saying something as profound as I can in spite of that.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-19828357369914911342012-10-27T11:16:00.003-07:002012-10-27T11:45:10.470-07:00Halloween in Old Fairhope<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is from my novel <i>That Was Tomorrow</i>, just in time for Halloween 2012. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="WordSection1">
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The school year 1921-22 was moving almost too fast. It was soon time for
the big Halloween Party, and, by the second semester, the new folk dance
teacher would be on campus. There was much more excitement about folk dancing
than Amelia ever would have imagined.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In the meantime, Marietta Johnson had already made one trip to Greenwich,
where her summer teacher training school was held, and met in New York City
with the “Fairhope Educational Foundation” who gave fund-raisers for her
school. When she traveled she was always invited to speak in neighboring towns,
and she took the opportunity to encourage them to employ Organic methods in
their school systems. She never returned to Fairhope without a family or two
following her, to see her demonstration school at work. Most stayed and
enrolled their children. There were over 100 students, many of them boarders.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">All the students were excited about the Halloween party they would hold in
Comings Hall. The older students organized projects to make the party
fun—a costume contest, cakewalks, washtubs of water full of apples, and
booths surrounding the rim of the hall with games.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Everybody in school would be involved in decorating the big, empty hall.
They envisaged the event as a massive fund-raiser, even though little money
exchanged hands. They would charge for a wheel of tickets, and every game and
contest would cost a certain number of tickets. The parents got involved with
refreshments—a bake sale, plates of ham and potato salad, lemonade and
punch. A large urn of coffee would be on hand. Mothers baked cakes for the big <span class="GramE">cakewalks which</span> would be held periodically during the
evening. Mordecai Arnold, father of Louisa and five other Organic students, had
for several years volunteered for the job of calling the cakewalks, which
featured himself standing in the center of the circle while Piney Gaston played
her enthusiastic brand of piano, stopping suddenly, and calling a random number
for a handful of cards handed him by Mrs. Johnson. Whatever
cakewalker—man, woman or child—was standing on the square marked
with that number, was the winner of a homemade cake! This age-old party game
always had currency in Fairhope.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The school event would be on the Friday of Halloween weekend, meaning that
most of that day was taken with preparations for the party. The high school
emerged as organizers, painting the floor with the cakewalk circle, putting up
posters all around town, and decorating Comings Hall with festoons of crepe paper
and huge handmade posters of witches, black cats and jack-o-lanterns they had
created in their Arts and Crafts classes. The older boys were in charge of the
Fun House, which was set apart on the stage with the curtain drawn. Behind that
curtain they had created a maze of reconstructed cardboard cartons, a crazy
mirror, the tunnel to a barrel that would roll its occupant some ten feet, and
an exit on a slide down the steps to the main floor. The boys guided their
charges, mostly kids their age or younger, through the labyrinth to the exit.
If a child entered who was clearly not able to make his way, he was given an
abbreviated tour.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Five cakewalks were scheduled during the evening, and one big costume
parade. <span class="GramE">Sarah,</span> looked astonishingly beautiful in a gypsy
skirt and blouse with golden hoop earrings. Paul Frederick, Jim Gaston and
Maxwell Taylor were judging the costumes. This was a wrench for Max, who had a
hankering to win with his Mad Hatter costume, but he had recused himself from
the competition to lend his expertise as a judge.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">All the</span></span><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> town, Amelia reckoned, showed up for the party, and
in fancy dress too. Captain and Mrs. Cross came as <span class="SpellE">Tweedledum</span>
and <span class="SpellE">Tweedledee</span> from Alice in Wonderland; E.B. Gaston
came as a wizard in a high pointed hat with stars on it, and his wife came as
Mother Goose. Mrs. Johnson felt she should have come as The Old Woman Who Lived
in a Shoe, but she didn’t know how to articulate that as a costume, so she
settled on a ghost costume, which didn’t fool anybody for long.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The women of Fairhope had spent weeks making these costumes, sometimes
going against their better judgment when asked by their children to create such
outlandish disguises. One boy gave his mother the task of designing a Headless
Horseman costume. She accomplished this by taking a hatbox to cover his head
and shoulders, attaching a tin can to the top of it to provide a neck, covering
the whole thing with construction paper and cutting slits in the box so he</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="GramE"><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">could</span></span><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> see. He made a head for his horse, and the head he
would carry under his arm, out of <span class="SpellE">papier-maché</span> in his
arts and crafts class. The horse’s body was a broom. Fairhope children rode
brooms as horses all the time.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">One of the school’s big families, the Arnolds, came as the ragged,
shipwrecked Swiss Family Robinson, taking the idea from a book they were
reading together. Their oldest four children were boys, with <span class="SpellE">Ezekial</span> (“Zeke”) being a senior in high school, and the <span class="SpellE">other<span class="GramE">,s</span></span> stair steps on down in
size. The two youngest girls took part with Louisa playing Jenny, the English
girl who appears at the end of the book. The toddler Bonnie dressed as <span class="SpellE">Knips</span>, the monkey.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Hal and Martha Etheridge and their daughter Ally came as a family of French
poodles.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Avery and Amelia decided not to tell each other what they were working on
for costumes. Avery’s was quite unusual, Amelia could see that—at its
base a black, body covering leotard, such as worn by circus performers. She
peeked one afternoon as Avery assembled all the components of the costume, but
Avery shooed her out as soon as she saw her.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“This is ART!” she told her roommate. “I need my solitude to create!”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Amelia stood outside the bedroom door like a curious child. “It doesn’t
look like art to me,” she called. “It looks like black underwear!”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">But it did look rather like art at that. She knew also that there was a
lampshade involved.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Amelia would dress as a scarecrow, in bedraggled men’s clothes with a
floppy straw hat and bunches of hay sticking out of her shirt cuffs and pant
legs. The girls agreed not to see each other dressed until the party, so Avery
put on her costume at the School Home, which was chaotic with children getting
into costumes. Amelia dressed at The Sieve, and walked to Comings Hall in full
scarecrow <span class="SpellE">attiree</span>. It was still daylight. She might
scare a few crows on her way. The party started at 5 P.M. and she didn’t want
to be too early or too late.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">She was hardly prepared for the pandemonium. She watched in awe as the hall
filled up-- little kids were literally climbing in the rafters, and the crush
of partygoers in bizarre modes of dress was impressive. Jim Holloway was
Abraham Lincoln, and it turned out Avery was a floor lamp, complete with cord
and plug. She had cut out eyes in the lampshade so she could see. She was quite
a figure. Jim took one look at Amelia in her scarecrow attire and said, “Who
are you? Luther Beagle?”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Moments like this made Amelia wish she had the kind of quick wit that Avery
did. She said, “Who are you? Charlie Chaplin?” It got a laugh, but she wasn’t
sure it was really funny.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">She and Jim were having their ham dinners when the first cakewalk was
called. They put their plates aside and took part in the walk which was made
more fun by the running commentary by Mr. Arnold, describing the costumes and
chanting, “One, two, three, four, keep <span class="SpellE">walkin</span>’,” and
Piney, in a witch costume with a long black gown and a pointed hat, played a
variety of tunes, from “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” to John Phillip Sousa
marches—and the walkers fairly strutted in time creating a kaleidoscope
of color and contrasts.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“And the first cake goes to the gentleman without a head!” he announced as
one of the mothers beamingly presented a cake to the headless horseman. The boy
had to pass the cake to his parents so he could continue to enjoy the party.
Without a head he couldn’t bob for apples, but he remained headless to the
costume parade.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">This would be the climax of the party. At that moment the milling,
chattering crowd of fantastical characters circled the hall in a slow-moving,
serpentine extravaganza of color and flash. Disparate characters talked with
one another, a circus of incongruity. The four judges, just as extravagantly
attired, were making notes and conferring with each other about what they saw.
One by one contestants would be tapped on the shoulder by a judge and asked to
form a smaller circle in the center. Clearly these were the finalists: The
Crosses, the Headless Horseman, the floor lamp, Abraham Lincoln, and one four
year old in a fairy costume that looked as if it came from a road company of A </span><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Midsummer Night’s Dream</span></i><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Max showed his theatrical side in announcing the inner circle of winning
looks. How different he was in his role as a theater director! His voice
boomed, and he exuded the confidence</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span class="GramE"><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">of</span></span><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"> a circus ringmaster—which he was for the night.
His replication of the Mad Hatter in the Tenniel drawing was complete with a
lopsided top hat that had a tag tucked into the ribbon, saying </span><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In This Style 10/6. </span></i><span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">He added a dramatic flair to his announcements.
Amelia had never noted the rich baritone timbre of his voice before.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“The floor lamp with the astonishing hourglass figure is runner-up Number
Two!” Max bellowed. <span class="GramE">Applause from the crowd.</span> Not that
Avery had the kind of figure called an “hourglass” by previous generations, but
her female shape definitely showed in the black body stocking. She may have
been embarrassed by Max’s description, but if she was blushing it was hidden
under a lampshade.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“<span class="SpellE">Tweedledum</span> and <span class="SpellE">Tweedledee</span>
agreed to have a battle—” he said, “But they won’t have it tonight,
because together they are the First Runners Up!”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">It was clear how much everybody loved the Crosses. There was a wave of
applause and whistles.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“And the winner of this year’s Best Costume Award...” Jim in his Abe
Lincoln get-up looked as if he thought he would surely win, and the little girl
did a fairy dance in the most modest way she could.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow!”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">No one was surprised or disappointed when the headless horseman won the
contest. His prize was a handmade pottery jack-o-lantern, made with some artistic
flourishes by Miss <span class="SpellE">Kitwell</span>. It had been glazed bright
orange in the kiln, and filled by the high school students with homemade fudge.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">After the presentation of the prize, the crowd began to mill around,
forming random patterns of colors and patterns. There were enough witches to
add a dash of black among the contrasting splashes of bright color. The
oversized bow around the neck of the mad hatter was blue with big gold polka
dots and the Swiss Family Robinson <span class="GramE">were</span> mostly in
white and gray. There was Julian Crane as Father Time, a grim reaper with a
sickle and a dingy white robe, accompanied by his wife in sparkling white as
the evangelist Aimee <span class="SpellE">Semple</span> McPherson. Abraham
Lincoln had his arm around the waist of a beautiful gypsy girl and was gazing
down into her eyes. Mr. Gaston, for the night a wizard, possibly of the dark
arts, approached them with his peaked hat—sparkling with moons and stars—slightly
askew. Mrs. Johnson, well concealed under a ghostly sheet, strode around the
room, as if she assumed she had anonymity in her village for a night. Amelia
realized she was truly anonymous; her scarecrow costume included a hooded mask,
and she was new, so not that easily recognized. The phantasmagoria of costumes
disguised the usually reserved, scholarly reformers, teachers and parents, and
it was as if the town had actually become inhabited by their doppelgangers.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The floor lamp came up to her and said, “Well? What do you think? Does this
group know how to put on a party or not?”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I never saw anything quite like it,” Amelia responded. “I’m beginning to
understand the concept of the surrealist movement.”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I think it’s about time to leave this cacophony of color and go home,”
Avery said.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The party was indeed winding down as people gathered up their things and
told each other goodbye until tomorrow—which would be the day they would
get together to take down the decorations.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">When they got home Avery went straight upstairs to get ready for bed, but
Amelia went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of cocoa. She needed to
unwind. When the milk was hot she stirred it into the cocoa powder and sugar,
thinking of the party. She heard noise from next door, as if maybe Sam Bradley
might be having his own gathering. She walked out to the back porch to see what
was happening.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Hell-FAR and damnation!” came the boom of a man’s voice. A chill went down
her spine as she strained to see who making the racket.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">It was clear in the dim light from Bradley’s back porch that he was
ejecting someone from his house.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“The <span class="GramE">devil take</span> ‘<span class="SpellE">em</span>
all!” The man was screaming.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Amelia had not heard such language in Fairhope. She was riveted to the
spot, squinting to see who it was. Bradley’s voice was low, as if trying to
tame a wild beast.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I know how you feel, but we can’t do <span class="SpellE">nothin</span>’
about this,” Bradley was saying. “It’s time you went home to cool off.”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“They’re all <span class="SpellE">goin</span>’ to HELL anyway.”</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Just then the cursing man wheeled away and started to stumble up the path
to the street. She had a glimpse of his face, distorted in rage but eerily
smiling. After a moment she recognized Curry <span class="SpellE">Cumbie</span>,
but Amelia was thunderstruck with remembered fear.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">She thought of the wicked witch causing danger to her teddy bear. She heard
her own voice warning her cuddly toy of hellfire and damnation. She began to
understand the source of her mistrust of this man, and once the connection was
made she would carry it with her the rest of her life. Miss <span class="SpellE">Pritchart</span>.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">*</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The real Halloween, October 31, was Monday. The date was known as a night
of mischief. A few high school boys let livestock loose on the streets, not
doing real damage. Some threw a few eggs into the trees on the streets of homes
they knew well—basically their own and those of friends.</span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The big event was taking Luther Beagle, the town drunk, to the bay and
giving him his yearly bath. Luther protested, as usual, but he was light in
weight, so that two boys were able to subdue and lift him after he realized
that fighting was futile. He had gone through this for several years by now, so
he knew well that protesting would only postpone the inevitable. Usually he
tried to hide from the boys, but his cunning was long gone and he could never
successfully avoid his yearly dunk. It was a rite of passage for the older
teenaged boys in Fairhope to abduct the old derelict, in his fit of mostly
feigned outrage, and haul him off to the big pier, late at night, every
Halloween. They claimed it was the only bath he got all year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><i>If you're interested in learning more about my book--or, better yet, interested in buying it, visit my website <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/" target="_blank">my website</a></i> </span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"></span></div>
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Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-41542602575299818562012-08-31T06:29:00.002-07:002012-08-31T06:29:31.385-07:00The Magical Realism of History<div class="body mediumText reviewText">
I'm struggling with ambivalence. My eBook is selling everywhere except in Fairhope. I don't get it. I still promote it everywhere I can, including activating my account on a booklovers' site called Goodreads, where I've created a blog and posted the following this morning. <br />
<br />
When I revisited Fairhope, the setting for my novel <i>That Was Tomorrow,</i>
in my mind, I wanted it to be as I wished it was in 1921, long before I
was born. There was something magical about teleporting myself to that
time and that particular place, and I hoped to bring readers along.<br />
<br />
I grew up in the town in the 1950's, when there were still people
around who remembered the halcyon days--I only wish they had still been
around to help me fill in the pictures in my mind when I began writing
about them. In my childhood and young womanhood, Fairhope's utopian
dream was just beginning to fade and I had no way of knowing how much I
would miss it the rest of my life. I began writing books with
nonfiction, embellished by my own vivid memories, of what the town was
like some 50 years before.<br />
<br />
I then wanted, through fiction, to
explore the magic that happened in Fairhope long before I got there,
when the reformers, nonconformists, dreamers and idealists were young
and still believed the reality of Fairhope would eventually change the
world. These people built a little society on that premise, that the
best of people would be borne out in their enclave and, town by town,
the rest of the country and eventually the world would see the light and
adopt their economic and educational system. <br />
Just as they held
their hopes, so did I hope, some 90 years later, that a novel about that
magical time would stir excitement about the place and its ideas. The
Fairhope of today, it seems, does not need the Fairhope of yesterday. It
is populated with those who love the town as it is, a well-manicured,
attractive little city with magnificent sunset views and a lot of new
houses. Interest in <em>That Was Tomorrow</em> is coming from other
places. I hope it will come from lovers of historical novels who want to
learn of life in a real-life utopia of hopeful times past.<br />
<br />
I also wish for magic. I hope that something happens to ignite interest in <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> in Fairhope. If you'd like to know more, visit <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/">my website </a>and see what you think.<br />
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Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-42996284739526411922012-07-03T08:52:00.001-07:002012-09-27T10:31:35.349-07:00Amelia in Fairhope<style>
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</style> A couple of years ago I decided to do it. I would write the
novel that had been hatching in my mind for years, a novel set in the utopian
community of Fairhope when it was at its peak, before modernity caught on,
between the world wars of the 20<sup>th</sup> century when it still seemed that
perhaps all was indeed possible. It was such an optimistic time in the country, and Fairhope seemed to hold the secrets of the future itself. I named my novel <i>That Was Tomorrow.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEXDnNkxYGsVatPqjGq3EjSwzL8HKAVkFcTMS0H_8qXafmroVec6vAbgDR4xcEa_rDV8JYtn8xjn1efY18h2FLIMwhfqdxPJm4_Ggz82iX-kIQNU7iQgmYUPUBohg5iz3FJ_R/s1600/newcover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEXDnNkxYGsVatPqjGq3EjSwzL8HKAVkFcTMS0H_8qXafmroVec6vAbgDR4xcEa_rDV8JYtn8xjn1efY18h2FLIMwhfqdxPJm4_Ggz82iX-kIQNU7iQgmYUPUBohg5iz3FJ_R/s400/newcover.png" width="308" /></a></div>
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I wanted the historical Fairhope to be a character in the
novel, an inescapable paradise setting--where real people struggled with
everyday problems, surrounded by the elders of the town, all of whom had moved
to Fairhope to live out their personal dreams to improve the world. I wanted
the novel to focus on those who were starting out in life, observed some of the
flaws in the utopian dream, and learned from the reality of Fairhope. A couple
would fall in love and ultimately let go of that particular magic as they left
Fairhope to establish their lives in the real world. People would talk
international affairs and politics while they took their families to bathe in
the nude in Mobile Bay and frolic in the local nudist colony for what was known
in the day as “air baths.” Children would climb in the trees, play marbles in
the streets, explore the gullies, and, most of all, enjoy their days in the
School of Organic Education.</div>
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I began the book in Hoboken, where my leading character was
born. I would take young Amelia through a privileged childhood with a nanny
from hell, a repressed woman with so many hangups that little Amelia’s only
refuge was in a game that involved torturing her teddy bear in order to save
him. A beloved aunt rescues Amelia and raises her with her own four children in
a happy, loving family in Philadelphia, where she is sent to a progressive
Quaker school and decides to become a schoolteacher herself.</div>
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In Philadephia she hears a talk by a radical education
reformer, the visionary Marietta Johnson, who inspires Amelia as much as she
did so many young schoolteacher of the day. </div>
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Amelia soon packs up for Fairhope, where she will encounter
the settlement’s <i>avant garde</i>. They are iconoclasts and idealists who believe
their utopia is showing the way for the rest of the world. She meets the stalwarts of the town, including not only Mrs. Johnson but also E.B. Gaston, librarian Marie Howland, and other notables who populate the town. The Fairhope of 1921
has also attracted a number of strays—the outsider fringe, some of whom are
amusing, some harboring menace. Amelia is, for the most part, enchanted. She has
an affair, works diligently at the new educational theory, until ultimately she
moves on and leaves Fairhope to start her own school.</div>
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It remains to be seen whether <i>That Was Tomorrow </i>will catch
on in Fairhope, or outside it, for that matter. Now available as an e-book
only, if my novel develops a buzz in Fairhope I’ll publish it in traditional
format and give book talks and signings, promoting it to the hilt. If you’re
curious to learn more, visit <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/">my website</a> and download the book. As an ebook it's available on amazon, and a few reviews have already appeared there.</div>
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Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-52392953479045608222012-05-28T05:37:00.002-07:002012-05-28T05:37:47.408-07:00Looking Back and Sideways at FairhopeWhen you leave a place, that doesn't mean it leaves you. I've been haunted by Fairhope and working it out by writing books about the Fairhope I remember (<i>The Fair Hope of Heaven</i>, <i>Meet Me at The Butterfly Tree</i>) and the Fairhope of the days before I was born (<i>That Was Tomorrow</i>). <br />
<br />
There's a new Fairhope now, and I certainly know it. The old one is
not quite buried yet, however, with this last trip I for one was able to
identify the source of my conflict about the place. When I lived in Fairhope I
carved out as my mission the education of the new people about the
place; after over 20 years I have realized I was talking to myself. History
is not high on the agenda of a town on the move and on the make. New
people are not interested in the old ways, even if they were radical and
would be avant garde today. The new who have come to Fairhope would be
even less interested in the radical and avant garde.<br />
<br />
I'm grateful, however, for the magnificent little museum run by my old friend Donnie Barrett, in the heart of town. There are history buffs and Fairhope buffs who congregate there and bask in the weekly teas and talks about the old days. It and the Marietta Johnson Museum, the restored Bell Building on what is now the campus of Faulkner Community College, provide a blanket of psychic warmth and a stimulus of respect for history for the curious <br />
<br />
I wrote this several years ago in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fair Hope of Heaven</span>: "No matter where people move, they look for the tribe they can relate
to, and there is a sense of inclusiveness in the many tribes of
Fairhope. They are pleased to meet and work with new people. And the
tribes reflect a myriad of interests which may catch a person off guard
and may trigger new enthusiams."<br />
<br />
There is still a
chance for me, then, in the new Fairhope. I still have a tribe there,
and it is one of writers, artists, and historians, amateur and professional, whom I haven't yet met. There are people I know
and trust from years past. And there is always the coastline of Mobile
Bay with its spectacular sunsets and instant solitude and peace. <br />
<br />
Here's
what one writer was inspired to say in a book about Fairhope: "And
somewhere in a gully on a particular day in a certain season, the
fortunate wanderer will actually find a tree covered in butterflies...It
should not be a surprise, even if it is not expected, if a shadow
dances among the leaves, a face appears (or seems to), even a community
of phantoms from the past. Here you will find answers, questions, and a
host of stories."<br />
<br />
That writer was me. The book is called <span style="font-style: italic;">Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree</span>. And somewhere in my heart I retain the belief that that magic might happen only in Fairhope.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-86707232125997136152012-05-24T07:58:00.001-07:002012-05-24T07:58:22.625-07:00Have You Ever Been in Love?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMgr8SnYCdJL1zWvPY3oNrCJOVWDpx_qgDz6G-If5KIlxONaT_ljShXLPOicWV-LEUQY4hIMRFJ31XF8gpmJ9WJBvmKCTX7GsCx0uXsDlWVifdduLrd-PLh_JhT6UaL4mWYvZB/s1600/ADS_1537.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMgr8SnYCdJL1zWvPY3oNrCJOVWDpx_qgDz6G-If5KIlxONaT_ljShXLPOicWV-LEUQY4hIMRFJ31XF8gpmJ9WJBvmKCTX7GsCx0uXsDlWVifdduLrd-PLh_JhT6UaL4mWYvZB/s320/ADS_1537.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
A simple enough question, I guess, yes or no. Yet when I man I'd met on an online dating service asked me I was stumped for an answer.<br />
<br />
I had never been asked that question before. I've been married three times and was what I would have called <i>in love</i> with all of them at the time we tied the knot. The man asking the question had been married once, for nearly 40 years, to one woman, and had been at her side every day as she suffered from Alzheimer's until she died. That was what he meant by love, and I was not one to argue. It is the stuff fairy tales are made of, and rom-coms from Hollywood, and probably a large percentage of the fiction we read. Happily ever after, and then you close the book and never ask what happens next.<br />
<br />
It looks so easy when other people do it, but on the other hand there are many of us who struggle with the concept for our whole lives. It would be so pleasant to have a partner for life, someone to banter with over coffee every morning, some to care for us, observe our triumphs, soothe us through difficulties, be in love with us forever. In my experience marriage itself had something to do with the loss of that "in love" feeling--time, familiarity, a growing awareness of the reality of the other and knowledge that he had the same awareness of you. My dating friend told me that he had been his wife's whole world through their marriage, and in my eyes she was fortunate that he never abused that devotion. He is a wise and courageous person. How do I, who lived a rootless, sometimes reckless, often self-centered, and always questing and questioning existence, respond to a person so sincere, so profound in his conventionality? All I could say was "I've had a different sort of life."<br />
<br />
He chooses to believe that my last husband, whom I was with for 25 years and who died of cirhossis of the liver, was the love of my life. I would not say that. So I look back--was there a love of my life at all, or am I still seeking him? There were passionate affairs, complex adjustments, and there was a layer of love over all, but is there one person I would characterize as the love of my life?<br />
<br />
Television hotshot Piers Morgan, replacing Larry King as interviewer to the stars, has in his arsenal of pointed questions, "How many times would you say you've really been in love?" Being English, he seems to expect this to be a whammy to the hapless interviewee, and perhaps in England it would be. But in the U.S., interrogating the likes of sophisticated, sarcastic comedian Kathy Griffin, he is answered by an eye-roll and an Is-that-all-ya-got evasive comeback, as if she knows it's a canned question and she ain't gonna talk about this stuff with him. Needless to say, under the circumstances of a TV studio and a million viewers, I would like to be like Kathy and demand the next question. None of your beeswax, you remote, snobbish, self-important English guy.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
But this was an intimate friend, a man I respected. How to break it to him, what my life has been, how different the experience of love itself has been from my family of origin on. It's too much to answer lightly. I was in love, but I was in another world. and I don't mean the soap opera either. I was in "The Guiding Light," and in "The Edge of Night," but when I was in love I was in another world.<br />
<br />Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-47907941104077284652012-05-20T07:50:00.003-07:002012-09-13T06:47:07.406-07:00A Fair Hope of RebirthThis blog has always been about hopes--high hopes, dashed hopes, fair hopes, and just about every kind of hope I could weave into my personal narrative--including a town called Fairhope in the south of Alabama. I lived in Fairhope until December of 2007, and in a sense I expect to live in fair hope of something for the rest of my days.<br />
<br />
Today I'm looking at new things for my future. I've written a novel and am publishing it online as a ebook (whatever that is). Ironically it is set in the utopian town of Fairhope in 1921 and will probably find most of its fans in the age range of people who actually don't know what an e-reader is. Well, they'll just have to buy one, because I think they'll love this book. It concerns a young woman who moves from New Jersey to south Alabama to teach in an extraordinary school and live among nonconformists who have an agenda to change the world. I've been researching the time and place for over 20 years, and picked up a zillion anecdotes and tall tales, some of which are in the book.<br />
<br />
In those days, Fairhope was populated with idealists who were planning for a better tomorrow for the generations to follow. At some point, my heroine calls into question the very basis of old Fairhope and even the school and her mentor and idol, Marietta Johnson. From this existential doubt comes my title, <i>That Was Tomorrow</i>, but not before we've all had a jolly old time revisiting the Fairhope of the past.<br />
<br />
Through the deep investigation of what old Fairhope means to me, and what I have firm hopes that it once actually was, I'm reborn. No longer a concerned citizen of a town whose approach to the 21st century caused me distress, no longer an actress and director of theatre, I'm now an author with not only two non-fiction books to my credit but also one historical novel--with some violence, sex, romance and heart in it. I have a birthday next week, and am looking at life at 72 with fresh, youth-filled eyes. My Organic education has provided me with an optimistic outlook and an awareness that life is what you can make it, and it is full of surprises and adventures. The Internet is a place where infinite changes can happen. I'll revive this blog, and my other two blogs, and this is the place I shall continue to investigate hope, <i>fair</i> and otherwise. I hope you'll bookmark it and revisit it regularly<br />
<br />
Maybe you found this blog from my website. If that's the case, I suggest you browse the blog and the many posts over the years. You can do so by clicking the Archive section on any random month or by typing in a subject in the "Search" box in the upper left hand corner. I've dealt with religion, education, politics, and personalities over the years--and probably shall for years to come. Try typing "Searching Our Souls" or "God" if you want something profound and thought-provoking; otherwise try "Fairhope Pier" or some other spot of interest.<br />
<br />
And if you didn't find this from my website, I hope you'll go <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/">here </a>now and buy my book. Make that plural; buy <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/books.html" target="_blank">all of them.</a>Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-75089747042033355302012-03-09T07:57:00.008-08:002012-03-09T08:46:45.957-08:00Johnny's Books<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvGDCRsZ7yf2mA8iq9TmqYs46CCM8q9ioTJ745wRU_yAxbYReedDD3GPWW7C61zfR1DgxnodfZrLXRQPzWflzrUVLfjk1INHGUm9oMfxH9ABPy69Md761AM_Bvs553hra1jaJK/s1600/g000258000000000000a5e0eb8e021b4f3447ed7f0d5643a2296aa1290c.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 279px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvGDCRsZ7yf2mA8iq9TmqYs46CCM8q9ioTJ745wRU_yAxbYReedDD3GPWW7C61zfR1DgxnodfZrLXRQPzWflzrUVLfjk1INHGUm9oMfxH9ABPy69Md761AM_Bvs553hra1jaJK/s400/g000258000000000000a5e0eb8e021b4f3447ed7f0d5643a2296aa1290c.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717927184302177506" /></a>A year ago a Facebook friend announced he would be holding a writer's workshop in Minneapolis. He and I--and many others--had built kind of a club-within-a-club on the social network, and I decided to take myself to one of the twin cities and enroll in his class. It was an adventure that meant the world to me, and I'll tell you why.<br /><br />Jonathan Odell, charming and chatty as he is on Facebook, is a serious man and a first-rate novelist. His class inspired me to keep at the novel I was working on, and he agreed to be one of the first readers of my rough draft when I finished.<br /><br />At the workshop he announced that his second book, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Healing</span>, had been accepted by a major publisher and we could expect to see it in print by March of 2012. That seemed a long wait to me, but the time is here, and the book is out.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtPH57yF-nkc2cVZWSfWCClt3YEIVE4_D2leuF1rgn6tdY7Cff9n1TG9kJcpXPJsk05bVdW4EhtMEnhpsYDg1qH7WRKGR_2TtxKvD_rTYmr6TrplSc80wwNaOueB9-5IvW0-e/s1600/373593_156578631041851_1546807162_n.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVtPH57yF-nkc2cVZWSfWCClt3YEIVE4_D2leuF1rgn6tdY7Cff9n1TG9kJcpXPJsk05bVdW4EhtMEnhpsYDg1qH7WRKGR_2TtxKvD_rTYmr6TrplSc80wwNaOueB9-5IvW0-e/s320/373593_156578631041851_1546807162_n.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717928987992956706" /></a> I've been to the local bookstore in Fairhope and bought my copy, but first I wanted to read Jon's <span style="font-style:italic;">The View from Delphi</span>, which preceded it. Jon will be talking about <span style="font-style:italic;">The Healing</span> and the process of writing it at a book signing event at the Page & Palette March 15. I'll be there.<br /><br />At the Minneapolis workshop, Jon told of growing up Johnny Johnson in Mississippi, conflicted and somewhat unhappy, and that he somehow wanted to be a writer in spite of the fact he had never been encouraged by his teachers or anyone else to pursue his creative side. He wanted to <span style="font-style:italic;">be</span> a writer, but wasn't sure he could write. His first mentor was novelist Mary Gardner, who read his work and said, "This little boy in here is so burdened and victimized he doesn't even seem real. Were you like this as a child? Were you aware of yourself as a victim even then?" Jon said his revelation was that he was not--indeed he remembered himself as been a reasonably happy little kid, doing childish things like sneaking treasures out of the family's drawer and burying them in the back yard. "There," Mary said. "You have a start of a real character." She also said to him, "I don't know if you can write or not, but you have great material." From that insight, he was able to go back and rewrite, exploring what made his mother the kind of person she was (and is), and build a dynamic set of stories around his early childhood during the voter registration crisis period in Mississippi. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The View from Delphi</span> has a little boy named Johnny in it, and one of the things Johnny does is steal things from grownups and bury them in the back yard (under the house, actually). It becomes a crucial part of the plot--and Johnny is both observer and actor in the ensemble of diverse characters in the book. I couldn't help picturing Johnny Johnson as the devilish little Johnny Graham, and I suspect I was right in doing so. It's a complicated, engrossing tale of interwoven lives--a black part of town and a white part of town--and the reader is tossed from one side to the other, never landing where he or she expected to go. I relived some of my own experiences as I read, and met a motley band of Mississippi folks on the journey. I loved every minute of it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Healing</span> sits on the coffee table in the cottage I'm renting, and I'm raring to get into it before I take it to the reading for Jon to sign. He's left little Johnny far behind him, and if the early reviews of this book mean anything, his new name of Jonathan Odell will be one to conjure with for generations to come. I expect it will overturn a lot of clichés about the South and be another great ride--led by one of the truly original minds of the region.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-35765437911365642872012-03-01T16:36:00.009-08:002012-03-20T06:51:51.819-07:00The Old Home--Montrose, Alabama<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUy8drOBINpS6YUXmXERuLmmx2S4eDlvmkEP1Z0wGhefaqbKEDeC9nvsSysdkuIlOuZHuyWokgvU0ZPljCpXiqOFMKJ7WJq42otVg9eWTjHE3STw_FF4AlfGRSAVlbNGH-kPSv/s1600/house.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUy8drOBINpS6YUXmXERuLmmx2S4eDlvmkEP1Z0wGhefaqbKEDeC9nvsSysdkuIlOuZHuyWokgvU0ZPljCpXiqOFMKJ7WJq42otVg9eWTjHE3STw_FF4AlfGRSAVlbNGH-kPSv/s400/house.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715099427217110914" /></a><br />Montrose used to be a separate entity, some five miles north of Fairhope. It was older, more Southern, more settled, less contentious. It was the place my parents found a home for the family in 1949.<br /><br />"It's not much of a house, we said," my mother told me some forty years later. "But it's a nice <span style="font-style:italic;">place</span> for a house." The three and a half acres was pretty spectacular, even then. It was dotted with oaks, dripping with Spanish Moss; there was space in the back for a pasture for horses and an area for a nice little chicken house to the north of the house. The house sat on a hill and looked grander from the old highway than it really was, but its interiors held cozy corners and great light and high ceilings (is 14 feet high enough for you?) and was designed in the day when it was important to catch the breezes in summer. It was almost as if it had its own air conditioning system. <br /><br />Our family owned and treasured the house for some sixty years, by which time our mother, who stayed on there, had allowed much of it to fall into disrepair. To say that she had not updated in on a regular basis would be an understatement. Still, the three adult children, all relocated nearby, visited every day and always felt that sense of joy that is the pride of a home. All three of us love old homes and like nothing more than restoring and refurbishing them. But in our hearts there will always be that certain house, that certain place to which our mind returns. It is a specific, special old house, occupying the crest of a hill in Montrose.<br /><br />My brother Graham assured me that the family who bought it after our mother died treasured the house just as we did, and wanted to restore it to the best house it could be in today's world. <br /><br />Today I took the opportunity to visit and my spirits soared.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2-V5q2RwkI2FSk6PiJoi9wNwxm50V5gS2-Njj6GNAkZZE6kIVReNH7X9AFsZUNVirJ4nyXg2BJgNvfGcNNOf59LWsGjZQoIKx4M7XPcO89X0PORllwlf8S1JfEn8ojSYSJCB/s1600/kitchen.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2-V5q2RwkI2FSk6PiJoi9wNwxm50V5gS2-Njj6GNAkZZE6kIVReNH7X9AFsZUNVirJ4nyXg2BJgNvfGcNNOf59LWsGjZQoIKx4M7XPcO89X0PORllwlf8S1JfEn8ojSYSJCB/s400/kitchen.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715095356975607250" /></a> You still enter the house from the kitchen, always awkward, but for the visitor very warm and charming.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5_oMzKIZXLZcH-y81h5C6q4CwC8Mnpq_n6vyz2TrPzFel3gY_4gWImKFkc9QpfM9L1Ma6DY_czzo3sam8_P6LbhnJ9EVWfoT3OguUTyI6wxtVn2u7NpNCBrFxezMifP5XJi0/s1600/hall.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5_oMzKIZXLZcH-y81h5C6q4CwC8Mnpq_n6vyz2TrPzFel3gY_4gWImKFkc9QpfM9L1Ma6DY_czzo3sam8_P6LbhnJ9EVWfoT3OguUTyI6wxtVn2u7NpNCBrFxezMifP5XJi0/s400/hall.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715098038896414066" /></a><br />The wide center hall is enhanced by the new owners' antiques--and by their good taste in keeping things simple.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHRJY5-2DlLnqil22e4z1jaNF27d58darZ3dR_AACn91vRgstDwJME8B9BpIuSUojsu11nDtnJpH77a2kCy6eyHZxF6fMRMDR2JRtl2gV1OBY1C1Myy1NyVNeCGDqVI29ygwp9/s1600/newgazebo.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHRJY5-2DlLnqil22e4z1jaNF27d58darZ3dR_AACn91vRgstDwJME8B9BpIuSUojsu11nDtnJpH77a2kCy6eyHZxF6fMRMDR2JRtl2gV1OBY1C1Myy1NyVNeCGDqVI29ygwp9/s400/newgazebo.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715098507647232418" /></a><br />They've added a building at the back where they can entertain and just chill out. This is where there was once a chicken house, or a stable, depending on which child tells the story. We had both, at different points in time. Later my father had a carport built, which soon was used for storage and basically became, as Mama would say, a junk pile. It is now cleaned up for useful living space. <br /><br />I came away from my visit feeling happy and a little nostalgic. But I had long since given the house away in my mind. The property still holds memories, and the new family will build a new life revolving around the heritage of home that shines throughout the simple space. These pictures I shot today give a feeling of what a wonderful house it is for all time.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-2409004176915906742012-02-06T05:22:00.000-08:002012-02-07T07:20:46.062-08:00I Went Somewhere Else<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb6lfzd1zC5qxy5CqBp-oMAQdeOIhij76HzqrtlewWQ6onAof9dvHxqYNhVCv04kGH7eiUUWdszU5VVcEQbK_mX3IGb06wfMXIJ5qV8KvoLzxZ4rsXi7ZlUopRESyJ6ZCbCYhs/s1600/HUGO-articleLarge.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb6lfzd1zC5qxy5CqBp-oMAQdeOIhij76HzqrtlewWQ6onAof9dvHxqYNhVCv04kGH7eiUUWdszU5VVcEQbK_mX3IGb06wfMXIJ5qV8KvoLzxZ4rsXi7ZlUopRESyJ6ZCbCYhs/s400/HUGO-articleLarge.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5706012702001908482" /></a>It was overcast and cool, but I had been inside my little cottage most of the day. I knew there was a big football game that would engage the whole country, and if you read yesterday's post you know how I feel about that, so I was looking for something else to do. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</span> had ended its run at the local cineplex, replaced by <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span>, a fantasy about the early days of motion pictures. In 3-D, no less. It had earned critical praise and not a few awards and nominations for more. There was a showing at 4:40 which would take me away from my TV set for most of the period absorbed by pre-game and post-game conjecture about who was going to do what to whom and what the other side would have to do then. <br /><br />No question, I was going to see <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span>. There was little traffic on the highways--all those Super Bowl parties, no doubt--and the movie house was all but empty. I took my sunglasses as they were handed to me at the box office and put them on when instructed.<br /><br />I was enchanted by <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span>. For the first hour, which did move a bit slowly, I worked on suspending disbelief. It was basically a children's movie and I wished I had my grandsons with me and wished they were about six and nine again. I had to settle for my own inner child, who is about five in today's years. She loved it.<br /><br />My outer adult questioned whether this flick really demanded 3-D, but had to admit it enhanced the show. I literally felt transported to the inside of a clock in a Paris train terminal of long ago, and I marveled at the clarity of the blue eyes of a boy named Asa Butterfield, and soon I was seeing the world through his eyes. In a charming cameo, Jude Law played his father. Ben Kingsley played a villainous old man. A little too cute for words was Chloe Grace Moretz as the well-read smarty pants who accompanies Hugo in his adventures.<br /><br />I love movies about movies, at least the way they're doing them these days. (On the other hand, I have to say I enjoyed <span style="font-style:italic;">Singin' in the Rain</span> more than <span style="font-style:italic;">The Artist</span>) but I liked <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span> as much as any older film. <br /><br />Hugo watches the passing scene through the clock in the terminal, where he lives, as one would watch a movie. He tells that he and his father used to go to movies and that his father told him about a movie he'd seen as a child in which a rocket hit the man in the moon right in the eye "And it was as if he was seeing his own dreams." I've seen that ancient bit of movie footage myself and loved the idea of a child in Paris seeing it for the first time. Hugo takes his new friend to her first movie, which shows Harold Lloyd hanging over the city, suspending himself from the hands of a giant clock. This is not the last time we see a scene of someone hanging from a clock in <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span>. I recently saw Tom Cruise hanging off the side of the building in an adventure flick but missed the Harold Lloyd reference. <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span> brings it home.<br /><br />The experience of <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span> reminded me of a book I read five years ago and wrote a blog post about. My post was called "Dreaming the Movies" and you can find it if you type those words in the search box above. I won't go into all of it here, but the book described the experience of movies compared to the experience of dreams. <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span> captures the experience of both, telling the audience that that is the way it's supposed to work. In <span style="font-style:italic;">Hugo</span>, it worked like a charm for me.<br /><br />So I escaped the football game, came home to a disappointing episode of <span style="font-style:italic;">Downton Abbey</span>, and climbed into my dreams for a full and pleasant night.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-9024591243243932122012-02-05T07:18:00.000-08:002012-02-05T10:17:33.205-08:00No to the Super BowlIt was in the 1950s--probably midway--when I attended my last football game. Fairhope's biggest rival was Foley. It was the biggest game in the season. <br /><br />In those days I went to Fairhope's "other" school, the little School of Organic Education with an enrollment of about 50 in the high school. My friends and I faithfully went to all the home games of Fairhope High. I sat with five or six lifelong friends (they are til this day) and thrilled to the sound of the bands, the atmosphere charged by the energy of cheerleaders--the smell of autumn in the air and all the trappings of the game. Going to a football game was exciting, and Fairhope always had a good, competitive team. The Foley game was the highlight of the year.<br /><br />This particular year Fairhope was winning by a big lead. It was several years before Kenny Stabler was on the Foley team. We wouldn't have known his name in those days anyway.<br /><br />All I know for sure is that Foley was not going to win this one. It was a slaughter, and we knew it was a slaughter before the end of the first half. That was when one of my favorite people on the planet made an astounding suggestion.<br /><br />"Let's go sit on the Foley side for the second half," he said. "We can boo until they give up!" <br /><br />I was shocked to hear this. Stunned and heartbroken. "No!"<br /><br />But I was much more heartbroken at the response. This bright and beautiful young man got the support of all my friends and a few others from the Fairhope side. Double whammy heartbreak for the starry-eyed girl from Montrose (me).<br /><br />I said, "If you do this, I'm leaving. And I'll never come to another football game." They were incredulous, but nobody supported my action. <br /><br />At the break, while the bands were playing and the half-time show was going on, a group of about ten youngsters from Fairhope actually traipsed over the Foley side and found front row seats (Foley didn't have many in the stands). When the game started again there they sat, cheering wildly every time Fairhope had a successful play on the field, no matter how small, and jeering at the top of their lungs when someone on the Foley team attempted a counter action. It was a spectacle I have never forgotten.<br /><br />By then I was ready to walk away from the game. I lived far enough away that I had to await a ride from my mother, who would pick me up by the time the game ended. There was no telephone nearby so I could let her know I was ready to go home early. I stood near the field but out of sight of the game, and heard the roars from the stands when Fairhope made touchdowns and the slight sounds when Foley did something that might make a point. <br /><br />I knew at that moment I had changed my life with that action. Never again would I see football or any other sport as an innocent, positive aspect of American life. I would see the whole spectrum of competitive athletics as fostering the opposite of "good sportsmanship." I didn't want to learn the finer points of the game. I would never again thrill to joining the cheerleaders in their chants, yelling myself hoarse with the best of them. I would go to the basketball games for my school; I once even attended a local bush league baseball game and was bored to tears after a few innings. I tolerated sports on television when I had to. But for the next fifty years I would like football least of all.<br /><br />It was a small incident, really. Over the years I've wondered why I allowed it to be so meaningful in my life. With the orgy of emotion in this country over every game--high school, college, and professional--and the obscene amount of money that controls all organized sports, I suspect this may be one of the times I was wrong. Sometimes it seems to me that football is the engine that drives my country, prepares its young men for actual battle and definitely for the hard core workplace. It makes people happy to win and win big. Cheering for the winners is a national pastime. All of this, with my teenaged decision, was lost to me for a lifetime. <br /><br />Maybe it was destined to happen anyway. There are plenty of people who have things they'd rather do than watch football. Probably I would have become one of them without the scene I witnessed. Clearly I overreacted. Now when I think of the joy of high school football I remember that night and it is like a black hole in my soul. At 71 it's probably time I cleared that hole out and put something in its place. Even now I don't know what, how or even why I would have to do that, and it is a little late. <br /><br />I'll never be a football fan, but over time I've learned that it's not the game that creates the dark side in otherwise good people. The episode signaled the beginning of my loss of innocence, but it was highly personal and might have ended another way if I had not been so judgmental of those near and dear friends. I shall find other things to do than attend a Super Bowl party this evening. Maybe I'll use the time to work on ways to replace that memory and not hold all of the culture of football responsible for the bad behavior of a few teenagers in a remote utopian enclave of the distant past.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-70759139573610468002012-02-03T15:31:00.001-08:002013-01-19T04:36:47.356-08:00My Portable LifeHere I am in Fairhope again, driving around in a rental car and staying in a sweet one room cottage.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLsOdY1yO9y87NKMX39g2QQpeVdAgWrCiT1yFcG12j8UVB4mKSJ4elasiNghZNJDtWlv9VXKk0jOcrqLMK_kXmK-GlrRumJHmNq9Ol8uytMyx997YakPKeljPFr4_RRjpKSyca/s1600/cottage.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705342813447717618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLsOdY1yO9y87NKMX39g2QQpeVdAgWrCiT1yFcG12j8UVB4mKSJ4elasiNghZNJDtWlv9VXKk0jOcrqLMK_kXmK-GlrRumJHmNq9Ol8uytMyx997YakPKeljPFr4_RRjpKSyca/s400/cottage.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>It's one room with a little kitchen, a little bathroom--and a lot of charm. It's in a pretty corner of Fairhope, close to town (and to the bay, of course--every property in Fairhope is always advertised as "Walk to town and bay"). I do walk some, and drive some too. I deliberately go out of my way so that I might see what has changed and what has stayed the same. I show up at the door of people I used to know and they are telling me the latest news and gossip.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju3ABgRq-gx94euJ8UvAmGHTkR6y8TdIDS39bUd1M4y3Ut6uvvVrTu0ScCl1Ef8cWyp96TbpqHOL8-WpaoY9awgjaS4aWJX8QixJJTiQZIUGB__wZ2QmDLbC6wFGHa5X4IY-3n/s1600/burnt+out.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705343665060815282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju3ABgRq-gx94euJ8UvAmGHTkR6y8TdIDS39bUd1M4y3Ut6uvvVrTu0ScCl1Ef8cWyp96TbpqHOL8-WpaoY9awgjaS4aWJX8QixJJTiQZIUGB__wZ2QmDLbC6wFGHa5X4IY-3n/s400/burnt+out.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>Above is very close to the center of town, the gaping hole on Fairhope Avenue where the movie house used to be. Soon a new edifice will be erected here for yet another building for gift shops and tourist attractions. It's the way things are going (and have gone for the past 25 years or so).<br />
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The weather is pleasant--it'll be 73 degrees today--and birds are singing and people are smiling. All of that is to be expected in Fairhope at this time of year, although I'm told it's been a mild winter, even for here.<br />
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I lived here for almost 20 years before I decided to move away in December of 2007--to a more hostile climate and a more confrontational atmosphere. I live in New Jersey, and for the first year, whenever I met someone and said I had just moved there from Alabama, people said, "Oh, you're the one..." I'm close to New York City, where I can go to matinees of first rate productions of first rate plays as often as I can afford it, and where I'm a 20 minute bus ride from a trip to visit my daughter and grandsons. <br />
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Whatever I may say about not missing Fairhope, it's always fun to return. We who leave are tempted to quote Thomas Wolfe's famous title <span style="font-style: italic;">You Can't Go Home Again</span>, but I have found it possible and in many ways the best of both worlds.<br />
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Most of the time so far on this trip I find I'm still doing what I do in my non-vacation life. I check and write email, go on Facebook and make snarky comments to strangers. Soon I'll resume sending my query letter to agents who may be willing and able to hawk my novel to legitimate publishers. I've gotten two rejections so far after sending the query to ten high-powered agents--I should have a full complement by the time I go home at the end of March.<br />
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I'm catching up with friends and relations one by one and observing the changes in all. I think it's going to be a lovely two months--even though I can't say I left to get away from bad weather. I came home for a visit.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-22840479786051869032011-07-30T12:06:00.000-07:002013-01-19T04:35:29.444-08:00My Grandma Moses BookI moved back to Fairhope in 1988, expecting to live out my days there. My mother was nearing 80 and my husband, 17 years my senior, was having a hard time in retirement and was suffering from a terrible disease: Alcoholism. I thought Fairhope would be a good place for all of us.<br />
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The twenty years I lived there proved full of changes for us. I found myself through the 12-Step programs (mostly Al-Anon; but six months in AA was a huge help as well), but my husband didn't. He died at the age of 78. My mother lived many more years and made it to 92. In the meantime, I discovered Fairhope's history through working at the Marietta Johnson Museum, and dedicated myself to the recovery of the School of Organic Education as well. I did the best I could, but the school suffered one of its most traumatic periods during this time. All the while I was watching Fairhope change and savoring my memories of what it once was, and learned its deeper nature. I started this blog and continued writing as constantly as I had all my life; poems, journals, letters--and collaborated with Robert E. Bell on a book about Fairhope memories called <span style="font-style: italic;">Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree.</span><br />
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I began to think it would be nice to live out my old age like Grandma Moses, but instead of painting charming primitives I would write novels set in Fairhope in its early days, little word pictures of the kind of people who once moved to the utopian village with an eye to changing the world for the better. Marietta Johnson would be a peripheral character in these books, as would E.B. Gaston, the single tax advocate who founded the town with a goal of demonstrating economic reform, but the books would be about other people and their adventures in the village in bygone days. Fairhope didn't last for me after both my husband and my mother died there, but it haunts me in my new home and I still have a need to write about it.<br />
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I wrote <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fair Hope of Heaven</span>, another non-fiction book about Fairhope and some of its eccentrics and nonconformists, which I had to self-publish and has just about made its nut back. It's still around, at the local Fairhope bookstore Page & Palette and on amazon dot com. I tried to place it in independent bookstores in faraway places like Montgomery but was told that nobody in Montgomery had any interest in Fairhope. I've given and sold copies to friends all over the world who never heard of Fairhope and they love the book, but they are friends so they're probably just being nice. I thought it was kind of a <span style="font-style: italic;">Lake Woebegone Days</span> with a single-tax slant, but publishers think otherwise.<br />
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Now I'm giving fiction a try. My first Grandma Moses book has the working title of <span style="font-style: italic;">That Was Tomorrow</span>, but is my second choice of a working title and it too may be changed. I'm in the first rewrite stage, and damned if it doesn't read sorta like a Grandma Moses painting--quaint and maybe a bit awkward, but with heart and an old-fashioned style, and a certain sense of the place. I tried to marginalize Mrs. Johnson, but she has become a major character in spite of my best efforts. I may cut a great deal before an agent or an editor sees it, but I do not plan to self publish under any circumstances. (Famous last words)<br />
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Grandma Moses painted her first picture at the age of 78, because it was easier than baking a Christmas gift for the postman. When her work was discovered years later in the window of the local drugstore (at $3 and $5, depending on the size of the work), she was lucky that the art dealer who snapped them all up didn't say, "Very good work, but it would never be of interest to anybody outside of Hoosik Falls!"<br />
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Maybe I'll be lucky this time. <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/" target="_blank">My website </a>tells all.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-65494614738891473152011-06-21T08:17:00.001-07:002012-01-07T13:48:45.451-08:00Living in a Magical Place<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEholLKvlkaZdWW6sOSFjU-jBAt745r7cjcf7VdP1juU8kO2ALv-WojTALv-coFg2r9HUM6NAKUEbLl60zIvsQ2CW1rYmrMVAJzKHzUo5_Nvxq8CX48esG5FPjf_Z2eLj69u_Wwj/s1600/web004.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEholLKvlkaZdWW6sOSFjU-jBAt745r7cjcf7VdP1juU8kO2ALv-WojTALv-coFg2r9HUM6NAKUEbLl60zIvsQ2CW1rYmrMVAJzKHzUo5_Nvxq8CX48esG5FPjf_Z2eLj69u_Wwj/s400/web004.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620693233329918386" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Photo by Susan Stein</span><br /><br />I just saw a movie about life as it once was, as it was conceived by its Creator to be, and as it is. This is the profound <span style="font-style:italic;">The Tree of Life,</span> which got me thinking about my own book.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Tree of Life</span> was set in a little Texas town in the 1950's; my book, <span style="font-style:italic;">That Was Tomorrow</span>, was set in Fairhope in 1922. There is not really any similarity between the two works, but as an author perhaps I can be forgiven the indulgence of imagining my little novel being made into a little Indie movie one of these days. In my mind I've cast a few of the leading players, and I did that as I wrote. The hardest part of my movie project would be to recreate the Fairhope of 1922. I suspect it would have to be built from scratch on a Hollywood back lot.<br /><br />The Fairhope of today really doesn't look anything like the one of 1922. In those days the population was under 500, and the houses were literally few and far between. The streets were not paved, there were few automobiles, and there were few shops. There were several guest homes, hotels, and hostelries, as Fairhope was a retreat for intellectual Northerners in the winter. There was a pier stretching out into Mobile Bay, where steamers docked after ferrying people from the city. There was a main street, Fairhope Avenue, and it was crossed by Section Street. At that corner were some of the businesses in town--a pharmacy, a harness shop, a general store, and next door a millinery and gift shop. As you walked down the hill--no sidewalks, just packed dirt--there was the office of the local weekly newspaper, The Courier, the doctor's office, and then, on Church Street was The Gables, a large wooden hotel run by Capt. and Mrs. Jack Cross. A few more guest houses, a cable car running down and up the hill to the bay, and the Colonial Inn on the corner of the street running parallel to the bay and Cliff Drive. Cliffs and gullies. Satsuma trees everywhere. Little kids climbing trees and playing in the gullies.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Tree of Life</span> was filmed in Smithville, TX. So was <span style="font-style:italic;">Hope Floats</span>, and apparently many other movies with a nostalgic setting. For a moment during the film, when I saw a shred of Spanish moss on the trees, I thought it might make a nice backdrop for <span style="font-style:italic;">That Was Tomorrow</span>. But really not. When they walked through town it was a typical, town-square-in-the-middle, layout from days past. In Fairhope there was Knoll Park, azaleas, wisteria, and all the beautiful beach parks. My characters have a number of cookouts on the beach.<br /><br />Sonny Brewer, author of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Poet of Tolstoi Park</span>, a novel set in roughly the same place and time as my book, said they considered Bayou La Batre, AL when it was under consideration for a movie. How they'd get the sun to go down in the East I don't know, but in Hollywood, all things are possible.<br /><br />As a matter of fact, I'm still in dreamland myself. The book has been sent to three friends for evaluation of the first draft. If the reaction is good I still have a lot of work to do, depending on their suggestions. If the reaction is universally not good, the book project will be set aside indefinitely. Probably I'll become a more active blogger again.<br /><br />In the meantime, if you can think of any location that's a little like Fairhope would have been in 1922, let me know.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-82239212429401664502011-05-17T19:36:00.000-07:002012-09-13T06:50:32.795-07:00Spring in Fairhope, 1922<span style="font-weight: bold;">This is an excerpt from the novel <span style="font-style: italic;">That Was Tomorrow</span>, which takes place in Fairhope in 1921-22. It centers around the bohemian community of Fairhope of those days, particularly the teachers at the School of Organic Education. The protagonists all moved to the town as disciples of Marietta Johnson, who was a world-famous proponent of the progressive education movement, and had founded her school as a demonstration of that educational theory. "The Sieve" is the nickname the two young women, Amelia and Avery, have for the cottage they are renting, which has a very leaky roof.</span><br />
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It was still March, but Fairhope was already in the full bloom of spring. Days were sunny, the sky was light blue with little puffs of clouds here and there, and flowers opened their faces on footpaths, roadsides, and in the trees. The first blossoms had appeared as splashes of mauve on redbud trees, but the neighboring dogwoods, with their layered branches now shelves for their white four-leaf blooms, completed the look of lacy color dotting the town.<br />
Years before, the locals had gathered in a civic group to plant azalea bushes around the perimeter of Knoll park. At at this time of year the big, raggedly uneven bushes came into bloom all at once, as if blanketed in pink. Color was accented by large azaleas in white, and there were shades of pink that bloomed in sequence, finishing with the stylish deep, almost red shade known as “Pride of Mobile.” <br />
A wisteria vine, planted on a magnolia tree adjacent to the school’s library, broke into a profusion of lavendar blossoms which exuded a heady sweet fragrance into the breeze.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFuTTTT3MTchG89DfgxlA8PaOOXFEfzY0GsrK8B-_FfLsHNgRToMqPZaEyY1j_fyt2WIAczJ0kPCjb9zkckVd3QH-f5fm-adC5LM5WvCZ0dpfj1FVpK0bfQQl1_IsVoyaNOfB-/s1600/250px-Chinese_Wisteria_Blu%25CC%2588tentrauben.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5605465683475357858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFuTTTT3MTchG89DfgxlA8PaOOXFEfzY0GsrK8B-_FfLsHNgRToMqPZaEyY1j_fyt2WIAczJ0kPCjb9zkckVd3QH-f5fm-adC5LM5WvCZ0dpfj1FVpK0bfQQl1_IsVoyaNOfB-/s400/250px-Chinese_Wisteria_Blu%25CC%2588tentrauben.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 333px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 250px;" /></a> The vine actually connected two trees, and would one day grow big enough to climb on; already it provided a seat between the trees, and the flowers opened with a sweet, springtime smell that would be unforgettable to generations of school children.<br />
Although the temperature usually hovered in the low 80s, humidity was not so high as usual, and it felt at if one could inhale spring itself. The air had a lightness to it that seemed to transfer to the mood of people.<br />
More and more often, Jim Holloway was a visitor to The Sieve. As his romantic relationship with Avery grew more intense, Amelia was more comfortable avoiding the intimate vision of them together, leaving the place to them to go to watch the sunset on the pier, then take a walk around town, sometimes with a book, sometimes taking a notebook to write down ideas for class projects. Some evenings she spent at The Gables, talking with Capt. Cross, who could answer many questions, particularly about history. He recommended books to her, and lent her his copy of Tolstoy’s short stories.<br />
This night, when Amelia came into the parlor at The Gables, Idella Cross presented with an envelope, with her name on it, in Maxwell Taylor’s unmistakable handwriting. <br />
“Mr. Taylor asked me to give this to you,” she said.<br />
“Max? How strange!” Amelia said.<br />
“Oh, I wouldn’t think strange,” Mrs. Cross said simply, and walked away, into the kitchen.<br />
“My Dear Amelia,” read the letter. “I must talk to you. Please meet me at the northeast corner of Knoll Park, Magnolia and Bayview, at 8 P.M. Maxwell Taylor.”<br />
Amelia was somewhat anxious reading this. There could be some bad news that Max wanted to reveal, or some personal situation. Perhaps he was going to be called away for a family emergency, or perhaps he was in some sort of trouble at the school. It was half an hour before the appointed time and there was nothing for Amelia to do but bide her time at The Gables until then.<br />
Capt. Cross was working on a Mozart sonata on the piano, and she had a Rousseau book to read about the nature and needs of the child. She chose her favorite chair in The Gables’ main room, a threadbare old carpet rocker which had the smell of years of musty dust to it. All the same, the book was hardly relaxing, and Capt. Cross’ struggle with Mozart did little to ease her tension.<br />
It was hardly a five-minute walk to the spot designated by Max’s missive. He would be coming from the cottage at Bancroft and Pine Street where he rented a room. She decided to walk down Fairhope Avenue to the Knoll Park corner. It was dark now, a night not unlike when she and Max walked this way to Marie Howland’s, when she got her first look at the little town illuminated by Southern moonlight. <br />
Max was standing near a dogwood tree at the edge of the park. When she got close enough, he said, “Good to see you.”<br />
“Hello, Max.”<br />
What was he going to tell her? Tree frogs were deafening for a moment.<br />
“I see you got my letter,” he said, with a smile curling one corner of his mouth. <br />
There are people, she thought, whose faces are simply not designed for smiling. He fixed her with his eyes, although they seemed to be trembling in a strange and inexplicable way. All she knew to do was look back at him firmly, hoping a steady gaze would relieve the anxiety he seemed to be feeling.<br />
“Yes, although the postal service might be disappointed at the loss of revenue.”<br />
I never thought of that.”<br />
Again there was silence but for the frogs.<br />
“I thought this would be a nice place to meet.”<br />
“And so it is. The night reminds me of our first meeting, walking Marie Howland home.”<br />
He nodded, and clearly began to think about that night.<br />
“This is different,” he said after a pause. “That was before I loved you.”<br />
“Oh, Max!”<br />
“Now let me speak.”<br />
She took a breath and nodded.<br />
“I’ve given this a lot of thought. It was not something I was seeking. ‘It’ found me instead. I’m kind of a solitary fellow, pretty much independent and I’ve always been happy with that—depends upon what you mean by happy, I guess. I was content with it; I didn’t expect more—this damned town—”<br />
“Maybe it’s all these flowers,” she said.<br />
“Flowers and springtime, is that what you think?”<br />
“I don’t know what to think.”<br />
“Well, let me tell you something then. It’s not flowers and springtime! It’s—it’s a wistful scarecrow at Halloween, a pair of eyes glowing in the reflection of firelight, the music of a laugh at a folk tale. It’s delicate hands comforting a weeping child, and feet skipping with children to a tune for a pageant.”<br />
He was warming up now.<br />
It’s camellias and roses for Christmas on a warm day. It’s sunsets on the pier. It’s ‘A Long Long Trail A-Winding.’ It’s the accidental grasp of a hand doing an English country dance. It’s the scent of pine and wisteria in the breeze. It’s this damn, irresistible crazy quilt of a town—but most of all it’s you, my beautiful Amelia. Oh, dear God, let me say that at last. My beautiful Amelia. Okay.” He took a breath, then he launched into an imitation of Ethel Barrymore. “That’s all there is.”<br />
“There isn’t any more?” Amelia picked up on the imitation, which was current in the day, lines in a play the actress had spoken years before. Maxwell at his best was all about the theatre.<br />
“No?” he said, making it a question, imploring her to take it as more than he had said.<br />
“That’s a great deal, Maxwell.”<br />
“Yes. It’s profound. Not so deep as a well, maybe, nor so broad as a church <br />
door—”<br />
“Now you’re quoting.”<br />
“Well, at least I quote from the best.”<br />
“I liked when you were being original.”<br />
“You did?” Now he looked at her, hopeful for the first moment.<br />
“It’s like being in a play.”<br />
“There are times when life is,” Max said. Now he was staring at her, trying to fathom her soul.<br />
“This is new to me,” she said. She was not sure how to capture in words the confusion of feeling that swept over her. But she knew she had to say something.<br />
“Dear Max.”<br />
He stepped over to her and put his arms around her. Amelia did not resist. She knew he was going to kiss her and she would not resist.<br />
The world of sunsets and wisteria blossoms and firelight and folk tales came crashing about her as she responded to his gentle, long kiss. There was a crescendo of tree frogs when he stepped back at last and looked into her face, still with his arms around her. She was unsteady on her feet. Caught in the moment, she could not speak. Her mind was flooded with conflicting thoughts and she felt stirrings and tingling throughout her body that she had never felt before. <br />
All at once Max was laughing.<br />
“You dropped your books,” he said. He picked them up from the patch of grass.“Ah, Tolstoy!” he said, looking at the top book. “How appropriate!”<br />
“Can you blame me?” she said. “About dropping them I mean, not about the books. I feel—a little foolish.”<br />
“Ah no, not foolish, I hope. I did my best—” <br />
“I didn’t mean that. You did very well.”<br />
“Yes, I know,” he said.<br />
“I think you are more accustomed to being in plays than I,” she said.<br />
“You know this isn’t a play.”<br />
“What is it then?”<br />
“It’s real life.”<br />
“Please, Max,” Amelia said. “This is going to take me some time.”<br />
“Oh, ‘please,’ yourself,” he said. “Do not think so much. Do not make this a problem. <br />
I kissed you in the park, I said some things. You liked it.”<br />
“Yes.”<br />
“I shall walk you home now,” he said. “And then I’ll dance all the way to my own humble abode. Then tomorrow…”<br />
“Tomorrow?”<br />
“That’s the one one-word question to which there is no answer,” said Max.<br />
The two walked up Bayview, through the big old oak trees, both of them moved by the moon as it shone through the Spanish moss. He held her hand.<br />
“Avery and Jim are at The Sieve,” she told him.<br />
“That’s good, I think. They are at The Sieve, and you and I are walking down the street. Life goes on.”<br />
She wasn’t sure if Maxwell understood the significance of Jim being with Avery.<br />
“They are a couple.”<br />
“Well, yes, I had hopes. Jim has had his eye on her for months, even before the <br />
departure of the volatile Sarah.”<br />
“I hadn’t seen that,” Amelia said.<br />
He said nothing.<br />
“I shall drop you at the door,” Max said. “I don’t know that I’m able to take any more excitement tonight.”<br />
She turned to him as they reached the door and he leaned down and kissed her cheek.<br />
“Promise me,” he said, “that you won’t think too much.”<br />
“Not an easy promise to keep,” she said.<br />
“Sure it is. If your mind races, just insert thoughts about Tolstoy and Rousseau.”<br />
“And Marietta Johnson?”<br />
“Well, Marietta Johnson too—but I think the distant gods are more comforting than those close to home.”<br />
As she climbed the stairs, Amelia heard his voice in her head, repeating, “Tomorrow is the one-word question to which there is no answer,” and she felt the memory of the kiss suffuse her body with tingling hope. <br />
When she got into her bed a few minutes later, she had not noticed whether or not Jim was still in the house. She wrapped her arms around her spare pillow and wished for her old teddy bear.<br />
<br />
<i>That Was Tomorrow</i> is available at amazon.com., Barnes & Noble.com, iBooks, and from <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/" target="_blank">my website. </a>Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-2829798776990594112011-01-23T06:55:00.000-08:002011-01-23T07:08:15.911-08:00Looking for Mikey<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9-6wuHV8cPES_RkQo3u_aRjHcp80OGSTnW1hPupcx5kd3p68jsyyFvTiiBxxSqd2r3-VxZCEryWYOzeqiyR5NWpcrcO-MX7hkImdOXRoImhxMkRjMeEl8712D2alukoCtIOY/s1600/mikey.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 193px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY9-6wuHV8cPES_RkQo3u_aRjHcp80OGSTnW1hPupcx5kd3p68jsyyFvTiiBxxSqd2r3-VxZCEryWYOzeqiyR5NWpcrcO-MX7hkImdOXRoImhxMkRjMeEl8712D2alukoCtIOY/s320/mikey.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565395393061537346" /></a>It was a beautiful, chilly Saturday morning, and I could have skipped the memorial. I knew plenty of people would be there and that I would not have been missed. But when I considered other options, my inner child kept prodding me, saying that she wanted to say goodbye to Mikey. I had to go. <br /><br />Mikey Jones was a man about town in a unique way; he owned the town and lived in every inch of it. It would seem that everybody in Fairhope knew him—and loved him deeply. That might not be easy to imagine if you never met Mikey, but if you had met him once, it was perfectly clear.<br /><br />Mikey radiated joy in everything he did. It was as natural to him as breathing. To say he was friendly isn’t saying enough; he made a friend of everyone, it was his job. Once he told me that he found it funny that people assumed it was his only job, walking around town and smiling at people, doing odd jobs for them, hugging them, making them laugh. In fact, he said, he was in the oil business and traveled all the time; it was just that when he was in Fairhope he was not at work and he could do what he loved. What he loved was life itself, and people of all ages, sizes, shapes and colors. He was one of the world’s great huggers, also one of the world’s great smilers and caregivers. He cared about people more than anyone I’ve ever known. <br /><br />At his memorial service, his business partner spoke, saying he had never known anyone like Mikey, and thanked God he had had the privilege of his long association with him. He made the congregation laugh when he told us that he’d never known anybody who would get to know every person who was with him on a short elevator ride. I had never been in an elevator with him, but do not doubt that for a minute. And we’re not talking about a superficial acquaintance either; he was as likely to get a name and information about a person he met in an elevator, and remember it when he saw him years later, as anywhere else.<br /><br />Gina Lanaux said in her eulogy, “Mikey left a legacy of love, inspiration and passion. His many friends called him the ‘unofficial mayor of Fairhope.’ He had an insatiable appetite for good food, women of all shapes and sizes, travel, gardening, restoration of old houses and the preservation of all things Fairhope. Everything he did was about his love of life, his love of people, and he shared his positive energy with everyone.” She pointed out that every one of us in the crowded church had a wealth of Mikey stories, and I knew that, having two or three of my own, she was surely right about that. I said to my neighbor on the pew, “She nailed it,” and she, shaking her head responded, “She sure nailed it.”<br /><br />He was ten years old when he moved to Fairhope from Barbados. He befriended Tommy Yeager, who shared at his memorial descriptions of life as a boy with Mikey as a friend in the most Tom Sawyer kind of way. This new boy had come from an island Tommy had never even heard of; he taught him how to explore the bay in ways he never could imagine. They swam in the bay grass and checked out the fish. They made logs into missiles they could ride through the water. Tommy was proud that he knew a few things Mikey didn’t—but Mikey caught on quick. “I had a way of finding anything we needed,” Tommy related. “He would mention wanting something and before he thought of it again, I would appear with it. What I knew was the schedule for curbside garbage pickup, which became our free yard sale.” This scavenger talent, no doubt, was a source for adventures in creativity for the two for years to come.<br /><br />Girls who knew Mikey as a teenager remember that joyous charisma. When he surfed or swam he was at one with the water. He cut a dashing figure. Grace, balance and athleticism came naturally to him, and girls came naturally to him too. Once he made up his mind, however, he settled on a perfect mate, Dee Wilson of New Orleans, who married Mikey and took to his life—and loved it with him.<br /><br />Tears were flowing in that beautiful church, tears of joy that we had known him and tears of recognition of how much would be missing from Fairhope now that he was gone. He had suffered a crucible for the past several years, having fought a painful personal battle with cancer, endured chemotherapy and gotten a little better for a time, and then relapsed for the inevitable end. A valiant soul and an extraordinary lover of life itself, he was as adept at facing death. <br /><br />Thinking about Mikey will always be a source of strength for those of us who were blessed by his acquaintance. After the service, we were invited to join the family for refreshments. I debated with myself about whether to go and again my inner child chimed in. “Mikey would say, ‘Do anything you want,’” came the voice inside me. I went to the luncheon. <br /><br />With any new problem we might have to face, we can think how Mikey would have handled it, and we will have our answers. It makes me smile to think of that.Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-53098830768253708732010-12-16T14:13:00.000-08:002012-09-11T04:59:45.910-07:00Fairhope's Winter Visitor<a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/"><br /></a>Last year I spent the month of February in Fairhope. By the time I got back to Hoboken the brutal weather was about over and I made a decision I'd come again in 2011. So as I prepare for Christmas in upstate New York with my family I'm mentally packing my bags for a jaunt to warmer climes for the month of January.<br />
<br />
Decided to push the date forward a month, choosing January instead of February, largely because of the events surrounding the Wharton Esherick events. Mark Sfirri, woodcarver, professor, and expert in the Modernists of the Philadelphia area in the 1920's, will be talking about Esherick at the Fairhope Library at 1 P.M. January 8. As noted in previous blog posts here, I met Sfirri at an Esherick symposium at the University of Pennsylvania in October and he was very intrigued by Fairhope and the role it played in the life of Esherick, his family and friends of that period. He'll show some of Esherick's art work and sculpture and put it in the context of Fairhope in that time frame.<br />
<br />
The next week I'll speak at a tea at the Fairhope Museum of History on the history of theatre in Fairhope, which will cover the old Shakespeare Festival, the many informal theatrical events of the 1920's and 30's, the Fairhope Little Theater of the 1940's, and the birth of Theater 98 in the late 1950s, as well as Tom Pocase's Theater 8:15 and other theatrical projects including the Equity Jubilee Fish Theater of the 1990's. I'll talk to the Baldwin Writers' Group on Jan. 15 about how I got my two books, <span style="font-style: italic;">Meet Me at The Butterfly Tree</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Fair Hope of Heaven</span> published in the early 2000's, and I'll be signing books at Page & Palette from 2-4 that afternoon. NOTE: My novel <i>That Was Tomorrow</i> set in Fairhope in 1921, is available on <a href="http://www.findingfairhope.com/" target="_blank">my website</a> or on amazon. com, Barnes & Noble. com or iBooks. <br />
<br />
My vacation month is fast filling up. I hear that an old friend may be getting married and several who have moved away are planning to be in town for the event on the 22nd. Haven't seen some of them in two or three years, so that will be nice. <br />
<br />
Before the visit, I thought I'd spend most of the time doing research on my novel set in Fairhope in the 1920's. It didn't work out that way, but the book is now finished and available. Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21825814.post-34967655328056389312010-10-13T06:34:00.000-07:002011-11-14T06:08:39.694-08:00A Time in Old FairhopeFrom the novel I'm working on, <span style="font-style:italic;">That Was Tomorrow</span>, here's an excerpt about The Gables, a hotel run by Capt. and Mrs. Jack Cross:<br /><br />The first settlers, who had moved from Iowa and other parts of the Midwest, had not been farmers, but were eager to learn how to grow enough food to feed their families, and they had assumed this gloriously warm climate would provide a garden of Eden for them. By now they had learned that the soil of Fairhope was sandy and alkaline, not ideal for many crops. But they endured in a spirit of cooperation and optimism, and many had accepted conventional wisdom that citrus, particularly the new Japanese satsuma orange, might be the salvation of Fairhope’s economy. The growing season was indeed a long one, and they experimented to extend it even longer if they could by growing and preparing vegetables and fruit unknown to them before their move to the South. There was a bounty of okra, which was quite tasty when you got used to it, and there were varieties of peas, beans and nuts which they came to enjoy over time.<br /><br />That initial visit, Amelia stayed at the Gables, a simple two-storey wooden building, which Mrs. Johnson had recommended to her. The Gables was a little less fashionable and less expensive than the Colonial Inn, which sat a few blocks west, on the bluff overlooking the bay. The Gables, on the other hand, was right in town and just a few blocks from the school. The Gables was run by Captain and Mrs. Jack Cross.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0KoWU-N5sSfdwS7OP0nkxXQyRDUUFriP-5ad-bEbjMYT1blOKh4DIgT21BNCmJ14tgvpwRdniRrJfy5Ir1UG04gfFbrLHvtmJd7H8mCn3jrP55v-ln5v7UnmhRPg4kFcSHcnu/s1600/Captain+Jack.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 255px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0KoWU-N5sSfdwS7OP0nkxXQyRDUUFriP-5ad-bEbjMYT1blOKh4DIgT21BNCmJ14tgvpwRdniRrJfy5Ir1UG04gfFbrLHvtmJd7H8mCn3jrP55v-ln5v7UnmhRPg4kFcSHcnu/s320/Captain+Jack.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527525274308438898" /></a> Mrs. Cross was a busy, funny lady—and her husband a raconteur with an English accent, who held forth with his pipe and a cup of tea on the front porch every afternoon, as cronies and neighbors stopped by to discuss the fate of the world with him. They often talked about the politics of the village, and about the future of the single tax system, and about books they were reading and authors they admired. The elders of the town stopped by to air the latest issues they were dealing with—even E.B. Gaston, the editor of The Courier and virtually the founder of Fairhope—stopped by on his morning walk to exchange pleasantries with the Crosses. It seemed to Amelia that this little hotel was the hub of the community, but the more she got to know her way around, other such hubs were revealed to her. There were three or four little cafes in the village of about 1,500, and about 15 hotels with dining rooms, and coffee urns all over town were hot with fresh brew all day long. <br /><br />“Wherever there’s people in Fairhope,” Mrs. Cross said to her, “There’s coffee. Or maybe that should be, wherever there’s coffee, there’s people.” She made tea for her husband and his friends, but there was always hot coffee as well. The Crosses, both devoted to the cause of single tax, had moved to Fairhope with the idea of running a farm, but, like many idealists who had never farmed before, changed their minds after a year or two, at which time they had taken over the management of the Gables Hotel, where Mrs. Cross cooked and supervised work inthe kitchen. She laid an old-fashioned boarding house type of table, which was popular with locals as well as transients. <br /><br />Amelia found both the Crosses fascinating people, and their visitors from town were a certain breed—earnest, wordy, and wise, with one central agenda, which was how best to put Fairhope on the map and change the world through single tax philosophy. <br /><br />They hadn’t yet realized that the wave of the immediate future of Fairhope was actually Amelia and those like her who were moving to the town to participate in Mrs. Johnson’s school. Seven years before, the famed educational philosopher John Dewey had come to Fairhope to review the school for a book he was writing. His visit had set the little village on its ear with excitement. The children, informed that the only day Dr. Dewey had available to observe the school was Christmas Eve, voted to keep the school open its regular hours that day so that he might get a fair picture of it in operation. Mrs. Johnson took some of them outside, as was her custom so often, to teach a class, Dewey’s daughter photographed the scene which became the frontispiece of a book.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFcmk8IJcmHGfQMEPMMGSZen4flx0HdnSYzwvH1R3QCg1K80gdtM6N7o75hsaz7BB_AxzEBEmh_TTR1XtNl0KU7BaTqkozLea-HUG0dTANYqsr908xL8pwiNvnSOTh0vO1-dLg/s1600/300px-Marietta_L_Johnson.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 151px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFcmk8IJcmHGfQMEPMMGSZen4flx0HdnSYzwvH1R3QCg1K80gdtM6N7o75hsaz7BB_AxzEBEmh_TTR1XtNl0KU7BaTqkozLea-HUG0dTANYqsr908xL8pwiNvnSOTh0vO1-dLg/s400/300px-Marietta_L_Johnson.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527525525908408114" /></a>Mary Loishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515655542270431289noreply@blogger.com6