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I still remember my first trip to New Orleans. It was with my Dad's sister, Aunt Carmol. Carmol was a schoolteacher in New Orleans and she was quite a woman. When WWII broke out, she joined the Marines and served with them throughout the war.
She was a liberated woman, even during a very un-liberated time in Louisiana. When New Orleans first integrated, it was at her school and she walked the children into the building every morning to insure their safety.
When I was eleven and my brother Jack thirteen, she took us to New Orleans for a visit, and a grand tour of everything cultural in the venerable old city. We stayed with her and her husband Tack. We did not go alone. She also brought two very young north Louisiana schoolteachers. I cannot remember their names but I will call them Sandra and Dolly.
Sandra and Dolly were as excited about their first visit to the Big Easy as Jack and I. They were both young and pretty and they flirted with Jack and me all the way to New Orleans. As best as I can remember, it was the first time that I fell (no, tumbled head over heals!) in love.
Aunt Carmol showed us the French Quarter, the zoo and the museums and we saw little of Sandra and Dolly during our visit. Before we left, however, we all took a nighttime excursion to the Lake Pontchartrain Amusement Park; Sandra was Jack's date, Dolly mine. The memory of riding through the Tunnel of Love with Dolly remains as one of the all time highlights of my life.
Aunt Carmol died in her forties of a kidney disease that today’s medicine could easily cure. I miss her but I feel that she is still somehow with me. Her early passing goes along with my theory that only the good die young, in which case I expect to live until a hundred-twenty, or so.
Fiction South
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
Cat Story
I love animals and grew up with many pets – dogs, guppies, parakeets, tarantulas. Well, you get the picture. Still, I was thirty-two before I ever owned my first cat. Maybe I should say that I was thirty-two when a cat first owned me. His name was King Tut, and he was a big orange, longhaired, full-blooded something-or-other.
Tut was as regal as his name. Other adjectives also well described him – haughty, fussy, and possessive, etc. Tut and I were together almost sixteen years and somewhere along the way, he decided that he liked me.
Since Tut, I have had more cats than I can count. You cat people out there know where I am coming from. You cannot own (there I go again) just one cat. Cats sense when you like them and they start appearing at your doorstep from out of nowhere. Well, all this explanation brings me to my latest cat Duke.
I must digress. Before I inherited Duke, I had a kitty named Bob, a yellow tabby with no tail. Bob was a wonderful cat, but always pitifully skinny. He was that way when Shannon, my stepdaughter, left him with me. I think he may have had the cat equivalency of immunodeficiency disease.
I was afraid to take him to the vet because I had once had a favorite kitty named Silky with the incurable malady. The vet wanted to put her down because she was so contagious. It broke my heart and I did not cotton to repeat the experience with Bob. Yes, I know, you cannot hide your head in the sand. Well, yes you can, at least for a while.
I found Bob stuck in the fence, too weak to pull himself our. He was dead and I cried when I found him. I was writing Big Easy at the time of Bob’s demise and I did a big rewrite in order to incorporate his story into the plot. This brings me back to Duke.
Duke, like Bob, was skinny when he appeared on my doorstep. He was also a frightened little mass of kittyhood. There was nothing that I could do except feed and pet him. Like Bob, Duke succumbed to the coyotes, foxes, owls or maybe the hawks rampant in our wooded subdivision. My only cat now is Rouge, although a neighbor’s cat named Fang spends more time here than at his own house.
My stepdaughter Shannon, a person that has always had a soft spot in her heart for stray animals has a white kitten that she is trying to find a home for, and she wants Marilyn and me to take it. Maybe we will.
Eric'sWeb
Tut was as regal as his name. Other adjectives also well described him – haughty, fussy, and possessive, etc. Tut and I were together almost sixteen years and somewhere along the way, he decided that he liked me.
Since Tut, I have had more cats than I can count. You cat people out there know where I am coming from. You cannot own (there I go again) just one cat. Cats sense when you like them and they start appearing at your doorstep from out of nowhere. Well, all this explanation brings me to my latest cat Duke.
I must digress. Before I inherited Duke, I had a kitty named Bob, a yellow tabby with no tail. Bob was a wonderful cat, but always pitifully skinny. He was that way when Shannon, my stepdaughter, left him with me. I think he may have had the cat equivalency of immunodeficiency disease.
I was afraid to take him to the vet because I had once had a favorite kitty named Silky with the incurable malady. The vet wanted to put her down because she was so contagious. It broke my heart and I did not cotton to repeat the experience with Bob. Yes, I know, you cannot hide your head in the sand. Well, yes you can, at least for a while.
I found Bob stuck in the fence, too weak to pull himself our. He was dead and I cried when I found him. I was writing Big Easy at the time of Bob’s demise and I did a big rewrite in order to incorporate his story into the plot. This brings me back to Duke.
Duke, like Bob, was skinny when he appeared on my doorstep. He was also a frightened little mass of kittyhood. There was nothing that I could do except feed and pet him. Like Bob, Duke succumbed to the coyotes, foxes, owls or maybe the hawks rampant in our wooded subdivision. My only cat now is Rouge, although a neighbor’s cat named Fang spends more time here than at his own house.
My stepdaughter Shannon, a person that has always had a soft spot in her heart for stray animals has a white kitten that she is trying to find a home for, and she wants Marilyn and me to take it. Maybe we will.
Eric'sWeb
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Summer of Love
We experienced the “Summer of Love” in 1969, along with Woodstock and the first man on the moon. There was also Vietnam. I had just graduated from college and planned to marry in August. Before the marriage occurred, I sat my first oil well.
It was early July and I waited in Houston, Texas for my first assignment as a mudlogger with a company called Core Lab. My new mentor was a degreed geologist named Ed M. and we were soon on our way to Mississippi. The 60s in Mississippi were still racially charged and we had to peel off the Core Lab sticker from our company car before driving into the state.
Many in Mississippi thought of CORE as the Congress of Racial Equality, not an oil and gas service company. Being from Louisiana, I was somewhat used to racism, but not even close to what I encountered in Mississippi.
My first well was a 17,500’ wildcat, just outside of Laurel, Mississippi. Ed and I found a room at a local boarding house. Ed liked boarding houses – he had married the owner of the last boarding house where he had stayed in Monroe, Louisiana. I liked them too because I did not have a lot of extra money for the local Hilton.
The drilling rig was big and noisy, but I was not destined to see the well through its total depth. Instead, I drove to Weslaco, Texas to finish logging a well drilling there. I never finished that well either because Core Lab sent me to log yet another deep wildcat, this one near Talco in east Texas.
While young hippies were smoking dope, cavorting around with no clothes, and listening to rock music, I spent the “Summer of Love” on an assortment of noisy drilling rigs from Mississippi to Texas. My boss begged me to sit a wildcat for him in Nicaragua and put off my marriage until later. I thought about it, and the extra money he offered, but my bride-to-be would have none of it.
Five months later, I was married, drafted into the Army and training for a traumatic trip to Southeast Asia as a hired gun for Richard Nixon. Yes, I missed the wild and decadent parts of the “Summer of Love” but I tried making up for it during the “Disco 70s.” Maybe it is a good thing because I don’t think I could have survived both.
Eric'sWeb
It was early July and I waited in Houston, Texas for my first assignment as a mudlogger with a company called Core Lab. My new mentor was a degreed geologist named Ed M. and we were soon on our way to Mississippi. The 60s in Mississippi were still racially charged and we had to peel off the Core Lab sticker from our company car before driving into the state.
Many in Mississippi thought of CORE as the Congress of Racial Equality, not an oil and gas service company. Being from Louisiana, I was somewhat used to racism, but not even close to what I encountered in Mississippi.
My first well was a 17,500’ wildcat, just outside of Laurel, Mississippi. Ed and I found a room at a local boarding house. Ed liked boarding houses – he had married the owner of the last boarding house where he had stayed in Monroe, Louisiana. I liked them too because I did not have a lot of extra money for the local Hilton.
The drilling rig was big and noisy, but I was not destined to see the well through its total depth. Instead, I drove to Weslaco, Texas to finish logging a well drilling there. I never finished that well either because Core Lab sent me to log yet another deep wildcat, this one near Talco in east Texas.
While young hippies were smoking dope, cavorting around with no clothes, and listening to rock music, I spent the “Summer of Love” on an assortment of noisy drilling rigs from Mississippi to Texas. My boss begged me to sit a wildcat for him in Nicaragua and put off my marriage until later. I thought about it, and the extra money he offered, but my bride-to-be would have none of it.
Five months later, I was married, drafted into the Army and training for a traumatic trip to Southeast Asia as a hired gun for Richard Nixon. Yes, I missed the wild and decadent parts of the “Summer of Love” but I tried making up for it during the “Disco 70s.” Maybe it is a good thing because I don’t think I could have survived both.
Eric'sWeb
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Runner's High
I jogged today for the first time in almost three years. I didn’t go very far before I had to start walking but I eventually covered a distance of more than two miles. My mind cleared as I pounded the pavement, albeit slowly, and I remembered a time long ago when I experienced my first runner’s high.
I was a freshman in college, attending summer school after graduating high school. Every evening, I would run with some of the members of the cross-country team that were also attending summer school. We ran five miles every night at a fast clip. The college, Northeast Louisiana had the best track team in the area and was the college home of John Pennel, the first man to clear seventeen feet in the pole vault, and perhaps the greatest vaulter of all time.
“The key to cross-country is that we run as a team,” John, the Captain of the team told me. “We are no stronger than our weakest link and everyone on our team always finishes. If we have to, we drop back and run with the weak man. There are no stars on our team.”
I didn’t feel like a star but I was young and I was fast – very fast - and I sometimes had a tough time moderating my speed for what I considered a maudlin pace some of the others preferred. One evening, toward the end of the summer semester, I could take it no longer. With little more than teenage forethought (a phrase meaning zero) I took off at an unheard of pace, intent on running off and leaving everyone in my wake.
I did manage to leave the other runners in my wake, except two of them, that is. When I reached Sterlington Road, finally pointing back toward the college, I heard someone coming up behind me. I turned around briefly to see John, the team captain and Jim, the fastest cross-country runner in the old Gulf South Conference. They were about a hundred yards behind and closing fast. I am not going to let them catch me, I vowed.
Our course ended at the dormitory and you had to cross an athletic field to reach it. We were about a hundred yards from the dorm when John and Jim passed me. It didn’t matter because something else occurred that I had never before experienced.
Something so strange happened to me that it is almost impossible to describe. I had no weight to my body and I had no feeling or sensation from my neck down. It was almost as if my head had become detached from my body and was flying low to the ground, carrying my psyche along as an interested passenger. It was a sensation you have to experience to appreciate. It was my first runner’s high, and I will never forget it.
I didn’t lose the race that day. I won something so valuable that I have kept it with me to this very day. I remembered when I ran for the first time today in almost three years. I am no longer young, skinny or fast, but believe me when I tell you that I experienced a runner’s high before going a hundred yards.
Eric'sWeb
I was a freshman in college, attending summer school after graduating high school. Every evening, I would run with some of the members of the cross-country team that were also attending summer school. We ran five miles every night at a fast clip. The college, Northeast Louisiana had the best track team in the area and was the college home of John Pennel, the first man to clear seventeen feet in the pole vault, and perhaps the greatest vaulter of all time.
“The key to cross-country is that we run as a team,” John, the Captain of the team told me. “We are no stronger than our weakest link and everyone on our team always finishes. If we have to, we drop back and run with the weak man. There are no stars on our team.”
I didn’t feel like a star but I was young and I was fast – very fast - and I sometimes had a tough time moderating my speed for what I considered a maudlin pace some of the others preferred. One evening, toward the end of the summer semester, I could take it no longer. With little more than teenage forethought (a phrase meaning zero) I took off at an unheard of pace, intent on running off and leaving everyone in my wake.
I did manage to leave the other runners in my wake, except two of them, that is. When I reached Sterlington Road, finally pointing back toward the college, I heard someone coming up behind me. I turned around briefly to see John, the team captain and Jim, the fastest cross-country runner in the old Gulf South Conference. They were about a hundred yards behind and closing fast. I am not going to let them catch me, I vowed.
Our course ended at the dormitory and you had to cross an athletic field to reach it. We were about a hundred yards from the dorm when John and Jim passed me. It didn’t matter because something else occurred that I had never before experienced.
Something so strange happened to me that it is almost impossible to describe. I had no weight to my body and I had no feeling or sensation from my neck down. It was almost as if my head had become detached from my body and was flying low to the ground, carrying my psyche along as an interested passenger. It was a sensation you have to experience to appreciate. It was my first runner’s high, and I will never forget it.
I didn’t lose the race that day. I won something so valuable that I have kept it with me to this very day. I remembered when I ran for the first time today in almost three years. I am no longer young, skinny or fast, but believe me when I tell you that I experienced a runner’s high before going a hundred yards.
Eric'sWeb
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Steamy Caddo Lake
Caddo Lake, in east Texas and northwest Louisiana, is the location of Ghost of a Chance. Protagonist Buck McDivit leaves his home in Oklahoma and travels to east Texas. Someone has murdered his newly found Aunt Emma Fitzgerald. Buck is apparently the sole heir to Fitzgerald Island, the marina and fishing lodge on it. Here is an excerpt from the murder mystery Ghost of a Chance:
James T. "Buck" McDivit goes to Texas for answers. What he finds is a giant lake amid a maze of vines, creepers and lily pads - a place that seems more like Louisiana than Texas. He quickly realizes it is different from both states. Cypress trees grow in abundance, both in the water and out, and Spanish moss, wafting in slow-motion waves, hangs from their limbs, caressing the lake's coffee-colored surface. Only the head of a slow-swimming snake disrupted the lake's tranquility.
East Texas is a place far different from Buck's own home on the flat plains of central Oklahoma. Caddo is a mysterious locale that seems like a virtual botanical garden replete with subtropical greenery and a climate to match. Buck feels a thousand miles from home.
Interstate highway, replaced by rural Texas blacktop, had long since disappeared in his rearview mirror. Untended hollyhocks, blooming in lavender flower falls that saturated humid air with their cloying fragrances, grew wild beside the road. Damp pathways, none leading anywhere in particular, pierced the tangle of vegetation as a flock of cattle egrets winged high overhead.
Egrets were not the only wildlife in abundance, nor were oak, cypress and hollyhock the only plants bordering the road. Cascades of blue impatiens, crimson-blossomed rosebushes and clumps of green willow painted the terrain from a diverse palette of color.
East Texas is indeed an exotic and mysterious area. Buck meets Pearl and Raymond Johnson, caretakers of Fitzgerald Marina, and their two sons, Ray and Wiley. He soon learns that someone has designs on the islands and is intent upon wresting it from him.
Could it be ruthless land developer Hogg Nation? Possibly Colonel Clayton Richardson, bank and ultra-wealthy plantation owner that has a mortgage on the island? Maybe it is Jefferson Travis, racist judge and head of the New Southern Right, a local hate group.
Could it be Bones Malone, amateur archeologist and relic hunter, and former lover of Emma Fitzgerald? Two recently released recidivists, Deacon John and Humpback, are also suspects. These skinheads are after lost Confederate gold from a sunken riverboat and don't care who they have to kill to find it.
East Texas is indeed an exotic and mysterious area. Buck meets Pearl and Raymond Johnson, caretakers of Fitzgerald Marina, and their two sons, Ray and Wiley. He soon learns that someone has designs on the islands and is intent upon wresting it from him.
Could it be ruthless land developer Hogg Nation? Possibly Colonel Clayton Richardson, bank and ultra-wealthy plantation owner that has a mortgage on the island? Maybe it is Jefferson Travis, racist judge and head of the New Southern Right, a local hate group.
Could it be Bones Malone, amateur archeologist and relic hunter, and former lover of Emma Fitzgerald? Two recently released recidivists, Deacon John and Humpback, are also suspects. These skinheads are after lost Confederate gold from a sunken riverboat and don't care who they have to kill to find it.
Buck is instantly smitten when he meets beautiful Lila Richardson, local antiquities expert and daughter of Clayton Richardson. Is she as complicit as her father and racist uncle, Judge Jefferson Travis? Can Buck really trust her?Many interesting characters inhabit Fitzgerald Island and the touristy village of Deception. Will Buck get the girl? Will he save the island? Will he save himself?
Read Ghost of a Chance and find out.
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