Perhaps a Little Explanation is in Order

This is a true story written in letters.  It is my mother’s story and mine and my sisters. My mother’s letters are informative, wonderful, a moment out of time, a fragment of history. In the 1950 and 60’s mother wrote to Grandma Holt of the Holt Adoption Agency.  It tells of her Korean children, and Mom loved them. The letters are honest and sweet. I interspersed other letters, and  tell my mother the secret her daughters kept from her. They are not so sweet.

This book may not help girls or woman, or indeed anyone who has been put in a compromising situation, but it will tell them that they are not alone. It will tell them that it is possible to heal. It will tell them that despite bad things that have happened it is possible to be happy. And finally it will tell them  to "Tell Mommy,” or another safe human being who can help.

 

Sizzle or Steak?

The other day a clerk asked me what wonderful thing happened that day. Isn't that the best opening line?

I told him I was proud of some writing I had done that day. He said, "When your book becomes a bestseller will you give me $5.00?"

 "Sure," I said. "Then you will have to buy my book. And, are you going to wait until it’s a bestseller?"

Sorry dear readers that I can't offer you a chance to win a million dollars, as magazines do, if you buy my book, Don’t Tell Mommy, but Ed Mahan isn't behind The Publishers Clearinghouse anymore. And, rats, I never won't their sweepstakes either.

Have you ever read through, glanced at, or skipped to the last page of one of those get-rich-quick schemes prevalent on the Internet?

Make $8,000 a week they say.  A Million a year.

Okay, their hype looks good. They have testimonials, bank receipts, a professional-looking website. You read, you scroll and scroll, and read, and read. Heavens, their copy goes on forever. “People do not want a lot of copy,” say marketing experts.  “People do not like to read large blocks of print,” say the ad people. Yet these people are long-winded, and it must work for they are still on the Internet. Is there some reasoning that if there are many, many, many words the product has value?

Finally at long last you come to the bottom page. Maybe the price is there, maybe not. Maybe you will get some CDs, or a download, maybe not.

Do any of these sites actually tell you HOW-TO earn all that money? Or are they trying to get you to send out more of those ads so they can rake in the $29.99 or $299.00, or whatever, and then they tell you how-to send out more ads like the one you just read.

Just wondering…

I’m old school. I believe in selling the steak rather than the sizzle.

This was before your time, but there was a person on the radio, and later on television, named Arthur Godfrey who had a reputation for promoting only ads that he believed in, and it worked. People trusted him and bought the products he endorsed.  (He endorsed cigarettes until convinced they caused cancer, he then joined the anti-cigarette campaign.)

As you can see I’m not a marketing person. The trouble is if people don’t know your product is available they can’t buy it.

Ah, there’s the rub.

P.S. A perfect copy, but not the real thing. This looks like Bear and Obi Kitty Kenobi when Obi was a kitten.

 

 

With Chalk

In the days of Michelangelo if a sculptor's chisel slipped, or their marble cracked they would grind a little marble into powder and fill the damage. This ground marble was called chalk. If a sculpture was pure without blemish it was signed, "Sincerely," meaning "Without chalk." I figure perhaps I ought to have a blog called “With Chalk.” I am back rewriting the Hawaiian book, and it will need a bookcase somewhere.

 

 

 

 

Speaking of chalk, isn't this a great sidewalk chalk drawing?

 

On this blog, Wish on A White Horse, though, dear ones, we will continue rounding those canyon walls. Isn’t that the way of life?

And speaking of life--it has been one month and one week since the fire on my daughter’s property and already ferns are popping through the soil, and the blackened ground is being covered by amber-colored fir needles that have fallen from the scorched trees. New leaves of poison oak and blackberries bushes are poking their little heads up as well—determined little guys whose roots survived the forest fire.

I drove South of Eugene yesterday to my daughter’s house, past pastoral hills, and valleys that were emerald green when we arrived in Oregon, and are now golden with fall coming on. It renewed my spirit to see the wilds, and once through the gate of my daughter’s property I was met with the scent of the Douglas firs sending forth their Christmas fragrance, and then as we walked the property we saw life being renewed.

I need to carry my camera more often.

Eugene has a newspaper called “The Eugene Weekly,” and in it Rob Brezny writes a “Free Will Astrology” column. For Aquarius (me) his week Breznty wrote that in Germany’s Ostwall Museum there was a conceptual piece by Martin Kippenberger, valued at $1.1 million. It was called, “When It Starts Dripping from the Ceiling.” Part of the piece was a rubber tub painted to appear as though it had once held dirty rainwater. One night a new janitor came in to tidy up the place and scrubbed the tub until it was clean thus ruining the art. “Let this be a cautionary tale, Aquarius,” wrote Breznty, “It’s important for you to appreciate and learn from the messy stuff in your life—even admire its artistry—and not assume it all needs to be scoured and disinfected.”

I’m out of here.

Later friends,

Joyce

Baby's First Day Out

With the heat lamp, and the closed doors, and three baby chicks in a box, walking through our laundry room is like taking a sauna.

Trying to keep the chick’s box clean is like trying to keep a human baby dry. And I guess making a chicken watering trough that doesn’t leak is beyond engineer’s capabilities. I out-foxed them though—or rather some chicken expert on the Internet did. I placed a shallow dish with water into the box, and filled it with rocks to hold it down and to keep the baby chicks from drowning.

I’m tickled to get chickens. A couple of weeks ago I bought a cute self-contained chicken house, and the day before yesterday I painted its trim, covering their white with my forest green. I had been intending to order chicks when the hatchery had the chicks I wanted.

And then lo and behold, yesterday I wandered into Coastal Farm Store and they had baby Ameraucana pullets—just what I wanted. The Ameraucana hens lay blue eggs, and are the breed of chicken I became familiar with in California.

In the space beside the house—prepared for RV parking, and hidden from the street, we have a 6 X 6 foot garden, and now a 6 X 3 foot chicken house. You know what they say, “You can take the girl away from the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl.”

 

Regarding the book I’ve been talking about probably more than you wanted to hear:

Two days ago, September 4, Don’t Tell Mommy’s publishers notified me saying they would make the changes I requested, but to give them 10 business days to do it. I know a couple of people are reading the book now, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the errors won’t be too distracting.

Mom’s letters ought to get top billing in this book—they are sweeter than mine. I stalled, procrastinated, feared making my statements known for years, and thus didn’t get this book published until now. Now, is perfect. Now is the time. Yes, the title Don’t Tell Mommy, tells you something else doesn’t it?