Take a "Look-See"

Ms. Keli at "Septembermom" site has another site that I have mentioned in the past.  Click on the Post Title to go to her site "My Voice, My View".

Write With Pictures 
Click here:  http://writewithpictures.blogspot.com/

There is a daily prompt and it is fun to play for a few minutes.  The more people at the party, the more fun there is.  Jump over and "crash" that party and see how much fun you can have.  This is lead in for my "bragging" about Ms. Keli being nice and picking one of my entries.  I am going to visit often.. How about you.

Prompt: Wednesday Ten ,,

Ten Words Only to "Think" the Picture

Photo by Rebecca http://www.blogger.com/profile/16135537886717771317 

"The present reflected by the unseen depths of the past."

..

Why ??

,
Why? Ever ask yourself that question? I didn’t think so. Me neither. Well, maybe sometime. Today, for instance. Why am I attracted to old movie theatres? I don’t know. I don’t care much if I don’t know exactly why. I think it has to do with “grinning”. No, I don’t prefer comedies or goofy story lines in movies. I am a serious individual.

The Boss and I were eating breakfast at one of our many favorite places we frequent on Saturday mornings. “Frequent” is the right word, trust me. She was sitting there patting her foot waiting for me to finish my cup of coffee. She doesn’t drink coffee.

“Know what?”

“What?”, slurp

"I have been thinking, I wonder what the house Grandmother used to live in looks like?”

Slurp. “Humph.”

“I have thought about it a several times.”

"Ok, Let’s go then.” Coffee cup empty. I had worn out my excuses.

“It’s in Greenville.”

.“I ain’t that senile yet.” I slide my coffee cup to the side.

“And then we could ride on over to Denton and look at the house we moved into when we got married. That is only a little over an hour more”

.

“Did you take your pills this morning?”

.

“Yes, but I need my sunglasses.”

.

At 11:30 am we are leaving the house for the second time that morning. Sunglasses, books, Kindle and cameras. Off to Grandmother’s house we go.
.
In a couple of hours we were driving up and down the remembered street counting the lots of the once sidewalk edged street. Well, things aren’t as big, long, or shinny as we remember growing up. The street was broken and cracked. Weeds lined both sides of the once manicured street.

.“Ok, it is in the next block, slow down.”

I would have never guessed to do that. I coasted to an almost slow crawl.

“We missed it. You have got to turn around.”

I would have never guessed to do that. I turned around right in the middle of the next intersection. There was no traffic. I had to be careful of the Dodge pickup that looked abandoned.

“Ok, don’t go so fast, you will pass it again.”

Do you think I would have ever guessed to do that?

.“It’s gone.”

It was gone. The pier foundation posts were still there.

“What happen to it?"

.

“I don’t know. I guess somebody took it.” I was amused at my wit.

The Boss’s expression revealed to me that not only was I not amusing, but there was more to it than that.

We expect things to stay as we remembered them. Time has passed since I started this story. Time had devoured that small part of her world. I did not feel witty anymore. I made another turnaround and drove back down the street. It was still discouraging.

“Well, let’s go on to Denton and we will have a good time there.” Putting an optimistic spin on the situation, I felt, seemed like a good idea.

“Ok.” Looking out the window, she was searching one last time. I could not see her face.

As we drove out of that neighborhood, I think maybe that street still had its sidewalks bordered with neatly trimmed grass and flowers dotting the adjacent yards. I am pretty sure The Boss saw it

.
* * * * * * * *

Denton, Texas 1970, avenue B. flash to 2010.

“Turn left here.”

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I don’t think I would have thought of that. How did I ever make it this far, reckon?

.

“The street used to be crushed rock. Remember trying to ride that old bicycle that you painted florescent green on all that gravel. This is much better. I am glad to see good changes for a while.”

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I slowed to a crawl, I don’t have to be told three times.

.

“It should be right there. But,,It is gone. There are apartments there now.”

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I backed the van up. There was no Dodge pickup in the way on the street. “Are you sure it wasn’t the last one, there?”

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“No, it was next to the last one on the street. It’ gone.”

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“The E-Z Mart is still back there. We passed it awhile ago. Let’s go get some M&Ms and a Dr Pepper. Remember? We used to do that every time I got paid.” I didn’t want her looking out the window like back in Greenville. I almost felt a little frantic.

.

“Ok, but It’s gone.” Something must have been outside the window.

.

“Let’s ride around the square. I want to take some shots of the old movie theaters. I have been taking pictures in every town I travel to when calling on customers. Those M&Ms are pretty good aren’t they?”

.

Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.

.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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In 1971, John Wayne as “Big Jake” came to the silver screen at the Campus Theatre on west Hickory Avenue. We were there. The theatre was still there. I got out of the van and walked up to the front door. The Boss stayed with the air conditioning and her Kindle. I could see someone moving around through the round windows of the lobby doors leading into the main auditorium. I figured that if I messed around looking through the front door long enough he would get curious and ask what the heck I wanted.

I jumped a mile. A nicely dressed young woman came from behind me. “Could I help you?”

“Ah, yes ma’um,,ah my name is (you know what it is), and my wife and I moved to Denton in 1970 and we came to this theater all the time.” I sort of was talking off the cuff.”And I am a famous writer and I got this blog site, and all my friends would just love to hear about how,, this and that.” I could see it in her face. She finally smiled.

“Would you like to peek inside?”

.

“Oh, yes ma’um, that would be wonderful, and if you don’t mind, would it be ok to take a few pictures of the inside, if I can’t, well, I understand and all that.” Envision a “hang-dog” look right here.

A light chuckle. “Sur’uh, but I am running behind and we have a play performance tonight so I have GOT to get some paper work finished. Just take all you want.”

“Yes Ma’um, I will only take a few so I will only be a minute.”

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels played that Saturday night. I did not go to the show, but, you know what? I am going to one in the future. I might go to two of them. The building was refurbished to its original state.

The carpet was manufactured in the original weave and color pattern. The seats were upgraded. professional stage lighting was installed and it looked like the stage area may have been enlarged. Some things I miss. I am a talker not a reporter, but I wanted to share with you why I like old theatres, both renovated and dilapidated. I am attracted to all of them. Why? Well that is how we started today and after studying about it. I think it is because they hold a treasure of universal memories for everyone that has ever had the opportunity to go to one of the single screen, pop corn cooking, shoe sole sticking movie houses. They can fall in on themselves but the mystic is never “gone”. Try to look at one, if you are old enough to remember them, and try to keep that grin off your face.

Larry McMurtry, I hope you are wrong. I hope there will never be “The Last Picture Show”

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If you want to drop by "The Campus" website just click on the highlight

Say "hello" to Ms. Julie

http://www.dentoncommunitytheatre.com/

**sorry about the spacing and layout, after 1.5 hours of everything jumping around, I gave up. Try you best to read it.. lol

.

Where Ya'll Been?

While taking a minute to check in on all you folks after being kind of "absent", I saw this post over at Ron Paul's "Where Sky Meet Ground.." blog.

http://skymeetsground.blogspot.com/2010/05/true-colors.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WhereSkyMeetsGround+%28Where+Sky+Meets+Ground%29

I am not going to preface this with a "not gonna be a political post", but it ain't, but if we don't think about what Ron and all the other men and women who protect us and our families from danger, then , hell I can't help it. Please visit his site and if I have inadvertently offended anyone..

ookkkayyy,, i will do better next time,,

Repost for My Niece

Actually this was a combination of one or more happenings, but it was to fit a "prompt" on a writing blog,,and a repost...I don't think my niece (this is her mom,,lol ) has read this and she asked if I had written any stories lately..


"Street, where I grew up"


I love the street where I grew up. Now that might be an overstatement, but I do definitely hold a lot of fondness for the unnamed oil top road that lead out to the main highway.

Well, I guess it had a name but it was always called “First street to the left after you pass Ross’s Affiliated Food Store”, Our house sat almost directly across the street from Grannie and Paw’s house. Both houses are gone now. At least from there. Grannie and Paw’s house now sits in a pasture ten miles toward town. Back to where they moved it from in the first or was it the second place. Anyhow, Daddy’s house was moved thirty miles south to sit next door to one of my sister’s house (the one in this story,,no, sister not the house, well the house too,,just read on). Everyone should rest easy because the street is still there. I saw it just this last Sunday.

I rode over that way intentionally to take a picture for a story that I wrote. I took the picture but decided to not use it for that story, so I will use it for this story. I jump around, a lot, kind of like Grannie and Paw’s house.

Me and my younger sister, (she is still older than me), we stayed into stuff all the time. You remember me telling you about the main highway. Well, we couldn’t ride our J.C. Higgins, Sears Roebuck, store bought bicycles on the main highway, but that was where the filling station was that sold snow cones,- if he ever had ice. There ain’t no need to fill you in on the deciding part of whether or whethern’t we were going. I guess you can say the first leg of the trip was uneventful.

The old codger had a way of intimidating us kids when we ordered our snow cones If you asked for extra syrup, he would stop pouring right then and say, “hee’uh, that’s enough”, and if you didn’t say anything, he liable to just stop anyhow. I can’t remember what she got but I got the coconut. Bright blue. Syrup and ice running down my chin and forearm. Dripping off my elbow onto the sizzling hot oil dirt in front of the old filling station.

Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle while holding onto and eating a snow cone? A bright blue, coconut snow cone? Well she was better at it than I was. I was able to catch up to her at the hill right before you had to turn left, just past Ross’s Affiliated Food Store. It was always a known fact that to get back to, or get to anywhere on a bicycle, there is a race. I had a plan. I was not going to be outsmarted or out bicycled.

I kept a piece of a cane pole stuck behind and through my seat. This was to protect me from dogs. I steadied my left hand, holding half of the bright blue coconut snow cone, on the left handlebar. With my right hand, I reached back and snatched my dog stick from its perch. With one quick motion I won the bicycle battle, but lost the bicycle war. In my mind, it would just slow her down enough so that I could zoom on ahead and have bragging rights to arriving home first. It DID slow her down. My aim was perfect. The cane pole slide between the two spokes just about where the valve stem was. The wheel came around and the cane pole locked against the front wheel support fork.

Here it gets a little fuzzy. From later examination, the fork proved a lot stronger than the spokes. The fork held. Half the spokes didn’t. They vanished. Ass over tea kettle just don’t quiet describe the following event. Luckily the grass at the edge of the street was pretty tall. The dust had not even settled when she jumped up. She was wearing her snow cone mixed with a sundry of other green vegetation. How I held onto that Blue coconut snow cone I can’t even begin to guess, but she gingerly took it from my left hand and soon I was wearing THAT blue snow cone. We didn’t even try to make up a story to tell when we got home. It was our butts! – AAA-ginnn..

Epilogue: This episode was minor. Someday I will tell you about how I had to let her shoot me in the butt with my own BB gun.

Good morning,, after wrestling with Best Buy all night and still have to go back today. (new computer crashed).. I have the information now.

I send a big thank you to Ms. Keli (septemnermom) at My Voice, My View http://www.myvoicemyview.blogspot.com/ . She volunteered to be the “Depot Person”. Her email address is on her profile. Add to the beginning story and send your address to Ms. Keli www.septemberkel@yahoo.com and she will forward your WINNIN PRIZE to you. Now that ain’t to complicated is it. Remember if you don’t want to write a “story comment” just say hi and you win.

Just a couple more things: It would be nice if you would stop by and say hello to Septembermom’s Blogsite (My Voice, My View) and read her efforts. It will be your treat. ALSO, she and some friends have a blogsite that needs a visit and PARTICIPATION,,,,, “Write With Pictures” http://www.writewithpictures.blogspot.com/ ,It is a great site to just enjoy and post your reactions to the “Pictures” posted for writing prompts.

Again, Thank you Ms. Keli,, and everyone is invited to come along.. Thanks Glenn

Here we Go..


The Note….

5957 Canal B. The brass address plate dangles askew, missing two of its four anchors. The rain rolls off the canvas awning. An odd crease forms a trough that spits a stream of water two feet beyond the edge of the tattered green covering. Stepping around the splattering geyser, shaking her umbrella, the fashionably dressed lady opened the door and stepped inside.

Twenty years prior, the fishnet had made a nice touch to the décor, along with the scattered green glass net floats. An over sized fish tank , sitting behind a row of padded leather chairs hummed and bubbled a calypso rhythm. Removing her rain coat the stranger dropped it across the back of the barstool adjacent to the ones he sat in which he sat. It seemed insane that she was even here. The room had an aroma that was definitely of seafood, but did not smell like fish. The stink of stale beer burned her nose.

All she had was a crumpled piece of paper with this address and a name scrawled in pencil. He had handed her the note as he stepped from the subway. No one had seen the assailant. He only took a few steps after getting off the train. He collapsed right in front of her. Her only misfortune was she was waiting to get on the train.

“Please, find Johnnie, tell him….”

He never spoke another word as his hand slid from hers leaving the note and a twenty dollar bill.
Before the police could arrive, she panicked and ran. Now she was here.

“Does anyone know Johnnie Wittenbrook?”

Her question rang throughout the restaurant without warning. The room fell silent. One old bearded seaman pushed his chair back and walked out of the room without speaking. It seemed that even the fish tank had fallen silent.

The quiet was finally broken when…..

Celebration

..
The Boss has done gone and spoilt me with this new toy. This is my first post using this new Toshiba NM305 Netbook. It is a departure from my widescreen HP but this one will travel with greater ease. A big ole “Thank You” to The Boss. Hint,, I could use a new pickup too. 

Celebration,,Reckon?

Months Earlier, I did a post where I started a story and others carried it forward with their comments. A few folks that I usually hear from did not participate and their explanation was that they normally didn’t write stories. Well, I understand that, but I invite these folks to jump in and play along too. I haven’t come up with a starting point yet, but I wanted to get input from a few of you.

Ok, here is the thing. When I was just a youngster I grew up with the opportunity to scout and play though out the piney woods of East Texas at my leisure. Now that was all fine and good, but I suppose it left a dent in the fender of my social skills. There weren’t many neighbors or friends around to play with. We had an old dog, but Daddy had to tie a pork chop around my neck to even get that dog to play with me. Come lunch time that even that old dog and I were adversaries. That is beside the point. The point is I am still prone to use those methods in order to attract friends, soooo, as per pre-mentioned post, I have these (see photo,, no I am not going to substitute a pork chop this time) as party favors.


If you will so much as say “hi” in the comment section, you win! Now how easy is that? But, it would be more funner if you would add your view of how the initial story should continue. Use any mood or twist that you would like, just remember women and children might be reading this.

But, there’s a problem on my end. I do not feel comfortable with asking all ya’ll your addresses inorder to send the pens. I have done that in the past and I know some feel comfortable with that, but if someone would volunteer to be the “depot”, I would mail all the pens (in stamped envelopes) to this one person. Participants could comment their address to the “depot person”, so that envelopes could be addressed and sent to the folks that sent the “depot person” their address.. wheeuuw,,,would that work? If this is too complicated, just say so.

"Down Here In Texas"

originally posted at Serendipitous Surplus,, ok I admit it,, I might be a little lazy today..

“Down Here In Texas” It has been over twenty years since I first met these fellows. Do you ever get tired of hearing someone from another country or state proclaim, “Well, the way we do it back in,,,Ya Ya Ya”. Well, I don’t know any other way to put it. Down here in Texas, which comes from the Indian word Tejas, meaning “friendly people”, if ya like somebody, it usually lasts. It don’t mean you have to like ‘em right off. Ya kinda have to sit back and see if they are going to be all “hat” and no “cattle”. Don’t usually take too long. Not what a person says, but what they do, will wind up telling the tale.

What? Hell, no. They ain;t real people. They are made up. Larry McMurtry made ‘em up. Yep, but you know what? They are as fresh 'n gritty in my mind as the dust they stirred up going from Texas to Montana. Cap’em Gus McCrae and Cap’em Woodrow Call. I ain’t trying to “hawk” this book. The Pulitizer Prize has already done that. If ya haven’t already and don’t want to read it, knock ya’ self out. I won’t suffer from that. I already read it and watched the movie several times. One of those times was a long weekend and my youngest daughter was home from school. At my insistence, she watched it with us. It was her first time to see it. She had not read the book at that time. Not going to tell you how it ends but she looked at me with tears in her eyes and paid me a compliment.

“Daddy, you are a combination of Gus and Call rolled up in one.”

At first, I took it as a compliment, but “The Boss let out a grunt and a groan, with a roll of her eyes, which threw me into a state of wondering. I wondered if it was Gus’s charming ways or Call’s steel rod stubbornness she might have been thinking about. That still ain’t the point. The point is some writers can paint such a clear picture of who the characters are. Gus and Call and all the other members of the The Hat Creek Cattle Company came to life on the pages. You could “hear” what they were thinking.“The Last Picture Show” was the first in a series of four, (I think there were only four, well Rino Ranch might make five), but the characters lived their whole lives throughout these books.

I am not sure how McMurtry does it. I read his books. I re-read with just the intent of sneaking a peek at how he does it. I still can’t see a definite formula for his method, but something works.If I could paint just a fraction of the degree of character believability that McMurtry does, then ,, nope I would try to do a little better, but at least I would have the satisfaction that I was progressing. I see these characters in some of your writing out there. I take enjoyment in those characters and I hope you don’t mind if I look at them and say.

“What are those characters thinking?”