The Famous Air Tree

In 1990 or 1991, when we were living in Louisiana, my husband lost his job. I was a grad school, and we were broke. I asked the kids still at home whether they would like to spend $20 on a Christmas tree, or use the money for a few more presents. They wanted both, of course.

I got clever. I bought a roll of transparent fishing line, and a box of push pins. We had a blank beige wall in one corner of the family room, so I hung my Christmas ornaments against that background, basically in the shape of a tree, or where a tree would be, if one were actually there. The ornaments were all of different heights, as though they hung on that imaginary tree. I called it the air tree, of course.

It was totally cool. Against that background, the ornaments appeared to be hangng in mid-air. The effect was truly stunning, and cost me about 5 dollars. As an added touch of whimsy, I put the tree stand - filled with water, of course - underneath the air tree.

The neighbors enjoyed the tree as much as we did. In fact, I think it was Denise Grayson who dubbed it "The Famous Air Tree." She even brought my tree some lightweight ornaments.

A few years later, when times were more plush, I suggested to the kids that we could afford a real tree again. Oh, the howls of protest! I continued the air tree for quite a few years. Time eventually takes its toll. I'm not wild about getting on a ladder to arrange my ornaments, so I downsized to a little artificial tree. It's fine, but we all remember the magic of the air tree, and the "can do" spirit that triumphed when it came about because of desperation.

We Are Seven

I've mentioned Vondell, who rides with me to water aerobics every morning. That's a fun group, by the way. We exercise, to be sure, but there's enough time to chat. We've all agreed that "what happens in the pool, stays in the pool," which might be a good thing. Price, Wellington and Helper are small towns close together in Carbon County. We discovered, when we moved here, that everyone knows everyone, and most of them are related to each other. I confess to listening, and squirreling away ideas for stories.

Vondell is a non-complaining lady, even though she is legally blind, and has had what most of us would consider a heaping portion of challenges. Her husband, a good man by all accounts, died a few years ago. Vondell's daughter died as a result of domestic violence. Her son died of a brain tumor. Vondell is in her late fifties, and raising her granddaughter, who is ten now. Vondell doesn't waste her time complaining. She's an excellent seamstress, a bookkeeper, and a "crafty" lady. I've been printing my manuscripts in 18-point type so she can read them. I feel lucky to have such a sweet friend.

She shared a poem with me that someone gave her after her son's death. It reminded me of a favorite Wordsworth poem, which I just copied out and gave to her. Mabe you'd like to see it, too. It fits my church's philosphy of life after death, and, I suspect, illustrates how most people feel. Wordsworth was definitely on to something.

We Are Seven

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:

She was eight years old, she said;

Her hair was thick with many a curl

That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad:

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

Her beauty made me glad.

'Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?'

'How many? Seven in all,' she said,

And wondering looked at me.

'And where are they? I pray you tell,'

She answered, 'Seven are we;

And two of us at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea.

'Two of us in the church-yard lie,

My sister and my brother;

And in the church-yard cottage, I

Dwell near them with my mother.'

'You say that two at Conway dwell,

And two are gone to sea,

Yet yet are seven! I pray you tell,

Sweet Maid, how this may be.'

Then did the little Maid reply,

'Seven boys and girls are we;

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

Beneath the church-yard tree.'

'You run above, my little Maid,

Your limbs they are alive;

If two are in the church-yard laid,

Then ye are only five.'

'Their graves are green, they may be seen,'

The little Maid replied,

'Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,

And they are side by side.

'My stockings there I often knit,

My kerchief there I hem;

And there upon the ground I sit,

And sing a song to them.

'And often after sunset, Sir,

When it is light and fair,

I take my little porringer,

And eat my supper there.

'The first that died was sister Jane;

In bed she moaning lay,

Till God released her of her pain;

And then she went away.

'So in the church-yard she was laid;

And, when the grass was dry,

Together round her grave we played,

My brother John and I.

'And when the ground was white with snow,

And I could run and slide,

My brother John was forced to go,

And he lies by her side.'

'How many are you, then,' said I,

'If they two are in heaven?'

Quick was the little Maid's reply,

'O Master! We are seven.'

'But they are dead; those two are dead!

Their spirits are in heaven!'

'Twas throwing words away; for still

The little Maid would have her will,

And said, 'Nay, we are seven!'

Getting into hot water

    In October, I took a two-week trip to a) make some connections for Borrowed Light booksignings  b) attend my Park Service boss's retirement party c) visit my son on the Montana/Canada border  d) attend an LDS meeting house dedication in Torrington, Wyoming e) just hit the open road.
    I did all the above and it was a great road trip. There's one part of the trip that just "happened," that I keep remembering, especially now that it is chilly out. On a wild hare, I visited the Wyoming State Bath House.
    Aha, I'll almost bet you didn't know the state of Wyoming had a bath house.  Even better, it's free, even if you don't happen to be a current resident of said state.
    Here's how it happened: On the last leg of my trip, I spent a night at Old Faithful, in Yellowtone National Park, visiting with another ranger-friend. Bob and I go way back to our Fort Union Trading Post NHS days, and he likes my chocolate chip cookies. After I left Yellowstone, I just naturally went to Cody, Wyoming, which is 53 miles from Yellowstone's east entrance. My dad was from Cody and I love the town.
    I did the museum thing there - five world-class museums, and tried to eat at the Irma Hotel. The next morning, I started toward home in Utah. When I was a kid, my Grandma Baier would talk about going to the hot springs in Thermopolis, a small town south of Cody. I remember wondering about that, so I decided to stop, some 55 years after I first remember her talking about it. It was on the way, so why not?
    There it was: Hot Springs State Park. There are two state-owned pools, each on the smallish size. The water comes out of the springs at 127 degrees, and it's reduced to 104 degrees for the pools. State health officials have designated 20 minutes as the limit per visit. It's free, but if you're stopping on a whim and don't have a towel in your possession, that'll cost you a dollar to rent one. Best buck I ever spent.
   I rented one, got out my swimsuit, and took the soak. Me oh my, heaven on earth. One pool is indoor, and the other isn't. Since it was early October and nippy but not prohibitive, I opted for the outdoor pool, which I had all to myself. I shared it with some falling leaves. The small pool is probably 3 feet deep (I'm not much of an estimator, though), with a stone bench lining the inside, so you can wade in and sit down. When I sat, the water was about chest-high on me.
    The heat was divine, and the smell of sulfur totally medicinal. I sat and thought, and felt those cares melt away. Yes, it was hot, but it was glorious. I thought about Grandma Baier, and her good farm cooking, and how she would laugh at me in later years when I tried to get her to give me cups and teaspoons on those recipes, so I could try to reproduce her glorious food in my kitchen. ("Oh, Carla, you just add a smidge of this and a handful of that!") I remembered the fun of visiting her and Grandpa in Cody, with its nightly summer rodeos and Indians dancing in the streets, and cowboys and silver dollars, because no one in Wyoming ever used paper dollars. Not for years and years, anyway, and these were the big silver dollars, not those genteel gold ones you can get now. You know, wimpy money.
    I got out of the free water after twenty minutes, dried off, got dressed, and immediately phoned my older sister to say, "OK, Karen, next year. Here. You, me and Wanda." We all have some old bones to soak, some memories to remind each other of, and a care or two to send to the hot springs gods.
   And I'm going to have my own towel, because I really want that soak to be free, courtesy of the great state of Wyoming (which has always had the coolest state flag and the coolest license plate, way before any states had cool plates).
   If you're anywhere near Thermopolis, stop and enjoy.

All that stuff in the middle

Vondell and I were driving to water aerobics this morning, and she had some questions about writing, one, in particular, I know many writers must get: Where do ideas come from?

That's never been a particularly interesting question for me, because it just happens - I get ideas. Other people are good with musical instruments, or maybe crafty stuff, or knitting, but I Get Ideas.

The more interesting issue for me is what makes a story believable. I told Vondell that's what I enjoy - getting from point A to point B in an efficient fashion that doesn't defy logic. Anything other than that is what I jokingly call that the After-Wonder-Boy-Escapes-from-the-Cave Syndrome. You know, or maybe you're waay too young, those desperate moments in the weekly Saturday matinee serial cliffhanger. Right at the end, Wonder Boy is left in a desperate situation, a true cliffhanger. All too often, the following week's Wonder Boy serial begins with Wonder Boy out of the desperate situation of last week and on to something else. The derring do becomes the derring did, and I don't know how it happened.

Even when I was little, I knew that was a crock. I mean, how did Wonder Boy escape from the cave? Inquiring minds want to know. Point being, if you're going to get Wonder Boy in a desperate spot, you'd better know how to logically get him out of it. If not, you don't have a credible story.

I learned more about this years ago, when Life magazine ran an article on the sequel to Tom Sawyer that Mark Twain never finished. I think it was called something like Becky Thatcher among the Indians. Twain had written several chapters, up to that point where Becky, older now, is captured by Indians out West.

And there it stopped. In the 19th century, white Americans were convinced that once white women were in the hands of Indians, that rape would always follow. Sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn't. Twain realized he couldn't take that next logical step, or he would lose the allegiance of a lot of his loyal, Victorian-era reading public. He put the manuscript away and never finished it. The sensibilities of the times wouldn't allow him to take the next logical writing step. Anything else he did wouldn't make the work credible, and Twain fully understood the matter of events following events in realistic, logical fashion.

To me, that's the challenge of writing: Does what I am writing make logical sense? It needs to be entertaining, but it also needs to be logical and credible, if readers are to give themselves wholly to the story.

Some wag once said that fiction was "one damned thing after another." This is so true. I think anyone can begin a novel, and anyone can end one. The ability of the writer lies in all that stuff in the middle: how it gets the reader from once upon a time to happy ending.

My newest novel, The Admiral's Penniless Bride, is a good example of the logic of fiction. What happens to Sally Paul throughout the novel, beginning with the Meet Cute in Chapter One, builds on something logical that inadvertantly happens in Chapter One. Her harmless introduction comes back to haunt her, and it's all perfectly credible. A far-more-skillful example is Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, where Bathsheba Everdene's impulsive gift of a Valentine to Squire Boldwood sets up the eventual fraught consequences. What delicious fun.

That's one of the many things that makes writing fun. Years ago, when I worked in hospital public relations, my boss made an interesting observation about me.  June was a pretty good writer, but a much better photographer. She labored over her writing, and it wasn't much fun for her. She told me, "Carla, the difference between you and me is that you like to write, while I like to have written."

She was absolutely correct. The whole process intrigues me, even the tough parts.

No bears, no bears at all

After that blog on bear troubles in Glacier, I thought I'd better redeem myself with another bear story. This one was a column I wrote for "Prairie Lite," when I worked as a reporter for the Valley City Times-Record. The North Dakota Newspaper Association awarded this humorous column first place for newspapers with less than 12,000 circulation. This column was published in 6 October 2005.

No bears, no bears at all

   Jeremy the Border Patrol guy called last week from Montana with a real story. He claims it's true. He heard it from a game warden on the Blackfeet Reservation, who says he saw the whole thing happen in Glacier National Park. Who am I to doubt?

    It seems a tourist from back East went into a store in the park and bought a can of bear repellent. He took the can and his family into the parking lot, lined them up, and sprayed them.

    Apparently he thought bear spray worked like insect repellant. Oops, no. His whole family went to the hospital. I only hope, when she recovered, that his wife got a good lawyer and lots of lovely alimony.

   Jeremy's been on the Montana-Canadian border for a year now. This summer, he decided to walk his area along that imaginary line. He hiked a little each day, and now he's done. He had bear sightings, but none were too close.

    The Border Patrol doesn't issue bear spray, and he's too cheap to buy it, so he checked out a shotgun and took that along. He called it bear spray.

    Because inquiring minds want to know, I had to look up bear spray on the Internet. I learned there are several varieties, and all claim to repell bears by spraying it on the bear and not, um, on oneself.

    One spray claimed it was "university-tested" at the University of Montana. Yikes. Maybe the best way to avoid bears is to stay away from the University of Montana, since they seem to be on campus. That's almost a no-brainer.

    Another spray, called "Guard Alaska," is manufactured in Maryland and New Jersey. New Jersey? Would you trust bear spray from a state with probably more Mafiosi than wildlife? The other brands were manufactured in Arizona and Missouri. I'm skeptical.

    Jeremy hasn't seen a bear up really close yet, and he'd like to keep it that way. We do have a common bear experience, though, through a book. It started when I was a little girl, and my mother read me Alice Dalgleish's story, "The Bears on Hemlock Mountain."

    It's about Jonathan, 8 years old, who is sent over Hemlock Mountain to borrow a big iron pot from his aunt. He's heard rumors about bears, but his mother tells him, "There are no bears, no bears at all, on Hemlock Mountain."

    Jonathan hurries over the mountain. What with one thing and another, he doesn't start back until dusk, lugging that iron pot. He keeps repeating, "No bears, no bears at all," over and over until (gulp) he sees a bear. Not one, but two.

    Because he is a resourceful pioneer boy, Jonathan tips the iron pot on top of himself and hides underneath. It's a great book for children, because it's a little bit scary, but everything turns out all right.

    My mom read it to me; I read it to my children, starting with Jeremy. When my first grandchild was old enough, I bought a copy, taped myself reading it, and mailed book and tape to him in San Diego. Maybe someday he'll read it to his children.

    That's as close as I want to get to a bear. No force on earth will drag me to that new documentary, "Grizzly Man." It's the sad saga of Timothy Treadwell, who cavorted (briefly) among Alaskan grizzlies. He and his friend, Annie Huguenard, were romping with the bears as usual when, uh oh, everything went south in a bad way.

    Treadwell had videotape and audiotape running during the whole thing. Luckily, nothing appears on the videotape. The audiotape recorded the attack from beginning to lunch.

    Treadwell was probably a nut to begin with, even though he managed to survive among the bears for several years. Funny thing about bears: When it goes bad with bears, there's no middle ground.

    So if you're out in bear country this fall, remember to make lots of noise as you walk those trails. If you happen to surprise a bear, back away slowly and don't make eye contact. Assume a non-threatening posture. If a bear attacks and you have bear spray, use it on the bear.

    And if you happen to be in Missoula, for heaven's sake, stay away from the University of Montana.

As an addendum, in October, I visited a ranger friend at Old Faithful, in Yellowstone Park. Bob's a back country ranger, which means his crew walks the back trails, keeps them in repair, and arranges back trail hiking permits for visitors. Bob told me a few of his tourist stories, and assured me that the most dangerous entity in Yellowstone is an urban visitor. "They don't know enough to be cautious," is how Bob put it.

He was called out to difuse what park people call a "bear jam," and found a tourist trying to get his little daughter close to a bison for a photo op.  "You can't be subtle," Bob said. "These people are clueless. You have to get right in their faces."

Bob quickly got between the bison and the little girl, and motioned her to back away from the bison and her father. When Dad got huffy, Bob said this: "I'm doing this so when you are gored and tossed, your daughter will be safe."  Apparently Dad finally got the message.

Rangers stick up for each other; it's a hey-rube sixth sense.  I remember one calm and sleepy morning at Fort Union Trading Post NHS, where I worked. I was doing paperwork in the ranger office in the basement, when I started hearing a visitor talking in a too-loud voice to Loren Yellow Bird, the ranger on desk just upstairs. I dropped everything and went upstairs to stand next to Loren. Yeah, me the granny. It was nothing, and the guy finally left. Loren's great at calming down Those Who Should Be Medicated.

When the visitor took his rant elsewhere, Loren just laughed and said, "Guess he forgot to take his pills this morning." That's Loren. And I went back downstairs. It was a nothing experience, but I just want readers to know that we look out for each other in the Park Service, the Forest Service and for sure the Border Patrol.

Borrow Light book cover

I just looked at Amazon.com and the cover is finally up for Borrowed Light. It's a good one, and I'm delighted.

Black Friday wimp

I'm a bit slow in a random nattering. My editor had me do some revisions on Choosing Rob Inman, which should be out about this time next year. Boy howdy, I hope they leave that title alone...  Anyway, that tied me up. So here we go.

We were "over the mountain" in Lehi, Utah, for Thanksgiving, visiting my husband's relatives. I told my SIL that I was looking for two yards of canvas material to make some bookbags. All we have is Walmart on my side of the mountain, and that leaves something to be desired, at times.  She suggested I go to JoAnn's Fabric, and I thought, Yep, that's the place. Drive on. (Inside joke there for Mormons.)

I figured, how bad can a fabric store be on Black Friday? It's a huge store, and I thought everyone would be elsewhere. Gee, was I naive.

I fought my way into the store, and discovered that JoAnn's was having huge fabric sales. I kept going, thinking, how bad can it be?

Jeez Louise, it was awful. There were a lot of Really. Determined. Women. with their carts crammed with 12-15 bolts of fabric, waiting to get them cut. I took a number, and got in line with my pitiful bolt (all I wanted was two yards). I waited and waited, and kept seeing women in front of me with those 12-15 bolts in their carts, obviously ready to sew for the entire Chinese Army, or maybe that family in Arkansas now expecting child #27, or something like that.

It occurred to me after only about 15 minutes (I am a late bloomer) that if I stayed in that line, I would probably still be standing in that line the next day. I put away my now-pitiful one bolt and slunk away. Here's the joke: I actually did find the fabric I wanted at the Price, Utah, Walmart (my side of the mountain) the next day. It took me 5 minutes, tops, to get it and get outta the store.

And that's as close as I will ever come to ANYTHING on Black Friday. I'm 63 years old and I now have that grand mindset: "There are some things in life that I just don't have to do." Oops. I'm almost embarrassed to mention how long it took me to figure that out.