July 11, 2014

Out of the Ordinary Outhouse


Submitted to Good Old Days 6/15/2014
Byline Jules West (Jules, in case you haven't met her will be my alter ego for timetravel novels in the future - yes, pun intended.) (For my sister whose memories of this outhouse are quite different. Happy birthday sis.)

The Crapper has been long romanticized by Hollywood, but I wonder if the one we had when I was a kid was so unique. The typical Crapper has three walls, a roof to keep the rain and snow off of you and a door on the front that opens to a seat with a hole just the right size for an adult bottom. A roll of toilet paper is optional although my mother insisted on the necessity. Between German stubbornness and Danish ingenuity they came upon a solution. A bucket, by the time I came along an empty paint bucket was nailed securely to a 2x4 and the lumber then nailed to the side of the standard throne. If the roll ran out, the old Montgomery Wards Christmas catalogue sat on the back corner or the wide seat.
Having drawn you that picture, let me describe the reality of my earlier years and our Out of the Ordinary Outhouse. None of the cute little house here. Ours was positioned on the back porch--of an abandoned settler's house. The relatively solidity of the house stood between the crapper seat and the main road, but we lived on the northeast corner of the forty acres with a road on both the north and east side. Enter the efficiency of a Danish farmer long used to making ends meet. Along the north wall my father nailed up what I've come to know as fiber board, which is great at blocking the winter wind-- until ones big brothers get the brainy idea to drill a hole with a stick so as to terrorize their younger sisters while they, the sisters, are tending to necessary business. Those holes never got plugged and after there are about four of them, so as to get the occupant dead center of their back, a gust of winter can nigh freeze your tender backside to a frail pinkish blue.
But I get ahead of myself. I've only mentioned two walls. The west wall runs along a ditch bordered on the other side by a wide field often filled with growing crops, but the beauty of it is that it is not a solid wall. It doesn't reach the rafters overhead nor fully to the ground either. Many a visits I have watched the cats walk through that wall. Now, let's focus on the south wall, the one the occupant stares at while busy at work. Stare because the wall only covers roughly three quarters of the space from east to west leaving the south west corner open to the fresh air. Yep, I'm not lying. One does not visit this unique Crapper without learning how to whistle. Why? One must whistle while traversing the path once you round the corner of the chicken coop so that any occupant can hear you on approach. The occupant's responsibility is to whistle to let the newcomer know that the space is in use. This works well until the first time a young little girl, me, in this case, is startled in the middle of a major "push" to finish the job. I still remember that weak tweet of a dying baby bird. I knew the whistler by the tune he always whistled. My whistle, dead as it was, gave way to an urgent need.
"No! No! Don't come…" At that point I glanced over at the empty paint can to where the trusty roll should have been. Nothing, nada. Not even the empty roll.
I eyed the Christmas catalogue. Keep in mind that the catalogue was my reading, okay, not reading but dreaming book. How could one tear out a glossy page of ones dreams to finish the paper work of a necessary job? In all honesty, I don't remember really finishing that job.
Now, that isn't the end of the story. Remember I mentioned the chicken coop? Chickens attract skunks .One never, seriously, never visited the outhouse in the middle of the night. One could hold it indefinitely on a cold winter evening, thus having the very enjoyable (?) experience of a sleepless night. (My mother refused to have even one chamber pot, no matter how beautiful. They had to be cleaned and no amount of scrubbing refreshed them to a clean enough state for her as a German city girl.)

That being said, we had a herd of cats to keep the field mice in the fields and a dog or two that were kept close to home. As a kid, I never understood the reason until one morning my fragile, little girl bladder had experienced a very long winter night.  Dancing, I pulled on my winter coat and gumboots over my flannel night gown and headed for the Crapper with the cats and dogs along for company. As I rounded the corner of the chicken coop I realized the cats had scattered. This was nothing new as they often did when I passed the scrap bowl. But the dog was growling, and not at me. Let's just say I left a rather obvious trail as I ran from that smelly black and white critter. And the dog? Well, he got left in the cold until a tomato bath could be arranged in the spring.

July 10, 2014

July Update - Release in Paperback!

So, in the afterglow of my book's arrival in print, it is time for me to resume my usual writing activities. For those of you who don't know, I studiously try to complete at least one short story for freelance every writing day (that is five days a week), namely: Chicken Soup for the Soul, Good Old Days, Reminisce and True Renditions and I'm looking for others. I have too many psuedomyns to list but some stories will be in my 'real' name.  
For my 'day job' over at InD'Tale Emagazine. I need to read/review at least one chapter of a novel pretty much every day to complete my assignments. This is easy with some books, but feels like have teeth pulled with others. (You are welcome to slip over there, sign-up for a free subscription and find out what I've recently read and what I thought of it.) I'm not overly good at sharing partial reviews here.
And--the biggy that takes first position on my list of priorities, work in my WIP.
(Currently operating under the title of Love's Duplicity.) This is my baby--and he, yes he, is gorgeous! Therefore I am taking more time with him (Okay, I'm in love with Trevor and you'll have to pick up the book when it is published to find out why. Let's just say I make him suffer a lot because I'm so fond of him. Why not? He handles it, maybe not beautifully, but he comes to the last page knowing who he is, where he has been, and where he is going.) How many of us can say that?

Oh! And did I mention the continued promotion of Dark Days of Promise? You can help me with that one by sharing a link to this blog  or this link for Facebook on all your pages. Thanks in advance!

July 6, 2014

Bittersweet Secret

I recently submitted this short to Reminisce Magazine under the psuedonym of June Bridger. Please watch for it 

I swallow my last morsel of chocolate, the bitter biting my parched throat awakening a precious memory of my childhood. Southeastern Idaho in the mid 1960's. Dad drove a turquoise blue pick-up everyday to feed the cattle. The exceptions were when the cattle were out on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) range for the summer. Summer in this case was just late enough in the spring that all the cows had calved and the snow had given way to tender shoots of grass.
On one of many spring days that Dad didn't take the pick-up out to work, I learned that being a small child left to her own devises could be very rewarding. The first time I stood tall enough to open the pick-up door and climb in was for purely innocent reasons--to play driving. Yep, we had an old car sitting in the driveway but its tires were missing. Thus the pick-up looked to much more inviting. It, after all, could really drive down the road.
Being a child of 3 or 4-years of age, I firmly gripped the steering wheel and happily "pretended" to drive and bounce down the road. I timed the trip to the distant corner, played with the blinker, making it click several times, and turned the corner. That's when I discovered the brown bag sitting on the seat beside me. A brown bag with "IGA" lettering.
Of course I knew that spelled grocery store and wondered why would Dad leave a grocery bag in the truck? Hum. Did he buy something that he forgot to take into the house? (Visualize me sitting a little taller with indignant righteousness-- even if I didn't know those words at the time, I knew the correct posture to adopt the appropriate attitude.)
I opened the bag and what do you think I found? No, my dad wasn't a drinker so it wasn't liquor. I found the biggest hunk of chocolate in the world. (Okay, my limited world.) It wasn't melting, the temps were still cool. But it was open… I slithered down in the seat, making myself invisible should Mom glance out the windows looking for me. Carefully unwrapping one end, (You may want to imagine "careful" for a pre-school-er) I sniffed, I licked and yeah, I bit. Problem with that first bite was that it wasn't big enough. I stretched my jaw wide and sank my teeth into the chocolate expecting it to break off as easily at the first nibble had.
Was I surprised! I have no recollection of how long it took me to whittle away at that hunk of chocolate to hide my teeth marks. Do you have any idea the skill it takes to etch a smooth line with your front teeth? Let it suffice to say that I never found a hunk of chocolate in Dad's truck again, at least not milk chocolate. I did find on occasion a hunk of white chocolate-- the real stuff that gives me a headache so I leave it alone. I've also found Spanish peanuts--I think I finished off most of the bag. And cookies…my favorite, and apparently Dad's too were Keebler's striped chocolate.
As a kid I thought I was so clever at hiding my thievery. Now I just smile knowing Dad kept my secret. He generally took the pick-up in the morning, bringing it home at lunch and often left it in the driveway in the afternoon. Of course I had to time it right, eat lunch with Dad, take a nap and steal treats before the older kids got home from school. Dad never spanked me for eating his goodies, nor did he say anything to me about it. But I know now--he knew and he helped his baby girl keep her Bittersweet Secret.






 [s1]Submitted to Reminisce 6/18/14

Oh My!

Oh my, it's been a long, long time since I posted anything here. Really, I do this now because I recently got a note, if you can call it...