Gita's Blog – August 2012 Archive (12)

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Just Another Hayneville Labor Day Weekend

The Hayneville Tool and Die plant closed for a half day on Friday to give workers a jump start on Labor Day festivities. Shop foreman Coy Collander locked up, washed his hands and face at the outdoor spigot, then drove to Biloxi to enjoy three days of free casino drinks and the company of a widow woman from Hattiesburg.

Bootsy Sykes had to stop his overheating pickup truck twice on the way home and suddenly the idea hit him…

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Added by Gita on August 31, 2012 at 7:00pm — 9 Comments

Crazy Finger 6x2

"Put that down or I'll swat you into next week!"

Teeny's Granny thrust her face up to mine so I could smell her denture breath, laced with vapor of sherry.

She poked a bony evangelical finger like a shepherd's crook at me, so close to my left eye that I could see a hangnail.

I set her sherry bottle down on the coffee table none too gently and turned toward Teeny who, if you must know, was the instigator of the wine tasting, the same Teeny who should be lying us out of…

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Added by Gita on August 28, 2012 at 10:30pm — 16 Comments

The Ludlum Challenge

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2012/08/robert_ludlum_titles_great_fake_ones_from_slate_readers_and_salman_rushdie_.html

 

The Challenge: To rename movies, plays, books or tv shows in the style of Robert Ludlum novels. For example: Take the definite pronoun + proper name + abstract noun.…
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Added by Gita on August 21, 2012 at 8:30pm — 10 Comments

The Deer Show Peril -- Day Two

Stump Shiner walks through a corridor of milling hunters/shoppers at the Buckmasters Whitetail Deer Expo eating nachos from a cardboard boat and accidentally lets a plume of melted cheese fall on the carpet.

The next passerby, a woman in a rhinestone studded shirt and strappy sandals, slide-steps twice on the cheese blob before regaining her balance and walking on.

Then, a boy of ten,…

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Added by Gita on August 18, 2012 at 11:19pm — 14 Comments

The Deer Show Comes to Town -- Day One

Stump Shiner met his brother Hoot at the front door and did not seem surprised that they were wearing identical outfits: Realtree camo pants and hunter green polo shirts. The wallets in their hip pockets were plump with cash.

“I hope y’all know you look like Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Charlene called to them as they climbed into Stump’s Ford F-150.

“Ready, bro?” Stump…

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Added by Gita on August 17, 2012 at 8:30am — 11 Comments

My Anonymous Career

In the third year of our marriage, which coincidentally was my third year of trying to finish a novel, Rainy said to me, "Get out there and be a breadwinner, you big galoot."

 I signed on with a large national restaurant chain to write descriptors for menus, and  I was the very first to use the term "farm-fresh" to refer to eggs and "kettle-simmered" to describe soup.

Menu writers toil…

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Added by Gita on August 15, 2012 at 1:30am — 18 Comments

To The Man I Saw Long Ago in a Railroad Station

Let's say for a moment that we met on a train crossing Saskatchewan and you brushed past me in one of those narrow passageways with windows that looked out on rushing wheat.

And let's say that you wore a soft grey fedora and I a light blue dress and you said "Pardon me," in a western drawl at the moment the train entered a tunnel.

And then, what if I lost my bearings in the dark and you…

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Added by Gita on August 11, 2012 at 1:30am — 15 Comments

On A Clear Day In August -- Thanks to Lapham

Because the character of religion in the South is more activist than contemplative, Rory and Betty Sloan entered the first of 40 rooms in the new Motel 6 to place Holy Bibles in 40 night tables. It was the mission of the Bethel Evangelical Church of God  to aggressively spread the Word, with the blessing of the motel manager, furthering God's work on Earth and adding stars to the crowns the Sloans would wear in Heaven.

They…

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Added by Gita on August 8, 2012 at 12:30pm — 13 Comments

Strange Fruit -- Final Day, Tornado Diary

 

There is no accounting for where things will end up after they are sucked aloft by 300 mph winds. Aluminum siding, brick walls, heart pine floors, refrigerators, joists and Ford pickup trucks  travel in patterns that seem…

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Added by Gita on August 5, 2012 at 8:00pm — 6 Comments

Broke Down Cutlass -- Day Two, Tornado Diary

The storm grew in might until it spawned the worst kind of tornado, an F-5 or Finger of God.

In Oak Grove, Alabama, Debra and Tom Jackson were sitting in their living room watching tv when a relative phoned to say 'take cover,' because a twister was about to hit. They ran to their concrete pump house in the back yard just as the town fire engine came crashing through their roof, landing on the sofa where they had been…

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Added by Gita on August 5, 2012 at 2:41pm — 8 Comments

The Strangest Thing I Ever Saw -- Day One, Tornado Diary

A storm was building along the Locust Fork of the Warrior River where Mike and I lived on a small sheltered slough. 

Lightning whipcracked a pine tree not 40 yards from where I sat, setting it aflame. But the fire wasn't orange or red; it was green from the turpentine and sap and resins and bark and needles all catching at once.

Then the tree began to whistle as steam escaped from all the tiny holes made over the…

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Added by Gita on August 4, 2012 at 4:00pm — 17 Comments

Six Tiny Memories

 

  1. Aboard a boat headed away from Majorca, I ate fiery, painful peppers from the market on Calle de San Sebastian because the vendor swore they would prevent mareo on the choppy voyage.

 

  1. The women who sold crucifixes outside the old city winked at superstitions and told me not to worry, that wearing…
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Added by Gita on August 1, 2012 at 4:00am — 15 Comments

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